Phnom Penh Thursday, 07 April 2011
“It’s appalling that any country would resort to using cluster munitions after the international community banned them.”
An international anti-cluster bomb group has confirmed the use of the munitions by Thailand during border clashes with Cambodia in February.
The Cluster Munition Coalition said it had investigated sites inside Cambodia where the munitions fell near Preah Vihear temple and found unexploded submunitions and fragments.
At least two people were killed when they handled an unexploded bomblet that detonated and seven others have been injured in explosions, the group said in a statement.
The Coalition called on Cambodia and Thailand to prohibit the use of cluster bombs, which are scattered over a wide area and sometimes fail to detonate, leaving behind dangerous remnants.
Neither Cambodia nor Thailand are party to an international ban on such weapons.
“It’s appalling that any country would resort to using cluster munitions after the international community banned them,” Laura Cheeseman, director of the CMC, said in a statement. “Thailand has been a leader in the global ban on antipersonnel mines, and it is unconscionable that it used banned weapons that indiscriminately kill and injure civilians in a similar manner.”
The CMC said Thailand’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva confirmed the use of the cluster munitions in 155-mm artillery shells fired during deadly border fighting in February.
Thani Thongphakdi, a spokesman for the Thai Foreign Ministsry, told VOA Khmer Thursday the Thais had fired in “self defense” after Cambodia attacked with multiple rocket launchers.
“Both sides lost civilian property,” he said. “Cambodia’s BM21 multiple rocket launchers are very danger to Thai civilians. We had aimed at military targets, but not civilian targets.”
However, observers say civilians are now endangered by the munitions.
“There are around 5,000 people living in Sen Chey village that are at risk from these unexploded weapons,” Atle Karlsen of Norwegian People’s Aid said in CMC statement. “Thailand must supply information to help clear affected areas and make them safe for civilians to return home.”
Sao Cheth, who commands 30 Cambodian soldiers at Phnom Trop near the temple and was injured above the eye in February’s clashes, said he supported the group’s stance against the weapons.
“The condemnation is a right and fair thing, because the world has banned the use of cluster munitions,” he said.
Prak Phy, head of Samdech Hun Sen Natural Village, said residents there had suffered damage to their houses, property and rice fields, but no one has so far been injured by ordnance.
“I demand Thailand to be responsible for firing the cluster munitions in Cambodia, and I want Thailand to stop firing cluster munitions in Cambodia,” he said.
Authorities have explained to villagers not to touch unexploded munitions in the area, while the Cambodian Mine Action Center has set up warning signs around the dangerous areas, he said.
2 comments:
Get the nuclear bomb from North Korea and turn Bang Cock into ash!
In reply to Ms. Rattana Keo about her Topic " Koh Tral must not be forgotten "
The island's history is as old as any Asian mainland. An 1856 record mentions the island: "... King Ang Duong (of Cambodia) apprise Mr. de Montigny, French envoy in visit to Bangkok, through the intermediary of Bishop Miche, his intention to yield Koh Tral to France (cf. “The Second [French] Empire of IndoChina”)". Such a proposition aimed to create a military alliance with France to avoid the threat of Vietnam on Cambodia. The proposal did not receive an answer from the French.
While the war between Annam, France, and Spain was about to begin, Ang Duong sent another letter to Napoleon III to warn him on Cambodian claims on the lower Cochinchina region: the Cambodian king listed provinces and islands, including Koh Tral, under Vietnamese occupation since several years or decades (in the case of Saigon, some 200 years according to this letter). Ang Duong asked the French emperor to not annex any part of these territories because, as he wrote, despite this relatively long Vietnamese occupation, they remain Cambodian lands. In 1867, Phu Quoc's Vietnamese authorities pledge allegiance to French troops just conquering HaTien.
After Cambodia gained independence from France, sovereignty disputes over the island were raised since there was no colonial decision on the island's fate. Dating back to 1939, the Governor-general of French Indochina, Jules Brévié had drawn a line to delimiting the administrative boundaries for islands in the Gulf of Thailand: those north of the line were placed under the Cambodian protectorate; those south of the line were managed by the colony of Cochinchina. Brévié made the point that the decision merely addressed police and administrative task, and that no sovereignty decision had been made. As a result, Phu Quoc remains under Cochinchina administration.
Phu Quoc has been a sleepy historical backwater most of its life. The temple on Cau rock was built in 1937. During the Vietnam War the island housed South Vietnam's largest prisoner camp (40000 in 1973, cf. Ngo Cong Duc, deputy of the Vinh Binh province, quoted in "Le régime de Nguyen Van Thieu à travers l'épreuve", Etude Vietnamienne, 1974, pp. 99–131).
After Mainland China fell under the control of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, General Huang Chieh led 30,000 Republic of China Army soldiers to Vietnam and they were stationed at Phu Quoc Island. Later, the army moved to Taiwan in June 1953. There is currently a small island in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's Chengcing Lake that was constructed in November 1955 and named Phu Quoc Island in memory of the fleeing Chinese soldiers in 1949.
In 1967, during the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, Norodom Sihanouk aimed to make the border internationally recognized; in particular, in 1967, the North Vietnamese government recognize theses borders. As written in an article from Kambudja magazine in 1968 (and quoted in the Sihanouk website), entitled "border questions", this border definition recognize that Phu Quoc island is in Vietnamese territory, even if Cambodian claims have been made later.
On May 1, 1975, a squad of Khmer Rouge soldiers raided and took Phu Quoc Island, but Vietnam soon recaptured it. This was to be the first of a series of incursions and counter-incursions that would escalate to the Cambodian–Vietnamese War in 1979.
By Dr. Hun Manet,
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