Keat Chhon
Keat Chhon is a Cambodian politician. He belongs to the Cambodian People's Party and was elected to represent Phnom Penh in the National Assembly of Cambodia in 2003. He was the Minister for Economy and Finance from 1994 to 2013. By 2018, he has retired from all public offices.
He is one of the only political leaders to have served in the current government of Cambodia after serving under the Khmer rouge along with five other government officials: Senate President Chea Sim, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, National Assembly President Heng Samrin and Cambodian People's Party Senators Ouk Bunchhoeun and Sim Ka.
According to researchers Justin Corfield and Laura Summers, he is "one of the most experienced technocrats in the government , has succeeded in imposing greater budgetary controls on spending for years".
Biography
From Chhlong to Saclay: rise of the first Cambodian atomic engineer
Keat Chhon was born in the village of Chhlong in the Kratié Province on 11 August 1934. At 13 or 14, he was admitted at the Sihanouk College in Kampong Cham. In 1951, he moved to Phnom Penh to attend the Lycee Sisowath, one of the country's leading secondary schools.In 1954, Mr. Chhon headed for France, having obtained a student grant. Among Cambodian students, future Khmer Rouge leaders such as Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan were also students in France at the time. In 1958, he simultaneously pursued two diplomas, one in marine engineering and the other in mathematics and physics. In 1960, Keat obtained a diploma in atomic engineering, from the Saclay Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology in France. At university, he met a certain Lay Neary, a Cambodian of Vietnamese descent, who he married, and in 1961, they returned together to Cambodia with their first child in their arms.
As a young engineer, he participated in the construction of the railroad tracks between Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh, and the Olympic Stadium, with Khmer architect Vann Molyvnann.
Minister of Industry under the ''Sangkum''
Under the Sangkum, Keat Chhon was appointed Minister of Industry by Norodom Sihanouk. Until 1962, industry grew at an annual rate of 8 percent, but after 1964, the economy went into recession, because of the rise and violence and the decline in construction according caused by Sihanouk's refusal of American aid. In 1964, Chhon was named rector of Kampong Cham University, the country's first university outside Phnom Penh. In the summer of 1966, Keat Chhuon lead the Cambodian delegation to the summer physics colloquium of the Beijing symposium "paying a glowing tribute to the Chinese people's revolutionary spirit". in 1967, Keat Chhon was named Secretary of State.High ranking official under the Khmer Rouge
Chhon feld to Beijing with Prince Sihanouk after he was deposed in March 1970 to head the overseas Khmer Rouge resistance fighting against the US-backed Lon Nol regime, who had bombarded his university in Kampong Cham on April 28, 1970, and massacred many Vietnamese living in Cambodia.He was a close assistant of Prince Sihanouk travelling with him to Hanoi or parts of Cambodia under Khmer Rouge control in 1973. And then, in March 1975, Chhon headed for Cambodia with Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary and seven young intellectuals, during the fall of Phnom Penh.
Under the Khmer Rouge regime, he worked under the direction of Ieng Sary in the General Political Department of the Foreign Ministry, along Thiounn Prasith and other major figures of the regime. Keat Chhon accompanied then-King Norodom Sihanouk on an official visit as figurehead of Democratic Kampuchea to the United Nations secretary-general in October, 1975. He was also accused of being Pol Pot's secretary and adviser by then opposition leader Sam Rainsy.
His wife and two children were to be arrested and taken to the S-21 extermination camp—also known as Tuol Sleng—on January 10, 1979, but the Vietnamese forces walking into Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979, and Chhon fled to Beijing with Prince Sihanouk once again.
Exile in France and Zaire
During a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Cuba in September 1979, Chhon had his first contact with future Prime Minister Hun Sen, who was foreign minister of the Phnom Penh government at the time. After spending some time on the Thai border at the Khmer Rouge outpost, Keat Chhon obtained refugee status in France in 1983, where he worked in a small engineering firm. In 1988, he started working with the United Nations for a mission in economic development project in Zaire, where he stayed until 1992.Minister of Economy and Finance since the return of democracy
Reopening the Cambodian economy to the world
Having met again with Hun Sen in 1987 and 1988 on behalf of Prince Sihanouk, he took part in the signing of the Paris Peace Agreements in October 1991 and returned to Cambodia on behalf of the United Nations Transitional Authority in 1992 where he joined the Cambodian People's Party. In 1993, he was named as an adviser to the Government of the State of Cambodia and Senior Minister in Charge of Development. In that position, he managed to renew the economic ties of Cambodia beyond the collapsing Soviet economic system. He encouraged the passing of the Law on Investment in 1994 which was considered "liberal" and providing "very generous incentives to investors compared to other countries." While he internally reformed his own ministry weeding out "ghost" staff whose salaries are being pocketed by others, he also opened his country internationally by developing political ties with the ASEAN in order to promote the “integration of Cambodian economy in the region and the world." In November 1994, with the trust of both co-Prime Ministers Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen, he was named in replacement of Sam Rainsy as Minister of Economy and Finance, a position which he held until 2004.Balancing Cambodian politics and national budget
In April 1995, Sam Rainsy filed a lawsuit against Finance Minister Keat Chhon seeking maximum damages allowed for defamation by UNTAC law in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court after Keat Chhon's public comments in Cambodia that Rainsy was attempting to get all foreign aid to the government suspended inferring that his replacement was guilty of corruption while finance minister.In January 1996, his relationship with Second Prime Minister Hun Sen came to a high point of tension as the latter accused him of being responsible of over-zealous import inspections by the government-contracted Swiss firm Societe Generale de Surveillance, which led in major loss of profits in the import-export sector, as some speculated Cham Prasidh was eyeing to replace him.
In December 1996, the national budget was still recovering and suffering from corruption and diversion of states revenues, as minister in charge of rehabilitation and development, Keat Chhon, unwillingly conceded the government's need to diminish the part of the national budget allocated to the department of education.
On July 5, 1998, Keat Chhon, Minister for Economy and Finance, was in Paris attending the meeting of the Consultative Group for Cambodia and assuring the aid donors about the due process of the elections. He was with Ung Huot, Minister of the Foreign Affairs, when he learned of violence exploding in Cambodia, leading Prince Rannaridh to flee the country. These events led to a certain delay in the admission of Cambodia as member of the ASEAN.