After decades of often brutal struggle, Hun Sen has positioned himself as Cambodia's undisputed strongman and a tough survivor on Asia's turbulent political scene. But surprisingly little is known about him. Next month, however, will see the publication of "Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia," the first biography of a controverisal figure who has risen from guerrilla fighter to elected prime minister. "He is both a pragmatist and an idealist, but he can be tough as he proved against the Khmer Rouge," journalist and co-author of the biography Harish Mehta told AFP. "We were not out to demolish Hun Sen, we were out to produce a balanced account of a man who is the single most important personality in Cambodia today." Hun Sen's unofficial biographers, Indian journalists Harish and Julie Mehta, have given a broadly sympathetic portrait of a figure who holds a remarkable ability to inspire either love or loathing -- and seldom anything in between But politics aside, what emerges from the biography is a complex personality: a charming diplomat, an eloquent poet, unforgiving to his enemies, ruthless in battle with a thirst for power but simple tastes.."Among the strong students I was strong. Among the strong soldiers I was strong. Now among the strongmen I am strong," Hun Sen said of himself during an interview in 1998. It details how a young Hun Sen, shocked by the bombing of Cambodia by the United States and South Vietnam in the early 1970's, emerged a dedicated Khmer Rouge field commander. Like so many other Cambodians, Hun Sen also took a share of hardship: he lost his eye during fighting and before the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975, and his first child died shortly after birth when it was dropped in the hospital. A "disillusioned" Hun Sen quit the ranks of the genocidal guerillas in 1977 in terror of the mounting internal purges. The biographers, in line with most historians, clear Hun Sen of any role in the brutal genocide. After fleeing to Vietnam, Hun Sen was greeted by imprisonment and interrogation, but then political asylum. Successive Khmer Rouge border attacks on Vietnam then convinced Hun Sen's hosts to help him raise an army of "national liberation." Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia and ouster of Pol Pot places a 27 year-old Hun Sen as Asia's youngest-ever foreign minister. The central role of Hun Sen in the invasion was to provide ammunition to his opponents, who today still dub him a stooge of Vietnam. But in power as prime minister since 1985, Hun Sen has emerged a survivor where many cold war warriors have long disappeared, a communist-turned-capitalist yet still deeply conscious of his humble origins. "I don't want to judge him. I was born in a village, he was born in a royal palace," Hun Sen says of his main political rival Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who he ousted as coalition partner in 1997. "If he looks down on Hun Sen he will look down on millions of people who are poorer than himself." But his life is not without They come from America to teach us about human rights and democracy, and I don't want to be their student," Hun Sen said in a typical anti-American outburst in 1997. Such rhetoric does not prevent his son, Hun Manet, from attending the priviledged US military school of West Point, nor Hun Sen attending the graduation ceremony as a proud father earlier this year. But although Hun Sen has emerged victorious from frequent bloody battles with often formidable opponents, he appears aware that it is in his peace time rule where he will be judged. "I want to be a strongman and do something for my country ... I want to build our economy like the other Southeast Asian strongmen did," Hun Sen commented before the fall of Indonesia's president Suharto. "So it is not yet correct to call me a strongman. I will recognise that I am a strongman when I succeed in eliminating the poverty of the Cambodian people and bring peace, economic development and security to Cambodia." Hun Sen once expounded Marxist dogma, but now espouses a capitalism in which almost anything goes. Quick to show a withering anger, he can charm dignitaries and trade earthy jokes with villagers moments later.
"I am just a transitional person who helped bring Cambodia from war to peace, bring Cambodia from dictatorship to democracy, bring Cambodia from planned economy to a free-market economy," Hun Sen said in a recent exclusive interview with The Associated Press.
Friends and foes agree on two points: The chess-playing workaholic is an extraordinary example of the self-made man and a cunning survivor.
"He's extremely intelligent and has proved more than capable of running circles around foreigners who have tried to influence him and domestic opponents who have tried to challenge him," say Stephen Heder, a scholar of Cambodia at London's Scholl of Oriental and African Studies.
The latest to learn were the UN legal experts who demanded that the UN dominate a proposed tribunal to try former leaders of the Khmer Rouge, the communist regime blamed for the deaths of more than 1 million people during its rule in the last 1970s.
The experts threatened to withhold the UN stamp of legitimacy from the trial unless the international body got its way.
