By Ek Madra
PHNOM PENH, Oct 16 (Reuters) - An eruption of fighting on the Thai-Cambodian border triggered a wave of patriotism in the Cambodian capital on Thursday, with many ordinary people saying they were willing to take up arms to protect their country.
"We need to defend our land. We must not lose to the Thais," security guard Bun Roeun, 36, said as he sat at a street-side stall, flicking through newspapers plastered with coverage of Wednesday's clashes near the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple.
"If the Thais continue their attempt to cross our border, I am ready to join the army to fight back," he said.
After eight centuries of decline, from the mighty Khmer empire that built Angkor Wat and dominated the region to a small, war-scarred nation sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodians are very touchy about their territory.
The country's precise area -- 181,035 square km -- is drummed into every schoolchild, and any perceived squeezing of its borders is taken as a personal affront by many of its 13 million people.
"You have to defend your house," said 48-year-old motorbike taxi driver Chea Sokean, 48. "If the Thai troops want to steal our house, we have to chase them away."
"We can't stand and watch the Thai army take our land," another 48-year-old, Yos Kan, said.
Such sentiments limit the room for manoeuvre for Prime Minister Hun Sen, even though the wily former Khmer Rouge guerrilla won an election landslide in July to add to his two decades in power.
Newspapers were awash with the Cambodian claims of Thai aggression -- just as Thai papers were awash with the exact opposite -- and Kampuchea Thmei (New Cambodia) ran an editorial headlined "Ready for Sacrifice".
Phnom Penh has admitted that two of its soldiers died in the fighting. Both sides are sending reinforcements in the form of armour and artillery to the border, raising fears of an escalating and wider conflict.
However, Rasmei Kampuchea, Cambodia's largest circulation paper, also ran a front-page government appeal for Thai businesses and people to be left alone in the capital.
The exhortation is a far cry from 2003, when a nationalist mob torched the Thai embassy and around a dozen Thai businesses in Phnom Penh in a row over Angkor Wat, Cambodia's most potent national symbol.
(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Alan Raybould and Valerie Lee)
"We need to defend our land. We must not lose to the Thais," security guard Bun Roeun, 36, said as he sat at a street-side stall, flicking through newspapers plastered with coverage of Wednesday's clashes near the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple.
"If the Thais continue their attempt to cross our border, I am ready to join the army to fight back," he said.
After eight centuries of decline, from the mighty Khmer empire that built Angkor Wat and dominated the region to a small, war-scarred nation sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodians are very touchy about their territory.
The country's precise area -- 181,035 square km -- is drummed into every schoolchild, and any perceived squeezing of its borders is taken as a personal affront by many of its 13 million people.
"You have to defend your house," said 48-year-old motorbike taxi driver Chea Sokean, 48. "If the Thai troops want to steal our house, we have to chase them away."
"We can't stand and watch the Thai army take our land," another 48-year-old, Yos Kan, said.
Such sentiments limit the room for manoeuvre for Prime Minister Hun Sen, even though the wily former Khmer Rouge guerrilla won an election landslide in July to add to his two decades in power.
Newspapers were awash with the Cambodian claims of Thai aggression -- just as Thai papers were awash with the exact opposite -- and Kampuchea Thmei (New Cambodia) ran an editorial headlined "Ready for Sacrifice".
Phnom Penh has admitted that two of its soldiers died in the fighting. Both sides are sending reinforcements in the form of armour and artillery to the border, raising fears of an escalating and wider conflict.
However, Rasmei Kampuchea, Cambodia's largest circulation paper, also ran a front-page government appeal for Thai businesses and people to be left alone in the capital.
The exhortation is a far cry from 2003, when a nationalist mob torched the Thai embassy and around a dozen Thai businesses in Phnom Penh in a row over Angkor Wat, Cambodia's most potent national symbol.
(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Alan Raybould and Valerie Lee)
9 comments:
I'm a high school drop out and not so lucky with love, willing to sacrafice my life for my beloved country which i know nothing of, if Cambodia needs me to fight the arrogance thai. My life is not worth living in the US anyway, might as well be worth killing a thai to help discourage them from wanting to take over our land.
Please help pay for my one way air fare and i am on my way to volunteer into the cambodia army. I am willing to do anything to get a shoot at the bastard thai troops.
Those captured Thai POWs must be put on Ebay, and use the proceeds to assist our troops.
Please take NO MORE POWs (prisoner of war).
will the one way ticket mean a full fun in a pub in the US? Ask money from the internet, so funny.
2:21, give me your details. I will make arrangement for you to reach Preah Vihear province. I will visit our motherland in December, I will depart from NY, so I can make a one-way purchase for you, but there's a condition: I must make sure you enlist into the army and be armed and sent to Preah Vihear immediately. Point is: I don't want my money to be cheated. I am so proud of you. So if you are serious, I am serious.
Happy to hear every body SAM MA KY KNEA. if the nation need more army and if thai still go in. I am ready to fight with that brainless Thai.
Oh great! a bunch of unemployed bums what to protect their country -- sic!
To die of defending a country is a million times better than to live invading other country.
no, it is better to live for the country than to die for the country.
one quote, " my job isn't to die for my country, but making sure the other bastard dies for his"
my job is to go to work from 9 to 5 and come back home, my sweet honey waiting for me to give me u know what??. then I'm happy as hell!! that's why i'm smiling all the time. who give a fuck about Thai-Khmer war..Protecting Who??. You afraid of the Thai will take our land? what land??? Didn't our land already been taken by the Viet??? That's what we need to worry about. Not the Thai, they are not the real theif, The Viet are.
that's why I'd rather make love than fight a stupid war.
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