A Cambodian Leader Khien Samphan

By IVER PETERSON It was characteristic of the early confusion surrounding While still in high school the insurgency against Pres- in the period after World ident 's new Cambo- War II, when the Vietnamese dian Government in 1970 guerrillas were fighting a that there were strong doubts war that wa seventually to whether one of end French rule in Indochina, Man the reported Mr. was ac- in the leaders of the tive in anti-French and anti- News movement, Khieu colonialist movements in Samphan, was . even alive. In 1954 he went to the Radio Peking had accused University of Paris to study Prince of law and economics. He having had the slender served as secretary general French-educated economist of the General Union of murdered—by burning him Khmer Students in France with acid, •according to one while working on a doctoral account—in 1967. Yet four dissertation on the crippling years later, with Prince Si- effects of the French colonial hanouk himself in exile in economy on his country's de- China after a coup by Mar- velopment. Upon earning his shal Lon Nol, Mr. Khieu Sam- doctorate in 1959 he returned phan, Who is 43 years old, to . reappeared as one of the in- surgency's leaders. Left-Wing Doctrines Most recently Khieu Sam- Mr. Khieu Samphan then phan — the name is pro- founded a French-language nounced cue sam-PAN—has publication, l'Observateur, emerged as the most prom- and, as its political director, inent and probably the most espoused strongly left-wing Active in anticolonialist movements synch his youth powerful member of the positions. His associations (Khieu Samphan, left, commander of the Cambodian little-known group that di- with Communism earned him People's National Liberation Armed Forces, with Prince rected the insurgents against the mistrust of Prince Sihan- Norodom Sihanouk, during Prince Sihanouk's visit Phnom Penh. He holds the ouk's one-party ,government, to Communist-held territory in Cambodia in 1973.) titles of commander in chief so he was under constant of the Cambodian People's surveillance, suffering occa- National Liberation Armed sional arrest and harassment. Forces and of both deputy In 1960 he was accosted premier and minister of na- on the street by a group had Mr. Khieu samplid.11 tional defense in the insur- of Sihanouk supporters and rested and killer or that the gent government headed—in stripped to his undershorts, Prince arranged his murder name only, it appears—by a humiliation that he is said and that of two others who Prince Norodom Sihanouk. to recall with particular bit- are now leaders of the Com- The titles may seem to terness. munist forces, and be at odds with what is Despite the goVernmental Hou Yuon. known of Mr. Khieu Sam- suspicions he was allowed As events were to show, phan's character and back- to run for and win a seat Mr. Khieu. Samphan escaped. ground. perhaps by hiding in the Chi- in the National Assembly as nese Embassy and reaching Father a Civil Servant a member of Norodom Sihan- the then--—Red He was born on July 27, ouk's party, the People's So- Khmer underground. 1931, in Svay Meng, a rice- cialist Community. He had never married and growing community close to left no family behind. Asso- the South Vietnamese border After briefly joining the ciates were to say that he on the highway between Government as Secretary of considered his political con- Phnom Penh and Saigon. His state for Commerce, Mr. Khi- victions incompatible with father—like those of many eu Samphan was purged in marriage and home life. other Asian nationalists and a reaction against rising pri- Once with the rebels Mr. revolutionaries—was a civil ces. Back in the Assembly, Khieu Samphan evidently put servant in the French colo- h turned increasingly to the his economic and organiza- nial administration, a posi- political left. tional skills to work to forge tion that permitted the son both a growing army and to receive a French education Final Break in 1967 the rudiments of an economic leading to professional train- The final break came on base to feed it in the territo- ing. April 24, 1967, when the mer- ries under rebel control. As a young man, Mr. Khieu- curial Prince publicly de- Reports from the Commu- Samohan was known for his nounced him at a Buddhist nist zones indicate that he studiousness and his quiet- rally for alleged complicity in has reorganized agriculture ness. "He was serious," his a brief peasant revolt in Bat- in efforts to produce more younger brother, Khieu Seng tambang Province. What fol- rice from land so rich that Kim, recalled. "He studied lowed that day is unclear. It farmers had exerted only a lot and did not run was said that Marshal Lon minimal efforts to satisfy around." Nol. then head of the army, family needs.