Pol Pot henchman’s defection brought down Khmer Rouge

Ieng Sary, a former Khmer Rouge official whose defection from the Cambodian Maoist rebel group in 1996 led to its collapse, bringing an end to nearly two decades of conflict, has died. He was 87.

The Khmer Rouge came to power through a civil war that ousted the American-backed regime of Lon Nol, and ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. They aimed to transform the country into a pure socialist society.

To this end they abolished money, private property, religion and traditional culture. Cities were emptied, forcing urban residents to become rural labourers, growing rice and building irrigation schemes.

In four years, between 1.7 million and 2.2 million people — a quarter of the population — died in the “killing fields” from starvation, disease, overwork, torture and mass execution.

Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, were members of the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s inner circle. They had all studied together in Paris and were linked by ties of marriage — Ieng Thirith’s sister, Khieu Ponnary, was Pol Pot’s first wife. Under Pol Pot’s dictatorship, Ieng Sary served as deputy prime minister in charge of foreign affairs until 1979, when Vietnamese forces ousted the Khmer Rouge; a new Hanoi-installed government sentenced the two men to death in absentia.

The Khmer Rouge retreated to the Thai border, where they continued fighting for nearly two more decades. During these years Ieng Sary was a crucial link between the organization and China, a key source of money and arms. Former colleagues later accused him of embezzling millions of dollars from the illegal logging and gem mining operations along the border with Thailand.

In 1996, however, with the group’s fortunes on the wane, Ieng Sary struck a peace deal with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, and days later led 3,000 Khmer Rouge fighters out of the jungle.

The move was a catalyst for the movement’s final disintegration in 1999 (Pol Pot had died the previous year). It secured Ieng Sary a royal pardon from King Norodom Sihanouk, a measure of credibility as a peacemaker, and a comfortable life which he divided between an opulent villa in Phnom Penh and another home in Pailin, northwestern Cambodia.