Khieu Samphan

Brief Biography of Khieu Samphan

Khieu Samphan’s revolutionary name was comrade Hem; he was also known as Ta Chhun and Ta Hong. He was born to Khmer-Chinese parents in 1929 (the year of the snake) in Koh Sotin District, Kampong Cham Province, Region 22, Eastern Zone. Khieu Samphan completed his coursework for a doctorate degree in political economy in Paris and obtained his degree in 1959 after he had returned to Cambodia. In Cambodia, Khieu Samphan served as a minister in King Norodom Sihanouk’s government from 1950 to 1960. During this period, he also took a job as a French language teacher, and in 1954, established a newspaper called Observateur. In mid-1960, he made a declaration provoking a struggle for the restitution of the land known as Kampuchea Kroam from Vietnam, and in August of that year, was arrested for being a “Khmer Rouge.” In the 1966 national elections, he became a people’s representative from Kandal Province. After the Sihanouk government issued a warrant for his arrest on April 24, 1967, Khieu Samphan escaped to the jungle together with Hou Yuon and Hu Nim. All three were wanted for their association with left-leaning groups. Khieu Samphan chaired a two-week meeting held in July 1971 at Pol Pot’s head office in the Northern Zone. The main item on the meeting’s agenda was to discuss whether “King Norodom Sihanouk should be permitted to join the struggle movement.” At a party meeting in 1974, Khieu Samphan expressed his support for the idea of evacuating the residents of Phnom Penh. On October 9, 1975, he attended the “Meeting of the Standing Committee,” which discussed “task assignments.” At the meeting he was appointed to be responsible for the fronts and for the commercial sector areas of inventory and the fixed pricing of produce. Khieu Samphan participated in another meeting, the “Local Tasks Meeting,” on March 8, 1976, where the March 20, 1976 election and the situations in “106 and 103, Northern [Zone]” were discussed. On March 30, 1976, the Central Committee made a decision to appoint Khieu Samphan as the president of the state presidium. He was then appointed as a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in mid-1976. According to a speech given by Ieng Sary in 1977, Khieu Samphan was appointed to replace comrade Doeun as the chief of Office 870. This office was under the direction of the CPK’s Central Committee.