PEACE-MAKER
Jose de Venecia Jr.
Former Speaker of the House
World leaders have converged in Phnom Penh, Nov. 10 to 13, for the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits and other related summits.
It is the first in a series of international conferences in Southeast Asia, followed this week by the G-20 meeting in Bali, and then the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Bangkok.
The ASEAN Summit is the highest policy-making body in ASEAN composed of heads of state or government in the 10-member ASEAN member countries, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The Philippines is a founding member of ASEAN, which was established in Bangkok on Aug. 8, 1967. The other original members are Indonesia, Malaysia,Singapore, and Thailand.
Brunei joined in 1984; Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar in 1997; and Cambodia in 1999.
We last visited the Cambodian capital in November 2019 during the Asia Pacific Summit co-hosted by the Universal Peace Federation, a global non-government organization, and the Cambodian government led by Prime Minister Hun Sen.
We have had the privilege of exchanging views with Prime Minister Hun Sen on issues and challenges besetting our Asian region and the international community.
He has a profound understanding of global affairs and, indeed, possesses vast experience as head of government for almost 34 years, as foreign minister for 10 years, and having fought and helped defeat the barbarous Khmer Rouge with the much-adored late King Norodom Sihanouk and his son Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who was then concurrently a general in the Royal army.
Both Hun Sen and the late Prince Ranariddh later became unique co-premiers of Cambodia after the defeat of the Khmer Rouge, and later, following his visit to Manila, Prince Ranariddh became president of the National Assembly, which led to the passage of critical economic reconstruction laws and agricultural development, following the ravages of war.
Prime Minister Hun Sen is credited for bringing about peace, reconciliation, unity, and development in Cambodia, which suffered from decades of armed conflict and from the atrocious Khmer Rouge “killing fields” regime which murdered more than two million Cambodians.
He helped liberate Cambodia from the genocidal Khmer Rouge rule led by Pol Pot and played a pivotal role in the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements, which brokered peace in Cambodia. Hun Sen enjoys close working and personal relations with the Royal family.
We are also honored to have met a few times the highly-revered King Norodom Sihanouk, who became Cambodia’s reigning monarch in 1941, at the age of 18. In between his rule as king, he served as his country’s prime minister, president, foreign minister, and ambassador to the United Nations.
Under Sihanouk as prime minister and later as president, from 1955 to 1970, Cambodia experienced relative peace and prosperity while many countries in Asia were experiencing political upheavals.
We are also privileged to have been received by the current King, Norodom Sihamoni, and the still beautiful Queen Mother, half-French Norodom Monineath, perhaps now in her mid-80s, at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh some three years ago.
The renowned King Norodom Sihanouk visited Manila in 1969. Some Filipino historians noted that the first king who visited the Philippines was King Sihanouk’s grandfather, King Norodom I, in 1872.