"Samdech Son Sann died at 1:30 pm Phnom Penh time because of a heart attack," National Assembly President Prince Norodom Ranariddh told a session of lawmakers Tuesday afternoon. "He served the nation nobly for many, many year." Samdech is a title bestowing honorary princeship.

Ranariddh asked the lawmakers to stand and pay their respects to Son Sann, who began his public service in 1935 as governor of Battambang province.  Kem Sokha, a close associate of Son Sann and former secretary-general of Son Sann's Buddhist Liberal Democrat Party, called the late statesman "Cambodia's first democrat." 

"He founded the Democratic Party in 1947 and became president of the National Assembly for that party in 1951," said Kem Sokha, who is a senator.  When Norodom Sihanouk was ousted in a republican coup d'etat in 1970, Son Sann went into exile. He tried unsuccessfully to reconcile Norodom Sihanouk with the republican regime as it fought against a takeover by the communist Khmer Rouge In 1975.

son Sann moved to Paris after the communist victory in 1975 and watched as the Khmer rouge government of Pol Pot turned Cambodia into a massive killing field.  Son Sann helped found a guerrilla resistance force, the Khmer People's National Liberation Front in 1979 at the Thai-Cambodian border and fought both the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese army that occupied Cambodia from 1979 to 1989. 

As the leader of one of the fur warring factions that singed the Paris Peace Accords in 1991, bringing peace to Cambodia after more than 20 years of war and civil unrest, he served in the UN-sponsored Supreme National Council that glided the nation until an election was held in 1993.

Kem Sokha said that resisting Vietnam' aspirations to conquer Cambodia, fighting against dictatorships, and combating corruption were Son Sann's most important political goals. "Cambodia people call him Mr Clean," Kem Sokha said. "He's one of the few clean men in Cambodia. No corruption."

Kem Sokha said the senor statesmen died without pain. "He died o fold age in his sleep this morning," Kem Sokha said. "He was up walking around only yesterday." Government officials and friends were to gather Tuesday evening at the Phnom Penh residence of his son, Son Soubert, a Constitutional Council member, associates said.

The Khmer People's National Liberation Front

From its inception in October 1979, the right-wing, proWestern , former prime minister Son Sann, noted for his integrity and for his unyielding personality, led the Khmer People's National Liberation Front. The organization was the strongest of the country's noncommunist resistance forces. Its key figures were formerly prominent in the administrations of Sihanouk and of republican leader Lon Nol.

A number of displaced Cambodians sheltered in temporary camps on Thai soil near the Thai-Cambodian border backed the KPNLF, which had originated in the anti-Khmer Rouge movement of the 1960s. It controlled about 160,000 civilians confined at "Site 2," a camp in Thailand barely a kilometer from the Cambodian border. Most of the people in the camp were toughened survivors of the Pol Pot era, and they were therefore a potential pool from which to recruit armed rebels for the KPNLF.

In the 1984 to 1985 Vietnamese dry-season offensive, the KPNLF reportedly lost nearly a third of its 12,000 to 15,000 troops in battle and through desertions. This setback, which was blamed on Son Sann for his alleged meddling in military matters, aggravated the long-standing personality conflicts within the KPNLF. Some KPNLF members criticized Son Sann's alleged tendency toward being dictatorial and unbending, and they questioned his lukewarm attitude toward the idea of a unified military command that included Sihanouk's ANS.

Criticism mounted after reports that some of the organization's field commanders were involved in the black market and in other forms of corruption. Charges of human rights violations in the KPNLF-run camps for displaced persons further fueled internal dissension. In December 1985, a dissident faction, wanting to limit Son Sann's role to ceremonial duties, announced the formation of a Provisional Central Committee of Salvation, which would be the new executive body of the KPNLF.

The new group asserted that it had seized power from Son Sann in order to put an end to the internal problems of the KPNLF. Key members of the group included two KPNLF vice presidents: General Sak Sutsakhan, formerly Lon Nol's chief of staff; and General Dien Del, commander in chief and chief of staff of the KPNLF armed forces. Other notables were Abdul Gaffar Peangmeth and Hing Kunthon, two executive committee members whom Son Sann had dismissed earlier, and Huy Kanthoul, a former prime minister.

