Prime Minister Hun Sen’s verbal assault on UN envoy Yash Ghai may appear unique—unprecedented, even. And while the description of the envoy as a “long-term tourist” may certainly be Hun Sen at his most acerbic, it is by no means the first time that the leader has unloaded on UN representatives.
The relationship between Hun Sen and UN envoys has been as fractious as it has been long, and the language as colorful as it has been blistering.
In January 1998, then-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson was taken to task by Hun Sen, then second prime minister, when he accused the UN center for human rights in Phnom Penh of “exaggerating the facts” regarding extrajudicial executions following the July 1997 factional fighting.
On publication of the UN’s report several months earlier, Hun Sen took issue with UN envoy Thomas Hammarberg’s use of the term “coup” to describe the July 1997 fighting, when Hun Sen’s troops defeated then-First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh’s forces.
When Peter Leuprecht took over from Hammarberg as rights envoy, he was accused early on of meddling in the country’s sovereignty.
Later that year, Hun Sen called Leuprecht “stupid,” saying he was angry at the envoy for “talking ill” of Cambodia in a report.
In the report to the UN General Assembly rights committee, Leuprecht recounted how he had met poor people who had been expelled from the land on which they lived and were relocated to “appalling conditions on heavily mined land.”
“He accused us of evicting thousands of people to live in a minefield. What a stupidity,” Hun Sen said at the time.
Leuprecht’s rocky relationship with Hun Sen continued until 2005, when it culminated in a report that claimed democracy was sliding backward.
“What were are witnessing at present does not demonstrate progress on the road to democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights, but an increasingly autocratic form of government and growing concentration of power in the hands of the prime minister behind a shaky facade of democracy,” Leuprecht said.
In September 2005, Hun Sen took on an unnamed UN representative, who he claimed “came [to Cambodia] just for money.” “He regarded Cambodians as thieves,” Hun Sen said.
Hun Sen’s outburst followed a visit by Miloon Kothari, UN special rapporteur on housing rights to the rights committee.
Kothari had given a scathing assessment of the government’s state land-swap policies and warned that unless land-grabbing by the rich stopped, civil conflict could erupt.
