By Lindsay Murdoch
The Sydney Morning Herald
Cry
for help? ... a girl paints "SOS" under a portrait of the visiting US
President. Top left: Hun Sen this year, and below, with dissident Khmer
Rouge leader Ieng Sary in 1996.
PHNOM PENH: Hun Sen's finest hour has arrived.
Often overlooked as one of the world's most notorious
autocrats, the former Khmer Rouge commander is set to co-chair with US
president Barack Obama a meeting of world leaders that will shape the
future of relations between Asia, China and the United States.
Labelled a quisling "one-eyed puppet" of the Vietnamese when
he became prime minister of Cambodia 27 years ago, Mr Hun Sen is hosting
the East Asian Summit while accused of having placed his country's
close relationship with China above the interests of fellow members of
the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations.
If history is any guide, Mr Hun Sen, a highly intelligent but
ruthless strongman, will emerge from the meeting in Phnom Penh on
Tuesday will some of his credibility restored after his siding earlier
this year with China on territorial disputes in the South China Sea
which particularly upset Vietnam and the Philippines and made Malaysia,
Indonesia and Singapore wary of his ties to Beijing.
For
that, he will be able to thank Indonesia, which has drawn up a
non-contentious draft code of conduct for nations involved in the
disputes that could open the way for talks.
But Mr Obama, fresh from his re-election triumph, is under
pressure from a powerful group of Washington legislators and
international human rights activists to take a tough approach with Mr
Hun Sen during the first visit to Cambodia by a US president.
Leading calls for Mr Obama to demand systematic reforms in
Cambodia, Human Rights Watch says Mr Hun Sen's violent and authoritarian
rule over more than two decades has resulted in countless killings and
other serious abuses.
In Washington, legislators including Senator Patrick Leahy,
chairman of a committee that funds US affairs overseas, have signed a
letter urging Mr Obama to publicly express concerns about Cambodia's
deteriorating human rights situation, saying failure to speak out would
undermine the US's support for Asian democrats, to the benefit of Mr Hun
Sen and China.
Photo opportunities at the summit are likely to be
diplomatically sticky moments for the US president who will cop flak if
he is seen giving credibility to a man who has remained in power through
politically motivated violence, control of security forces and the
judicial system, massive corruption and the tacit support of foreign
powers.
Diplomats and long-time residents of Phnom Penh say the
secret to Mr Hun Sen's rule is summed up in one word: fear, which is
pervasive in Cambodian society.
He destroys his political opponents and critics. His power is
so great that merely mentioning someone's name can see them arrested
and jailed by a deeply unwaveringly judicial system he has politicised.
Last month Mom Sonando, the owner of a radio station, was
sentenced to 20 years' jail for voicing support for the victims of
land seizures.
But Mr Hun Sen has also brought stability and economic
progress to a country that has endured revolutions, civil war, invasions
and vast social upheaval, including the Khmer Rouge's "killing fields"
in the 1970s when an estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died
from disease or starvation.
The Cambodian People's Party backing him is a former
communist party turned capitalist organisation that has retained its
pervasive security apparatus down to the village level.
Under Mr Hun Sen's iron-fisted rule Cambodia has been
transformed from a war-torn basket case to one of Asia's most promising
economies. A booming garment industry, surging tourist arrivals and the
development of low-end manufacturing is under-pinning a $13 billion
economy.
As he has become one of the world's 10 longest serving
political leaders, 61-year-old Mr Hun Sen has become increasingly
powerful at home while famous for making long, rambling televised
speeches attacking his perceived opponents and critics, telling jokes
and revealing his thinking on issues such as sensitive border disputes
or Cambodian life.
He comes across as a man completely in charge, an orator who
flies in a helicopter and lives in a fortress outside Phnom Penh,
guarded by a 1500-strong security force.
As billions of Chinese money has poured into Cambodia over
the past decade, Beijing has become Mr Hun Sen's closest ally. He
embarrassed his ASEAN colleagues on the South China Sea issue at a
meeting chaired by Cambodia in July by blocking a communique mentioning
the disputes.
