Cambodia’s Hun Sen

I was appalled at Marvin Ott’s assertions (“Khmer Rouge by Any Other Name Is Still Evil,” Commentary, April 17) regarding Cambodian Prime Minster Hun Sen’s alleged background as a Khmer Rouge “commander.” Ott either does not know or deliberately distorts the fact that Hun Sen joined the Khmer Rouge as an 18-year-old answering Prince (now King) Sihanouk’s call for all Cambodians to resist the U.S.-engineered coup by Gen. Lon Nol in 1970. The Khmer Rouge was the only guerrilla group one could join to resist the coup.

Hun Sen, a very intelligent man despite his lack of a formal education, rose to the rank of captain at age 22, lost an eye before the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, spent six months in a hospital and then defected shortly thereafter. He bears zero responsibility for the nightmare wrought by the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to the end of 1978 and in fact was one of the real heroes of the anti-Khmer Rouge resistance.

Ott parrots the official U.S. government disinformation campaign which has been waged since 1979. Many other Cambodia specialists, journalists and foreign government representatives are nearly unanimous in their view that Hun Sen is vastly more competent than Prince Norodom Ranariddh, whose own coup planning against Hun Sen is well documented by independent observers. Hun Sen merely acted first and therefore blocked the prince’s plans.

RICHARD WALDEN

Los Angeles

Walden is president of Operation USA, the first U.S. relief group allowed back into Cambodia in 1979 after the fall of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime.