Prime Minister Hunsan In Cambodia

Hun Sen (born August 5, 1952; officially on April 4, 1951) is the Prime Minister of Cambodia.

He is one of the key leaders of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), which has governed Cambodia since the Vietnamese-backed overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. He was a former Khmer Rouge who escaped to Vietnam before 1979 in order to call the Vietnamese to overthrow the other Khmer Rouge. Since the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1993, the CPP has been in coalition with the royalist Funcinpec party and as senior partner since 1997.

His current, full, honorary title is: Samdach Akkak Moha Sena Padey Dekjo Hun Sen. The title "Samdech" was attached to his name in 1993 by King Norodom Sihanouk. It is only an honorary title and does not give him further powers. He has a glass eye, the result of a wound sustained during the Khmer Rouge offensive against Phnom Penh in April 1975.

Hun Sen was selected by the Vietnamese for a leadership role in the rebel army and government they were creating for Cambodia. When the Khmer Rouge regime was overthrown, Hun Sen was appointed as foreign minister of the Vietnamese-installed People's Republic of Kampuchea/State of Cambodia (PRK/SOC) in 1979 and in 1985 he was made Chief of the Minister Council, prime minister, after the death of his chairman Chan Sy until 1990, with a brief interruption from 1986 until 1987. As foreign minister, Hun Sen was a key figure in the Paris Peace Talks which brokered peace in Cambodia.

From 1993 until 1998 he was co-prime minister with Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Norodom Ranariddh was First Primer Minister and he was second Prime Minister. However, the actual power lied in the hand of Hun Sen for most of the high officers in Cambodia including the military are CPP members which led Norodom Ranariddh to be jealous of his co-prime minister and led to power struggle and directly resulting in the July 1997 military conflict.

In 1997, the coalition was shaken by tensions between Ranariddh and Hun Sen. Funcinpec began to collaborate with the remaining Khmer Rouge rebels (with whom it had been allied against Hun Sen's Vietnamese-backed government during the 1980s), aiming to absorb them into its ranks.

In response, Hun Sen launched the 1997 Cambodian Coup, replacing Ranariddh with Ung Hout as the First Prime Minister and himself still as the Second Prime Minister until his CPP party victory in 1998 election and becoming the country's sole prime minister in 1998. During that year the media has broadcaste him as the Strong Man of Cambodia which he later said it was too early and that the July 1997 merely an event that the government took action against the anarchy paramilitary that sponsored and brough to Phnom Penh by Norodom Ranariddh. It was not a coup after all.

The elections of July 2003 resulted in a larger majority in the National Assembly for the CPP, with FUNCINPEC losing seats to the CPP and the Sam Rainsy Party.However, CPP's majority was short of the two thirds constitutionally required for the CPP to form a government alone. This deadlock was overcome and a new CPP-FUNCINPEC coalition was formed in mid-2004. When Norodom Ranariddh was chosen to be the head of National Assembly and Hun Sen become again sole prime minister of Cambodia.

He joined the International Parliament for Safety and Peace, as Senator for Life in October 2007.

Some political opponents of Hun Sen accuse him of being a puppet of Hanoi. This is due to his position in the government created by Vietnam while Cambodia was under Vietnamese military occupation and the fact that he was a prominent figure in the People's Revolutionary Party of Kampuchea (now known as the Cambodian People's Party), which governed Cambodia as a one-party state under Vietnamese military occupation from 1979 until the elections in 1993. Hun Sen and his supporters reject such charges, saying that he represents only the Cambodian people. More recent political opponents outside the country know him, his family and CPP for being a corrupt dictator who controls the country by force.[citation needed]

Hun Sen's government has also been known for carrying out a fire sale of land to foreign investors in 2007-08 and the eviction of thousands of residents from their homes.

Hun Sen was implicated in corruption related to Cambodia's oil wealth and mineral resources in Global Witness 2009 report on Cambodia. He and his close associates were accused of carrying out secret negotiations with interested private parties and taking money from those who he would grant rights to exploit the resources. However, the prime minister and his government have denied this accusation and called it groundless.[citation needed]