Son Sann countered with the formation of a new military command committee under General Prum Vith. He said, however, that General Sak would remain as commander in chief of the Joint Military Command (that now included the ANS), which was launched in January 1986, reportedly as a concession to the dissident group. Under a compromise worked out through a third party, General Sak regained his control of the armed forces in March 1986. Son Sann, then seventy-four years old, withdrew a previous threat to resign as CGDK prime minister. By early 1987, unity in the KPNLF had been restored, and Son Sann retained his presidency, while General Sak remained in full control of the military.

In a major reshuffle of the military high command in March, General Sak placed his deputy, Dien Del, in charge of anticorruption measures. The need for sweeping internal reform already had become a pressing issue in January 1987, when morale was so low that several hundred KPNLF soldiers defected to Sihanouk's ANS.

Armée Nationale Sihanoukiste

The smaller of the two noncommunist resistance groups, the Armée National Sihanoukiste (ANS) owed allegiance to Sihanouk. It was the armed adjunct of FUNCINPEC, which rallied Sihanouk supporters clustered on the Thai border. The force was formed in June 1981, by consolidating the Movement for the National Liberation of Kampuchea (Mouvement pour la Libération Nationale du Kampuchea--MOULINAKA and at least two other armed groups of Sihanouk supporters grouped on the Thai border. These groups existed at first in conditions of near penury, their members poorly armed and equipped as well as half starved.

Following the proclamation of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, international support consisting of armaments, supplies, and other nonlethal aid, principally from the ASEAN countries and from China, began to transform the ANS into a more effective movement. In about 1986 to 1987, it became the principal noncommunist insurgent force by default when the KPNLAF slipped from that position because of its internal leadership dispute.

No authoritative figures for the personnel strength of the ANS were available in the late 1980s. The most frequently cited totals ranged from a low of 7,000 to a high of 11,000 combatants. The former figure was quoted by Sihanouk, the latter by Sihanouk's son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, some time afterward. In late 1987, Sihanouk also declared that the ANS maintained "8,500 fighters permanently inside Cambodia." (This number would not necessarily include headquarters, staff, and support elements on the Thai border.)

The ANS was organized into a command structure and maneuver elements. The command structure was headed by the commander in chief of the ANS, who was assisted by both a chief and a deputy chief of staff. In 1987 the positions of commander and of chief of staff were held concurrently by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, and that of deputy chief of staff by Major General Prince Norodom Chakrapong, both middle-aged sons of Sihanouk. Maneuver elements consisted of battalions, grouped under the first through the sixth brigades.

There were, in addition, four independent regiments, at least one reportedly composed of Khmer Rouge deserters who had rallied to Sihanouk's cause, and five independent commando groups, each composed of about seventy personnel. Following the Vietnamese dry-season offensive of 1984 to 1985, the ANS made a major effort to deploy its fighters away from the border camps and more deeply into Cambodia. In 1987 according to Sihanouk, ANS combatants were deployed in five Cambodian provinces, including Batdambang and Siemreab-Otdar Meanchey on the western border with Thailand. Limited deployments also were reported as far east as Kampong Thum.

Photographic evidence indicated that the ANS, like the KPNLAF, was equipped principally with Chinese weapons. This included AK assault rifles, light machine guns, RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) launchers, and recoilless rifles. ANS combatants were dressed in a panoply of uniforms, some of them of ASEAN origin. These included camouflage fatigues and (T -shirts), visored caps, and combat boots. Indications of rank were not evident on uniforms; however, ANS members sometimes wore plastic-laminated chest pocket badges bearing a photograph of Sihanouk and a noncommunist Cambodian flag.

Major Political and Military Organizations

          ANS

Armée Nationale Sihanoukiste, or Sihanouk National Army: Umbrella organization of the military forces (including MOULINAKA (q.v.) loyal to SIhanouk, founded in 1981 as armed wing of FUNCINPEC (q.v.).

 

          CGDK

Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (See also KPRP). Recognized by the United Nations as the official government of Cambodia, the ruling coalition in Democratic Kampuchea, a loose political and military coalition of the three resistance groups--Democratic Kampuchea, the KPNLF (q.v.), and FUNCINPEC (q. v.).

 

          CPNLAF

Cambodian People's National Liberation Armed Forces. New name given to the RAK (q.v.) in the early 1970s.

 

          FANK (formerly FARK)

Forces Armées Nationales Khmères, or Khmer National Armed Forces. Military component of Lon Nol's Khmer Republic (q.v.).

