Son Sen

Son Sen (June 12, 1930 – June 10, 1997) was a member of Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea/Party of Democratic Kampuchea from 1974 to 1992. He was a leader of the genocidal Khmer Rouge and was married to Yun Yat (雲月), who became the Khmer Rouge minister of education and information. Son Sen was born in southern Vietnam, of Sino-Vietnamese ancestry [ [http://www.khmerinstitute.org/articles/art03b.html Jurisdictional and Definitional Issues] ] and grew up among the settled Cambodian minority. He was educated in Phnom Penh and in the 1950s received a scholarship to study in Paris, where he became a member of a Marxist group of Cambodian students at whose centre was Saloth Sar (Pol Pot). On his return to Cambodia, he became director of studies at the National Teaching Institute. In 1960 he joined the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party (the name of the party at the time).Kiernan, Ben. "How Pol Pot Came to Power". London: Verso, 1985. p. 184.] He fled from the capital in 1963 to escape from Prince Norodom Sihanouk's secret police and is believed to have spent time in Hanoi. Fact|date=April 2007

By 1972 he had become chief of staff of the Khmer Rouge forces, engaged in challenging the government in Phnom Penh headed by Lon Nol. After the Khmer Rouge seized power in April 1975, he became deputy prime minister and minister of defense. He also oversaw the Santebal - the Khmer Rouge secret police. As such he monitored the operations of the infamous prison at Tuol Sleng, "S-21" and engaged actively in the design of its interrogation and torture procedures. In 1979, after the Vietnamese invasion, he regained command of the Khmer Rouge military. * Chandler, D. (1999). "Voices from S-21 - Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison", University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, pp 18-23] Son Sen assumed the post of supreme commander Fact|date=April 2007 of the insurgent National Army of Democratic Kampuchea on the ostensible retirement of Pol Pot in August 1985, directing the military challenge of the ousted Khmer Rouge against the Vietnamese occupation and the government established in Phnom Penh. Following the Paris Peace Agreements of October 1991, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan traveled to Phnom Penh to negotiate with UNTAC and the Cambodian government in Phnom Penh. Son Sen was removed from power in May 1992 by Ta Mok, after a dispute with fellow Khmer Rouge leaders over whether to continue the negotiations.* Chandler, D. (1999). "Brother Number One. A Political Biography of Pol Pot", Westview Press, Boulder, CA, p. 173]

He was murdered on June 10, 1997, alongside 13 members of his family, including women and children, on orders of Pol Pot, who at the time was fighting his last battle to regain control of the Khmer Rouge from Ta Mok. Son Sen and each of his family members were buried up to their necks in the ground; while soldiers of the Khmer Rouge were ordered to drive over their heads in jeeps repeatedly until the last one was dead. Pol Pot was alleged to have later denied giving these orders.* ibid., p. 180]

At one time regarded as the fourth-ranking member Fact|date=April 2007 of the Khmer Rouge hierarchy, he is believed to have engaged in factional rivalry with Pol Pot and to have been implicated in the murder of a British university teacher, Malcolm Caldwell, in Phnom Penh in December 1978. Fact|date=April 2007Son Sen currently has family residing in southeast Virginia, United States after having fled Vietnam in 1983. Fact|date=April 2007

ee also

* Cambodia under Pol Pot
* Ta Mok
* First Indochina War
* Vietnam War (Second Indochina War)
* Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum
* Cambodian Civil War
* The Killing Fields
* "The Killing Fields" Hollywood film.
* "First They Killed My Father" by Loung Ung

References