Hun Sen flexes his power as Thai PM suspended
And we have another explosive scam report.
Hun Sen is saying the quiet part out loud. Let’s get into it.
Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, was suspended from her post Tuesday by the country’s Constitutional Court. The PM has 15 days to mount her defense while the court considers her dismissal on the grounds of “dishonesty and breaching ethical standards” related to the mysteriously “leaked” June 15 phone call with Hun Sen.
This is an obvious blow to the billionaire Shinawatra family, which has been central to Thai politics for more than two decades. It also represents a microcosm of the military-monarchy-dynasty conflict that has defined modern Thai politics: Since the early 2000s, the Thai public has seen two previous military coups against the Shinawatras, the dissolving of dozens of political parties, including the hugely popular Move Forward Party that won the 2023 election, and now two prime ministers in as many years.
But the episode also illustrates how Cambodia’s power structure functions.
When PM Hun Manet took power from his father in August 2023, a slew of articles pondered how ceremonial his rule would be. Profiles noted Manet’s Western education, his rapid rise through military ranks and “softer” personality compared to Hun Sen’s history as a Khmer Rouge soldier and fondness for brutal crackdowns against his critics. Would Hun Manet be a puppet of his father, or forge his own path? And how much power would Hun Sen really be willing to give up?
The answer seems to be hardly any power at all. Over the last 10 days, Hun Sen’s crash-bang behavior has not only potentially ousted the PM of a neighboring country, but also given us the clearest answer yet as to who’s really in charge.
Hun did not mince his words in early June when he sat on the ceremonial seat of the Senate president and clearly outlined his role in government. “Please do not be mistaken. Hun Sen has not lost power,” he said to nodding senators.
A little later in the speech, the big man maybe realized that he is sounding more commanding and authoritative than his eldest son, the prime minister of the country.
“I hope that the Prime Minister will forgive me for my words that seem to be infringing on the Prime Minister’s duties, but even though I am not the Prime Minister, I still have the right to speak. I am not saying anything that is different from the Prime Minister’s position. I only want to send a message for the Prime Minister’s success.”
But that hasn’t stopped Hun Sen from leading the charge in the five weeks since this iteration of the border conflict with Thailand commenced. Gone are Hun Sen’s suggestions to the government to ban a certain product or block an international border crossing. He is issuing the orders and they’re being followed without question.
When we last left off, Thailand had shut the border to Cambodians, Cambodia had banned the import of Thai gas, and thousands were preparing to protest Paetongtarn’s premiership.
Since then, Thailand has sought to soften some of the border restrictions, but Hun Manet has said no because Thailand started the unilateral border closures in the first place — truly a “but they started it!” argument. Cambodia has also shut its own borders to Thai cargo traffic. Anxiety is high for the more than 1 million Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand — who have been instructed by Hun Sen to come back to allegedly hundreds of thousands of jobs in the provinces — and two Cambodians were arrested and released for protesting at the border.
Hun Sen has meanwhile been on a streak of ultimate Hun Sen-ness, reminiscent of the week he spent in 2022 saying increasingly bizarre things about his opponent Sam Rainsy. He revealed that he ferried former Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra, who was removed from office in a 2014 coup, through Cambodia and lied about it. He claimed to have ended his 30-year friendship with Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, and pinned it on Paetongtarn. He accused Paetongtarn of lese majeste. He has soaked up state news headlines day after day after day amid the ruling Cambodian People’s Party 74th anniversary. And most importantly, he has told us how he sees his own role:
“Hun Sen’s voice is the national voice of Cambodia, the leader in raising the national defense strategy policy based on the people’s national defense,” he said in a speech at a monastery. “Hun Sen has been leading and guiding this country for almost half a century.”
Crises tend to lay realities bare, or at least make them more difficult to ignore. The border dispute has made it clear that Hun Sen is still the de facto changemaker in Cambodia, or at least that he can’t resist being the center of attention — or both. In the same speech, he reminded listeners that the country’s military backs him “as their leader. I am not only a general, but also the one who created the army to fight Pol Pot.
