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| Va Kim Hong (left) meets with the Vietnam delegation. KT/Mai Vireak |
PM: Keep Old Border Posts
Khmer Times [voice piece of govt in English] | 22 September 2016
It has been five months since the government updated the
country on how far along they were with the demarcation process along the
border with Vietnam.
Yet
Prime Minister Hun Sen has an entirely different focus: the border posts slowly
being replaced.
In a
directive sent out yesterday, the premier demanded that old border posts be
preserved while the government demarcates the country’s borders with Vietnam.
The posts, some of which were put in place before the 1870s, will be kept due
to their historical significance, he said.
In an
edict dated September 20 and signed by the premier himself, he says the posts
need to “be kept for the next generation to see those old border posts and
compare them to this generation’s border posts, when Cambodia became a fully
sovereign state and marked the borders with a neighboring country which the
nation will be proud of in the future.”
Mr. Hun
Sen specifically points to the Joint Border Committee in the letter, saying
they have to work with every level of government to secure the old posts for
posterity.
“In
case these old border posts broke off from their foundations and fell into
areas not on Cambodian land, the Joint Border Committee must negotiate with the
Vietnamese side and propose the posts be kept in Cambodia,” he wrote.
“The
Joint Border Committee, all levels of government and citizens living along the
border must cooperate with each other and search for the remaining border posts
or foundations of posts.”
He went
on to say that everyone had to pitch in to preserve the country’s history and
manage a border that has been fraught with conflict for decades.
Va Kim
Hong, chairman of the Border Committee, confirmed that the group will implement
the directive and said they already have plans to negotiate with Vietnam to
make sure any border posts in their territory are handed over.
“For
where they will be kept, we think that each province should have a museum, so
the safe places would be in provincial museums,” he said.
The
letter was issued as the Secretariat of the National Assembly announced that
next Tuesday and Wednesday, Vietnamese National Assembly chairwoman Nguyen Thi
Kim Ngan and many senior government officials will make their way to the
Kingdom.
Authorities
report that the land border between Cambodia and Vietnam is 1,270 kilometers
long. Since 2005, both sides have said they want to demarcate the border
officially, and in March, officials said about 89 percent of the border had
been covered. But nothing has been heard since about the demarcation efforts,
and local residents living along the border have notified the press and
authorities about alleged encroachments by the Vietnamese.
For
more than a year, residents in Rattanakiri said Vietnamese soldiers were openly
digging ditches, ponds and making foundations for buildings in territory that
was designated no-man’s land until the full border had been demarcated.
Despite
23 diplomatic notes sent by Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry to the government of
Vietnam, the constructions have yet to stop.
The
border with Vietnam continues to be a contentious issue as the government tries
to walk a diplomatic tightrope, projecting a soft approach with their powerful
neighbors while appeasing critics – who refer to Mr. Hun Sen as a “puppet of
Vietnam” – by attempting to exhibit that they are genuinely trying to protect
Cambodia’s territorial sovereignty.
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