 

          FARK

Forces Armées Royales Khmères, or Royal Khmer Armed Forces. Armed forces in the newly independent Cambodia in 1953, replaced

 by FANK (q.v.).

 

          FUNCINPEC

Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique, et Coopératif, or National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia. Sihanouk's main political organization, formed in 1981. An autonomous part of the CGDK (q.v.).

 

          FUNK

Front Uni National du Kampuchéa, or National United Front of Kampuchea. Established by Sihanouk in Beijing in 1970, shortly after the Lon Nol coup ousted him from power; a political and military coalition committed to destroying the Lon Nol regime.

 

          GRUNK

Gouvernement Royal d'Union Nationale du Kampuchéa or Royal Government of National Union of Kampuchea. Government-in-exile formed by Sihanouk after his ouster in 1970.

 

          ICP

Indochinese Communist Party; founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1930 and dismantled in 1951 into its component parties, i.e., the Vietnam Workers' Party, the KPRP (q.v.), and the Lao Itsala.

 

          KCP

Kampuchean (or Khmer) Communist Party. Formerly called the WPK (q.v.); renamed in 1966. The CPK dominated the Khmer Republic (q.v.) resisting forces from 1970 to 1975 and ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1978. Succeeded by the KPRP (q.v.).

 

          Khmer Bleu (Blue Khmer)

Sihanouk's domestic opponents on the right, whom he so named to distinguish them from his domestic opponents on the left, the Khmer Rouge (q.v.).

 

          Khmer Issarak (Free Khmer)

Anti-French, nationalist movement organized with Thai backing in 1945 from elements spanning the political spectrum; within a year split into factions, and by independence all but one of them were incorporated into Sihanouk's political structure. Located in western Cambodia, they were on the wane after 1954. The only dissident group, under Son Ngoc Thanh, they became known as the Khmer Serei (q.v.), a heterogeneous left-wing guerrilla movement operating in border areas, in the 1970s.

 

          Khmer Krom

Members of a Cambodian minority who lived in Cochinchina; early nationalists. Several major nationalist leaders came from this group.

 

          Khmer Loeu (Highland Khmer)

Hill tribes comprising several ethnolinguistically diverse groups living in Cambodia, mainly along the northeastern and the eastern frontiers; upland- and forest-dwelling ethnic minorities, especially from Rotanokiri Province, an early RAK (q.v.) stronghold.

 

          Khmer Republic

Established in 1970 by Lon Nol.

 

          Khmer Rouge (Red Khmer)

The name given to the Cambodian communists by Sihanouk in the 1960s. Later (although a misnomer) it was applied to the insurgents of varying ideological backgrounds who opposed the Khmer Republic (q.v.) regime of Lon Nol. Between 1975 and 1978 it denoted the Democratic Kampuchea regime led by the radical Pol Pot faction of the Kampuchean (or Khmer) Communist Party. After being driven from Phnom Penh by Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, the Khmer Rouge went back to guerrilla warfare, and it joined forces with two noncommunist insurgent movements to form the CGDK (q.v.). Also known as the NADK (q.v.).

 

          Khmer Rumdo (Liberation Khmer)

Sihanoukists; pro-Sihanouk Cambodians recruited from the country's eastern provinces, trained and armed by Hanoi.

 

          Khmer Serei (Free Khmer)

An anti-Sihanouk group under Son Ngoc Thanh's leadership emanating from the anti-French resistance movement called the Khmer Issarak (q.v.), located in southeastern Cambodia; in armed opposition to the Sihanouk regime from 1959 on, but dissolved itself shortly after the deposition of Sihanouk in March 1970. Right wing, antimonarchical nationalists.

 

           Khmer Viet Minh

Cambodian communists; the 3,000 to 5,000 Cambodian communist cadres who had repatriated to North Vietnam after the Geneva Conference; derogatory term used by Sihanouk to refer to Cambodian leftists organizing pro-independence agitation in alliance with the Vietnamese.

 

          KNUFNS

Kampuchean (or Khmer) National United Front for National Salvation; also known as the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation and the Salvation Front. It was founded in 1978 by anti-Khmer Rouge (q.v.) Cambodians in Vietnam as an alternative to the Pol Pot regime, as a Cambodian structure to help legitimize the Vietnamese invasion and the ouster of Democratic Kampuchea. As the first incarnation of what has remained the main political organization in the PRK (q.v.) besides the KPRP, (q.v.) the front had numerous noncommunists, including Buddhist clergy, in its leadership, although it was largely controlled by communists. Name changed in 1981 to KUFNCD (q.v.).

