PHNOM PENH -- In 1997, the year he turned 45, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered a ruthless and brutal military strike against his coalition government partners.
It marked the end of a four-year power-sharing agreement that was instituted after Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party lost the United Nations-organized 1993 election, but refused to give up control to the victorious FUNCINPEC party. Dozens of soldiers and officials in the royalist group were murdered in the following weeks, and Hun Sen emerged the sole prime minister.
