បទសម្ភាសន៍តំណាងរាស្រ្តគណបក្សសង្គ្រោះជាតិជុំវិញបញ្ហាព្រំដែន

School of Vice: The notion that the sovereignty dispute issue should be settled within the bilateral diplomatic channel [between Cambodia and Vietnam] alone appears to have little - if any - traction and, may be just another deceptive ploy with which to appease and confound international and domestic opinions, allowing Phnom Penh and Hanoi to stick to the status quo and do their dirty 'business as usual' unopposed and unchecked. 

We are told, after all, that the Cambodian government had lodged a series of complaints through its embassy in Vietnam - apparently to no avail so far. So why is this same diplomatic route still deemed an option at all? Certainly, in my humble view, this bilateral route may still be a practical necessity, or of some utility, but only after Hanoi is made to feel the pressure exerted upon it by relevant third parties and the weight of legal expectations or obligations under international conventions and treaties. It's not only in recent weeks or months or even recent years [as I have mentioned before] that we have read of reports of land encroachments and mass evictions of Khmer people living along the border with Vietnam - this has been a familiar and depressing theme throughout the entire life of this CPP administration, and it is only thanks partly to the systematic denial, suppression and intimidation of the aggrieved parties or victims on the part of the Cambodian authorities and state media that has ensured the national anger and grievances have not boiled over and on a scale any where near the gravity and magnitude reflective or congruous of the crisis. 

On the other hand, the bilateral approach assumes principles of mutual respect and regard for one another as, not only good neighbours but also committed adherents to international norms and agreements; something which - needless to say - Hanoi has consistently failed to live by. Prior to senator Hong Sok Hour's unceremonious arrest [and in violation of his legal immunity] he had queried the presence of a number of Vietnamese military outposts locating well within Cambodia's eastern province of Svay Rieng; in the region known as the "Parrot's Beak", and had asked those present in the workshop gathering to seek explanations from the government. Subsequently, the swift manner in which the senator was arrested and bundled inside prison tells us the powers that be clearly have scant regard for even the most basic behaviourial patterns and rules within any given functional multi-party democracy, let alone transparency and scrutiny over 'nationally sensitive matters of state" they would rather keep out of public view and register.