(2 of 3)
The Prime Minister begins talking about himself in the third person. "Hun Sen has nothing to lose by a trial of the Khmer Rouge leaders--only to gain," he says. "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. We have to be cautious to avoid any panic among leaders of the Khmer Rouge." Hun Sen fears that a large-scale trial would disturb the balance he has achieved, one that has rabid guerrillas, royalists and former communists from his own party in check under his stringent authority. "For the first time in 30 years," he says, "Cambodia is at peace." U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright feels otherwise about a trial: "We think it is the only way to bring reconciliation." Hun Sen dismisses such disagreeableness. "If one wants to work with Hun Sen, one should study Hun Sen's resume closely," says the Prime Minister. "I don't like being pressed."
The more Hun Sen feels threatened, the more his dark side shows. After losing an election in 1993, he bullied his way into a coalition government and then, in July 1997, staged a coup that drove his opponents and erstwhile partners out of the country. The international community cut off most aid in protest to the bloodiness of the coup and the 100 or so executions that came after it. But Hun Sen survived all that.
The political killings have continued, and although Hun Sen denies Cambodia is "a country of impunity," his promises to investigate and arrest the killers have come to nothing. He may not have personally ordered the killings, but some of his lieutenants are widely feared: victims have been found with eyes gouged out or hands cut off, clearly tortured before they were killed. Says Christophe Peschoux of the U.N. Human Rights office in Phnom Penh: "It is the chronic problem of Cambodia. They cannot manage conflict. Either they use intermediaries, or they reach for the gun. They cannot sit down and discuss differences."
Hun Sen's life has been dominated by one issue: survival. Concern for himself, politically and physically, has been so overpowering that every decision he makes--from a car journey to the appointment of a general--is a function of "Will this make me safer?" He started with nothing. The villagers in his native Peam Koh Sna, four hours up the Mekong River from Phnom Penh, remember him as a clever, quiet boy. He displayed "a talent to persuade people by speaking," according to Chin Tho, 58, who farms tobacco along the river. But Hun Sen's family was poorer than average, and he never finished school. To this day, he is more at ease campaigning in the rice fields than talking politics in the city. And the Prime Minister, who is proud of a son about to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, likes to show off the honorary degrees he has been awarded by small colleges in California and Iowa.