Manet, the de jure leader of the country and former official commander of the Royal Cambodian Army, has been conspicuously absent from the spotlight. Despite state media describing his stance as “assertive” and his father reposting Manet’s Facebook announcements, it can’t help but have the feel of a participation trophy.
Ironically, Hun Manet’s first taste of power arrived with the first border dispute of 2008-2011, when his father put him in charge of Cambodian forces around the temples, even placing U.S. officials on alert that Manet was being groomed to take over. The extent to which that transition has actually occurred, however, is up for debate.
Scamming meets nationalism:
Amnesty International released a scathing report this week about Cambodia’s cyberscam operations after visiting more than 50 compounds and interviewing 58 scam victims, accusing the government of “deliberately ignoring a litany of human rights abuses.” The report comes after similar deep dives from UNODC and anti-trafficking expert Jacob Sims earlier this year and spawned major news coverage.
Unfortunately, the report’s findings and follow-up coverage became fodder for Cambodian nationalists, who mocked Thai scam victims online. For its part, Thailand responded to the report by declaring scamming “in neighbouring countries a serious threat to both national security and economic stability,” while Hun Sen claimed in another speech that Cambodia is “just a victim of online activities in Thailand” because “only Thailand has an airline connecting from other countries.” Okay.
In non-border international news:
— Trump’s tariff pause ends July 9. Cambodia has hosted three rounds of talks with the U.S. so far, but has not reached an agreement that would stop the 49% tariff the country currently faces. The Council for the Development of Cambodia said this week that they “stand ready” for further negotiations but didn’t say whether an agreement is expected before the deadline.
— Singapore PM Lawrence Wong will pay a visit to Cambodia today, scheduled to meet both father, son and king.
— Cambodian company Sam SN Realty Co., a company with a relatively small public footprint registered to a tycoon called Sam Sokneaun, has signed an MOU with Chinese multinational Haier Electronics to develop a “green industrial park in Cambodia.” Also in Chinese investment, an executive from Wuxi Guolian Group discussed Sihanoukville investments with CDC head Chea Vuthy. Wuxi appears to be a state-owned Chinese investment group.
— The Cambodian ambassador to Cyprus met with his counterpart, with both sides expressing “satisfaction that the relationship between Cambodia and Cyprus has expanded significantly.” Various members of the Cambodian elite and Hun Sen’s family previously received Cyprus citizenship.
— Cambodia Airways, which RFA has reported was established under the scam-linked Prince Group, celebrated its first Phnom Penh to Penang flight.
— In a truly cross-border scam story involving Japan, China, Australia, Cambodia and Hong Kong, a 19-year-old was tricked by a criminal syndicate into faking his own kidnapping to extort money from his parents. Here’s a shorter English version and a longer Fresh News version.
In national news:
— Remember Heng Sithy, the former tycoon extradited from Russia we wrote about in May? Prosecutors have ordered that he be brought in for questioning.
— Contrary to our last report and the World Bank, Hun Sen claimed that Cambodia’s economy will see a 5.2% growth rate this year and that “macroeconomic stability has been well maintained.”
— Cambodia’s head of counter-cybercrime said Telegram is the most-used channel for criminals, echoing years of reports and international law enforcement activity.
— The Ministry of Health announced that HIV prevention drug Cabotegravir is now available. The drug, billed as an alternative to oral PrEP pills, is administered via an injection every two months.
— Dengue cases are up by nearly one-third from January to June compared to the same period last year.
— KB Prasac Bank and Woori Cambodia Bank, former microfinance institutions that have been bought by Korean banks, have been accused of human rights abuses in a new report by Korean Transnational Corporation Watch.
— You can now personalize your moto plate.
In other local news:
— The Ministry of Environment will close production sections of two factories in Preah Sihanouk province that have continued to release liquid waste.
— The bodies of an elderly couple whose boat capsized in Kandal province have been found.
— Two vehicles allegedly ferrying chicken eggs illegally imported from Vietnam were stopped in their tracks, leading to the seizure of 75,000 eggs.
— We also noticed some cheeky (and some inappropriate) Thai-language pins and reviews on Google Maps for various landmarks like Hun Sen’s homes in Phnom Penh and Takhmau, as well as the Independence Monument.
See you next week!