Working group created to protect ‘sovereignty’ along Lao, Thai borders

Manekseka Sangkum: 

We hate to mention it, but we have told you so...

"At the Vietnam border everything is under control..." Unfortunately, the controlling party is not that of Cambodia, and no independent inspectors or interested Cambodian nationals are allowed to be any where near any of the disputed areas along the border!

Despite this blatant territorial violation, someone at the PPP still believes one of the regime's border affairs spokesmen - Sok Touch - "spoke the truth" at a recent border conference in Phnom Penh! Had he spoken the truth, it's fair to say he would have been swiftly removed or even murdered...

Along the thousand kilometer-long frontier line only NA President Heng Samrin has invested in his show-piece birth village; a place which according to Vietnam lies within its border. Elsewhere, border Cambodian police outposts remain in their timeless dilapidated state, and communes threatened with inundation of Vietnamese settlers stay out of the Phnom Penh regime's radar of funding and "development".

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Mech Dara and Ananth Baliga | Publication date 20 March 2018 | 09:22 ICT

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Deputy Prime Minister Bin Chhin speaks at an event in Phnom Penh in 2016. The Council of Ministers head will lead a working group to ensure Cambodia’s ‘sovereignty’ along the Thai and Lao borders. Heng Chivoan

“Why not along Vietnam? Because at Vietnam border everything is under control,”

The government has created a new task force, called the National Special Working Group on Sovereignty, to address border issues with Thailand and Laos, though not with Vietnam.

The group was formed on February 6, according to a document obtained on Monday by The Post, and will report directly to Prime Minister Hun Sen, said government spokesman Phay Siphan. The group will be headed by Bin Chhin, minister in charge of the Council of Ministers, and includes Bodyguard Unit head Hing Bun Heang and the premier’s son, Hun Manet.

They will be joined by regional Royal Cambodian Armed Forces commanders and provincial governors of regions along the northern and western borders.

The group was created in part to “cooperate with involved institutions to implement the activities involved with sovereignty, successfully and effectively . . . especially along the border with Laos, Thailand and the maritime border,” the document says.

The announcement is scant on exact duties the 31 members will be taking on, except to say that the Ministry of Economy and Finance would allocate the required funds to the group.

Government spokesman Phay Siphan said the group was needed to reinforce “sovereignty” along the Thai and Lao borders, but said that this was not the case with Vietnam.

“Why not along Vietnam? Because at Vietnam border everything is under control,” he said.