Les Kosem

Who is Les Kosem?

Les Kosem, also known by the nom de guerre "Po Nagar", was a Cham military officer and a prominent figure in the Second Indochina War and the Cambodian Civil War.

Kosem, a paratroop colonel, was the most senior Cham officer in the Royal Cambodian Army. During the later 1950s he had been responsible for setting up the FLC, an organisation seeking greater autonomy for the Cham people. In 1964, acting on the advice of a French 'handler', Kosem made overtures to the leadership of BAJARAKA, a group seeking independence for the Degar people of the Vietnamese Central Highlands. Kosem was thought to have been acting as a double agent, working for both the Cambodian secret service and the French SDECE. The link between the FLC, BAJARAKA, and the Khmer Krom "White Scarves" separatist movement was to result in the creation of the guerrilla movement FULRO.

In 1968, after internal disagreements within FULRO, Kosem was to surround the movement's headquarters with several battalions of the Royal Cambodian Army, and arrest its president Y Bham Enuol.