Hun Sen knows something about changing his image. A Khmer Rouge guerrilla in the 1970s, he defected in 1977 and became the premier of the Vietnam-backed regime in Cambodia for much of the 1980s. He then reinvented himself as a "democratic" politician in the early 1990s. Now the 47-year-old Cambodian prime minister has convinced the U.S. administration that he's the best hope for stability in his violence-scarred country.

The problem is, he hasn't convinced the U.S. Congress. In early October, the House of Representatives voted unanimously on a resolution calling for Hun Sen to be held culpable "for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Cambodia" after 1978, the year the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia. A similar resolution has been submitted to the Senate for consideration in January. If the Senate also passes the resolution, all hopes of re-instating U.S. economic aid to Cambodia-suspended in July 1997 after Hun Sen ousted co-Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh-would quickly disappear.  

"The Voice of America broadcasts these reports and every Cambodian with a transistor radio now knows that at least part of the most powerful legislative body in the world thinks their elected leader is a war criminal," says an adviser on Asian affairs at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

That message was not lost on Hun Sen himself. He is now burnishing his image in Washington in an effort to stave off a Senate resolution. To manage the make-over, his Cambodian People's Party recently engaged-for around $500,000- a Washington-based public-relations firm, the David Morey Group, and two law firms: Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur, and Arnold & Porter. The two law firms have lobbied extensively against the resolution, pleading Hun Sen's case with various influential congressmen, as well as with the State Department.  

"We have been gratified by the number of people that have given us a hearing to listen to the CPP's point of view," says James Steams, a lawyer at Porter Wright and lead coordinator of the lobbying effort. He has arranged meetings for Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Nam Hong, a personal adviser to Hun Sen, with congressmen and State Department officials. "So far we have been making excellent progress," Steams enthuses.  

He cites an example: After the House vote condemning Hun Sen, Steams vigorously lobbied Stanley Roth, assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, to come out publicly against the resolution. Soon thereafter, Roth instructed the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, Ken'neth Quinn, to issue a public statement of opposition to the resolution, making it clear to Hun Sen that the Clinton administration was not in Congress's camp. "The administration took a strong position on the resolution," acknowledges Roth. "There was no chance of getting a separate tribunal for Hun Sen and it was becoming a massive distraction," he says, referring to efforts to put Khmer Rouge leaders on trial for human-rights abuses.  

William Rogers, the pointman for the Hun Sen campaign at Arnold & Porter, is less sanguine than Steams about winning the Senate over to their less-than-attractive client. "Like many other things, the raw material decides the final product," says Rogers. In Hun Sen's case, the raw material is violence and intimidation-that, at least, is what many legislators in Washington associate with his regime. They are concerned in particular over his alleged role in some 100 killings before and after general elections in July. Luckily for Hun Sen, the firms he has retained are not similarly troubled: "I'm a lawyer; I am not allowed to have an opinion," says Rogers.  

One thrust of the firms' strategy is to position the CPP at the forefront of a campaign to bring members of the Khmer Rouge before an international war-crimes tribunal. "Progress has been made in discussing the tribunals, and the CPP has been instrumental in pushing for it," says Steams. "The Cambodian government has said it won't stand in the way of bringing Ieng Sary to trial," he adds, referring to a Khmer Rouge leader who defected to the government in 1997. Any critics in Washington see such posturing as a tactic to distract attention from Hun Sen's own human-rights abuses. And, of course, any indictment of Khmer Rouge members for war crimes would be highly selective, since virtually all have already sworn allegiance to Hun Sen's government. Most of his ministers and the bulk of his security forces are ex-Khmer Rouge. If Hun Sen's public-relations blitz success, at least part of the credit, or blame, should go to the differences between Congress and the administration over how to deal with Cambodia. The State Department's pragmatic-some would say, cynical-line seems to be. winning out. It's a line the department has maintained since Hun Sen ousted Ranariddh in a July 1997 putsch.  

Although Cambodia's elections this July were marred by allegations of intimidation and fraud, the administration was quick to endorse the polls-too quick, critics say. Those elections produced a new government in November, with Hun Sen as premier. Then, in December, the U.S. supported Cambodia's immediate accession to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, diplomats say. "The administration wants the Cambodia issue papered over as quickly as possible so that they can get back to business as usual," says the adviser at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  

He says the State Department pressed -Prince Ranariddh to accept a political compromise so that a new government could be formed. Alleging electoral fraud, Ranariddh's Funcinpec party had denied Hun Sen the two-thirds vote in parliament necessary to approve a govenunent. But the prince folded after Assistant Secretary of State Roth "pretty much said we will support Hun Sen with or without you," says the adviser at the Senate committee. On November 13, Ranariddh agreed to join a coalition, accepting the position of resident of the national assembly and half the posts in the cabinet for his party. (The CPP, however, retained control of the most powerful ministries.)  

Asked about such strong-arm tactics, Roth says: "The United States along with ASEAN and Japan believed that the elections in Cambodia should not be squandered. There was an obvious need to cut a deal so that the government could get back to building Cambodia."  

Members of the American business community support this pragmatic stance. They include Beacon Hill, a Boston-based group with interests in a major electricity-generation project in Cambodia. Beacon Hill, too, has taken to lobbying Congress-often accompanied by Cambodia's ambassador to the U.S., Var Huot.  

Even with such help, though, Hun Sen will be a hard sell on Capitol Hill. Changing his strongman image will require more than a facelift. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder and to the Clinton administration, it appears Hun Sen looks good enough.