Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia

Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia; By Harish C. Mehta and Julie B. Mehta; Graham Brash Singapore, December 1999; 287 pp; US$19

JAKARTA (JP): For more than two decades, Cambodians suffered massive death and destruction resulting from foreign invasion and civil war, and found themselves caught in the crossfire between those who perpetrated genocide and those who pronounced they would save them.

Finally, the peace returned to the war-ravaged country with the emergence of a strongman, Hun Sen, on the Cambodian chessboard. This book is the first biography of Hun Sen, whose private life, like the dreaded Khmer Rouge chief Pol Pot, was a guarded secret until recently. Of course, Hun Sen is not only a controversial figure but also a man of contrasts. For some, he is a traitor and for others a messiah.

Written by distinguished journalist Harish C. Mehta and his wife Julie Mehta, Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia reveals interesting stories, some of them perhaps for the first time, about the long conflict. Hun Sen enriched the work with his lengthy personal interviews and his wife Bun Rany, brother Hun Neng, relatives, friends and teachers also supplemented his efforts.

A major portion of the book is devoted to the fast rise of Hun Sen to the center stage of politics, from a rural boy to the country's leader at the age of 33. It explains how Hun Sen -- an intelligent guerrilla fighter, cunning politician, great strategist, addict of chess and smoking -- escaped from the clutches of the xenophobic Khmer Rouge and defected to neighboring Vietnam, which helped him gain power in his homeland.

What makes this book so interesting that it is not a hagiography but a critical biography of Hun Sen. It is a must read for Cambodian observers, especially students of Southeast Asian studies, and will be interesting to the public in general. (V. Anjaiah)