Keo Meas

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Keo Meas ( 1926 - 1976 ), also known as Achar Kang , was a Cambodian communist politician. As a fourth-year student at Phnom Penh Teachers Training College, he was recruited for the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) by the head of the Northeastern Military Zone, Son Sichan (aka Ngo That Son) . In 1950 he became a leading figure within the United Issarak Front (UIF) and in the party cell of the ICP for Phnom Penh .

Activity in Cambodia

Keo Meas was involved in the reorganization of the party cell in the capital after it was disbanded by arrests in July 1952. In December of the same year he represented the UIF at the People's Peace Conference in Vienna.

When the Cambodian members of the ICP were converted into the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP) in 1954 , Keo Meas became the leader of the new party's cell in Phnom Penh. After the end of the hostilities in the same year, Keo Meas was one of the representatives of the UIF on the side of Việt Minh of the International Control Commission (ICC) for the implementation of the Geneva Conventions .

In order to allow the KPRP, which was active underground, to participate in the normal political process, Keo Meas, Non Suon and Penn Yuth were tasked with forming a legal unit of the party. At the end of 1954 they tried to register the Khmer Resistance Party , which was rejected. At the beginning of 1955 they were able to register as Krom Pracheachon ("ethnic group").

In May 1956 Keo Meas, together with Non Suon and Nop Bophann, brought out the previously discontinued Pracheachon as a weekly newspaper.

During a crisis in the KPRP, Tou Samouth formed a new four-member party leadership (called the "municipal committee"). Keo Meas is believed to have been a member of this committee, but there are sources that list Saloth Sar ( Pol Pot ) as a member instead .

In the parliamentary elections in March 1958, the Krom Pracheachon only dared to put up five candidates, including Keo Meas in a constituency of Phnom Penh. In the prevailing harsh political climate, Keo Meas was the only Krom Pracheachon candidate able to conduct a real election campaign. According to official results, he received 396 votes. Shortly after the election, he went underground and left town. The secretariat of the Phnom Penh city party unit was passed on to Saloth Sar.

At the second KPRP congress in 1960, the party was renamed the Labor Party of Kampuchea and Keo Meas was elected to the party's central committee, but recalled at the 1963 party congress.

Stay in Hanoi

In the second half of 1968 Keo Meas went to Hanoi to win the support of the exiled communist leadership in the party's struggle in Cambodia against the monarchist regime of Norodom Sihanouk . He met with the long-time leader Sơn Ngọc Minh and with Vietnamese officials, but was unable to persuade them to revolt against the Sihanouk regime, which the Vietnamese saw as the lesser evil. Keo Meas is also believed to accompany Pol Pot on his visits to Hanoi and Beijing in 1969. Keo Meas organized Pol Pot's return to Cambodia while he himself stayed in Hanoi for some time.

Keo Meas became ambassador of the Royal Government of National Unity of Kampuchea (GRUNK, French for Gouvernement royal d'union nationale de Kampuchéa ) in the People's Republic of China . In March 1972 he lost this position and went back to Hanoi, where he worked under the direction of Ieng Thirith , the wife of Ieng Sary , for the Radio des Front d'Union Nationale du Kampuchéa (FUNK).

Return to Cambodia and death

In May 1975 he returned to Cambodia to work in the office of the Party's Central Committee. However, he was suspected of being Pro-Vietnamese and placed under house arrest. On September 20, 1976, he was arrested and taken to S-21 Central Prison. Even under torture, he protested his innocence to the end. He was killed a good month later.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kiernan : How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 131.
  2. ↑ Diethelm Weidemann; Wilfried Lulei (Ed.): Cambodia. Inner and outer aspects of a conflict settlement. Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 1998, ISBN 978-3-8255-0045-0 , p. 104 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  3. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 52 f.
  4. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 79.
  5. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 82.
  6. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 118.
  7. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 122.
  8. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 155.
  9. ^ Edwin Moïse: The International Commissions: ICC (ICSC) and ICCS. Clemson University . Clemson (SC) 2017.
  10. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 153.
  11. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 156 f.
  12. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 170.
  13. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 173.
  14. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 180.
  15. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 181.
  16. ↑ David P. Chandler : Revising the Past in Democratic Kampuchea. When Was the Birthday of the Party? Notes and Comments. In: Pacific Affairs. Vol. 56, No. 2, 1983, pp. 288-300.
  17. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 201.
  18. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 280.
  19. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 297.
  20. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 318.
  21. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 359.
  22. ^ David P. Chandler : Voices from S-21. Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison. University of California Press, Berkeley 1999, ISBN 978-0-09-944919-5 , pp. 58 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  23. ↑ James A. Tyner: From Rice Fields to Killing Fields. Nature, Life, and Labor under the Khmer Rouge. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse (NY) 2017, ISBN 978-0-8156-5422-3 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  24. ↑ Kiernan: How Pol Pot Came to Power. 1985, p. 420.
personal data
SURNAME Keo, Meas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Achar Kang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cambodian politician
DATE OF BIRTH 1926
DATE OF DEATH 1976
Place of death Phnom Penh