Var Kim Hong (right) and Vietnamese deputy of foreign affairs Ho Xaun Son (left) sign an agreement earlier this month regarding future border demarcation. Photo by Mai VireakPhnom Penh Post
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Cambodian villagers could be cut out of their own country and sent to live in Vietnam – without ever leaving their homes, concerned civil society and opposition party spokespeople said yesterday.
Cambodian Watchdog Council representative Rong Chhun said the group feared a recent agreement to post demarcating markers along the Cambodian-Vietnam border, because entire villages would be reclassified as being in Vietnamese territory.
On behalf of the CWC, Rong Chhun issued a letter to Heng Samrin, president of the National Assembly, and 122 other members of parliament yesterday asking them to clarify details about the border demarcation process, which could also result in Vietnamese villages becoming Cambodian, he said.
“The swapping of villages is a national issue and our history must have clarity,” the letter states.
“Please, Samdech [Heng Samrin] and all parliamentarians, invite the Cambodian Royal Government or the chairman of the Cambodian Border Committee [Var Kimhong] to clarify this case . . . to avoid Cambodia losing land because of improper border post planting.”
The letter does not state how many villages or provinces CWC thinks will be affected by the demarcation.
Rong Chhun told the Post the Cambodian Border Committee and the Vietnamese Border Committee had reached an agreement without allowing the issue to be debated in the National Assembly.
Son Chhay, an opposition Sam Rainsy Party lawmarker, told the Post he had sent a similar letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday to answer questions about the issue.
“This information is national-level information that parliamentarians must know,” Son Chhay said.
Cambodia and Vietnam signed an agreement on March 14 for completion of the remaining 70 per cent of the 1,270-kilometre border by the end of the year, and agreed to split the cost of demarcation.
Var Kimhong could not be reached by the Post for comment yesterday.
Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan declined to comment about the border demarcation, but said the government would answer questions put to it by the parliament.
To contact the reporter on this story: Meas Sokchea at meas.sokchea@phnompenhpost.com
1 comment:
Land issue is a heart and mind of every nation's issue. I have never heard of land swapping in any where else in the world.
How dare they managed to decide this land swapping without a parliament debating? Isn't it a daylight collaborative deal between puppets and its master?
I fear this land-swapping here is a smoked screen that designed to hide all the land that had been encroched by Hanoi,which is still in grey issues,no one allowed to check or verify by any independent watchdog.Thousands of hectares believed to be lost to Vietnam.
Once it has been swapped I am sure that Hanoi will not allowed us to step in to their new border to check or verify by the next government.And that will make it impossible to verify.The original trace has been erased and that is the real trick?.
Why do we need land swapping?. Technologies such as GPS and many other softwares with satellite system that can read and translate with high precision and accuracy up to a ten of a metre?. What is the real benefit?.
If we get more Viets in Cambodia it will be a more burdens to our nation that have already swamped by them and to lose our villagers to Hanoi is like to send them to prison,as we watching our brothers Khmer Krom are being deprived from their rights and liberty,such as They are not allowed to watch Khmer radios or Watch Khmer TV.Their farmland are being confiscated.
It was a total traitorous act performed in daylight by Hun Sen and his cronies.I am sure it was Hanoi who initiated this deal by knowing that their puppets will not refuse its proposal.
I would like to urge all the opposition parties to oppose this issue and write a strong and clear warning words to Hanoi government that any border issue that had been doubt with CPP is not legal and it will be revised,when the real government that elected by a proper democracy and transparency system inside Cambodia.Cambodia at the moment is not in real democracy.
Nation without land is a nation without identity.
Land is not a commodity that can be bought,sold or swapped by a group of gangsters.Millions of our compatriots have sacrificed their lives to defend our motherland since the beginning of time.
Land is a sacred soul.
True Khmer
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