Son Ngoc Minh (1920 - 1972),
also known as Achar Mean, was a Cambodian
communist politician whose first notable career
achievement was in 1950 when he was appointed the head of
provisional revolutionary government of the United Issarak Front organized at
Hongdan. Among his Vietnamese
friends, he was known as
Pham Van Hua.
Biography
Son Ngoc
Minh was born in 1920 to a Khmer father and a
Vietnamese
mother. He became a Buddhist lay preacher
(Achar), and was recruited by Vietnamese communists to
serve as President of a newly-formed Cambodian People's Liberation
Committee (CPLC) in Battambang
. Minh had been born in a Khmer district of
southern Vietnam of mixed Khmer-Vietnamese parentage, which meant
he was the nearest the Vietnamese had to an authentic Khmer
revolutionary. His
nom de
guerre was intended to capitalise on the popularity of
Sihanouk's banished rival,
Son Ngoc
Thanh, then still languishing in exile in France.
Son Ngoc Minh was the leader of the first nationwide congress of
the leftist
Khmer Issarak groups,
which founded the
United Issarak
Front. In
1950, he formally declared
Cambodia's independence after claiming that the UIF controlled one
third of the country. Along with
Tou
Samouth, Minh founded the
Khmer People's Revolutionary
Party (KPRP) in August 1951.
Minh
remained a senior figure in the Party, albeit largely operating
from Hanoi
in North Vietnam, until 1972, when at the request
of Ieng Sary he was sent to hospital in
Beijing to be treated for high blood
pressure. Minh died in Beijing on
22
December. His death further lessened the influence of the
Hanoi-trained communists on the Party, correspondingly increasing
the power of the hardline Party 'Centre' led by
Pol Pot.
References
- Christopher E. Goscha, Thailand and the Southeast Asian
Networks of the Vietnamese Revolution, 1885-1954, Routledge, 1999, ISBN 0700706224,
pg 339
- Arthur J. Dommen, The Indochinese Experience of the French
and the Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and
Vietnam, Indiana University Press, 2001,
ISBN 0253338549, pg 181
- Kiernan, B. How Pol Pot came to power, Yale UP, 2004,
p.80
- Kiernan, p.360
Wikis
Map
Search
