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Khmer Rouge ideologue held

PHNOM PENH: Born into a wealthy Sino-Cambodian family, Nuon Chea grew up fighting anti-colonial forces in Cambodia. He now faces trial, accused of being a key architect of the Khmer Rouge’s bloody rule that left 1.7 million of his countrymen dead.

After being educated in neighbouring Thailand, Nuon Chea returned to Cambodia in 1950 where he became involved in the struggle for independence from French rule and joined the Indochinese Communist Party. He rose up through the ranks to become a senior leader of the murderous Khmer Rouge rule in the 1970s. His transformation into a leader of the brutal Khmer Rouge began in 1975, just about a month after it took power.

Joined by his late boss Pol Pot, Nuon Chea addressed a meeting of the movement’s leaders from across the country in Phnom Penh, according to a document from the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group gathering evidence of the Khmer Rouge atrocities.

Known as Brother No. 2, Nuon Chea allegedly laid out the Khmer Rouge “master plan,” which called for the abolition of money, religion, monks, and the expulsion of ethnic Vietnamese.

Over the next four years, the regime’s fanatical efforts to realise a utopian society led to the death of some 1.7 million persons.

The Khmer Rouge was overthrown in 1979. Nuon Chea spent his later years in a house near the Thai border. But on Wednesday, police served him with an arrest warrant at his home. He was whisked off to Phnom Penh and charged with crimes against humanity. — AP

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