Cambodian Prime minister Hun Sen’s surprise move to meet the Myanmar junta leader in January rudely undermines the current ASEAN consensus with his brand of maverick diplomacy, spreading confusion and consternation in several regional capitals.

Hun Sen is due to visit Myanmar on Friday and Saturday this week.

On December 29 Cambodia took over the chair of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional bloc, which last October resolved to exclude General Min Aung Hlaing, chairman of Myanmar’s ruling State Administration Council (SAC) from attending the October 26-28 ASEAN summit chaired by Brunei.

The chair of APHR (ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights) Charles Santiago MP told Mizzima that the Cambodian PM should not be permitted to undermine the ASEAN consensus.

“He is throwing a wrench into the ASEAN works, turning policy around and engaging in cowboy diplomacy.”

ASEAN failure

Cambodia has just taken over from Brunei as the new chair of ASEAN - a 10-nation region grouping that had been devoid of any clear response to address the bloody suppression of protests and the mounting war crimes in Myanmar since the February coup.

Far from addressing the atrocities inside Myanmar the veteran Cambodian leader appears more concerned with bringing the Myanmar generals back into the ASEAN family fold without any conditions attached.

Speaking at the inauguration of the new Hyatt Regency Phnom Penh Hotel on December 15, Hun Sen said “We have to rescue ASEAN by bringing it up from just nine back to 10 full members, that is the highest priority for ASEAN.”

However, former Thai foreign minister and APHR board member Kasit Piromya viewed Hun Sen’s move as highly risky for ASEAN’s credibility.

“It makes no sense that Cambodian PM Hun Sen is discussing plans to visit Myanmar, thereby legitimizing the junta, before progress has been made on the Five-Point Consensus. This was the very reason ASEAN excluded junta leader Min Aung Hlaing from its Summit in October.”

Cambodia, without any prior approval from the other nine ASEAN member states, has also extended an invitation for General Min Aung Hlaing to join the ASEAN Chiefs of Defense Forces Meeting in Phnom Penh in March prior to the official date of taking over on December 29.

In his rush to engage with the SAC or Myanmar junta the veteran Cambodian PM has neglected to explain which hat he will be wearing when he visits Naypyidaw on January 7.

Malaysian MP Charles Santiago queried: “What is Hun Sen’s purpose? Is it bilateral or is he representing ASEAN? And if so, why he is not delegating this assignment to his ASEAN envoy?”

It is reported that the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia are all privately lobbying Cambodia over the disturbing lack of clarity over Hun Sen’s trip, and whether he will formally be representing the ASEAN group without an agreed mandate.

Is Hun Sen the man for the job?

General Min Aung Hlaing’s choice of January 7 to receive Cambodian PM Hun Sen in Naypyidaw could not be more ironic. In the Cambodian calendar January 7 marks the day that the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime was overthrown in 1979. A few days later, the then 28-year-old Hun Sen who had defected from the Khmer Rouge, became foreign minister in a new Cambodian government led by Heng Samrin, installed by virtue of Vietnam’s invasion and for many also liberation from the monstrous Pot Pot regime.

Forty-two years later Hun Sen emerges as the region’s most experienced leader. He shaped Cambodia’s rebirth and recovery from the depths of destruction and Year Zero inflicted by an ultra-Maoist Pol Pot regime. He also launched peace talks to end the subsequent Cambodian conflict with exiled former head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk (1987) in a bid to quell the Khmer Rouge-led insurgency of the 1980s. That paved the way for the Paris Peace Agreement (1991) and the arrival of UNTAC’s UN peacekeeping force to monitor the ceasefire, cantonment of troops and prepare for the nation’s first free democratic election in 1993.

Hun Sen sees himself as a great peacemaker, crediting himself with the “win-win policy” that terminated the fighting and led to the negotiation of the final surrender of the Khmer Rouge in the late 1990s.

However, his considerable achievements have been massively marred by his authoritarianism, disdain for human rights and since 2018 his termination of serious opposition within a multiparty system.

Cambodia scholar Dr Craig Etcheson, the author of two books on the Khmer Rouge genocide, observed that “Hun Sen is one of the world’s most experienced politicians, and sees himself as an elder statesman as carrying the imprimatur of all Southeast Asia. He has successfully defeated multiple insurgencies - most notably the Khmer-rouge led insurgency - so on the face of it, he has credentials relevant to the Myanmar crisis.”

