Border cards close to vest, says Hun Manet

Border cards close to vest, says Hun Manet

Thu, 31 December 2015 ppp

Vong Sokheng

Premier Hun Sen (right) and his Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Tan Dung, unveil a border marker in Ratanakkiri this month. Photo supplied

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School of Vice: Clear and transparent as mud? The Phnom Penh regime can't even be counted upon to protect the country's natural resources; curb or reverse mass illegal foreign immigration influx, let alone safeguarding territorial boundary. 

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Hun Manet, eldest son of Prime Minister Hun Sen and a senior military official, took to Facebook yesterday to defend his father’s handling of the demarcation of the Cambodia-Vietnam border.

Writing on his father’s Facebook page, Manet used a card-playing analogy to assert that the demarcation is happening lawfully and with transparency, while maintaining that secrecy in the negotiations is a necessary part of diplomacy.

“The ongoing border negotiation with Vietnam is the same as if we are playing cards; if our partners knew the total six pieces of our cards in hand . . . we would be dead [lose] even if we have three aces,” he wrote.

Manet also called on Cambodians to trust that negotiations are being conducted in the best interest of the Kingdom.

“[We] will not keep [this dispute] for the next generation to resolve,” he said.

The prime minister’s son also remarked that the deportation of illegal immigrants helps prevent terrorist attacks, as terrorists can be concealed among the broader immigrant population.

“We have to keep them under control,” Manet said, while acknowledging that 90 per cent of the 3,000 illegal immigrants expelled from the Kingdom in 2015 were Vietnamese.

Meanwhile, CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann maintained that some border markers are improperly placed and that such suspicions would remain “unless there is participation from all parties”.

Contact author: Vong Sokheng