Security boosted at Aranyaprathet checkpoints

November 14, 2009
The Nation

Stricter security measures are being imposed at the main border town in Sa Kaew following intelligence reports that Cambodian soldiers disguised as vendors had infiltrated into Thai soil on intelligencegathering operations. Ads by Google

Three companies of Thai paramilitary rangers were stationed at the Rong Klua market near the Baan Khlong Luek border checkpoint in Aranyaprathet district to maintain surveillance after reports that 80 Cambodian soldiers dressed as civilians had entered Thailand along with 8,000 Cambodian vendors yesterday.

Very few Thai people visited the market yesterday following growing tensions between the two countries while the regular number of Cambodian vendors entered Thailand, making the market full of vendors while short of Thai shoppers and visitors.

Longer queues of Cambodian vendors were seen because Thai security forces searched their luggage and bodies more thoroughly than usual. Thai immigration officials told the Cambodians that the searches had nothing to do with the growing tensions, but resulted directly from a routine but stricter antinarcotics policy by the Thai government.

Meanwhile, Labour Minister Phaitoon Kaeothong said the government was not planning to limit the number of legal Cambodian immigrant workers entering Thailand, despite growing calls from the public and certain media outlets. He said Thai employers and their productions or services relying on Cambodian workers, and subsequently Thai consumers, would otherwise be affected.

Labour and employment offices in Chanthaburi, Prachin Buri, Trat, Sa Kaew, Buri Ram and Si Sa Ket provinces bordering Cambodia have been instructed to closely look out for possible gatherings of Cambodian workers for whatever purposes. There are now 148,120 Cambodian workers registered for employment in Thailand.

In Bangkok, local police are stepping up their patrols and other operations, watching out for smalltime alien criminals and pickpockets who usually prey on victims in crowded events in Thailand during the festive months of November and December.

Caretaker police chief Patheep Tanprasert said police patrols would be intensive at three coming events: Father's Day fair, Phuen Phueng Pha fair and Sillapacheep fair.

Police arrested 206 illegal immigrants in October, including 96 Cambodians and 66 Burmese.

Thai black-clad soldier shot an injured a young Cambodian migrant worker girl

Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper reported that Thai black-clad soldiers opened fire on 5 Cambodian migrant workers when they returned back from a rice planting job in Aranyaprathet, Sa Kaew province, Thailand. The shooting injured a young Cambodian migrant worker girl. The shooting took place at 7:45PM on 28 June 2009, near Palai village, Aranyaprathet district, Sa Kaew province which is located in front of Cambodia’s Poipet town. According to relatives of the victim, the young Cambodian teenager worker is 16-year-old Yen Sophy. She lives near Tumnub (dike) Korng, Tuol Prasat commune, Poipet city, Banteay Meanchey province. The teenager was seriously injured on her left calf which was pierced by a bullet. According to the victim, she was among a group of five Cambodian migrant workers from her village. These workers went to plant rice in Thailand and they returned back home in the evening. At the location of the incident, about 150-meter from the Cambodian border, one Thai black-clad soldier among a group of many other soldiers opened fire and shot 6 bullets on the Cambodian workers with the intention of killing all these Cambodian workers.

Thai Army chief confident border dispute will end

Friday, October 03, 2008
TNA

Newly-appointed military commander Songkitti Jaggabatara said Friday he is confident that the ongoing Thailand-border dispute could be resolved amicably.

Gen Songkitti, who has assumed his new post as supreme commander on Wednesday, said the dispute between the two neighbours is being solved at the bilateral committee level and there should not be any problem if all perform their defined duties.

To date there has been no violence along the border, he said.

The two countries, both members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), remain engaged in a dispute over at least three ancient temples. The disputes stem from poor demarcation as Cambodia uses a colonial-era French map to demarcate the border, which Thailand says favours Cambodia. Thailand relies on a map drawn up later with American technical assistance.

Meanwhile, Lt-Gen Kanit Sapitak, First Army Region commander responsible for security affairs in the country's central region, told journalists that the differences between the two countries does not pose any problem between the military, civil servants and residents living near the border.

Currently, Cambodian nationals still cross into Thailand illegally to seek jobs, according to Lt-Gen Kanit, adding that a new economic zone has been set up inside Cambodia aimed at encouraging Thai and and other foreign investors to invest in that country which could improve employment there.

