The real panic seems to be his own. Hun Sen apparently fears that a trial could disturb the balance of power he has created within the country, an equilibrium that has left him on top after years of political and military conflict. To his credit, Hun Sen has brought peace to Cambodia after 30 years of fighting. But he still sees enemies both inside and outside his party, and in his mind, no doubt, they could somehow use the trial to destabilize him. When he speaks of a tribunal, he talks in circles. "Hun Sen has nothing to lose by a trial of the Khmer Rouge leaders--only to gain," he says about himself. "The problem is not the Khmer Rouge, but their relations with others. If we didn't need national reconciliation, I would not be scared of a trial." It's a position that isn't winning him many fans abroad. In Bangkok earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Washington "would disagree with Hun Sen ... that bringing these people to justice would be destabilizing for Cambodia. On the contrary, we think it is the only way to bring reconciliation."
Reconciliation is a strained concept in a country with such a brutal history. "It is the weakness of Cambodian politicians--you just have love or hate. Hun Sen is like that," says Khieu Kannarith, long an associate of the Prime Minister and currently State Secretary of Information. If Pol Pot was paranoid, Hun Sen has inherited some of that paranoia simply by being his enemy for 20 years. Hun Sen treats politics as he treats his favorite game, chess: there can be only one winner, and the art of the game is to think more moves ahead than your opponent. "In order to kill your enemies, you should know how to move your pawns," he says. "If you lead with your big pieces, you put them in danger." For Hun Sen there are no opponents, only enemies; no debate, only plots. And power has only two settings: all or nothing.
Hun Sen started with nothing. The villagers in Peam Koh Sna where he was born, four hours up the Mekong from Phnom Penh, remember him as a clever, quiet boy "with a talent to persuade people by speaking," says Chin Tho, a 58-year-old tobacco farmer. But Hun Sen's family was poorer than average, and he never finished school. To this day he is more at ease campaigning among farmers in the fields than in talking to suited politicians in the city. By 19 he was a company commander in the Khmer Rouge, with a pistol strapped to his hip, fighting the U.S.-backed government of Lon Nol. He survived the war, although he lost his left eye, and then survived the purges of an embittered Pol Pot by escaping to Vietnam. Many of the cadres who did not flee eventually were tortured to death in Phnom Penh's infamous Tuol Sleng prison.
Hun Sen returned after the 1979 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and became part of the Hanoi-backed government. He was mercilessly pilloried by Khmer Rouge propaganda as a puppet of the Vietnamese, Cambodia's longstanding enemies. This became a political liability after Hanoi withdrew and the U.N. staged elections in 1993: Hun Sen lost to Prince Norodom Ranariddh's party, which campaigned in the name of the ever-popular monarchy. But Hun Sen would again prove a survivor, bullying his way back into government by threatening civil war. A power-sharing agreement with Ranariddh became increasingly fractious, and in July 1997 Hun Sen staged a coup, driving his opponents--and many frightened foreigners--out of the country. Hun Sen found himself isolated and threatened by the international community, which cut off most aid to protest the coup and its aftermath. During those tumultuous weeks, Hun Sen's forces executed 100 or so of his opponents in cold blood.
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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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