Hu Nim

Hu Nim
Hu Nim, wearing the krama, as a member of the GRUNK
Personal details
Born	(1932-07-25)25 July 1932 Kampong Cham Province, Cambodia
Died	6 July 1977(1977-07-06) (aged 44) Phnom Penh
Political party	Communist Party of Kampuchea

Hu Nim (Khmer: ហូ នឹម, July 25, 1930 or 1932 – July 6, 1977), alias "Phoas" (ភាស់), was a Cambodian Communist intellectual and politician who held a number of ministerial posts. His long political career included spells with the Sangkum regime of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Communist guerrilla resistance, the GRUNK coalition government-in-exile, and the administration of Democratic Kampuchea, when the country was controlled by the Communist Party of Kampuchea (the Khmer Rouge).

Nim had a reputation as one of the most independent-minded and outspoken members of the Khmer Rouge, and was eventually arrested, tortured and executed at Tuol Sleng security prison in 1977 during a Party purge.

Hu Nim was born in 1932 (25 July 1932 according to some sources) in the village of Korkor, Kampong Siem District, Kampong Cham Province to a Sino-Khmer family. Unlike many of his later colleagues in the Party intelligentsia, he came from a poor background. In his 'confession' I would like to report to the Party about my history, extracted under torture at Tuol Sleng, Nim was to relate that "my father, Hou, died in 1936 when I was just six years old. I then lived in the care of my mother, named Sorn, a poor peasant. She earned her living by offering household services to people". His mother, who remarried a landless peasant farmer, eventually sent him to live with Sam Khor at a pagoda in Mien, Prey Chhor District.

Brought up by Sam Khor, Nim was given the chance to study at Kampong Cham junior school, going on to the Lycee Sisowath in the capital, Phnom Penh. Here, he stayed at the Unnalom Monastery, with his studies being funded by the family of his future wife. In the early 1950s, Nim - in common with many other later Communists - became associated with the left-leaning, pro-independence Democratic Party. As his confession stated, he was a part of the party's radical People's Movement wing, the Pracheachollana, led by Um Sim and associated with the republican nationalist Son Ngoc Thanh.