Hun Sen's vanity is a danger to regional solidarity

(Photo: AP)

(Photo: AFP)

EDITORIAL

December 29, 2009
The Nation

As the Thai-Cambodian dispute continues, Asean may have to step in to mediate

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen should know Thailand as well as anybody, having experienced and dealt with more than a dozen Thai prime ministers. He said shamelessly the other day that the Abhisit government was planning a coup to topple him. Also, that Thailand wanted to wage war on Cambodia. He cited an alleged confidential briefing paper from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, claiming there was a Thai strategic plan against his country to unseat him. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was quick to deny that there is any such plan.

Hun Sen should know for a fact that the person who is really capable of toppling him is his recently appointed economic adviser -Thaksin Shinawatra. In the early 1990s, everybody knew that Thaksin, as a business tycoon, was involved in a short-lived plot to dislodge Hun Sen because of a conflict of interest over mobile telephone contracts.

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