Profile : A Humble Populist Hero Emerges in Cambodia : Chea Sim, the Communist Party’s No. 2 official, is gaining wide popularity for his honesty and spare lifestyle. Government corruption has embittered the population.

During a recent session of Cambodia’s National Assembly, reporters and foreign diplomats received an illuminating peek into the machinations of the country’s politics during a break for refreshments in the parking lot.

Here, said a government spokesman, was the commerce minister’s Mercedes-Benz limousine, and over there was the sleek gray sedan which ferries around Premier Hun Sen. In the corner, he pointed out, sat the smallest car on the lot, a tiny Toyota, that belongs to Chea Sim.

Virtually unknown outside Cambodia, the 58-year-old Chea Sim has gained wide popularity recently, at least in part because of what is perceived as his humble lifestyle. At a time when official corruption has embittered many Cambodians toward their government, Chea Sim is gathering strength as a populist.

“Chea Sim is more popular now because the people know he is honest,” said a civil servant. Left unsaid but understood was the bureaucrat’s suggestion that few other officials are similarly above reproach.

Officially, Chea Sim ranks second in the hierarchy of Cambodia’s official Communist Party, after the head of state, Heng Samrin, whom many regard as a figurehead. In addition, Chea Sim is president of the National Assembly, which is primarily a ceremonial job.

The 37-year-old Hun Sen is probably the Cambodian official best known in the West, representing his government at round table talks with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council in Paris last summer and agreeing to a historic breakthrough on a peace settlement in Jakarta, Indonesia, earlier this month.

But despite his relatively low profile outside the country, Cambodian officials and many diplomats in Phnom Penh describe Chea Sim as the real power center in Cambodia. “He is the faceless strongman of the regime,” in the words of one diplomat.

Chea Sim is described as a strong nationalist at a time when Heng Samrin is known for his ties to the Vietnamese and Hun Sen looks to the West. He is regarded as a devout Buddhist, a traditionalist and a hero to the peasantry in a country where 80% of the people still eke out a living as rice farmers.

One clear sign of Chea Sim’s relative strength was the dismissal in May of Khieu Kanarith, editor of the party newspaper. Kanarith, a close ally of the Hun Sen faction, had become an unofficial and often critical commentator on government policy and was sought out by Western journalists and diplomats seeking insights into the inner workings of the secretive Cambodian government.

According to diplomats, Chea Sim engineered Kanarith’s dismissal to send an unequivocal public message of discontent to Hun Sen without publicly embarrassing the prime minister himself.

The dispute between Chea Sim and Hun Sen reportedly stretched back to the Tokyo meeting, when Hun Sen was said to have nominated all six members of the Supreme National Council, which was proposed to run Cambodia under a peace settlement, without consulting his colleagues back in Phnom Penh.

“Hun Sen had his wings clipped,” said a diplomat. “They thought he was very well known abroad, too pro-Western and had made too many concessions to the enemy. They were jealous of his public relations.”

According to most analysts, the Cambodian government is largely a coalition of competing factions rather than the expression of a single individual. One diplomat of the former Eastern Bloc likened the government to a three-legged table, with the various factions forced to dwell harmoniously in order to keep the country stable.

Perhaps most important of all, thousands of years of Cambodian culture have ingrained a respect for elders not found in the West. The 58-year-old Chea Sim commands deference by virtue of being bong , or older brother, to Hun Sen’s poun , or younger sibling. There is a feeling among some Cambodians that Hun Sen has not been sufficiently deferential.

Of the three top leaders in the Cambodian hierarchy, Chea Sim has the strongest claim to revolutionary credentials. Born to a peasant family in Ponhea Krek of Kompong Cham province, he was recruited by the Vietnamese Communists during the war against the French in the 1950s. Hun Sen, by contrast, was the son of a government official and came to the party only in the 1970s.

Chea Sim was trained as a “united front cadre,” meaning that he clandestinely attempted to recruit non-Communists to the revolutionary cause.

As a youth, Chea Sim also had been trained as a Buddhist monk, a fact that is now frequently mentioned as evidence of his honesty and humility. Because of his background, the Communists gave him responsibility for recruiting among the monkhood.

One question that is debated both inside and outside the country is the degree of responsibility that Chea Sim, Hun Sen and Heng Samrin have for the killings that took place under the Khmer Rouge. An estimated 1 million Cambodians died during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, which lasted from 1975 until early 1979.

All three men were Khmer Rouge officials in the eastern zone near the Vietnamese border--Chea Sim was party committee secretary for Ponhea Krek district, while Hun Sen and Heng Samrin were minor military officials. All three defected to Vietnam and joined the government that Hanoi eventually installed in Phnom Penh.

An American researcher, Steve Heder, said he has studied documents from the era and can find no evidence that any of the three men was “directly involved in the killings of Cambodians.”

Not long after the present government came to power, Chea Sim became minister of the interior, a job that gave him authority over the police and intelligence agencies, with which he is said to enjoy continuing ties.

Chea Sim lacks Hun Sen’s style as a charismatic speaker. At last month’s National Assembly meeting, he seemed more like a professor than a politician as he peered over his reading glasses to lecture his colleagues in the diminutive chamber.

“We must not reduce our vigilance or forget to enhance our combat will and stance,” he said in closing remarks. “The firm and resolute will to fight valiantly, work industriously and unite harmoniously around the Kampuchean People’s Revolution Party is the most effective measure for achieving our sacred goals: peace, independence, freedom and happiness.”

One ambassador said he once encountered Chea Sim at a diplomatic reception and asked him a question about politics in Cambodia. The ambassador was rewarded with a 45-minute lecture on Chinese history.

“Chea Sim has been on the fringes of Communist movements for 40 years, which tends to make him a very different person than someone like Hun Sen,” said a Western analyst who has closely followed his career. “He is more of a dyed-in-the wool Communist.”

Biography

Name: Chea Sim

Title: President of Cambodia’s National Assembly. Second-ranking member of Cambodia’s Communist Party but wields effective power.

Age: 58

Personal: Born to a peasant family in Ponhea Krek of Konpong Cham province. Recruited by Vietnamese Communists during war against French in the 1950s. Married, with adult children.

Quote: “The firm and resolute will to fight valiantly, work industriously and unite harmoniously around the Kampuchean People’s Revolution Party is the most effective measure for achieving our sacred goals: peace, independence, freedom and happiness.”