Son Ngoc Thanh
| Son Ngoc Thanh | |
|---|---|
| 2nd Prime Minister of Cambodia | |
|
In office 18 March 1972 – 15 October 1972 |
|
| President | Lon Nol |
| Preceded by | Sisowath Sirik Matak |
| Succeeded by | Hang Thun Hak |
|
In office 14 August 1945 – 16 October 1945 |
|
| Monarch | Norodom Sihanouk |
| Preceded by | Norodom Sihanouk |
| Succeeded by | Sisowath Monireth |
| Minister of Foreign Affairs | |
|
In office 1972 |
|
| Preceded by | Koun Wick |
| Succeeded by | Long Boret |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 7 December 1908 Travinh, Cochinchina |
| Died | 8 August 1977 (aged 68) Vietnam |
| Political party | Pracheachollana, Khmer Serei |
Son Ngoc Thanh (Vietnamese: Sơn Ngọc Thành, Khmer: សឺង ង៉ុកថាញ់ Chinese：山玉成) (December 7, 1908 – August 8, 1977) was a Cambodian nationalist and republican politician, with a long history as a rebel and (for brief periods) a government minister.
Thanh was born in Travinh, Vietnam, to a Khmer Krom father and a Chinese-Vietnamese mother. He was educated in Saigon, Montpellier and Paris, studying law for a year before returning to Indo-China. He found work as a magistrate in Pursat and as a public prosecutor in Phnom Penh before becoming Deputy Director of the Buddhist Institute. Along with another prominent early Khmer nationalist, Pach Chhoeun, he established the first Khmer language newspaper, Nagaravatta, in 1936. The political outlook of Nagaravatta, which urged Khmers to break the commercial monopoly of foreign traders by starting their own businesses, was to make Thanh and his colleagues receptive to Japanese fascism, or as he termed it "National Socialism". Thanh's ideology was essentially republican, right-wing, and modernising in outlook, which was to make him a longstanding opponent of the King Norodom Sihanouk. Despite his nationalism, he was also a strong advocate of pan-Asian cooperation, and advocated the teaching of the Vietnamese language in Cambodian schools, as it was a potential conduit for modernising ideas.
After demonstrations against the French in July 1942, Thanh fled to Japan, returning when Sihanouk declared Cambodia's independence on March 12, 1945, during the Japanese occupation. He was made Foreign Minister. In August with the surrender of Japan, Thanh made himself Prime Minister. With the restoration of French control in October, he was arrested, and sent into exile first in Saigon and then in France. Many of his supporters joined the Khmer Issarak resistance to fight the colonial power. In 1951, the authorities brought Thanh back, to considerable popular acclaim; refusing a Cabinet position, he made alliances with various leaders of the Khmer Issarak rebels, and established another newspaper (Khmer Kraok) which advocated revolt against the French administration and was quickly banned. In 1952, accompanied by his lieutenant Ea Sichau (a French-educated customs official and leftist intellectual) and a number of supporters, Thanh disappeared into the forests in the area of Siem Reap, and began to organise resistance.
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