Lt-Gen Kanit will soon visit the Cambodian border at Aranyaprathet district to follow-up 4th Thai-Khmer general border committee meeting which ended recently with the parties agreeing to beautify scenery and improve the environment at the border.

Thai-Cambodian border trade remains sluggish

SA KAEO, July 26 (TNA) - Trade in the key Thai district of Aranyaprathet bordering Cambodia remained sluggish Saturday amid rumours that Cambodian traders were refusing to accept the Thai currency, the baht, due to fears that tensions along the border over regarding a disputed zone adjacent to an ancient temple could escalate.

Fewer than half the normal number of Cambodian traders crossed into Thailand's normally lively Aranyaprathet market in an atmosphere or inactivity, while the volume of Thai tourists visiting Cambodia's 12th-century Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom tumbled to less than 100 from about 1,000 persons during prior weekends.

Cambodian traders with a sense of nationalism refused to accept the baht at all, saying they preferred the Cambodian currency, the riel, after selling their wares at the Aranyaprathet market.

A Cambodian market vendor, a woman who crosses the border every day, said Cambodian traders were being searched by motorcycle-taxi drivers upon returning to Cambodia's Poi Pet town, at the other end of the short bridge, were scolded and told that they did not love the nation if Thai currency was found inside their wallets.

Thailand's Burapha Task Force stationed along in the border area said Cambodian traders still used the Thai baht in daily trade, except for small vendors who preferred the riel out of concerns that Thailand would close the border.

Security at Thai government offices near the border has been tightened, also on fears that fighting between both sides could break out.

Cambodians buy food for fear of border closure

Saturday, July 19, 2008
TNA

Anxieties regarding an imminent border closure by Thailand over a disputed zone near an ancient temple led to over one thousand Cambodians to cross the border Saturday to stock up on dried foodstuffs and oil from a market in Aranyaprathet district opposite Cambodia's Poi Pet.

The Cambodians bought daily essentials to keep in reserve on worries that the Thai authorities might close the border following military reinforcements and tensions building in Thailand's Kantharalak district of Si Sa Ket, where Preah Vihear temple is located.

Tensions in the area have increased in recent days as both countries have reinforced their troops near the disputed temple.

A Cambodian villager who crossed the border and bought food supplies said Cambodians in Poi Pet feared that fighting could break out.

He said Poi Pet residents believed that negotiations between the two neighbours' military leaders, scheduled for Monday and aimed at defusing the tensions, would be fruitless after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen had demanded that Thailand withdraw its troops.

Cambodians believe that Thailand would not follow the Cambodian leader's request, said the villager.

Meanwhile, Thai Army soldiers and Rangers have set up a checkpoint at a border outpost in Aranyaprathet and are also patrolling the shared border to prevent Cambodians from entering Thailand illegally.

Source of Methamphetamine drug seized in Bangkok points to Cambodia?

Police arrest female drug trafficker

TNA (Thailand)

Police here have arrested a female drug trafficker and seized 160,000 methamphetamine pills and 145 grammes of so-called 'ice' crystal methamphetamine valued at nearly 50 million baht from her apartment, police said.

Bangkok police chief Pol. Lt-Gen. Adisorn Nonsi told a press conference that plainclothes policemen had contacted 35-year-old Varisra Larpcharoen to buy 30 grammes of crystal methamphetamine hydrochloride, the drug also known popularly as 'ice'.

She was apprehended after meeting the plainclothes police officers at a parking lot of a shopping mall.

Police later took Miss Varisra to her apartment on the outskirts of Bangkok and found quantities of speed pills hidden in boxes and ice in a wardrobe. The seized drugs were estimated at being worth nearly 50 million baht on the street.

Miss Varisra reportedly told police that she received the methamphetamine, commonly called yaa baa, from a man identified only as 'Mr. O' but she had never met him because the drug would be sent to her by his agent. She said she bought the drug from another agent at the Thai-Cambodian border district of Aranyaprathet.

Gen Adisorn said the woman had been selling drugs in Bangkok's slum areas since 1996 and not for only two years as she had claimed, but that she had moved on after her former accomplices were killed or arrested.

Miss Varisra is charged with possession of illegal drugs and trafficking. In the meantime, the police said they were looking for the otherwise unidentified dealer known as 'Mr. O'.