Cambodian strongman Hun Sen unveils monument to himself

Long-serving Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday inaugurated a monument marking the 1998 end of the threat from the communist Khmer Rouge movement, which ruinously ruled the country in the late 1970s and then carried on a guerilla war.

The monument just north of Phnom Penh, the capital, is dedicated to what Hun Sen called his “Win-Win Policy,” which saw the last two top Khmer Rouge leaders surrender in December 1998, eliminating the group as a political force and security threat.

Hun Sen, in his supreme military commander’s uniform of a five-star general, said in a two-hour speech that he had “joined with other leaders and the people to turn our pitiful soil that used to be a killing zone into a safe land.”

But the monument’s highlighting of the activities of Hun Sen makes clear that it is also a celebration of his legacy. The base of the 54-metre-tall structure has sculpted panels depicting various scenes in his life, including him sitting in a circle of villagers eating rice, leading a group of soldiers out of a forest and lecturing in front of a blackboard.

In the nationally televised speech to a crowd that officials claimed numbered 40,000, Hun Sen said the peace he helped achieve in 1998 united the country “for the first time ever in its history,” and brought peace and economic prosperity.