On September 25, Acting Head of State Hun Sen added to his Telegram message of the previous day recalling the September 24, 1998 assassination attempt. He acknowledged that saying peace would not have existed had he died had overlooked other factors.
He had written: “If I had died or been wounded, Cambodia would not have peace and development as it does today because the architect of the win-win policy would have died.” This was his counterfactual assessment.
Hun Sen stressed that the wording was mistaken because
it focused on his own role and left out other factors. He therefore offered further analysis of what might have happened following
his death.
He outlined four possibilities: first, immediate bloodshed in Siem Reap with many deaths; second, the situation being brought under control, Parliament meeting normally and possibly proceeding to
form a new government, or reaching an impasse; third, continued war with territory divided between the Government and Khmer Rouge; and fourth, a better political leader reaching internal agreement, ending the war and achieving peace and socioeconomic development many times better than under Hun Sen. He left other factors for the public to assess. These were hypothetical possibilities, not events that occurred.
Written by ង៉ែត ពិសាន្ត
