Khieu Ponnary

Khieu Ponnary (1920 - 1 July 2003) was the first wife of Pol Pot, sister of Khieu Thirith and sister-in-law to Ieng Sary.

Khieu Ponnary was born in 1920 in Battambang Province, and her sister, Khieu Thirith, was born about 12 years later. Their father, a Cambodian judge, abandoned the family during World War II, running off to Battambang with a Cambodian princess. [cite web|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=HdxEN_OUceUC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=1951+thirith+-wiki&source=web&ots=KEirZrius8&sig=WVxasqlF--1mA5e8P0PcH5rao3M |title=Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot |work=p.32 |author=David P. Chandler |date=1999 |publisher=Westview Press |format=ISBN 0813335108 |accessdate=2007-11-15] As a member of a privileged family, she was educated at the Lycee Sisowath. Her younger sister, Khieu Thirith, and their future husbands, Ieng Sary and Saloth Sar (later Pol Pot) also attended. Graduating from the Lycee in 1940, she became the first Cambodian woman to receive a baccalaureate degree. In 1949, she left Cambodia with her younger sister (who was engaged to Ieng Sary) for Paris where she studied Khmer linguistics. In Paris, her sister married Ieng Sary in 1951 and took his name, becoming Ieng Thirith.

Returning to Cambodia she married Saloth Sar (later Pol Pot) on Bastille Day, 1956. She also returned to Lycee Sisowath but now as a teacher, while her husband taught at Chamraon Vichea, a new private college.

Information about her role in party activities during the 1960s is fragmentary; however, she was the Party Secretary for Kampong Thom province in 1973 and the President of the Democratic Kampuchea Women’s Association in 1976.

By at least 1975, Ponnary was growing increasingly disturbed from the onslaught of chronic schizophrenia. She became extremely paranoid and was convinced that the Vietnamese were trying to assassinate her and her husband. Pol Pot divorced her in 1979 after the Vietnamese invasion and took a second wife.

In 1996, Ponnary, together with her sister and brother-in-law, were granted amnesty from prosecution by the Cambodian government. Ponnary was cared for by her sister and her sister’s husband Ieng Sary:

She died in Pailin on (July 1), (2003).

Quotations

"She knows nothing. Even me she does not remember. I pity her very much, but I don't know how to help her, as she has a disease which is difficult to cure".—Ieng Sarycite news
url=http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/selected_features/khiev.htm
title=Sister No. 1 The Story of Khieu Ponnary, Revolutionary and First Wife of Pol Pot |author=Thet Sambath |date=October 20, 2001 |publisher=The Cambodia Daily, WEEKEND |accessdate=2007-11-15]

References

* Elizabeth Becker : "Khieu Ponnary, 83, First Wife Of Pol Pot, Cambodian Despot", in New York Times, July 3, 2003, pA20 (the same in International Herald Tribune, July 4, 2003 p7)
* "Khieu Ponnary; Obituary", in The Times, London, July 8, 2003 p31
* Philip Short. "Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare." Henry Hot and Company, 2005.

External links

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