 

          KPNLAF

Khmer People's National Liberation Armed Forces, also known as the Khmer People's National Liberation Army (not to be confused with the Khmer People's Liberation Army, the opposition forces organized by the Vietnamese Viet Minh at the end of World War II). Military component of KPNLF (q.v.), formed in March 1979 under Son Sann.

 

          KPNLF

Khmer People's National Liberation Front. An autonomous part of the CGDK (q.v.), the KPNLF is a political and military organization, founded and led by former prime minister Son Sann, for the purpose of resisting the Vietnamese.

 

          KPRAF

Kampuchean (or Khmer) People's Revolutionary Armed Forces. Military component of PRK (q.v.).

 

          KPRP

Kampuchean (or Khmer) People's Revolutionary Party. The original party was founded in September 1951, when the ICP (q.v.) dissolved into three national parties (the leadership and policies of which were aligned with the Vietnamese communist movement). The name of the party was changed to the WPK (q.v.) in 1960 and then to the KCP (q.v.) in 1966. Today this designation applies to the communist party that functions in the PRK (q.v.). In one sense it is a new organization; in another sense it is the continuation of the communist parties that preceded it. The date of its founding is uncertain, although the First Party Congress held publicly was convened in May 1981; the party may have come into existence after mid-1978.

 

          KUFNCD

Kampuchean (or Khmer) United Front for National Construction and Defense. Umbrella organization of the KPRP (q.v.). (Formerly KNUFNS (q.v.).

 

          MOULINAKA

Mouvement pour la Libération Nationale du Kampuchéa, or Movement for the National Liberation of Kampuchea; a pro- Sihanouk group formed in August 1979 by Kong Sileah after he broke ranks with General Dien Del; military organization based among the civilian camps on the Cambodian-Thai border.

 

          NADK

National Army of Democratic Kampuchea. The successor to the RAK (q.v.--name change effective December 1979), as the armed forces of the Khmer Rouge (q.v.).

 

          NFLSVN

National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam. Called the Viet Cong by opponents, it led the struggle against the United States.

 

          PAVN

People's Army of Vietnam. The military forces of North Vietnam (until 1976) and, after unification, of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. During the Second Indochina War (1954-75), PAVN bore the brunt of the fighting against United States military forces in Vietnam.

 

          PDFGNUK

Patriotic and Democratic Front of the Great National Union of Kampuchea. A mass organization established by the exiled KCP (q.v.) in September 1979 and headed by Khieu Sampan with the aim of ousting the Vietnamese from Cambodia.

 

          PDK

Party of Democratic Kampuchea. New name given to the communist party in Cambodia in December 1981, when the party allegedly dissolved itself, probably to distance itself from the brutality of Pol Pot's regime.

 

          PRK

People's Republic of Kampuchea. The Vietnamese-sponsored Phnom Penh regime established in 1979.

 

          PRYUK

People's Revolutionary Youth Union of Kampuchea. Mass organization for young people that was less elitist than the communist party.

 

          RAK

Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea. Founded by Pol Pot in 1968, this force was renamed the Cambodian People's National Liberation Armed Forces (CPNLAF [q.v.]) in the early 1970s. Also known as the People's National Liberation Armed Forces of Kampuchea (PNLAFK). In 1979 it became the NADK (q.v.).

 

          Viet Cong

Contraction of the term Viet Nam Cong San (Vietnamese Communists), the name applied by the governments of the United States and of South Vietnam to the communist insurgents in rebellion against the latter government, beginning around 1957. As used in the Khmer Republic (q.v.) the term applied to South Vietnamese communist troops operating in South Vietnam and in Cambodian territory as well.

 

          Viet Minh

Contraction of the term Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (League for the Independence of Vietnam), a coalition of nationalist elements dominated by the communist and led by veteran Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh. Originally a broadly based Vietnamese nationalist or organization in armed opposition to both the French and the Japanese; by 1951 taken over by communists. As used in the Khmer Republic (q.v.), the term applies to Vietnamese communists, North Vietnamese in particular.