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I told the prime ministers of Vietnam and Laos that it’s better that we put an end to this humanitarian issue as soon as possible through cooperation with America." According to Hun Sen, by late 1999 there were only 84 cases of US soldiers missing in action in Cambodia, of which "ten have already been discovered". In Washington, Cambodia’s profile had just been raised with the appointment of a top diplomat, Roland Eng, formerly ambassador to Bangkok. Hun Sen had also taken the unusual step of assigning his oldest son, Hun Manet (who was a student in New York after becoming the first Cambodian to graduate from Westpoint) as a special liaison to the US on the MIA issue. "I would like to close this file as soon as possible," he said. His MIA initiative was another chapter in the love-hate relationship between Hun Sen and the US—the country which drove him to war and which has censured him in its Congress, yet educates most of his six children. After all the deaths and pain suffered by Cambodia, Hun Sen seemed darkly philosophical. "There have never been discussions about whether they were right or wrong," he said. "I think sometimes they seem to have the feeling that what they were doing in Indochina was right. I too have no intention of talking about history. As Cambodians say, ‘If the wound doesn’t hurt there’s no need to take a stick and poke it’." Dominic Faulder is a veteran journalist based in Bangkok.