Heng Samrin is a Cambodian politician who served as the President of the National Assembly of Cambodia (2006–2023). Between 1979 and 1992, he was the de facto leader of the Hanoi-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea (1979–1989) and State of Cambodia (1989–1992) and General Secretary of the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party (1981–1991).
Samrin in 2018
People's Republic of Kampuchea
The People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) was a partially recognised state in Southeast Asia which existed from 1979 to 1989. It was a client state of Vietnam, founded in Cambodia by the Vietnamese-backed Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, a group of Cambodian communists who were dissatisfied with the Khmer Rouge due to its oppressive rule and defected from it after the overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot's government. Brought about by an invasion from Vietnam, which routed the Khmer Rouge armies, it had Vietnam and the Soviet Union as its main allies.
PRK students Meak Chanthan and Dima Yim (3rd from left and standing) in Frankfurt an der Oder, East Germany in 1986.
Mountains along the Cambodian-Thai Border north of the road between Sisophon and Aranyaprathet. One of the areas where Khmer Rouge insurgents hid at the time of the K5 Plan.
Aid to Kampuchea in Zella-Mehlis, East Germany, during the 1979/1980 famine that ravaged Cambodia right after the birth of the PRK.
