By Neil Chatterjee
JAKARTA May 7 (Reuters) - Southeast Asian leaders sought on Saturday to resolve a deadly border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia that has cast fresh doubt over whether the region's plans to become a free-trade economic community by 2015 are realistic.
The skirmishes between Thailand and Cambodia -- ostensibly over ownership of some crumbling ancient temples on the border but also driven by internal political dynamics in both countries -- have killed 18 people in the last couple of weeks,
The confrontation -- and the apparent inability of the Association of South East Asian Nations to broker a peace deal that holds -- has fuelled scepticism over the bloc's lofty ambitions and threatens to overshadow its annual two-day meeting, just as controversy over Myanmar has in the past.
"The United States and United Nations hope Indonesia, as Southeast Asia's biggest country, can help to resolve this dispute," Indonesian Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring told Reuters at the start of the meeting in Jakarta.
The 10-member ASEAN, with some of the world's fastest growing economies and some 500 million people, represents a region with increasing economic clout but is often derided as a talk shop and has a policy of non-interference in other members' domestic affairs.
Fighting over the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site in dispute since the withdrawal of the French from Cambodia in the 1950s, has turned into Southeast's Asia's bloodiest conflict in a decade and dented ASEAN's image.
Thai and Cambodian foreign ministers meeting ahead of the summit agreed on some of the ground rules for sending an Indonesian military observer team to the border, but Cambodia rejected Thailand's request to withdraw troops from the temple as a precondition.
"We never can withdraw our troops from our own territory. It should be very clear," said Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong.
MYRIAD SECURITY CHALLENGES
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono did not mention the dispute in a speech to open the meeting on Saturday, focusing instead on the region's challenges of food and energy security and speeding up moves towards an economic community.
The group ranges from oil and gas-rich Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Malaysia, and the world's top rice exporter Thailand, to trading centre Singapore and resource-scarce Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines.
ASEAN, together with China, Japan and South Korea, has agreed to have a rice reserve of over 700,0000 tonnes to protect against volatile commodity prices, which had surged this year before unexpectedly diving this week.
"Food security will be a great challenge for ASEAN," Yudhoyono said in the speech. "Nations on this earth will face a competitive situation for the scarce resources of daily needs."
The region needs to develop intra-ASEAN trade and investment, said Yudhoyono, a week after meeting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao who promised $9 billion in loans to overhaul Indonesia's dilapidated infrastructure and to speed up transport links between the region and China.
"We still have to do a lot of things," Yudhoyono added.
He said the leaders, transported in a fleet of gleaming Toyota limos through Jakarta's traffic jams and tropical rains that killed 17 people on Friday night in floods to the west of the capital, will also discuss disaster management following the devastating tsunami in key trading partner Japan.
(Additional reporting by Telly Nathalia, Aditya Suharmoko and Olivia Rondonuwu; Editing by Andrew Marshall)
2 comments:
Koh Tral Island must not be forgotten
By Ms. Rattana Keo
Why do Koh Tral Island, known in Vietnam as Phu Quoc, a sea and land area covering proximately over 30,000 km2 [Note: the actual land size of Koh Tral itself is 574 square kilometres (222 sq miles)] have been lost to Vietnam by whose treaty? Why don’t Cambodia government be transparent and explain to Cambodia army at front line and the whole nation about this? Why don't they include this into education system? Why?
Cambodian armies are fighting at front line for 4.6 km2 on the Thai border and what's about over 30,000km2 of Cambodia to Vietnam. Nobody dare to talk about it! Why? Cambodian armies you are decide the fate of your nation, Cambodian army as well as Cambodian people must rethink about this again and again. Is it fair?
Koh Tral Island, the sea and land area of over 30,000 square kilometres have been lost to Vietnam by the 1979 to 1985 treaties. The Cambodian army at front line as well as all Cambodian people must rethink again about these issues. Are Cambodian army fighting to protect the Cambodia Nation or protecting a very small group that own big lands, big properties or only protecting a small group but disguising as protecting the Khmer nation?
The Cambodian army at front lines suffer under rain, wind, bullets, bombs, lack of foods, lack of nutrition and their families have no health care assistance, no securities after they died but a very small group eat well, sleep well, sleep in first class hotel with air conditioning system with message from young girls, have first class medical care from oversea medical treatments, they are billionaires, millionaires who sell out the country to be rich and make the Cambodian people suffer every day.
Who signed the treaty 1979-1985 that resulted in the loss over 30,000 km2 of Cambodia??? Why they are not being transparent and brave enough to inform all Cambodians and Cambodian army at front line about these issues? Why don't they include Koh Tral (Koh Tral size is bigger than the whole Phom Phen and bigger than Singapore [Note: Singapore's present land size is 704 km2 (271.8 sq mi)]) with heap of great natural resources, in the Cambodian education system?
Look at Hun Sen's families, relatives and friends- they are billionaires, millionaires. Where did they get the money from when we all just got out of war with empty hands [in 1979]? Hun Sen always say in his speeches that Cambodia had just risen up from the ashes of war, just got up from Year Zero with empty hands and how come they are billionaires, millionaires but 90% of innocent Cambodian people are so poor and struggling with their livelihood every day?
Koh Tral was a Cambodian island, and technically and legally, remained a Cambodian island until today.
Smart Khmer girl Ms. Rattana Keo,
Since Hun Sen was a Khmer Rouge commander of the Democratic Kampuchea Pol Pot Khmer Rouge Regime, now a Khmer Rouge leader of the Cambodian Peoples Party Hun Sen Khmer Rouge Regime and had many of his political opponents and journalists assassinated, I wonder if he have any plan to assassinate the Thai Prime Minister (Ahbullshit Vejjajiva)?
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