[Vietnamization] Politician calls foul on official Cambodian maps

Politician calls foul on official Cambodian maps

Turkish Weekly | 9 October 2015

Opposition party lawmaker claims to have found original maps of Cambodian-Vietnamese border that contradict those currently in use

A lawmaker from Cambodia’s opposition party is claiming that a trove of maps loaned to the country by the United Nations in August are not official documents, saying instead that he has come across the originals.

The Phnom Penh Post reported Friday that Um Sam An from the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) -- which has been vocal about the alleged encroachment -- said he has found maps drawn to the same scale, but by the Indochinese Geographical Service, a French colonial body.

He alleges that they were housed in the U.N.’s library in New York, and predate other U.N. maps recently used to compare boundary lines by a decade, because they were filed in 1954.

 In August, 18 of the 1964 dated maps were delivered by hand to Cambodia by Mereani Keleti Vakasisikakala, acting president of the U.N.’s New York-based Dag Hammarskjold Library. The library could not be reached Friday.

A number of comparative tests were carried out between the 1964 maps, drawn up by Cambodia’s geographical society, and those the government uses on an official basis. All matched up.

According to the Post, the senior minister on border affairs, Va Kimhong, said the comparative tests had already proved there was nothing untoward with how the border with Vietnam has been demarcated.

In July, Prime Minister Hun Sen wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, saying the loan would help quash “the incitement of extreme nationalism and ill-intention to cause confusion within national and international public opinions in order to make political gains by some quarters in Cambodia”.

However, the CNRP continues to highlight what it says are cases of encroachment that have seen farming communities lose their land to Vietnam.

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court is also currently trying Hong Sok Hour, a senator for the CNRP-linked Sam Rainsy Party, who was arrested in August and accused of forgery and incitement for sharing a video online that allegedly contained a fake treaty signed between Vietnam and Cambodia in 1979.