Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
change.” Hun Sen was another Saddam Hussein, another dictator impeding the global
spread of democracy. Like Hussein, he had to go.
Ray had little time for the ideological noises coming out of Congress. For all of Hun
Sen's authoritarian excesses, Congress's stance had resulted in few positive changes. For
better or worse, then, Ray opted to deal with Cambodia's realities as he found them.
After 9/11, Cambodia assumed a new importance in Washington. In 2003 US authorities
learned that the Indonesian terrorist Hambali, responsible for the 2002 bombing in Bali,
had spent time hiding out in Phnom Penh. Since the US had no real relationship with the
Cambodian military, which was responsible for border control, Ray set about re-estab-
lishing ties with Hun Sen and getting Washington on board. For his own part, Hun Sen
quickly adapted to the rhetoric of the Bush administration. He pledged Cambodia's sup-
port in the War on Terror and raided mosques thought to be harboring radical Islamists.
In June 2003 Cambodia happily signed a so-called “Article 98 agreement,” promising not
to hand US citizens to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
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Ray found Cambodia's prime minister to be a man he could do business with. The two
men conversed in Vietnamese and shared an occasional game of golf. Grudgingly, Con-
gress came around. In Washington, one Congressman told Ray to make it clear that even
if Hun Sen could help fight Islamic extremism, he wanted the Cambodian leader to know
he had few friends on Capitol Hill. On his return to Phnom Penh, Ray met with Hun Sen
and delivered the Congressman's message. “He looked at me, he sort of laughed, and he
said, 'I can live with that.'” The moratorium on military assistance was lifted in 2005.
Relations have been on an incline ever since. In 2007, under Ray's successor Joseph
Mussomeli, the US resumed direct foreign assistance to the Cambodian government. The
Peace Corps arrived and there were visits of military ships for the first time in three
decades. This partnership continued following the Obama administration's much publi-
cized “pivot” toward Asia, aimed at counter-balancing the rise of China. In 2008 Hun
Sen gave his 35-year-old son, Hun Manet—a graduate of the US Military Academy at
West Point—command of a National Counterterrorism Special Force, established with
US assistance. The following year the two countries exchanged defense attachés and sub-
sequently initiated Angkor Sentinel, an annual joint military exercise. The US remained
one of Cambodia's main trade partners, taking the lion's share of its garment exports. By
2013 the United States had earmarked $70 million in aid for Cambodia. Most went to
NGOs, but the sum also included around $6 million in aid to the Cambodian military.
Washington had finally learnt to live with Hun Sen.
But American policy toward Cambodia remained contradictory. While the State De-
partment and the Pentagon worked to build closer ties, hawks like Rohrabacher kept up
their Congressional chorus, denouncing Hun Sen and calling for cuts in aid. These in-
consistencies were on display in November 2012, when President Obama arrived in Ph-
