Hou Yuon

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Hou Yuon (1930-1975) was a veteran of the communist movement in Cambodia, and is of Sino-Khmer descent.^[1][2] He argued that usury competed with taxes as the chief burden upon the peasantry. Hou was murdered by the Khmer Rouge after they seized power in 1975^[3].

Hou Yuon studied economics and law, and earned a doctorate from the University of Paris. The doctoral dissertation he wrote expressed basic themes that were later to become the cornerstones of the policy adopted by Democratic Kampuchea. The central role of the peasants in national development was espoused in his 1955 thesis, The Cambodian Peasants and Their Prospects for Modernization, which challenged the conventional view that urbanization and industrialization are necessary precursors of development.

While in Paris, he was a member of the Khmer Students' Association (KSA). In 1952 Hou Yuon, along with Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, and other leftists gained notoriety by sending an open letter to Prince Norodom Sihanouk calling him the "strangler of infant democracy." After the French authorities closed down the KSA, Hou Yuon along with Khieu Samphan helped to establish a new group, the Khmer Students' Union, in 1956.

After returning to Cambodia, Hou Yuon became a teacher at a new private high school, the Lycée Kambuboth, which he helped establish.

Sihanouk invited a number of leftists, including Hou Yuon into his party and government to provide a balance to the right-wing. Hou Yuon served in several ministries between 1958 and 1963.

[edit] References

1. ^ * Lynn Pan [1998]. The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas. Harvard University Press, 148, Cambodia–The Khmer Rouge, 1970-78. ISBN 0674252101. 
2. ^ Genocide definition
3. ^ Kiernan B. The Pol Pot Regime : Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. (p. 61). http://www.amazon.com/Pol-Pot-Regime-Genocide-Cambodia/dp/0300096496/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product