Hun Sen answered that Cambodia is a real country and can put the architects of one of history's worst genocides on trial with or without UN help. He added that UN moral authority in Cambodia is limited, since the Khmer Rouge held the country's UN seat a decade after it was driven from power and its crimes became known .
When he became the world's youngest prime minister at age 33 in 1985, Hun Sen had survived five wounds from fighting with the Khmer Rouge against the US-backed Lon Nol government in the early 1970s. Artillery shrapnel blinded his left eye.
Hun Sen barely escaped execution at the hands of the Khmer Rouge after he turned against the regime in the
midst of brutal internal purges. He fled to Vietnam and returned with an invading Vietnamese army that toppled the Khmer Rouge in 1979. He kept the Vietnamese from taking over Cambodia completely during their decade-long occupation and rose to the top of a Hanoi-style regime that fought a Hanoi-style regime that fought a Khmer Rouge dominated resistance coalition until 1991.
Even after losing a UN-sponsored election in 1993, the son of poor farmers who never finished high scholl out maneuvered his chief political
rival, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, to retain the job of co-prime minister and keep hold on the levers of power.
"The real success of a man is not money or weapons," Hun Sen said in the interview. 'To me the important point is to make the right assessment and to find the right solution. That is why I have been successful."
Others differ. Lao Mong Hay. executive director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy, describes Hun Sen as "a Machiavellian prince," a compelling communicator and "a Maoist in that he believes power comes from the barrel of the gun."
He is both a competent political administrator and a ruthless political criminal," say Heder.
Sam Rainsy, a pro-democracy advocate can now Hun Sen's main political rival, calls the prime minister a "murderer," charging he ordered a 1997 grenade attack at a Sam Rainsy rally that killed 16 people.
A direct link to Hun Sen has not been proven in that case, nor in the killing of some 100 officials of Prince Ranariddh's party after an uprising by Hun Sen supporters against the prince in 1997.
Cambodia ranks among the poorest of nations, with deep feudalistic foundations below new trappings of democracy.
Lao Mong Hay says Hun Sen presides over a patronage network, makes key decisions out of his residence and runs cabinet meetings at which nobody dares challenge his authority.
But noting Hun Sen's age, 48, and past growth in influence and ability, Lao Mong Hay believes the premier is capable of initiating reform and economic improvements-as long as changes do not undermine his power.
Pointing to piles of reports on his desk, the chain-smoking Hun Sen said: 'The hot war that confronts us now is the war against poverty. I want to devote most of my remaining time to social-economic development."
Even his worst enemies concede Hun Sen puts in a great deal of time on the job, starting the day at 7 am and rarely going to bed before 2 am. When sleeping pills don't work, Hun Sen said he will work on until 4 am.
One extracurricular passion is writing lyrics for songs, sometimes jotting them down in a helicopter or car on inspection trips. "My experiences make me write sentimental songs," he said.
By Cambodia Daily 2000
Cambodia's Dictator: Nowhere to Run; Nowhere to Hide!
Cambodia's dictator, Hun Sen, may soon find he has nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. General Augusto Pinochet, Chile's former dictator, was arrested in London and is being held on an international warrant for extradition to Spain. Pinochet is accused of presiding over genocide, torture and kidnappings committed by his secret police after he seized power in a military coup, ousting President Salvador Allende. Allende, although democratically elected, was supported by the Soviet KGB and communist Cuba. Hun Sen is guilty of the same litany of crimes, but to a greater degree, which makes him a prime candidate for similar prosecution.
As pointed out in the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, "Leaders who trample on the human rights of others can be held to account anywhere in the world. We must take note that this is the way of the modern world. ... If a dictatorship is responsible for crimes against humanity, those responsible are being brought to justice by the international community. An accord was adopted in July that established an international war crimes tribunal for such a purpose. The atrocities the tribunal was to specifically address are primarily those in Bosnia and in African countries. But the approach is appropriate to bring to justice dictatorial regimes like that of Pinochet involving such crimes anywhere..."
Not only has Spain issued an international warrant for Pinochet's arrest, but six other European countries including France and Germany have followed suite, and the United States Department of Justice is contemplating similar action. Also, the Cuban American National Foundation is testing the resolve of Spain to pursue dictators, using Madrid's action against Gen. Pinochet as a basis for bringing criminal charges against Fidel Castro. The plaintiffs include Castro opponents in exile in Spain and Spanish relatives of Cubans executed or imprisoned because of anti-Castro activities. Similar charges can now be brought against Hun Sen by relatives of his victims living in France, Australia, the United States and elsewhere.
