PM hails Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia T-junction point agreement

VietNamNet Bridge – Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung hailed the fresh signing of an agreement on tri-junction point of land boundaries of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

He called it “an event of major historical significance that paves the way for the three countries to cooperate for mutual development and practical benefits”, and lauded the negotiators for the efforts they had made for the signing of the agreement.

PM Dung made those remarks at his reception in Hanoi on Aug. 26 of Cambodian Senior Minister in charge of Border Affairs of the Council of Ministers Var Kim Hong and Lao Deputy Foreign Minister Phongsavath Boupha who came for the signing of the agreement.

He said following the agreement, the three countries should continue working on affairs pertaining to the defining of the Vietnam-Cambodia land borderline and the augment and strengthening of the system of border markers on the Vietnam-Laos land boundary.

The PM also said the three countries should work together to build their shared borders of peace, friendship, cooperation and development to serve the Cambodia-Lao-Vietnam Development Triangle Programme as reached by the three prime ministers.

He affirmed that the Party, State and people of Vietnam will do their best to foster their friendship with Laos and Cambodia, and expressed his hope that the three countries closely work for mutual development and benefit for their people.

The Cambodian and Lao officials agreed that the signing of the tri-junction point agreement was a historical event that reflects mutual trust and mutual understanding of the three countries in a bid to build their borderlines of peace, friendship and cooperation.

Cambodian Minister Var Kim Hong stated his country will reinforce cooperation with Vietnam to ensure the tempo of border demarcation and border marker planting.

He said he expected at least 100 border markers on the two countries’ shared borderline to be planted within this year and the planting of all border markers to be finished prior to 2012.

Meanwhile, Lao Deputy Foreign Minister Phongsavath Boupha affirmed his country will push for the planting of border markers on the two countries’ borderline to help bolster trade, tourism and other exchange of activities between local people living along the borderline.

Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos sign border crossing agreement

Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos agreed on the tri-junction point of their land boundaries in Hanoi on August 26.

An agreement to this effect was signed by Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Vu Dung, Senior Minister in charge of Border Affairs of the Council of Ministers of Cambodia Var Kim Hong and Lao Deputy Foreign Minister Phongsavath Boupha.

Under the agreement, the tri-junction point was defined to be on a mountain peak which is 1,086 m above the sea level where the borderlines of Vietnam’s Kon Tum Province, Laos’ Attapu Province and Cambodia’s Rattanakiri Province meet.

The border crossing was drawn in a map that was attached to the agreement and was verified by the three sides.

The border crossing agreement was made in the spirit of upholding the principles of equality and accuracy to ensure the tri-junction point is clear, easily recognisable, and favourable for the management of the three parties’ borderlines.

The agreement was also made to ensure that the national boundary of each country which was defined in the existing border treaties agreed by the three countries is not changed.

The signing of this agreement reflected the determination and spirit of solidarity and friendship of the governments and people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in settling border and territory-related issues.

At the signing ceremony, all three countries’ representatives affirmed their resolve to complete works related to the on-the-field demarcation of their land borders.

They pledged to spare no efforts to build, protect and manage the shared border into the one of peace, friendship, cooperation and development to support the implementation of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle programme as agreed by the three Prime Ministers.

(Source: VNA)

Cambodia: Thai PM plans to visit Preah Vihear area

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) — Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej is scheduled to visit the area near the Preah Vihear Temple in the eponymous Cambodian province, English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily Friday quoted official as saying.

“ He has a plan to visit the Preah Vihear area, not the Preah Vihear Temple,” said Cambodian Information Minister and government spokesman Khieu Kanharith, adding that specifics on the visit are yet unavailable.

“ We will welcome (Samak) if he visits there,” he said.

Meanwhile, Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Cambodian Council of Ministers, said that Samak needs to inform the Cambodian government before visiting the disputed area near the temple.

He dismissed the possibility of the visit on Saturday, because Samak is scheduled to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

Cambodia and Thailand will hold the second foreign ministers’ meeting in Thailand on Aug. 18 to seek peaceful solution to the 25-day-long military standoff over border dispute.

On July 15, Thai troops went into the border area to fetch three trespassers who had intended to claim Thai sovereignty over the Preah Vihear Temple. The troops stationed there ever since, thus triggering the military stalemate.

In the following days, both sides gradually increased their military personnel to a thousand-strong at the border area to showoff their determination for territorial sovereignty.

During the time, Thai troops occupied one pagoda and one temple that the Cambodian government claimed should belong to its kingdom.

