Opposition Claims Vietnamese Road Building...

Nouvelles du Cambodge N° 0744-E

Opposition MP Claims Vietnamese Road Building Trespasses On Cambodian Territory

Khemara Jati
Montréal, Québec
Le 3 décembre 2007

We publish below a statement made by Son Chhai relating on the construction of roads by the Vietnamese on our borders and even inside the borders of our country. We wish that Son Chhai requests for the construction, as soon as possible, of the good asphalted roads linking Phnom Penh to our different cities and villages of our borders and inside our country allowing the communications and transportations of goods and persons easy inside of our country. The ease and fast of the road communications accelerates the development of the national cohesion and the internal business. Otherwise how to develop centre of economic developments on our borders without accessibility roads between Phnom Penh and these economic development centre. On the other hand, a good road towards Preah Vihear would be needed to develop the tourism from our part, instead of giving to Thailand the monopoly of exploiting the tourism at our historic monument. Already 1 500 in 2 000 tons a day are illegally exported to Vietnam which will be exported by the port of Prey Nokor and booked as Vietnamese rice!

We wish that Son Chhai also denounces the constructions of the hydroelectric dams in our provinces of the Northeast which tie Cambodia dependent of Vietnam in term of electricity’s energy. This is because of energy independence is one of the indispensable factors of our national independence. Does Cambodia still need electric lines with high tension from Vietnam and from Laos, while we are going to have some petroleum and some natural gas? When a project to build a factory of oil refinery for our petroleum? Before 1970, there was such a refinery at Sihanoukville.

On the other hand where is the construction of the railway Battambang - Phnom Penh - Sihanoukville? While the section Poi Pet - Sisophon is in construction, favoring the business of this region of our country with Thailand.

Opposition MP Claims Vietnamese Road Building Trespasses On Cambodian Territory
SEP20071126045007 Phnom Penh
Samleng Yuveakchon Khmer in Cambodian
15 Nov 07 pp 1, 4 [Report by Sovannarit]

A reliable source of information contended that Vietnam recently built a road that intruded more than 10 kilometers deep into Cambodian territory of Mondol Kiri province. Cambodia's Border Affairs Commission [CBAC] headed by Va Kimhong that plans to soon go to the border to inspect the situation of the border markers installing process has had no reaction to this report. Moreover, the provincial authorities seemed to be trying to cover up this news, an act that has generated varied opinions because this is not the first time that Vietnam has bulldozed land and cut roads into Cambodian territory.

[Opposition MP] Son Chhai said that the Vietnamese authorities frequently built roads along the border, some of them straying deep into Cambodian territory. The construction work has been going on day and night, said the MP who personally witnessed these activities of the Vietnamese authorities. Son Chhai went on to say that the road building activities that encroached into Cambodian territory were in full swing in the provinces of Mondol Kiri and Rotanakiri. MP Son Chhai said that he used to seek intervention from the government, especially from Va Kimhong's CBAC but has received no positive responses as nothing has been done to stop these encroaching activities of the Vietnamese authorities.

It is claimed that the provincial authorities, especially Deputy Provincial Governor Kev Han--who reportedly crosses back and forth between Cambodia and Vietnam two-three times a week--have been trying to cover up these road bulldozing activities in Mondol Kiri province at this time. This has elicited more suspicion because the local authorities who are aware of such incident should have reported to the specialized department so that the latter would also be aware of what was taking place at the border. However, Kev Han instead has pretended not to know anything while it is reported that he has been making frequent trips to Vietnam but has feigned ignorance of what was going on.

The CBAC chairman said that Cambodia had plans to install the border markers with the Vietnamese side along the borderline in the country's northeast encompassing the provinces of Mondol Kiri and Rotanakiri and this operation at points already agreed upon would be completed by the next dry season.

CBAC Chairman Va Kimhong affirmed that two teams of CBAC technical experts will be dispatched to Rotanakiri and Mondol Kiri provinces in December this year.

“Two teams will go to Mondol Kiri and Rotanakiri. We have set goals for them to achieve. If one team encounters any problem in one place we will change its objectives... and let the other team take over. Besides, what we have already agreed upon we will complete it in the coming dry season,” said Va Kimhong.

In September 2007 the Cambodian and Vietnamese border commissions reached agreement with each other and succeeded in planting five border markers along the border of Rotanakiri opposite the Vietnamese province of Kontum.

Li Sovannara, commander of the border defense battalion of the Rotanakiri provincial forces, confirmed: “We have managed to plant only five markers, No. 17 to 21. On our side these markers are in Andong Meas district and on the Vietnamese side they are in the adjacent province of Kantum.”

The CBAC chairman, however, did not specify how many markers are remaining to be planted or when they are going to be planted between now and the next dry season. However, he affirmed that there were some disagreements that have stalled the process, especially regarding the locations of the border markers at the international border gate in O Ya Dav district, Rotanakiri province, and at Dak Dam in Mondol Kiri province.

Son Chhai, president of the National Assembly's Fifth Commission from the Sam Rainsy Party quota, also affirmed: “We observed that Vietnam was building a road along the border around the clock when we went there in January earlier this year and that this road trespassed upon Cambodia. Because of this we are very worried that the marker planting in these two provinces would be problematic because the planting was made without the participation of the National Assembly's commission and some national media. There is suspicion that the operation might not be correctly carried out.”

Cambodia started planting historic border markers with the Vietnamese side for the first time in September 2006 at the international border gate of Bavet in Svay Rieng province as part of a project to install more than 300 markers along the 1,270-kilometer borderline with Vietnam. So far, according to Son Chhai, only 20 percent of this operation has been done.

[Description of Source: Phnom Penh Samleng Yuveakchon Khmer in Cambodian -- Daily aligned with the Norodom Ranariddh Party, a royalist party founded by ousted FUNCINPEC leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh. It was formerly affiliated with the royalist FUNCINPEC Party.]