Ieng Sary was a deputy prime minister in the government of Democratic Kapuchea between 1975 and 1978. He had been a leading figure in the Khmer Rouge until the withdrawal of Chinese support after the International Conference on Cambodida in Paris in October 1991 led to his political demotion.
The early life of Ieng Sary is obscure, with his date of birth probably in the second half of the 1920s and his place of birth in Tra- Vinh Province (Preah Trapeang) in southern Vietnam ( Kampuchea Krom) also known as Cochinchina. He is believed to have befriended Saloth Sar, later Pol Pot , when they were both students at the Lycee Sisowath in Phnom Penh at the end of the war. Like Pol Pot, he secured a government scholarship to study in France, where he arrived in October 1950 and where formative social bonding and political commitment took place. His wife, Ieng Thirith, was the sister of Pol Pot's wife, Khieu Ponnary. On his return to Cambodia in the mid-1950s, Ieng Sary became a teacher and an active participant in clandestine revolutionary activity. In September 1960 he was present at a secret meeting of the Communist Party of Cambodia which set it on the road to revolutionary struggle and at which he was elected to its central committee.
In May 1963, after his name had been included in a list of subversives announced by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, together with Pol Pot he left the capital for the forests of eastern Cambodia. His movements until 1971 are not well known but he is believed to have assumed responsibility for contacts with both Vietnamese and Chinese Communist parities. In August 1971 his presence was announced in Beijing, ostensibly as special envoy from the liberated area of Cambodia, but he acted as watch-dog to Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who was then head of a government in exile. He accompanied Prince Sihanouk on visits abroad, in particular to the Non-Aligned Conference in Algeria and to the liberated area of Cambodia in 1973.
He held high office with responsibility for foreign affairs during the period of Khmer Rouge rule; in the negotiations with Thailand he demonstrated a clear preference for the finer qualities of life, including expensive cigars and brandy. He escaped from Phnom Penh by train to Thailand before the city was occupied by the Vietnamese in January 1979. He traveled on to Beijing and was subsequently for a time a member of the Democratic Kampuchean delegation at the United Nations, being confirmed as deputy prime minister in charge of foreign affairs for the government in exile at the end of 1979.
After the formation of the tripartite Coalition Government of democratic Kampuchea (CGDK) in June 1982, he gave up formal responsibility for foreign affairs to his Khmer Rouge colleague, Khieu Samphan. Since then, Ieng Sary has ceased to hold an official position and lost his political influence with the end of his role as the intermediary for the distribution of Chinese material and military assistance. He is believed to be living in north-western Cambodia in declining health.
Power By: Chan Thach