Cambodia - Hun Sen

Cambodia's prime minister, the one-eyed Hun Sen (few Cambodians have two of everything they should have), is a Khmer Rouge soldier who pulled a Benedict Arnold and switched sides in 1997 and was installed as Cambodia's puppet president by the Vietnamese after their defeat of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. He is shrewd, power hungry and paranoid, and disdains the press. He ruled alone until the 1993 elections but was named co-premier despite losing the elections to Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Hun Sen grew up the son of a peasant near the Vietnamese border, though he's better known these days as the son of a bitch who staged the violent July 1997 coup that ousted First Premier Ranariddh. During calmer times, he enjoys an occasional cigarette-48 a day-lobbing grenades at opposition figures and naming schools after himself. Not known for his subtlety, he was busy executing Ranariddh supporters after the coup but doesn't quite know what all the fuss was all about. Hun Sen emerged the winner in the elections called for July 1998, polls that met with widespread charges of tampering and fraud. Just politics as usual in Cambodia.