The World: Khmer Rouge: The Enigmatic Ghosts

A Western diplomat in Phnom-Penh recently described the Khmer Rouge as “the most mysterious of the world’s successful revolutionary movements.” Few if any Westerners know which of the principal elements in the insurgent force—Cambodian nationalist, Cambodian Marxist or doctrinaire Communist—will emerge triumphant. Moreover, their leaders are enigmatic figures whose views and personalities, for the most part, are far less understood than those of their political counterparts in Hanoi, Moscow or Peking.

A notable exception is exiled Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the titular head of the Khmer insurgents and unquestionably the most popular man in Cambodia to this day. He is “chief of state” of the Royal Government of National Union of Cambodia—acronymically known in French as GRUNK—the shadow government nominally based in Peking. Most observers agree that Sihanouk has little power within the Khmer Rouge organization. If he should ever return to Cambodia as head of state, it would be as a figurehead who might serve to unite the Cambodian people around a Khmer Rouge government. Sihanouk himself has acknowledged this fact and repeatedly declared that in the event of a Khmer Rouge victory, he might spend eleven months of the year abroad, serving as a traveling good-will ambassador on behalf of the new government.

Undone by Popularity. Sihanouk’s “Deputy Premier” and commander-in-chief of the Khmer Rouge fighting forces is Khieu Samphan, 43; he is the most prominent figure in the movement. Born in Cambodia’s Svay Rieng province, Samphan studied from 1954-59 in France, where he earned a doctorate in economics at the University of Paris. In 1962, after Sihanouk brought him into the government as Secretary of State for Commerce, Samphan became a hero to young Cambodian intellectuals who opposed the corruption of the existing government. He drove to work on a motorbike and after long hours at the office would go home to work at night in a small upstairs room at his mother’s house, while other ministers wallowed in the pleasures of life in the easygoing capital.

In a sense, Samphan’s popularity was his undoing. Sihanouk forced him to resign in 1963, charging him with incompetence. Three years later, though, Samphan was elected to the National Assembly. One April evening in 1967, during a peasant uprising in Battambang province that had set off an antileftist witch hunt in the capital. Khieu Samphan simply vanished. According to his family, he told his mother that he was going out for a breath of fresh air before dinner and never came back.

Two other Khmer Rouge leaders have backgrounds similar to Samphan’s:

Information Minister Hu Nim, 42, and Minister of the Interior Hou Youn, 45. Both studied in Paris in the 1950s, served in Sihanouk’s Cabinet briefly in the 1960s, fell out with the Prince and escaped into exile. Together, the three came to be known as the “three ghosts” of Cambodian politics because it was long believed that Sihanouk had ordered them executed in 1967 for alleged complicity in the Battambang uprising. But in May 1970, two months after Sihanouk’s overthrow, the three announced, from somewhere in Cambodia, their support of Sihanouk’s new “national front,” which opposed the new government of President Lon Nol.

After the three ghosts—Cambodian nationalists who had been variously influenced by Marxism—disappeared in 1967, they joined forces with a revolutionary movement that had been organized by a small group of doctrinaire Marxists who had fallen out with Sihanouk several years earlier. Among them were three revolutionaries who had also studied in Paris but were unknown to most of their countrymen:

> Ieng Sary, 44, now the special adviser to Samphan, is also secretary-general of the Khmer Communist Party. Sary often visits Peking, and on earlier trips kept a careful eye on Sihanouk and his followers there; in 1973 he accompanied the Prince on a visit to Khmer Rouge-controlled regions of Cambodia. Some Cambodians regard him as a hard-line Communist who has helped make the movement intractable and uncompromising.

> Saloth Sar, 47, is chairman of the Khmer Communist Party and thus one of its most powerful men. Little is known about him beyond the fact that he was born in Kompong Thorn province, studied at an industrial school in Phnom-Penh and took a radio technician’s course in France.

> Son Sen, 44, a onetime teacher, is the Khmer Rouge chief of staff. Until last year he was believed to be the third-ranking man in the Khmer Communist Party. Since a party reorganization, however, he seems to have been moved down a notch in the party hierarchy to make way for Khieu Samphan.

Curbed Influence. In the past three years, leftists within the Khmer Rouge have drastically curbed Sihanouk’s influence. Since the last Cabinet reshuffle only two portfolios in the shadow government have been retained by men known to be loyal to the Prince. leng Sary recently made a two-week visit to Peking, during which he saw Premier Chou En-lai and held talks about continued arms aid. Sary is not known to have conferred at all with Sihanouk, his nominal chief of state.

At the same time, the Khmer Rouge have reduced North Viet Nam’s influence. Back in 1970, the insurgents’ fighting force of 3,000-5,000 men was largely dominated by several thousand Cambodians who had been training in Hanoi since 1954. Until 1972 the insurgents were still under direct North Vietnamese command. During the Easter offensive that year, Hanoi transferred most of its Cambodia-based troops to South Viet Nam, and the Khmer Rouge established their own general staff. Since 1974, when the insurgents expanded their army to as many as 70,000 men, with women and teen-agers conscripted as porters and stretcher bearers, North Vietnamese troops have not been engaged in Cambodian combat.

What kind of government would the Khmer Rouge impose on Cambodia? French diplomats believe that the movement’s nationalist and pro-Peking elements will endure; State Department experts feel strongly that Hanoi’s influence will prevail. The most optimistic Western observers believe the Khmer nationalism, reinforced by the traditional rivalry that exists between Cambodians and Vietnamese, will create a sort of Yugoslav brand of Communism that is distinctively Cambodian.