Death
Samouth disappeared in disputed circumstances in July 1962; the event was a closely guarded secret until the later 1970s. Although he is usually assumed to have been murdered by Sihanouk's police, it has been suggested that Pol Pot may have arranged Samouth's death to ensure his own promotion to party secretary. Pol Pot denied this in one of the last interviews before his death, stating that Samouth, who had left his safe house to obtain medicine for his sick child, had been arrested by Lon Nol's men, interrogated, and killed: "If Tou Samouth had talked, I would have been arrested. He was killed at Stung Mean Chey pagoda. We loved each other." The historian Ben Kiernan notes, however, that there is strong evidence that Pol Pot's circle was responsible for Samouth's disappearance: in particular a secret Party report on 'internal enemies', dating from 1978, accused Kandal Province Secretary Som Chea of killing Samouth. Chea, who was later executed, had been a courier for Pol Pot's group in 1962.
Pol Pot was elected Party secretary early in 1963, and subsequently broke decisively with the Vietnamese communists, securing instead the backing of China.
Read more about this topic: Tou Samouth
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Let those who desire a secure homeland conquer it. Let those who do not conquer it live under the whip and in exile, watched over like wild animals, cast from one country to another, concealing the death of their souls with a beggar’s smile from the scorn of free men.”
—José Martí (1853–1895)
“Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos:”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate,—no more. I cannot get it nearer to me.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)