Khieu Ponnary

Who was Khieu Ponnary?

Khieu Ponnary was the first wife of Pol Pot, sister of Khieu Thirith and sister-in-law to Ieng Sary.

Khieu Ponnary was born in 1920 in Battambang Province, and her sister, Khieu Thirith, was born about 12 years later. Their father, a Cambodian judge, abandoned the family during World War II, running off to Battambang with a Cambodian princess. As a member of a privileged family, she was educated at the Lycee Sisowath. Her younger sister, Khieu Thirith, and their future husbands, Ieng Sary and Saloth Sar also attended. Graduating from the Lycee in 1940, she became the first Cambodian woman to receive a baccalaureate degree.

In 1949, she left Cambodia with her younger sister for Paris where she studied Khmer linguistics. In Paris, her sister married Ieng Sary in 1951 and took his name, becoming Ieng Thirith. Returning to Cambodia she married Saloth Sar on Bastille Day, 1956. Together the two sisters and their husbands later became known as 'Cambodia's Gang of Four', a reference to the radical group led by Jiang Qing the widow of Mao Tse-tung. Ponnary returned to Lycee Sisowath but now as a teacher, while her husband taught at Chamraon Vichea, a new private college.