Hun Sen's crimes include: participation in the Khmer Rouge genocide during Pol Pot's reign as a military commander in the eastern zone; implementing the genocidal K5 plan as a Vietnamese puppet during their bloody occupation of Cambodia; leading the July 1998 coup in Cambodia that resulted in the extra-judicial murder of over 100 members of the democratically elected opposition; and as the Commander-in-Chief, ordering the recent bloody-repressive crackdown on democratic demonstrators in Phnom-Penh in which at least 34 people were killed and another 53 others simply disappeared. At the same time, Hun Sen's henchmen also tortured and murdered several reverend Buddhist Monks.
Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a r{missing words}tions, H.R. Res. 533, condemning Hun Sen for both his past and current crimes, and his culpability for violations of international law. A similar resolution, Sen. Res. 309, is pending in the U.S. Senate. Appallingly, U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Kenneth Quinn tried to assuage Hun Sen's fears by assuring him that neither of these Resolutions were binding by law. What Quinn forgot to tell him is unlike Hun Sen's kangaroo courts, justice systems in the U.S., and in other democracies, can act independent of the political systems. Although Cambodia's dictator purports to support bringing Khmer Rouge leaders before an international tribunal, he only wants three Pol Pot holdouts, Ta Mok, Khieu Samphan and Noun Chea--who have yet to submit to Hun Sen's command--brought to trail. However, Hun Sen wants them tried only in the inept and corrupt courts in Cambodia that he controls. Trying Khmer Rouge leaders could lead to his downfall, for invariability, some may "rat" on Hun Sen for they know his real role in the Khmer Rouge's hierarchical during the Cambodian genocide.
Although Hun Sen claims he had no role in the Khmer Rouge genocide, others say differently. According to a an October 30, 1989 article in The Washington Post, one eastern zone witness states, "Hun Sen...and the troops under his command killed indiscriminately anyone in their way." In Kompong Cham Province, they "cut the throats of critically wounded at the city hospital. During the battle to relive the provincial capital...my special forces unit discovered hundreds of bodies of men, women and children, young and old, including Buddhist Monks, who had been first tortured and then killed--some executed by a gunshot to the back of the head, others chopped to death with hoes, still others strangled to death or suffocated by plastic bags tied over their heads."
And Hun Sen, as Secretary General of the Cambodian Communist party during the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia from 1984-1989, was responsible for the deaths of "tens of thousands of victims." [This is a far greater number than the 3,000 killed or disappeared during Gen. Pinochet's 17 year rule.] According to witnesses, Hun Sen played a major role in implementing the K5 Plan during the Vietnamese occupation. Described as a "new genocide," Cambodians were formed into forced labor brigades to build an "Asian Wall" along the Thai border, where they died by the "tens of thousands" of starvation, exhaustion, disease, and land mine blasts. With no training and no tools, they were forced into the fields and forests to clear mines, more often than not, blown to pieces when they stepped on mines. If anyone tried to flee, they were shot on the spot. The "Wall," some eight hundred kilometers, was to serve as a "defense line" for the Vietnamese troops against Polpotist bandits in the forests. This all took place during a little-known period in Cambodian history: the time from 1979-1989, after the Pol Pot regime and during the Vietnamese occupation. "Although overshadowed by the great genocide which took place between 1975 and 1978 under Pol Pot, the subsequent period also brought genocide of the same form, though of a lesser scope. It was perpetrated by Pol Pot's successors and former colleagues, among them Hun Sen." [See Marie Alexandrine Martin's "Cambodia, a new colony for exploitation;" Indochina Report--"The military occupation of Kampuchea;" Philippe Pacquet's "Nouveau Genocide;" and Esmeralda Luciolli's "Le Mur de Bambou-Le Cambodge apres Pol Pot"]
Nevertheless, Hun Sen has his defenders. One of them, Ben Kiernan, heads the U.S. funded Cambodian Genocide Program. He claims he has uncovered no evidence that Hun Sen was involved in the genocide. However, this would have been impossible, for the Khmer Rouge's policy was kill or be killed. One can only wonder what Kiernan's motives are. "Kiernan spent most of the mid-1970s, when the Khmer Rouge was in power, extolling its ideology and trying to discredit reports of Khmer Rouge atrocities." He was quoted as saying, "the Khmer Rouge movement is not the monster that the press have recently made it out to be."
