Pen Sovann

ប៉ែន សុវាន
People’s Republic of Kampuchea state institutions Marxism–Leninism Cambodia Cambodia 1936–2016

First prime minister of the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party

Removed and arrested on 2 December 1981, he formally held the posts of prime minister and party general secretary until 5 December, when Heng Samrin became general secretary and Chan Sy acting prime minister.

A Cambodian politician who broke with the Khmer Rouge and cooperated with Vietnam. One of the founding leaders of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation in 1978, he led the building of party and administrative structures as the People's Revolutionary Party's general secretary after the 1979 regime change. He became prime minister in June 1981 but was removed and arrested under Vietnamese pressure that December and was held until 1992.

Also known as: Pen Sovan

Activities and affiliations

Career Timeline

Related historical events

From the Khmer Issarak to Hanoi

Pen Sovann joined the nationalist Khmer Issarak armed movement against French colonial rule in 1950. Reported to have been 14 at the time, he served under Ek Chhoeun, who later became the Khmer Rouge commander known as Ta Mok. After the Issarak force was demobilized following the 1954 Geneva Conference, Sovann went to Vietnam for training. He was among the more than one thousand Khmer who went north to Hanoi with the Viet Minh, a group known as the “Hanoi 1,000.” Accounts differ on his early party affiliation: one biographical account says he joined the Indochinese Communist Party in 1952, while another source identifies the party he joined in 1958 as the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party. The 1958 affiliation should therefore not be described as membership in the Indochinese Communist Party. This early trajectory ran from anti-colonial armed struggle through political and military training in Vietnam to Cambodian communist politics.