Khieu Samphan

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Khieu Samphan (2011)

Khieu Samphan (born July 27, 1931 in the province of Svay Rieng , Cambodia ) is a former leading functionary of the Khmer Rouge and was head of state of Cambodia from 1976 to 1979. In November 2018, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by an international tribunal for genocide against ethnic Vietnamese and the Muslim minority.

Life

He received his training at the Sorbonne in Paris. There he received his doctorate in 1959 on the economy of Cambodia (see literature). Even before the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, he was head of the dreaded Office 870 , the Angkar party organization . During the reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge, Khieu Samphan was head of state of the newly founded Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 to 1979 after the forced resignation of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and was thus seen by the international public as the face of the regime, a role he continued for the Khmer Rouge after 1979 exercised.

After the invasion of Vietnamese troops in 1979 and the overthrow of the terror regime, he fled to the People's Republic of China , where he continued to function as Kampuchea's officially recognized representative by the United Nations . Under the government in exile "Coalition of the Democratic Kampuchea" formed in 1982 by the Khmer Rouge and Prince Sihanouk , Khieu Samphan was Vice President with the duties of Foreign Minister. In 1985 he was officially named as the leader of the Khmer Rouge, succeeding Pol Pot . In 1991, Khieu Samphan was the spokesman for the Khmer Rouge in the peace negotiations in Paris. The UN-supervised elections in Cambodia in 1992 were boycotted by the Khmer Rouge under his leadership.

Against the background of ideological disputes within the Khmer Rouge and the lack of prospects for its policies, Khieu Samphan surrendered to the Hun Sen government in Phnom Penh in 1998 and was granted amnesty by the latter. In 2003, Khieu Samphan publicly stated in a six-page letter that he retrospectively acknowledged the fact of the genocide in Cambodia during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, but that he neither knew about it nor was responsible for it.

On November 18, 2007, Khieu Samphan was arrested as the last remaining high-ranking representative of the Khmer regime. The then 76-year-old was taken away from a hospital in Phnom Penh at gunpoint and transferred to the Khmer Rouge tribunal established in 2006 . The United Nations-backed tribunal is to investigate and try the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979. On September 16, 2010, charges were brought against Khieu Samphan. The trial began on June 27, 2011.

He was defended, among others, by the French lawyer Jacques Vergès . On August 6, 2014, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity . He appealed the judgment in September 2014. He justified this with an unfair trial in which one relied on rumors and not on testimony and in which his influence was completely overestimated. The sentence was upheld as fair by the Supreme Court in November 2016. On November 16, 2018, he and Nuon Chea were found guilty of genocide against ethnic Vietnamese and the Muslim minority by an international tribunal and sentenced to life in prison.

Publications

  • The Cambodian economy and the problems of its industrialization. Dissertation, Paris 1959, translation by Gerd Koenen , KBW -Verlag Kühl KG, Communist People's Newspaper / Communism and Class Struggle / Documentation, Frankfurt am Main 1979.
  • Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development. Translated from French by Laura Summers, Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University, 1979.
  • L'histoire récente du Cambodge et mes prices de position. Paperback, 174 pages, Editions L'Harmattan, February 1, 2004, ISBN 978-2747559478 .

See also

literature

  • Stephen Herder: Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan. Clayton, Australia 1991, ISBN 0-7326-0272-6 .
  • Munzinger , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 12/2008 from March 18, 2008 (hu).

Web links

Commons : Khieu Samphan  - collection of images

Footnotes

  1. ↑ According to other information (Munzinger IBA) July 22, 1932.
  2. ↑ Nicola Glass: Arrested in the hospital bed. In: taz.de . November 19, 2007.
  3. ↑ Khmer Rouge in court - "Brother number two" awaits his sentence. In: Spiegel Online . June 27, 2011.
  4. ↑ Khmer Rouge leader seeks release. In: BBC News . April 23, 2008, accessed April 11, 2011.
  5. ↑ The masterminds of the Khmer Rouge regime found guilty. In: NZZ online, August 7, 2014.
  6. ↑ Lauren Crothers, Khmer Rouge leaders appeal life sentences for crimes against humanity , in: The Guardian , September 30, 2014, accessed November 23, 2016
  7. ↑ Cambodian court upholds life sentences for Khmer Rouge leaders , in: The Guardian, November 23, 2016, accessed November 23, 2016
  8. ↑ Hannah Beech: Khmer Rouge's Slaughter in Cambodia Is Ruled a Genocide. In: nytimes.com. 15th November 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Khieu Samphan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cambodian politician, member of the Khmer Rouge
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Svay Rieng Province