According to The Wall Street Journal, in 1995, Kiernan came into possession of a huge cache of previously unexamined documents in Phnom Penh. It was thought that some of them related to American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam War. However, Kiernan refused to share them with the Department of Defense, even upon urging from Kiernan's funders, the Department of State. This gave rise to the suspicion that the documents may be incriminating to Hun Sen. He was senior military commander of the eastern zone, where numerous Americans became missing, a number of POWs were known to have been held, and several POWs murdered.
General Pinochet may have one saving grace, that is he is credited as being the father of modern day democracy and for catapulting Chile's economy from a static socialist one to one of the most prosperous in Latin America. He remains quite popular in Chile, and he maintains the status of Senator for Life.
Hun Sen should take this page from Chile's history book, and emulate General Pinochet. If Hun Sen turned his dictatorship into a liberal democracy, and worked with opposition leaders Prince Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy in rebuilding Cambodia's shattered economy; stopped the extra-judicial killings and brought the ones guilty for these crimes to justice; stopped the drug running; halted the illegal logging that is undermining Cambodia's food security; and turned over all of the Khmer Rouge leaders for trial by an international tribunal; he too might be pardoned and voted Senator for life. If not, Hun Sen may soon find he has nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
By Michael BenMr. Benge spent 11 years in Southeast Asia, over five years as a Prisoner of War-- 1968-1973. He is a diligent student of regional affairs, and works closely with the Cambodian-American community. For efforts in rescuing several Americans before his capture, he received the State Department's highest award for heroism and a second one for valor.
As pointed out in the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, "Leaders who trample on the human rights of others can be held to account anywhere in the world. We must take note that this is the way of the modern world. ... If a dictatorship is responsible for crimes against humanity, those responsible are being brought to justice by the international community. An accord was adopted in July that established an international war crimes tribunal for such a purpose. The atrocities the tribunal was to specifically address are primarily those in Bosnia and in African countries. But the approach is appropriate to bring to justice dictatorial regimes like that of Pinochet involving such crimes anywhere..."
Not only has Spain issued an international warrant for Pinochet's arrest, but six other European countries including France and Germany have followed suite, and the United States Department of Justice is contemplating similar action. Also, the Cuban American National Foundation is testing the resolve of Spain to pursue dictators, using Madrid's action against Gen. Pinochet as a basis for bringing criminal charges against Fidel Castro. The plaintiffs include Castro opponents in exile in Spain and Spanish relatives of Cubans executed or imprisoned because of anti-Castro activities. Similar charges can now be brought against Hun Sen by relatives of his victims living in France, Australia, the United States and elsewhere.
Hun Sen's crimes include: participation in the Khmer Rouge genocide during Pol Pot's reign as a military commander in the eastern zone; implementing the genocidal K5 plan as a Vietnamese puppet during their bloody occupation of Cambodia; leading the July 1998 coup in Cambodia that resulted in the extra-judicial murder of over 100 members of the democratically elected opposition; and as the Commander-in-Chief, ordering the recent bloody-repressive crackdown on democratic demonstrators in Phnom-Penh in which at least 34 people were killed and another 53 others simply disappeared. At the same time, Hun Sen's henchmen also tortured and murdered several reverend Buddhist Monks.
Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a r{missing words}tions, H.R. Res. 533, condemning Hun Sen for both his past and current crimes, and his culpability for violations of international law. A similar resolution, Sen. Res. 309, is pending in the U.S. Senate. Appallingly, U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Kenneth Quinn tried to assuage Hun Sen's fears by assuring him that neither of these Resolutions were binding by law. What Quinn forgot to tell him is unlike Hun Sen's kangaroo courts, justice systems in the U.S., and in other democracies, can act independent of the political systems. Although Cambodia's dictator purports to support bringing Khmer Rouge leaders before an international tribunal, he only wants three Pol Pot holdouts, Ta Mok, Khieu Samphan and Noun Chea--who have yet to submit to Hun Sen's command--brought to trail. However, Hun Sen wants them tried only in the inept and corrupt courts in Cambodia that he controls. Trying Khmer Rouge leaders could lead to his downfall, for invariability, some may "rat" on Hun Sen for they know his real role in the Khmer Rouge's hierarchical during the Cambodian genocide.
