Numbers

The Gang of Six in Cambodia

• Ieng Sary
• Ieng Thirith
• Khieu Ponnary
• Pol Pot
• Son Sen
• Yun Yat

How It's Used

“In some ways the new rulers of Phnom Penh conformed to Cambodian tradition; they were drawn from a tiny, inbred and self-perpetuating oligarchy. Lon Nol had replaced Sihanouk's scheming court with an equally scheming and much more corrupt military-bourgeois clique. The new elite was equally unrepresentative of Cambodian society. By 1978 the government appears to have been in the hands of about ten people related not only by intellectual training and shared revolutionary experience but also by marriage. The government was led by Pol Pot, the Secretary of the Cambodian Communist Party since 1963. Now he was Prime Minister as well. In charge of foreign affairs was Ieng Sary; defense was in the hands of Son Sen. The important post of Minister of Education, Culture and Information was held by Yun Yat, Son Sen's wife. The Minister of Social Action was Khieu Thirith, the wife of Ieng Sary. Her sister, Khieu Ponnary, was married to Pol Pot and ran the Association of Democratic Women of Kampuchea. The Vietnamese referred to them as either 'the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique' or as 'The Gang of Six.' 'All power is in the hands of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary and their wives who, to crown it, are sisters,' commented Nhan Dan, the Vietnamese party paper in September 1978. 'This kind of regime is cynically termed a 'democratic' regime.'”

"Moveover, by 1978 Pol Pot's purges of senior cadres had been so extensive that policy decisions were essentially handled by 'The Gang of Six' (Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and their wives Khieu Ponnary, Ieng Thirith, and Yun Yat), with Southwestern Region Commander Ta Mok and Khieu Samphan in an auxilliary role."

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