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rhetoric. When Prime Minister Chan Si died in Moscow in late 1984, the 33-year-old was
the most obvious replacement. On January 15, 1985, he was appointed prime minister.
Hun Sen's ascent was marked by hard work, ingenuity, single-mindedness, and an un-
canny ability to bend with the political wind. “Hun Sen is a man who can adapt himself
to any situation, as long as he can win something,” one former CPP official told me. “He
doesn't believe in any ideology; he believes in himself, and he tries to turn any situation
to his profit.” For Kong Korm, Hun Sen was “a young person who bent and reflected to
each situation for his own interests.” Where figures like Pen Sovan bucked against Viet-
namese control, Hun Sen made himself indispensable to the occupying power.
In the early 1980s, under Ambassador Ngo Dien's guiding hand, Hun Sen signed a
string of sensitive border pacts culminating in a controversial border delimitation treaty
in December 1985. Hanoi hoped that the agreement would put to bed disputes over land
and sea borders that had troubled its relations with Cambodia since independence. By any
measure the 1985 treaty was grossly unequal, “negotiated” at both ends by Vietnamese
officials who utilized French colonial maps to the detriment of long-standing Cambodian
claims. Hun Sen was widely criticized for his involvement in the border pacts. From the
Thai border camps came accusations that he was a quisling, ceding Khmer land to the
historical enemy. There were also concerns from within his own party. But by defending
sensitive border agreements at home and abroad, Hun Sen showed his overseers that he
could be trusted to look out for their interests.
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Hun Sen's critics still speak darkly of his relationship with the Vietnamese. Pen Sovan
claims that when he was arrested in 1981, Hun Sen was there to read out the charges.
Sovan also accused Vietnamese agents of the death of Prime Minister Chan Si at the end
of 1984, which smoothed Hun Sen's path to the leadership. According to Sovan's version
of events, Chan Si, a student of his from Hanoi, was poisoned at a state function marking
Vietnam's National Defense Day on December 22—a charge that has never been proven
without strong Vietnamese backing, but his close cooperation with Hanoi made sense for
both sides. Hun Sen's political skills were crucial to a Vietnamese government that was
trying to build up a viable client state in Cambodia. In return they gave their ambitious
protégé what he craved most of all: power.
Hun Sen also chose his local allies well. Shortly after his appointment as foreign min-
ister, he put out a call for young intellectuals and technocrats—basically, anyone who had
studied overseas prior to 1975—and gave them jobs in his ministry. “Revolutionary” cre-
dentials were irrelevant. In contrast to figures like Heng Samrin and Chea Sim, who doled
out jobs to flunkies and relatives, Hun Sen also “tried to recruit the best … all the people
who could speak French or English or had high education,” said Khieu Kanharith, one of
