Nuon Chea (1926- ) was a Cambodian communist leader and ‘Brother Number Two’ to Pol Pot (Saloth Sar). He was born Long Bunruot in the Battambang region of western Cambodia, to a family of mixed Khmer-Chinese heritage. Nuon was educated in Thailand, where he completed secondary school then studied law. He became involved in student political movements, joining Thailand’s Communist Party. In 1948 Nuon returned to Cambodia and joined a left wing anti-colonial group, the Cambodian equivalent of the Viet Minh. Three years later he became a founding member of the People’s Revolutionary Party of Kampuchea, a forerunner to the Khmer Rouge. Nuon spent the next two decades working for the party, mostly in Phnom Penh. In 1960 he was elected as the party’s general secretary.
After Lon Nol’s March 1970 coup, a crackdown on communist groups forced Nuon Chea underground. They left Phnom Penh and other cities and took refuge in remote jungle areas. For the next five years, Nuon headed the Khmer Rouge’s military organisation; he was responsible for organisation and both tactical and ideological training. In October 1975, six months after the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, Nuon was named ‘Brother Number Two’ to Pol Pot and given responsibility for labour, education and propaganda. At various times he served as acting prime minister and head of the Kampuchean democratic assembly. Nuon was also in charge of domestic and party security. This made him ultimately responsible for the notorious S-21 prison at Tuol Sieng, as well as the Khmer Rouge’s other detention and execution centres.
In January 1979 Nuon Chea fled into Cambodia’s western jungles. He remained in hiding for almost 20 years, surrendering to government forces in 1998. The Cambodian government chose not to prosecute him, a move that generated outrage and controversy both in Cambodia and internationally. He was arrested again in 2007, however, and charged with crimes against humanity. In August 2014 Nuon Chea, then aged 88, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
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