The Preah Vihear Temple straddles the Cambodian-Thai border atop the Dangrek Mountain and was listed as a World Heritage Site on July 7 by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice decided that the 11-century temple and the land around belongs to Cambodia, which rankled the Thais and has led to continuous disputes in late years.

Cambodian PM says Thai temple row must be resolved

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) – Thailand and Cambodia must bury the hatchet in a dispute over a 900-year-old Hindu temple, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Wednesday, further easing fears the spat would escalate into military confrontation.

“ We must not bring our countries to war just because of disputes on our border,” Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla who won re-election last month, said in a live television broadcast. He has been prime minister for the past 23 years.

“ We need to stay together as good neighbours for tens of thousands of years to come. We need to narrow our disputes and maximize bilateral cooperation, including trade,” he said, striking a very different tone from the nationalist rhetoric of his campaign trail last month.

Both countries have sent hundreds of soldiers and artillery to lay claim to 4.6 sq km of scrub near the Preah Vihear temple, which sits on the jungle-clad escarpment that separates the two southeast Asian countries.

Talks between the countries’ two foreign ministers the day after Cambodia’s July 27 general election yielded vows to sort out the spat peacefully, but both sides have been reluctant to be the first to withdraw troops for fear of being painted as weak.

Hun Sen said he hoped another meeting between the two foreign ministers in Thailand on Aug. 18 would help narrow the differences.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong will also pay a courtesy call to Thailand’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Hun Sen said.

He also said Phnom Penh was ready to withdraw its troops, echoing a Thai cabinet decision on Tuesday to assign a regional military commander to discuss troop “ re-deployment” to calm tensions.

The spat erupted last month when protest groups trying to overthrow the Thai government attacked Bangkok’s backing of Cambodia’s bid to list Preah Vihear as a U.N. World Heritage site.

Preah Vihear has been claimed by both sides for decades, but was awarded to Cambodia by the International Court of Justice in 1962, a ruling that has rankled in Thailand ever since.

The row spread at the weekend to a second temple on the border although a military stand-off at the Ta Moan Thom site was averted when Thai troops pulled out late on Tuesday.

Kuwaiti PM In Cambodia For Trade, Oil Talks

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AFP)–Kuwait’s Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed al- Ahmed al-Sabah arrived Sunday for trade talks in Phnom Penh, where he was expected to discuss Cambodia’s fledgling oil and gas industry.

The Kuwaiti premier and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen will on Monday sign agreements on trade and investment, Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said, while energy cooperation will also top the agenda.

“ During the talk, we will raise oil exploration cooperation … cooperation in the oil and gas sector,” Hor Namhong told reporters at the airport, where about 600 onlookers waved Kuwaiti flags in light rain.

Hor Namhong added that he hoped the visit would bring “ fruitful” cooperation between Cambodia and oil-rich Kuwait.

Cambodia expects to begin oil production of its offshore fields in 2011, following the discovery of oil in 2005 by U.S. energy giant Chevron.

Cambodia was quickly feted as the region’s next potential petro-state, sitting on an estimated hundreds of millions of barrels of crude, and three times as much natural gas in six blocks located off its coast.

But it remains unclear how much of the black gold can be recovered, or whether any potential revenue would be used to benefit Cambodia, ranked among the world’s most corrupt countries.

Source: AFP

Cambodian PM’s wife prays at disputed Hindu temple

The Washington Post

PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia (Reuters) – The wife of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen led Buddhist monks and soldiers in prayers at a 900-year-old Hindu border temple on Friday amid a three-week military stand-off with Thailand.

With Thai troops and artillery dug in only meters away, Bun Rany thanked the soldiers, mostly battle-hardened ex-Khmer Rouge guerrillas, for resisting what Cambodia says is Thai encroachment on a disputed patch of land next to the ruins.

“ The first lady called on the ancestral spirits to defend Preah Vihear and chase away the enemy,” Min Khin, chairman of the Southeast Asian nation’s Festival Committee, told reporters after the ceremony, shrouded in early morning mist.

Preah Vihear sits on top of a jungle-clad escarpment that forms a natural boundary between Thailand and Cambodia, and has been a bone of contention between the two countries for decades.

The International Court of Justice in the Hague awarded the site to Cambodia in 1962, a ruling that has rankled in Thailand ever since, although it did not rule on ownership of the 1.8 square miles of scrub at the centre of the latest spat.

The trigger for the latest row came from Bangkok’s backing of Cambodia’s bid to have the temple listed as a World Heritage site, support that was seized on by nationalist street protesters bent on overthrowing the Thai government.

