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summated by marriage. Of Hun Sen's six children, five have been married off in politic-
ally auspicious arrangements. Hun Sen's youngest daughter Hun Mali is married to Sok
Puthyvuth, a son of Sok An. Sok An's other son is married to Cham Krasna, a daughter of
Cham Prasidh. Hun Sen's nieces and nephews are similarly enmeshed. In this way, olig-
archs are linked to ministers, police chiefs to party power-brokers. Money circulates with-
in a nexus of political and economic connections in which allies are not just friends—but
family too. 12
As Hun Sen's rule has taken on dynastic overtones, his own sons have been man-
euvered into key positions. The heir apparent is his eldest son, Hun Manet, who graduated
from the US military academy at West Point in 1999. At just 36 years of age, he now
serves as a lieutenant-general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, the deputy com-
mander of his father's bodyguard unit, and the head of a national counterterrorism task
force set up with US funds in 2008. Hun Sen's second son, Hun Manith, 33, also edu-
cated in the US, has been promoted to the rank of brigadier-general. The youngest of the
three, 31-year-old Hun Many, is apparently being groomed for a political career, heading
the Union of Youth Federations of Cambodia, a CPP-aligned youth organization. He also
stood as a CPP candidate in the 2013 election.
Crowning this tree of elite family connections are Hun Sen and Bun Rany. No one
knows the true extent of the Hun family's wealth—one expatriate businessman pegged
it at “several billion” dollars—but the “royal” couple sit at the point where all the most
lucrative strings converge. Hun Sen's personal business interests are opaque, hidden un-
der the names of his relatives and children or concealed behind shell companies that pub-
lish no annual reports. During an audit of Canadia Bank, which counts Hun Sen's daugh-
ter Hun Mana among its roster of shareholders, one foreign auditor recalled that staff at
PricewaterhouseCoopers were warned off sending financial confirmations—third-party
requests often made during financial audits—to the prime minister or members of his
family. 13
The Cambodian first lady occupies a particularly important place in the constellation of
power surrounding her husband. As chair of the Cambodian Red Cross (CRC), the largest
charity organization in the country, Bun Rany controls what might be termed the “human-
itarian wing” of the CPP. The CRC's website is a spectacle of self-regard, featuring pic-
tures of Bun Rany—pink lipstick, sculpted black hair, diamond earrings—presenting gifts
to grateful villagers. Though the CRC claims to be neutral and independent—two core
principles of the International Committee for the Red Cross, founded in 1863—critics al-
lege that it operates as little more than a front for the CPP. After all, Cambodians don't
need to be told who Bun Rany represents when she turns up in their village to hand out
medicine or sacks of rice. The same is true of her daughter Hun Mana, whose Bayon
Foundation offers another “charitable” channel for party patronage.
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