Vietnamization, Ratanakiri, border] Border Intrusion: Ministry Complains to Vietnam

Border Intrusion: Ministry Complains to Vietnam

 Khmer Times | 22 August 2016

Cambodia’s foreign ministry sent yet another diplomatic note to Vietnam’s foreign ministry last week, asking Vietnam to stop all construction projects and to refrain from taking any action along the border between the two countries in areas that have not been demarcated.  

The foreign ministry’s reaction came after officials from the Vietnamese government started to construct buildings and a border checkpoint in O’Yadav district in Rattanakiri province last week.

The site where construction is being done is near the border in Pok Nhai commune across from Vietnam’s Gai Lai province, an area designated as no-man’s land in an agreement between the two countries dating back to January 17, 1995.

According to the diplomatic note sent on Thursday, Cambodia’s foreign ministry pointed out that the ministry has sent diplomatic notes to Vietnam 23 times since 2011 [meaningless act of puppet regime for domestic consumption as its master continue its violation, destruction of Cambodia] to ask Vietnam to stop constructing buildings along the border in Rattanakiri, Takeo, Kandal, Svay Rieng and Mondulkiri provinces.  

“The Royal Government of Cambodia asked the Vietnamese government once again to please immediately stop all construction,” [blah, blah, blah reads the statement; ha ha ha ha laughs Vietnam] read the statement, adding that Cambodia had also asked Vietnam to maintain the environment in those areas.

Cambodia called on Vietnam to ban its citizens from planting crops or doing anything in the areas which have been not demarcated and to wait until the joint border commission made up of officials from both countries finishes the demarcation to determine exactly where the border is.  

 It added that both countries agreed in March that they would ask the French government to provide experts to copy the border line from the Bonne map to the UTM map. The joint border commission will hold a closed meeting in Phnom Penh at the end of this month to discuss the request for experts from France.  

Last week, provincial officials in Rattanakiri rejected a request by the Vietnamese government to allow them to construct buildings and a border checkpoint in O’Yadav district after a meeting between both sides in Banlung City.

Cambodia and Vietnam had initially agreed to build another border checkpoint near the O’Yadav district international border gate in December. But at the meeting, Rattanakiri officials denied a request to start building the border gate until the Foreign Ministry in Phnom Penh had been notified.

For more than a year now, residents, police and provincial government officials have reported non-stop construction by Vietnamese soldiers.

Last April at least eight ponds, approximately four by eight meters wide and three to four meters deep, were dug by Vietnamese soldiers in the O’Koma area near a border protection office in Pok Nhai commune.

The land border between Cambodia and Vietnam is 1,270 kilometers long. In March, National Police officials claimed that 89 percent of the demarcation had been completed after they had planted 282 border posts from a total of 314 along the border.