Sak Sutsakhan

General Sak Sutsakhan (born February 8, 1928 in Battambang , † April 29, 1994 in Phnom Penh ) was a Cambodian politician and soldier. He was the last head of state of the Khmer Republic , whose regime was overthrown by the Khmer Rouge in 1975. Sak Sutsakhan formed a pro-American force called the Khmer Sâ ("white Khmer").

Life

Early years

Sutsakhan was born in the city of Battambang in western Cambodia. He was the cousin of Nuon Chea , who later became the chief ideologist of the Khmer Rouge. He studied at the Royal Military Academy and the French General Staff School in Paris; His subsequent career with the small army of Cambodia, the Armed Forces Royal Khmer (FARK) resulted in his rapid doctorate, and under the Sangkum regime of Norodom Sihanouk, which promoted both social democratic and nationalist ideas, he became the world's youngest defense minister in 1957 Age 29.

Republic of Khmer

Following the 1970 Cambodian coup in which Prince Norodom Sihanouk was deposed by General Lon Nol , Sutsakhan continued his career in the army, now known as the Khmer National Armed Forces (FANK), and oversaw its substantial rearmament between 1971 and 1972. He served several times as Secretary of Defense, was commander of the FANK Special Forces and enjoyed a good reputation among American diplomats and advisors as a competent officer with extensive experience who was also a capable and incorruptible politician.

After the staff of the American embassy and the incumbent President Saukam Khoy left the city of Phnom Penh during Operation Eagle Pull on April 12, a seven-member committee, led by Lieutenant General Sak Sutsakhan, took control of the collapsing republic. Sutsakhan assumed the post of head of state and chaired the governing council, which tried to negotiate a conditional ceasefire with the Khmer Rouge, who were besieging Phnom Penh. Sutsakhan stayed in the capital until communist forces invaded on April 17th; he escaped with his family in the last helicopter of the old regime, which left the Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh . Sutsakthan was married and had four children.

Exile and KPNLF

Sutsakhan settled in the United States and became an American citizen. After the Khmer Rouge was driven out by the Vietnamese armed forces in 1979, the politician Son Sann and the former general of FANK Dien Del founded the National Liberation Front of the Khmer (KPNLF), a non-communist and largely republican movement, which had as its goal the of to end the regime of the People's Republic of Kampuchea introduced by the Vietnamese. The movement was originally a coalition of various resistance movements, most of them in the refugee camps along the border with Thailand; the recruitment of Sutsakhan, who arrived from the US in 1981, greatly helped the admissibility of the matter. He became the commander of the armed wing called «Armed Forces Khmer National Liberation Front» (KPNLAF) and tried to establish a centralized structure.

In 1982 a political alliance was formed, the coalition government of the Democratic Kampuchea, consisting of the KPNLF, the royalists of the FUNCIPNPEC, led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, and the rest of the Khmer Rouge troops. After 1985, important representatives of the movements met to agree military cooperation between them.

In the same year, Sutsakhan and Sann had disagreements over cooperation with the royalists and the war as a whole. The resulting split in the KPNLF hampered the operations of their armed forces: Despite initial successes in the north-west of the country, the movement was crushed and largely destroyed by the Vietnamese offensive between 1984 and 1985.

After the Paris peace negotiations in 1991, Sutsakhan separated from Son Sann and the KPNLF and founded the Liberal Democratic Party.

He died in Phnom Penh in 1994.

Publications

In 1980 Sutsakhan published the book The Khmer Republic at War and Its Ultimate Failure , which is an important source of information on the Cambodian civil war.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Haas: Cambodia, Pol Pot, and the United States: the Faustian pact . 1991.
2. ↑ Shawcross: Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia . 1979, p. 232 .
3. ↑ Sutsakhan, Lt. Gene. S .: The Khmer Republic at War and the Final Collapse . 1987, p. 168 .
4. ^ Corfield, J .: A History of the Cambodian Non-Communist Resistance 1975-1983 . Ed .: Monash University. 1991.