Where Fear Reigns
Although his nation is finally at peace, Cambodia's Hun Sen seems jittery about his own security and wary of bringing Khmer Rouge leaders to justice
By TERRY McCARTHY Phnom Penh
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AP
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Hun Sen was ebullient. The Cambodian Prime Minister, better known for his brooding scowl and outbursts of temper, was presiding over his daughter's wedding, and he couldn't stop smiling. Five thousand guests sat at tables spread around the grounds of his home outside Phnom Penh; a large video screen had been installed so everyone could see what was happening at the head table. Hun Sen was doubly happy, he told the crowd. Not only was his daughter getting married, but that very day his troops had arrested Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge leader known as "the Butcher," who had been the last of the rebel commanders still at large in the jungle.
While his daughter might have wished for a less grim wedding toast, diplomats worried about something else: Hun Sen told the gathering Ta Mok would be tried in a Cambodian court--without mentioning the international tribunal the United Nations has been planning for months. Nor did he speak about arresting other Khmer Rouge leaders, collectively responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975 and '79. Most of them now live near the western town of Pailin, having supposedly "surrendered" to the government. In an interview with Time five days after the wedding, Hun Sen says he is "scared" of putting all the Khmer Rouge leaders on trial at this time. His words suggest that Ta Mok could become the scapegoat, while the other aging leaders evade justice, as did Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge's Brother Number One, who died last year in his house in the jungle.
A former Khmer Rouge cadre who defected to Vietnam and then fought a 20-year war against Pol Pot's guerrillas, Hun Sen has led a life dominated by one issue: survival. Fears for his political and physical health have been so overpowering that every decision he makes--from a simple car journey to the appointment of a general--seems to depend on whether it will increase his security. Not far from the wedding site stands a small building with dark glass windows and aerials on the roof: Hun Sen's emergency war room. He retreats here (it includes a small bedroom) during the outbursts of fighting that sporadically threaten his rule. "You see this?" says Cambodia's 47-year-old leader, pointing to a closet with a mirror on the front. "Inside is a secret trap door into the basement. When you are a soldier, you have to know the ways of escape."
Hun Sen is applying that principle to the momentous issue of putting Khmer Rouge leaders on trial for one of the century's worst crimes against humanity. Only two years ago, he requested U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's assistance in setting up an international tribunal to try the men. Last month three independent U.N. jurists presented Hun Sen with a report on how up to 30 Khmer Rouge officials could be put on trial in another Asian country. Yet after two decades of denouncing the "genocidal regime of Pol Pot," Hun Sen now is balking at such a plan--even though the enfeebled Khmer Rouge guerrillas have given up their futile jungle war. "We have no confidence in an international court of law," he says, adding that now isn't the time to pursue more arrests. "We have to be cautious to avoid any panic among leaders of the Khmer Rouge."
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R E L A T E D
L I N K S :
To Where Will the Killing Fields Lead?
Everyone wants to bring Khmer Rouge leaders to justice, so long as justice does not dig too deeply
--TIME Daily, Jan. 22, 1999
Apologies and Outrage
Cambodia's warm welcome for two Khmer Rouge ringleaders suggests justice won't come quickly
--TIME Asia, Jan. 11, 1999
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In Cambodia, Democracy for a Day
But as the dust settles after Sunday's vote, a question: Was the fix in?
--TIME Daily, July 30, 1998
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