Death
Yuon's death is thought to have been ordered by his fellow-members of the Khmer Rouge sometime after they seized power in 1975. His previous tendency to openly criticise the regime's excesses appears to have continued unabated: when entering Phnom Penh, which had been divided into several sectors each run by the administration of a different zone of the country, he is reported to have remarked "It's Berlin!". Several accounts exist of his death, the most common of which is related to the controversial order to evacuate Phnom Penh given after the communist victory, which Yuon is known to have opposed. In one version, related by a CPK cadre from Kampong Cham, Yuon was said to have been shot in August 1975 by a group of Khmer Rouge soldiers after he sympathetically addressed a group of evacuees at Prek Por, Srey Santhor District, and his body thrown into the Mekong.
Other witnesses claim that Yuon was seen at a camp in Stung Treng late in 1976, and most probably either died of disease, or committed suicide, while being held in the camp system. Another Khmer Rouge source claimed that Yuon was mistakenly shot by a bodyguard after being recalled to Phnom Penh.
It has been noted that in Khmer Rouge discourse after 1978, Yuon was referred to in terms indicating that he had been posthumously rehabilitated.
Read more about this topic: Hou Yuon
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“If society gives up the right to impose the death penalty, then self help will appear again and personal vendettas will be around the corner.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)