Saturday, September 09, 2006

Lawmakers: Conscription Will Go To Assembly Vote

Saturday and Sunday, August 9-10, 2006

By Prak Chan Thul
The Cambodia Daily


A law establishing compulsory military service was passed by the National Assembly's Defense Commission on Friday and will be sent to a full Assembly vote by the end of the year, lawmakers said. Five CPP commission members and one Funcinpec member voted for the law, which is expected to draft 3,000 to 5,000 new recruits into RCAF next year. "The law must be passed this year," commission deputy chairman and CPP lawmaker Pal Sam Oeun said. The commission's two SRP lawmakers, chairman Yim Sovann and Chrea Sochencla, boycotted the meeting saying the law, as written, is open to abuse by recruiters. Chrea Sochenda issued a faxed statement on Friday criticizing the law for applying to youths aged 18 to 30 that are still in school or that have good jobs already. Pal Sam Oeun said that the law is needed to replenish RCAF’s aging ranks. Yim Sovann said in a statement that his request to make the military service voluntary and to limit the number of recruits to not more than 10,000 in peacetime was denied.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The army that uses its force to evict poor people to serve some special interest groupos has too many chiefs that it needs Indians to do the leg work.

SiS

Anonymous said...

These Cambodian army are Vietcong trained and they won't be any good for the security of Cambodia!

Anonymous said...

I pray for the Assembly to approve this law. Military service will provide much-needed discipline to the whiney brats who inhabit this forum.

Anonymous said...

To 10:16

What are you talking about! Are you sure you are not talking about yourself?