With a general election campaign underway in Cambodia at the time, it quickly escalated into a serious confrontation, with hundreds of troops and artillery sent to both sides of the border. In some places, the two sides are only a few yards apart.

Both foreign ministers vowed on Monday to resolve the stand-off peacefully and pull back troops, although nothing has changed on the ground, with Bangkok and Phnom Penh reluctant to redeploy in case they are painted as weak.

Bun Rany’s high-profile visit, flying in by helicopter and a heavily armed security detail, suggests her husband, a wily former Khmer Rouge soldier who won a landslide victory in Sunday’s election, is in no mood to compromise.

A group claiming Preah Vihear for Thailand described the ceremony as a black-magic ritual meant to bring bad luck, one newspaper reported.

Preah Vihear is not the only temple to have hit relations between the two countries.

In 2003, a nationalist mob torched the Thai embassy and several Thai businesses in Phnom Penh after erroneously reported comments from a Thai soap opera star that Cambodia’s famed Angkor Wat actually belonged to Thailand.

From guerrilla to statesman, Cambodian PM towers above rivals

AFP

Phnom Penh: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has run the nation with an iron grip for over two decades, ruthlessly undercutting rivals since his days in the feared Khmer Rouge.

He lost an eye as a guerrilla in the 1970s but later abandoned the movement in his drive for power, and that is unlikely to end when Cambodia goes to the polls in Sunday’s general election.

Royalist Funcinpec Party leader, princess Norodom Arun Rasmey greets supporters during their last rally in Phnom Penh

The 55-year-old premier, in power 23 years already, has vowed to remain as Cambodia’s head of state until he is 90 and has been on top so long that many fear the country will collapse if he is suddenly removed.

So confident, will not camapign for re-election

Such is his confidence, with his Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) expected to romp to victory, that he has taken the unusual step of not campaigning for his re-election.

Hun Sen’s presence is felt everywhere. His tough line in a border spat with Thailand over an ancient temple, accusing Bangkok of threatening regional peace, has only strengthened the profile of a man who styles his party as Cambodia’s liberator from the Khmer Rouge.

Typical Camobodian everyman

To rural villagers, Hun Sen is also the Cambodian everyman. His sharp, populist wit and humble upbringing make him one of their own. He often veers from prepared remarks — launching into coarsely-worded rants against phantom coups, arrogant foreigners or international demands for reform.

Born the third of six children to peasant farmers in central Cambodia, Hun Sen moved to the capital Phnom Penh at age 12, where he was so poor he was forced to live in a Buddhist pagoda while attending school.

When Cambodia fell into civil war in 1970, he became a foot soldier for what later emerged as the Khmer Rouge — the genocidal regime behind Cambodia’s killing fields.

Opposed Khymer Rouge in 1975

Hun Sen says he opposed the Khmer Rouge as early as 1975. But he remained with the movement, losing an eye in the fighting and rising to the rank of deputy regional commander.

A Cambodian soldier, right, carries a B-40 rocket launcher as he walks past a Thai soldier outside a Buddhist pagoda occupied by Thai soldiers near Preah Vihear temple in Preah Vihear province, Cambodia

He married field nurse Bun Rany in a mass ceremony in 1976, but fled a year later to Vietnam as the regime that killed up to two million people was consumed by its own paranoia, purging thousands.

Hun Sen returned in 1978 with other Cambodian defectors and Vietnamese troops who pushed the Khmer Rouge into the country’s far northwest, where fighting lasted for another two decades.

Became world’s youngest PM in 1985

He quickly rose to the top of the Hanoi-installed government of the 1980s, becoming the world’s youngest prime minister in 1985. As his country emerged from conflict, he abandoned the communist dogma of his Vietnamese patrons, embracing the free market and seeking out alliances with more powerful nations, wooing both China and the United States.

Garment exports and tourism have brought double-digit economic growth to one of the world’s poorest countries, but Hun Sen’s administration is mired in corruption and he is often accused of trampling basic rights to keep his grip on power.

In 1993, he manhandled victory away from the country’s royalists following Cambodia’s first elections, which were backed by the United Nations.

He secured a power-sharing deal with the royalists, but ultimately ousted them in a bloody 1997 coup. Hundreds of people were killed in the run-up to elections the following year. Protests against Hun Sen’s victory were put down violently.

The last national election in 2003 was far less violent, but plunged the kingdom into a year of political stalemate as parties wrangled over forming a coalition. This year’s campaign is much calmer than the past — possibly because Hun Sen no longer faces any major rivals.