Tuesday, 09 October 2012
By May Titthara
Phnom Penh Post
A
Cambodian military official has alleged that Thai soldiers have been planting non-lethal improvised explosive devices at the Sra Kaew border
adjacent to Battambang province to stop illegal loggers entering their
country, a claim Thailand has denied.
Pan Rothmony, a border
guard in Sampov Loun district’s Santepheap commune said yesterday that
several of the devices, which did not wound victims but left them with
strange spots on their bodies from an apparent chemical reaction, had
detonated in the past two months.
“So I patrolled at the place
where I heard that Cambodians had escaped arrest by Thai soldiers and
encountered the fact of mines being spread to deter Cambodians from
illegally entering to cut timber at night,” he said.
Thai
soldiers who had been planting the IEDs after about 6pm and setting them
to trip wires at shin, waist and chest height told him the explosives
were intended to help identify illegal loggers, Rothmony said.
“They shouldn’t have used such an unlawful preventive method at all, even though it doesn’t cause injury,” he said.
Colonel
Birek Bongkarn, military attache to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh,
denied that Thai troops had been planting such devices.
“Thai
soldiers have no policy for that, because it’s not useful to do so,”
adding there would be little point in mining the area as it had no
valuable timber.
He said he believed those making the allegation were “imagining something”.
But
24-year-old Cambodian Lert Chab said one of the devices had exploded in
front of him, releasing a huge cloud of black smoke into the sky,
leaving him dizzy, after he illegally entered Thailand to log timber.
“I,
at first, was very afraid. When I touched my hands and legs I noticed
only spots. I stepped on the mine as if it were a forest vine – then the
mine exploded,” he said.
Cambodian authorities have accused
Thai armed forces of shooting dead 38 of their civilians attempting to
cross the border to illegally log in the first six months of this year
alone.
To contact the reporter on this story: May Titthara at titthara.may@phnompenhpost.com
With assistance from: David Boyle
With assistance from: David Boyle
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