The Cambodian students in Paris
PROLOGUE
Ong Thong Hoeung
In the 20th century, in the eyes of young Cambodians – as with most young people in the third world – France was considered one of the most attractive countries. To study in the country of Voltaire was a guarantee of a bright future. Thiounn Thieunn, Thiounn Thioum, Thiounn Mumm, Ea Sichau, Nhek Suong, Phlek Chhat and Yem Sarong were the first Cambodians in the post-War years to realise this dream. They arrived in France in May 1946 and were all former students from Hanoi. There was not yet a further education system in Cambodia at that time.
They all lived in what was known as the ‘Indochina Pavilion’ in the halls of residence of the University of Paris. Those who arrived later, in September of the same year, were also given accommodation there.
The Association of Khmer Students (AEK)
In the same year that they arrived, these seven students founded the Association of Khmer Students (AEK). They elected Ea Sichau, one of the future secretaries of the Democratic Party, as President, a position he held until 1950.
The aim of the AEK was to stimulate the quest for knowledge and to offer mutual support. One of the founding members said: “We were full of ardour and enthusiasm. And we wanted to show the French authorities that we were capable people.”
The AEK bulletin, Khemarak Nisset (The Khmer Student), published articles twice a year on the reconstruction of the country, on the need for engineers in India and China, on history, art, health … The bulletin did not discuss political questions as such. Furthermore, the AEK did not sport any political colour - a spirit of nationalism prevailed. The Association called for the independence of the country.
One of its members stated that: “the AEK decided to organise the celebration for the Khmer New Year outside the Indochina Pavilion because it was furnished in Vietnamese style. It was a cultural problem. The question of national identity was inseparably linked to cultural issues. For two consecutive years we had managed to organise the Khmer New Year outside the Indochina Pavilion. But unfortunately in the third year Mao Say, our representative on the Committee of the Indochina Pavilion, yielded to pressure from the French Ministry of Colonies, which insisted that we organise the celebration in the Indochina Pavilion. We did not agree, and this caused a rift in the AEK in 1951.” According to other accounts, these internal disputes were engineered by Saloth Sar and Ieng Sary, who had recently arrived in France. “Ieng Sary was one of the driving forces behind the mass demonstrations by young people in Cambodia in 1949.”
This was the era which saw the emancipation of colonised countries. Events in Asia were dominated by the victory of Communist China in 1949. Mao Zedong’s army was at the border with Indochina. The tide was turning. After Mao’s victory in 1949, the Franco-Vietnamese war assumed a new dimension. In France - both in metropolitan France and elsewhere - the students became actively involved in the struggle against colonialism.
The Cambodians also discussed the implications for their country. The passionate and unresolved debates which had taken place within the AEK ever since its birth were no less relevant in 1949. Should the change be a gradual one, in line with a society made up of more than 80% of peasants? Or, on the contrary, should it be rapid and radical? If society was to be transformed, what needed to be changed first, mentality or structures? Should social structures be adjusted to mentality or, conversely, should mentality be adapted to social structures? In short, was it reform or revolution that was needed? This was the heart of the matter, pitting the ‘right’ against the ‘left’.
From 1951, the unity of the Cambodians in France was weakened by the emergence of several conflicting trends: a ‘right’ wing, a ‘left’ wing and the moderates. In contrast to the others, the ‘left’ wing embraced armed struggle as part of its political vision. Armed struggle was considered an indispensable and unavoidable means of gaining independence. The main supporters were Keng Vannsak, Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon, Ieng Sary, Saloth Sar (the future Pol Pot) and Thiounn Mumm. It was the leftists who came to dominate the AEK in 1951, the year of the legislative elections in Cambodia. Hou Yuon became President. He replaced Vann Molyvann, who was considered at the time to be moderate and tolerant. Hou Yuon was known to be a courageous man, who dared to stand up for his opinions. He would later protest vigorously against the evacuation of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge following their victory in April 1975. He was to declare that the Khmer Rouge regime would last no longer than three years. This act of protest resulted in his arrest and assassination.
