Khieu Samphan has been the best-known intellectual voice among the Khmer Rouge as well as acting as their official representative and spokesman with consistent servile loyalty to Pol Pot's leadership. Khieu Samphan is believed to have been born in 1931 in Svay Rieng Province, the son of a local judge. He was a promising student and won a scholarship to study economics in Paris, where he became secretary-general of the Communist-dominated Union of Cambodian Students. In 1959 he was awarded a doctorate for his thesis on Cambodia's economy; this advocated an autonomy from market capitalism which corresponded to policies implemented by the Khmer Rouge when they were in power. On his return to Cambodia, he entered left-wing journalism and was subsequently elected to the National Assembly in 1962 and again in 1966, where he acquired a popular reputation  for political integrity and incorruptibility. He was co-opted into government by Prince Norodom Sihanouk but broke with him and in 1967 fled the capital with two other dissident colleagues to join Pol Pot in the jungle, although at the time it was widely rumoured that they had been murdered by the secret police. Khieu Samphan did not make a public reappearance until 1973 after the deposition of Prince Sihanouk, who mad a clandestine visit to Cambodia from the People's Republic of China where he was in exile. Khieu Samphan was then commander-in-chief of the Khmer Liberation Armed Forces, despite a lack of military experience. After the Khmer Rouge seized power, he succeeded  Prince Sihanouk as head of state in April 1976 and survived in that position until the Vietnamese invasion in December 1978. He was evacuated through Beijing and assumed a major diplomatic role on behalf of the ousted government of so-called Democratic Kampuchea, which still retained the Cambodian seat in the United Nations. When the Coalition Government of democratic Kampuchea (CGDK) was formed in June 1982 with non-communist participation under Prince Sihanouk's leadership, he became vice-president in charge of foreign affairs. In August 1985 he assumed formal responsibility for the Democratic Kampuchean faction on the ostensible retirement of Pol Pot. In that role, he took part in negotiations which led ultimately to a political settlement for Cambodia under United Nations auspices reached at the International Conference on Cambodia in Paris in October 1991. he became the senior Khmer Rouge representative on the Supreme National Council, returning to Cambodia in the following month, when he was almost lynched by a mob organized by the incumbent government. As a member of that council, he registered Khmer Rouge obstructionism to implementing the Paris accords and in April 1993 withdrew from . Phnom Penh as an act of defiance before general elections which were boycotted by the Khmer Rouge With the success of those elections and the formation of a coalition government from which the Khmer Rouge were excluded, Khieu Samphan has argued for an advisory place for his faction in the hope of securing a political foothold within the ruling coalition. Negotiations to this end have proved fruitless, however, with Khieu Samphan refusing to visit Phnom Penh on the grounds that adequate provision could not be made from his personal security. In July 1994, he was named  prime minister in the provisional government proclaimed by the Khmer Rouge in the wake of their being outlawed by the coalition government in Phnom Penh and has continued to act as its spokesman. 

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Khieu Samphan Still healthy, But Still Silent
 

PAILIN - The man who for years served as the public face of the Khmer Rouge doesn't fell the need to protect himself from robbers or other intruders. The simple, modest home where he lives with his four children and three grandchildren doesn't even have a fence around it.  "Security is very good," Khieu Samphan said. "Most people here still support me, 0 so there is no need to have a fence."

Khieu Samphan, 69, talked to journalists last week for the first time since he defected to the government two years ago, but would speak only about his living conditions and not politics, a Khmer Rouge trial or any other topic that might be controversial.  During his years with the Khmer Rouge, Khieu Samphan was always at the helm of decision making. At various points, he was prime minister of the Democratic Kampuchea regime, liaison to then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk and was one of the Khmer Rouge representatives for the 1991 Paris Peace Accords.

He was also one of the closest people to Pol Pot and fled with him in 1997 into the jungles as they were chased by Khmer Rouge commander Ta Mok during an internal struggle for power. The last time he appeared in public was in December 1998, when he and Nuon Chea were brought to Phnom Penh after their defection. He briefly apologized for the killings and said

Cambodians should "let bygones be bygones." At that time Khieu Samphan's white hair was died black, but last week it was his natural snowy color. Unlike his former comrades Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan says he is in good health.  "I'm very fine," he said last week.  Former colleagues and friends say numerous people have tried to speak to Khieu Samphan, but he always turns them away.  "That's why the [Khmer Rouge] trial is bad," said In Sopheap, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official during Democratic Kampuchea. "Nobody wants to talk."  Living in the isolated area of Pailin, Khieu Samphan is always eager to hear of what is going on in his country and around the world. 

When given a newspaper story about King Norodom Sihanouk's recent birthday, he read the issue right away. "Im very happy to see it is the king's birthday," he said. "I'm especially happy to see his picture."  Khieu Samphan is often seen by neighbors reading or helping around the house, and he lives a simple life void of politics. "Now I make  a farm and help my children with homework," he said.

When told that his former colleague Thep Kunnal, who is married to Pol Pot's widow Mea Son, said "hello," Khieu Samphan said, "I'm very happy to hear he is fine. I have not seen him in a long time." Thep Kunnal, who called Khieu Samphan his idol, lives in the former Khmer rouge stronghold of Malai district in Banteay meanchey province. He also fled with Khieu Samphan and Pol Pot in 1997. Thep Kunnal and Khieu Samphan have not seen each other since they were both captured by Ta Mok. They say the past is too fresh and the timing is not right for them to meet. Khieu Samphan repeatedly apologized for not talking about the past, but said the time will come. "I'm sorry I can't talk now," he said "When I am ready, I will let you know." "He can get up but he can't sit and talk to you for very long," said Suong Sikoeun, spokesman for the Ieng Sary-led Democratic National Union Movement. "It's just that he's very old." Nuon Chea is also frail and suffering from blood pressure problems. His breathing is irregular and he is unable to move his right hand.  Like Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan is reluctant to speak to journalists, partly for fear of implicating himself in Khmer Rouge atrocities. With plans for a Khmer Rouge tribunal pending, all three have been named as top targets for prosecution. "I'm different from Ieng Sary. My health is OK."  Ieng Sary, former foreign minister of Democratic Kampuchea, is ill and often needs to lie down to rest, according to friends who saw him two weeks ago. He has had three operations in recent years, two on his heart and one on his prostate.  

 

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