But diplomats say Mr Hun Sen is a fiercely nationalist
patriot, not beholden to anyone, who has declared he wants to stay in
power for another 30 years, by which time he will be 90.
"He will take the money but that doesn't mean he is any
nation's stooge ... he acts in the interests of Cambodia," a diplomat in
Phnom Penh says. "The Chinese are not in the charity business ... they
called in their chits on the South China Sea and Hun Sen paid up," the
diplomat says.
Mr Hun Sen, who lost an eye while fighting for the Khmer
Rouge, before fleeing to Vietnam and returning to Cambodia on the
coat-tails of a Vietnamese invasion in 1979, is an enigmatic figure who
plays chess, chain smokes and writes songs.
When he learnt one of his daughters was a lesbian he kicked
her out of home. When a political opponent announced his intention to
return from exile he threatened to blow up the plane.
When a journalist suggested he should be worried about
dictators falling in the Arab Spring, he replied: "I not only weaken the
opposition, I'm going to make them dead ... and if anyone is strong
enough to try to hold a demonstration, I will beat all those dogs and
put them in a cage."
Mr Hun Sen staged a bloody coup in 1997 against his
royalist coalition partners. Human Rights Watch said the coup was
followed by a wave of extrajudicial killings, cremations, torture and
forced detentions by Mr Hun Sen's forces.
Doing business usually means giving kickbacks to the Hun Sen
government's cronies, often millions of dollars. Large bribes are paid
to government officials in the form of gifts, which are still not
illegal in Cambodia.
The country ranks 164th of 182 countries on Transparency
International's Corruption Index. The transparency advocacy group says
Cambodia's corruption easily surpasses that of its neighbours and could
soon be worse than Burma's.
Mr Hun Sen built a mansion in Phnom Penh but doesn't live there.
Diplomats say he always keeps his promises and is well read about issues before meetings.
Amid growing dissent over huge grabs of land across Cambodia
by large companies, some of them Chinese, Mr Hun Sen has recruited 3000
students to go into the countryside to survey land and give away plots
to poor people.
He has in mind elections due next year.
Ahead of the summit, which opens this weekend, Mr Hun Sen has
deployed thousands of troops across Phnom Penh, leaving nothing to
chance for his moment on the world stage. Street beggars have been
rounded up and taken to a former detention centre outside the city.
Roadside slums have been cleared.
Meetings by organisations critical of the government have been disrupted.
However Kurt Campbell, the top US diplomat for East Asia,
says the US will not shy away from raising its concerns over human
rights during Mr Obama's visit.
Human rights activists suggest Mr Obama could start with a
grenade attack on a rally led by opposition leader Sam Rainsy on March
30 1997, a date remembered each year as "impunity day" because critics
say it illustrates the government's failure to bring to justice those
responsible for numerous extrajudicial killings of labour leaders,
journalists and opposition leaders since 1992.
The FBI sent a team of agents to investigate the attacks which left 16 people dead and 150 injured.
Mr Hun Sen did not allow the agents to wrap up their
investigations, ordering them out of the country after two months. But
it was not before they had concluded the chain of command for the
attacks led all the way to the prime minister.
3 comments:
Is Hun Sen a canny or a cunning dictator?
He is definitely not canny because he is as cunning as an old fox.
Any dictator, let alone a dictator and a traitor lives on borrowed time.
To hold on to his power and wealth, Hun Sen needs foreign monies and international supports.
The President of the United States can spearhead the systematic reforms in Cambodia.
Due to the American interests on the South China Sea issues, President Obama may refrain from exerting too much pressures on Hun Sen, until he is no longer the Chair of ASEAN in 2013.
Dear President,
Must hit Kmeng Wat head, he lies you and cheated Cambodian and International people, he relies on Vietcong and Chinese support, he killed alot of Cambodian even his mistress so please overthrow him from the power like Sadam Husen then Cambodia will have a peace and free life forever
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