Hu Nim

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.

Early life

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.