Under the presidency of Hou Yuon, the AEK took an increasingly firm stand against French colonialism. It also decided to support the armed struggle in Cambodia, under the leadership of Son Ngoc Minh. Sien An, Mey Mann, Rath Œun and Saloth Sar were soon to be sent to him to distance him from the Vietnamese communists, who wielded enormous influence. Sien An and his group were frustrated by the Vietnamese, who treated them as inferiors. They complained that they were made to work as lowly porters.
In 1953 the French Government dissolved the AEK. The Association nevertheless continued to function more or less normally for a further three years under the label of ‘folkloric group’.
The Union of Khmer Students (UEK)
The Union of Khmer Students, officially created on 26 November 1956, brought together the ‘leftist’ sympathisers. The first constituent assembly to elect the executive was held in December 1956. In the meantime, Ieng Sary was acting President. He was assisted by Thiounn Mumm as Vice President, Khieu Samphan as General Secretary and In Sokan, Treasurer.
The UEK exerted real influence over the Cambodian students, primarily due to the efficiency of the mutual support service it set up and the success of its members at the university. In addition, the UEK made itself out to be the only viable option for those who arrived in France intent on becoming militants. Many of these ‘progressive intellectuals’ did not even contemplate joining the only other existing organisation, the CKOM, a right-wing organisation which officially supported, and was recognised by, the Head of State. Those who were not sure tended to gravitate towards the one which was better organised, more cooperative and more reliable… the CKOM was no match for the UEK.
The UEK also owed its success to the prestige of some of its members, including Thiounn Mumm and Khieu Samphan. Some people did not hesitate to describe Thiounn Mumm as the ‘nation’s living heritage’, and his influence in Cambodian circles in France was renowned. As for Khieu Samphan, reputed to be a pure and honest nationalist, his presence in the UEK certainly encouraged new arrivals to join. Like him, Hou Yuon and Hu Nim enjoyed unrivalled popularity amongst young people in Cambodia.
Finally, the existence of the Circle of Marxist Studies, or the Marxist-Leninist Circle, played a part in the success of the UEK. Founded in 1951 with the agreement of the French Communist Party (PCF), it was made up of a hard core, a secretive and closed group of Cambodians who set out to study Engels, Marx, Lenin and Stalin. The founding members were Ieng Sary, Keng Vannsak, So Yannara, Son Sen, Khieu Komar, Thiounn Mumm, Thiounn Prasit, Ok Sakun and Yun Sœun. Only those who were admitted knew of its existence. In principle, everyone was free to leave the Circle, but on no account could they break their oath of secrecy. The political bureau of the Circle operated like that of a secret communist political party: weekly meetings were held, with an account of each member’s activities, action plans and, especially, criticism and self-criticism sessions on the agenda.
In the Circle, Ieng Sary enjoyed undisputed prestige. He was a good organiser as well as being punctual: he always rose at six o’clock in the morning to wake the others. Saloth Sar could not compete with him: he was an unassuming student, so unassuming in fact that his stay in Paris went unnoticed. Pol Pot was a modest man.
In 1956, Khieu Samphan succeeded Ieng Sary as head of the Marxist-Leninist Circle and the UEK. One of his companions spoke of him as an active militant, passionate and disciplined, but lacking any personality of his own. He was a follower, for whom the hierarchy was always right. Politically, he defended the line of the PCF. When Maurice Thorez launched his theory of pauperisation, an impassioned debate raged in the Circle for three days and three nights. Khieu Samphan rebuked one companion who did not agree with Thorez’ theory, calling him a ‘renegade’.