Although Hun Sen claims he had no role in the Khmer Rouge genocide, others say differently. According to a an October 30, 1989 article in The Washington Post, one eastern zone witness states, "Hun Sen...and the troops under his command killed indiscriminately anyone in their way." In Kompong Cham Province, they "cut the throats of critically wounded at the city hospital. During the battle to relive the provincial capital...my special forces unit discovered hundreds of bodies of men, women and children, young and old, including Buddhist Monks, who had been first tortured and then killed--some executed by a gunshot to the back of the head, others chopped to death with hoes, still others strangled to death or suffocated by plastic bags tied over their heads."
And Hun Sen, as Secretary General of the Cambodian Communist party during the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia from 1984-1989, was responsible for the deaths of "tens of thousands of victims." [This is a far greater number than the 3,000 killed or disappeared during Gen. Pinochet's 17 year rule.] According to witnesses, Hun Sen played a major role in implementing the K5 Plan during the Vietnamese occupation. Described as a "new genocide," Cambodians were formed into forced labor brigades to build an "Asian Wall" along the Thai border, where they died by the "tens of thousands" of starvation, exhaustion, disease, and land mine blasts. With no training and no tools, they were forced into the fields and forests to clear mines, more often than not, blown to pieces when they stepped on mines. If anyone tried to flee, they were shot on the spot. The "Wall," some eight hundred kilometers, was to serve as a "defense line" for the Vietnamese troops against Polpotist bandits in the forests. This all took place during a little-known period in Cambodian history: the time from 1979-1989, after the Pol Pot regime and during the Vietnamese occupation. "Although overshadowed by the great genocide which took place between 1975 and 1978 under Pol Pot, the subsequent period also brought genocide of the same form, though of a lesser scope. It was perpetrated by Pol Pot's successors and former colleagues, among them Hun Sen." [See Marie Alexandrine Martin's "Cambodia, a new colony for exploitation;" Indochina Report--"The military occupation of Kampuchea;" Philippe Pacquet's "Nouveau Genocide;" and Esmeralda Luciolli's "Le Mur de Bambou-Le Cambodge apres Pol Pot"]
Nevertheless, Hun Sen has his defenders. One of them, Ben Kiernan, heads the U.S. funded Cambodian Genocide Program. He claims he has uncovered no evidence that Hun Sen was involved in the genocide. However, this would have been impossible, for the Khmer Rouge's policy was kill or be killed. One can only wonder what Kiernan's motives are. "Kiernan spent most of the mid-1970s, when the Khmer Rouge was in power, extolling its ideology and trying to discredit reports of Khmer Rouge atrocities." He was quoted as saying, "the Khmer Rouge movement is not the monster that the press have recently made it out to be."
According to The Wall Street Journal, in 1995, Kiernan came into possession of a huge cache of previously unexamined documents in Phnom Penh. It was thought that some of them related to American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam War. However, Kiernan refused to share them with the Department of Defense, even upon urging from Kiernan's funders, the Department of State. This gave rise to the suspicion that the documents may be incriminating to Hun Sen. He was senior military commander of the eastern zone, where numerous Americans became missing, a number of POWs were known to have been held, and several POWs murdered.
General Pinochet may have one saving grace, that is he is credited as being the father of modern day democracy and for catapulting Chile's economy from a static socialist one to one of the most prosperous in Latin America. He remains quite popular in Chile, and he maintains the status of Senator for Life.
Hun Sen should take this page from Chile's history book, and emulate General Pinochet. If Hun Sen turned his dictatorship into a liberal democracy, and worked with opposition leaders Prince Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy in rebuilding Cambodia's shattered economy; stopped the extra-judicial killings and brought the ones guilty for these crimes to justice; stopped the drug running; halted the illegal logging that is undermining Cambodia's food security; and turned over all of the Khmer Rouge leaders for trial by an international tribunal; he too might be pardoned and voted Senator for life. If not, Hun Sen may soon find he has nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
By Michael BenMr. Benge spent 11 years in Southeast Asia, over five years as a Prisoner of War-- 1968-1973. He is a diligent student of regional affairs, and works closely with the Cambodian-American community. For efforts in rescuing several Americans before his capture, he received the State Department's highest award for heroism and a second one for valor.
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