Chan Sy | |
---|---|
33rd Prime Minister of Cambodia | |
In office 9 February 1982 – 26 December 1984 Acting: 5 December 1981 – 9 February 1982 |
|
President | Heng Samrin |
Preceded by | Pen Sovan |
Succeeded by | Hun Sen |
Personal details | |
Born | 1932 Kampong Chhnang, Cambodia |
Died | 26 December 1984 Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
(aged 52)
Political party | Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party |
Military service | |
Allegiance |
Kingdom of Cambodia People's Republic of Kampuchea |
Service/branch | Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation |
Years of service | 1950–1984 |
Chan Sy, also spelt Chan Si, (Khmer: ចាន់ ស៊ី; 1932 – December 26, 1984) was a Cambodian politician. He became Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Kampuchea from 1981 to 1984.
Chan Sy was a Cambodian of Chinese descent who early in his life became a military figure by joining the Khmer Viet Minh forces in 1950s.
Chan Sy left Cambodia in 1954 after the Geneva Conference that recognized Prince Norodom Sihanouk's government as the sole legitimate authority in independent Cambodia. A member of the Communist Party from 1960, Chan Sy was believed to have returned to Cambodia in 1970 after the coup that ousted Prince Sihanouk and placed the pro-U.S. Lon Nol in power. Chan Sy, who was opposed to ultra-nationalist Pol Pot, by whose partisans he was detained in 1973. He reappeared on the scene in 1978, with the forces of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS) and with the Vietnamese that toppled the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979.
After some months of military training in the Soviet Union, in 1980 he was appointed deputy defense minister and following year defense minister and vice-president of the Council of Ministers; the same year he also became a member of the Politburo of the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP).
When Pen Sovan was replaced as party general secretary by Heng Samrin, Chan Sy took over the premiership. Considered a steadfast adherent to Vietnam's Kampuchean policy, Chan Sy had made visits to Bulgaria, East Germany as well as to the Soviet Union. In the National Assembly he represented his native province.