Hun Sen

Hun Sen was born to a peasant family sometime around 1951 in Kompong Cham Province. He attended secondary school in Phnom Penh up until 1970, when Prince Sihanouk was deposed. That same year, Hun Sen joined the resistance forces then in alliance with North Vietnam and became an assistant commander of a regiment.

With Pol Pot's victory in April 1975, Hun Sen spent three years within the power structure. Some experts believe that he commanded Khmer Rouge units which conducted anti-Vietnam raids across the Cambodian/Vietnam border in Tay-Ninh Province. He later turned against the Khmer Rouge and led a purge of local units while refuged in Vietnam. At the time of his defection from the Khmer Rouge in June 1977, he was deputy regimental commander of an eastern zone unit.

During Hanoi's invasion in late 1978, he reappeared with the followers of Heng Samrin (now the PRK's President) which formally became the Kampuchean National United Front for National Salvation (KNUFNS) in December 1978. During a constituent congress of the Kampuchean National Front for National Salvation, Hun Sen was elected a member of the KNUFNS Central Committee. On December 25, 1978, the Vietnamese armed forces and Kampuchean rebels launched an attack against the Pol Pot forces which resulted in the successful overthrow of the Pol Pot government and the occupation of Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979. Later inn the month, the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary council was set up in Phnom Penh, under Heng Samrin, and Hun Sen became Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In May 1981, Hun Sen became a member of the Politburo of the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee, and Deputy Chairman of the PRK Council of Ministers. He is now [third] in rank on the Politburo. On January 14, 1985, following the sudden death of Chan Si on December 31, 1984, Hun Sen was unanimously elected Chairman of the People's Republic of Kampuchea Council of Ministers by the National Assembly.