After Khieu Samphan’s departure for Cambodia, Thiounn Mumm became President of the Circle until it was dissolved by Ieng Sary in 1971. In Sokan, a lung specialist, was President of the UEK from 1957 to 1959. He was a jovial, straightforward and obliging person, with a great talent for public relations. He never showed his Party card. His presence at the head of the UEK enhanced the image of the Association, as it did later on that of the National United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK) when he was head of its Committee in France. He died tragically in Phnom Aural in February 1979. In 1999 Ieng Sary told his son, In Thaddee, that he had tried in vain to persuade his father not to return to the country.
Toch Kham Dœun, a PhD in Mathematics and principal researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), in Paris since 1964, was President of the UEK from 1960 to 1970. Like his predecessor, he enjoyed widespread popularity among the students. He showed little support for armed violence as a means of gaining power, which was to earn him the label of ‘pro-Soviet’. When the Khmer Rouge were in power, his former companion from Paris, Suong Sikœun, wrote in his biography for Angkar1 that “the despicable Toch Kham Dœun had abused his office of President by enrolling the UEK in the list of associations which were members of the International Student Union at its 1962 congress without asking anyone else’s opinion”.
Toch Kham Dœun died in the Tuol Sleng prison camp on 6 May 1977. This is an extract from his ‘confession’. It is dated 13 April 1977.
“I explained to the Marxist-Leninist Circle the reason why we should adopt a position in support of the USSR against China in the ideological conflict between these two socialist countries. I explained to the Union of Khmer Students (UEK) the reason why we should the national democratic political line. This political position was diametrically opposed to that of the strategy and tactics adopted within the country. At that time, our people were suffering the barbarian repression of the Sihanouk entourage, lackeys of American imperialism.
At the beginning of 1963, with the aim of convincing the Cambodian students to serve the USSR, I urged them to read books and magazines and to watch films produced by Moscow, the PCF and pro-Soviet countries. I also demonstrated to them the unrivalled strength and spectacular scientific progress of the Soviet regime. I did all this to serve the KGB and to prepare the opinion of these young people so that they would renounce all attempts to resist any future Soviet intervention in Cambodia.
In order to encourage these young people to desert the Union of Khmer Students of which I was President, and also to respect the recommendations of the KGB agent Wosolov, I regularly contacted the French communist youth organisation, and in particular Jean-Pierre Philippe, asking them to offer me financial assistance. In 1963, through the mediation of Jean-Pierre Philippe, the youth organisation of the FCP granted me the sum of three thousand French francs. Jean-Pierre Philippe told me not to hesitate to contact him if I needed anything at all. All these grants came from Moscow’s ‘black funds’, which he controlled directly under the orders of the KGB.
At the beginning of 1964, I published a number of articles in the UEK bulletin in praise of national democracy to incite young people to reject the true revolutionary position: armed struggle and political struggle in the country…”
At the end of the Sixties, the leadership of the UEK was faced with a growing challenge from the pro-Chinese students led by In Sopheap and Van Piny, both freshly arrived from Cambodia where they had been members of the administrative council of the General Association of Khmer Students (AGEK). The President of the AGEK at that time was Phouk Chhay, the future personal secretary of Pol Pot who would be executed in Tuol Sleng at the end of 1976. This dissident group wanted one of its representatives to take over as President of the UEK. Ever since it foundation, however, the UEK had been led by a member of the Marxist-Leninist Circle. This was the point of rupture: In Sopheap and his friends set up a new organisation called the National Union of Khmer Students (UNEK).
After the Five-Point Declaration by Prince Sihanouk on 23 March 1970 appealing to Cambodians to unite to create the National United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK), all the organisations opposed to General Lon Nol’s coup d’état agreed to set up a committee of the FUNK in France. This body became the exclusive instrument of Ieng Sary from 1971 onwards, shortly after he arrived in Peking as representative of the domestic resistance.
Ong Thong Hoeung
1 The word ‘Angkar’ means ‘Organisation’ in the Khmer language. The Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea (the Khmer Rouge regime) referred to three powers: legislative, executive and judicial. In reality, however, there was no real constitution and no powers operated. Angkar, or the Organisation, did not nominate any person as its head, and monopolised all the powers of the State.