The Xmer authority is defending the Yuon encroachment in Takeo?

Border post no. 270 that the Anh-chanh villagers claimed it was planted on their rice fields

Cambodian authority explains about border stakes planting in Takeo

26 May 2010
By Sek Bandith
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
Click here to read the article in Khmer

RFA asked the authorization to visit the location of the border post that creates problems on the villagers, but we were denied such visit.

Sin Sotheany, chairman of the no. 4 land border post group, told RFA in front of several Anh-chanh villagers on 26 May that the villagers’ reaction to the planting of border stake in Anh-chanh village, Borey Chulsa district, Takeo province, that led to the loss of their rice fields is not true.

Sin Sotheany claimed that the planting of border stakes between Cambodia and Vietnam did not lead to a loss of land by the villagers.

Sin Sotheany indicated: “The reason the villagers were on alert yesterday, I personally asked Mr. Khim Pak. After questioning, there was no land involved in this area! Their [villagers’] land is located 200 to 300-m from there, it’s rather far away! When they saw the border post pointing toward them, they said that they lost their rice fields, so they were aroused. Another point indicating that a wooden post bearing a Viet flag, there was no such post, there was no Viet flag, there was nothing at all! It is just a wooden stake where no. 270 is marked on it, it just a temporary border post, not a stone border post. We did not install the stone post yet. I am telling that the application on the spot is unlike what [the villagers] accused Vietnam of! Yesterday, there were half Vietnamese and half Cambodians [in the border demarcation group], but they look from far away and they said that the group was all Vietnamese.”

Sin Sotheany made this claim when he and his work group accompanied by about 10 cops came to personally meet the villagers to ask about their reaction claiming that they lost their rice fields, and also to explain about the planting of stakes delimiting an additional border post between Cambodia and Vietnam – known as post 270 – after 11 other border posts were agreed upon by both countries in the past.

RFA asked the authorization to visit the location of the border post that creates problems on the villagers, but we were denied such visit. Instead, Sin Sotheany provided us with a picture and he told us that the no. 270 border post is a post made out of wood, measuring 20-cm wide and 5-cm thick. It stands 60-cm above ground.

Regarding the villagers’ claim that the border stake was planted on their rice fields where they cultivated each year, Sin Sotheany claimed that: “To tell you the truth, when I planted it yesterday, I did not think about rice fields or not because this area is covered with grass, the villagers’ rice fields are about 200 to 300-m from there, there I did see the rice fields.”

Ket Sokun, an Anh-chanh villager, claimed to RFA that the border stake is indeed planted on his rice field which measured 4-hectare. He owned this land since 1984, and he indicated that this land can be cultivated once a year only, during the dry season. For the rest of the year, the land is left free to nature.

Ket Sokun claimed: “I tell you, my rice field land is still lost because in his map, there was no loss of land, not even a hand width, because he said that: Vietnam’s land is also affected, and Cambodia’s land is affected also. Therefore, my land is still lost, they planted in encroachment already, thus I am still concerned. Only if the post is not planted on my land then I will no longer have concerns.

Furthermore, a number of Anh-chanh villagers are being hit by fear and have started to flee their village temporarily after they voiced out their concerns over the loss of their rice field lands stemming from the planting of border stake between Cambodia and Vietnam on 05 May.