Hou Yuon

Hou Yuon (* 1926 in Peam Chi Kang, † 1975) was a Cambodian politician and regarded as one of the leading cadres of the Khmer Rouge.

Life

After finishing school Hou Yuon went to Phnom Penh and attended the Lycee Sisovath. He was considered a good football player and was an early politically active as a student and leftist. The early 1950s was one of Hou Yuon to that group of Cambodian students who received a scholarship to study in Paris by Prince Sihanouk. This group included the later Khmer Rouge leaders such as Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary or. He received his PhD in 1955 on the theme " The peasantry of Cambodia and its modernization projects." After his return from Paris Hou Yuon taught at the Kamputh School, and at the Law School in Phnom Penh. From 1960, he belonged to the Central Committee of the active underground Cambodian Communist Party, whose Politburo was hiding behind the name Angkar. At the same time acted Hou Yuon legally as a deputy of the Sangkum - party in parliament and was from 1962-63 Planning Minister. On April 24, 1964, he finally joined the Communists and followed Khieu Samphan in the jungle in order to support active from there the revolutionary struggle of the Khmer Rouge. 1970 appointed him to the Communist Party Secretary.

Shortly before the seizure of power in Cambodia by Pol Pot, Hou Yuon expressed on a National Congress in February 1975 critical of the plans of the Communist Party with respect to the forced evacuation of the population and the concept of the stone -age communism. Immediately following his criticism he was the victim of a first wave of purges, which was carried out on the orders of Angkar. The exact circumstances of his death is still unknown.