Etcheson’s book “Extraordinary Justice” documented the inner workings of the UN- supported Khmer Rouge Tribunal officially known as the ECCC held in Phnom Penh launched in 2006 and about to wind up its proceedings.

It was the first-ever tribunal adhering to international law to be held in Asia. Etcheson worked as researcher for the tribunal’s prosecution team.

Hun Sen is set to meet Min Aung Hlaing, a man already cited for the genocidal campaign against the Rohingya. The Senior General was named by a UN human rights investigation as one of the top generals responsible for genocide against the Rohingya ethnic minority and could be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Since last year’s February coup in Myanmar, UN human rights experts have documented a series of military actions directed against the civilian population that meet the criteria of war crimes.

This begs a question: Does this mean Hun Sen will be confronting the face of a new “Khmer Rouge” in Southeast Asia casting a genocidal shadow across ASEAN affairs?

Hun Sen’s main concern over Myanmar, in common with other ASEAN leaders, is not the bombing and massacre of civilians, but Myanmar’s spiraling descent into a failed state, a status that severely damages ASEAN’s credibility as a regional bloc.

But the deep divisions within ASEAN were exposed by the landmark UN vote that has become the most important verdict on Myanmar’s February coup. The Myanmar junta was strongly condemned by 119 countries in a landmark resolution of the UN General Assembly in June which clearly shows Min Aung Hlaing’s junta has few friends apart from China and Russia. However, among ASEAN states, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Brunei all abstained.

Just what is Hun Sen’s game? For all his experience in international affairs, Hun Sen’s statements so far appear more likely to divide ASEAN further along the lines of the UN vote, than to create a united front for putting pressure on the Myanmar junta based on the five points that the Myanmar leader had agreed to, but stubbornly refuses to implement.

The China factor

The Myanmar junta clearly viewed Brunei’s lack of experience in diplomacy as easy to take for a ride and brush aside. However, with Cambodia’s tenure as the ASEAN chair, Hun Sen’s background as a tough negotiator could make a difference. But more important than all of this is that Naypyidaw knows that China is very close to Phnom Penh, and is far from happy about an escalating war that threatens their extensive assets in Myanmar. China would appear to welcome ASEAN pressure on the Myanmar regime to de-escalate the conflict, push for a ceasefire and supply humanitarian aid, all part of the five-point programme that the junta agreed to.

Prak Sokhonn, the Cambodian foreign minister, appointed as ASEAN special envoy, has pledged to open a dialogue with other parties including the National Unity Government (NUG) which includes part NLD remnants who have escaped the military dragnet, plus some ethnic leaders also represented in this body which considers itself to be the legitimate government of Myanmar.

The NUG announced that it appointed Bo Hla Tint as its ambassador to ASEAN last October in a bid to accelerate its engagement and cooperation with the regional association. Bo Hla Tint is a National League of Democracy (NLD) member who was elected in 1990 election and is now based in the USA.

However, the NUG is urging ASEAN to treat Myanmar as an “illegal regime” which is exactly the opposite to Hun Sen’s perspective. Any kind of deal that keeps the current junta in power is bound to be rejected by the millions of people who have risked their lives so far for the vision of a new democracy.

Where Cambodia’s loyalties lie is unclear. Several ASEAN countries with territorial claims strongly objected to Cambodia’s deference to China in 2016 in blocking a key ASEAN resolution on the South China Sea conflict, a repeat of their performance in 2012.

While the perception is that China’s hand will be the critical factor in wresting any concessions out of Cambodia’s meetings with the Myanmar junta, neither Hun Sen nor Chinese influence behind the scenes have the political will to pressure the junta to stop the war crimes and the mounting Killing Fields of Myanmar.

Tom Fawthrop is a veteran journalist and the co-author of the Cambodia book “Getting away with Genocide? Elusive Justice and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal” (2004). More recently he published several features on the achievements and weaknesses of the Cambodia genocide tribunal and worked in Cambodia as regular contributor to the Economist and the Guardian. He has also covered Myanmar since 2012 for The Diplomat and other media and directed the Salween film “The Last Undammed River” screened on DVB TV.