Early Career
Hou Yuon was born in Kampong Cham in 1930 to a family of Sino-Khmer descent. In common with several other future members of the Khmer Rouge, he studied at the Lycee Sisowath, though unlike the majority of his colleagues he was from a poor background: his father was a peasant who grew rice and tobacco.
He went on to study economics and law, earning a doctorate from the University of Paris. The doctoral dissertation he wrote expressed basic themes that were later to become the cornerstones of economic policies 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 (French: La paysannerie du Cambodge et ses projets de modernisation), which challenged the conventional view that urbanization and industrialization are necessary precursors of development.
Yuon, who enjoyed great personal popularity - he was described as having "truly astounding physical and intellectual strength" - became an important figure in the community of radical Cambodian expatriates in Paris. He was a unanimous choice as head of the Khmer Students' Association (KSA). In 1952, along with Saloth Sar, Ieng Sary, and other leftists, Yuon gained notoriety by sending an open letter to the then-King Norodom Sihanouk calling him the "strangler of infant democracy." After the French authorities closed down the KSA, Yuon and Khieu Samphan helped to establish a new group, the Khmer Students' Union, in 1956.
After returning to Cambodia, Hou Yuon became a teacher of French at a new private high school, the Lycée Kambuboth, which he helped establish.
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