Border Group Seeks $9 Million From Thais

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
23 April 2009

Moeung Son, the chairman of the Khmer Civilization Foundation, requested $9.2 million in compensation from the Thai government for the destruction of Cambodian property near Preah Vihear temple during cross-border fighting earlier this month.

Skirmishes between Thai and Cambodian security forces April 3 led to the deaths of at least two Thai soldiers and the destruction under mortar fire of a Cambodian market and houses of 261 families.

Moeung Son told reporters at a press conference he had taken up a thumb-print petition over the weekend, of families that lost their homes in the fighting, which he used to file a complaint through the Thai Embassy Thursday morning.

“The Thai government must be completely responsible for all the destruction of people’s property because of the fighting,” Moeung Son said. “We must struggle to demand compensation from the Thai government for the destruction of property, the loss of jobs and psychological suffering.”

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said the request was “very important” in demanding the Thais take responsibility for the damages.

“It shows the civil society’s duty to protect the Cambodian people and the country’s interest,” he said.

The government has collected evidence of the destruction in the April fighting and has sent some documentation to the Thai government already, he said.

Thai Embassy officials could not be reached for comment.

Thai border harrassment intensifies: Thai soldiers cross the disputed zone at will to destroy Cambodian properties

Cambodian border defense guards had a verbal dispute with Thai soldiers

17 May 1008
By Sav Yuth
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

Cambodian border defense guards in Choam Sa-ngam, Anlong Veng district, Oddar Meanchey province, claimed that they had a tense verbal dispute with Thai soldiers in the morning of Friday 16 May when a group of black-clad Thai soldiers from Sisaket province insisted on destroying a (Cambodian border) post located about 100-meter from a border dispute zone.

Lieutenant-colonel Toch Ra, vice-chairman of the Cambodian-Thailand border relationship workgroup, said that a group of about 10 armed Thai black-clad soldiers belonging to Thai army unit 2307 came to dismantle houses belonging to Cambodian villagers in the region of Chhker Eut in the evening of 16 May and then they continued on to try to dismantle a border post there also in the morning of Friday, but the tense opposition displayed by Cambodian border guards forced these Thai soldiers to pull back.

Lieutenant-Colonel Toch Ra indicated: “Thailand sent in their forces to conduct their activities on the other side of the road (inside Cambodia?), they hid themselves from us, they camped in the forest. Today, we are blocking them since morning until now.”

An anonymous police official from the Choam Sa-gam international border gate indicated that the armed Thai black-clad soldiers cam in to destroy houses belonging to Cambodian villagers living near the border, in a region where these villagers had lived for a long time already: “The (Thai) black-clad soldiers came to destroy our villagers’ houses who lived along the borderline, Cambodian people had always lived there.”

Nevertheless, the Thai black-clad army cannot be reached to clarify about this issue. Similarly, the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh cannot be reached either.

Var Kim Hong, chairman of the Cambodian border dispute resolution committee, said in the afternoon of Friday that he did not receive this information yet, and if indeed this situation did occur, he would be very surprised, however, he believes that the Thai soldiers cannot encroach the border (inside Cambodia) to install a new border post yet because there is not agreement for the installation of new Cambodian post at the border gate along National Road No. 67.

Var Kim Hong said: “Nowadays, for us, we preserved the old international border gate at Choam Sa-ngam because Thailand does not agree with Cambodia’s (plan) to install it at a new location along National Road No. 67 which Samdach prime minister already inaugurated to go for use, so we agree not to open the international border gate along National Road 67 already inaugurated by the prime minister.”

Var Kim Hong added that regarding the borderline between Cambodian and Thailand in Choam Sa-ngam, even though the Cambodian-Thai border committee did not visit the location to determine it clearly yet, this committee used to agree with each other to allow a joint technical group from the two countries to delineate the border between the two countries already, and both sides of this joint committee had agreed to this borderline, but that Thailand still refuses to accept it, saying that this borderline has some missing spots and the joint committee must return to delineate it one more time.

Disputes along the Choam Sa-ngam border gate are always recurring starting from September 2007 when the Thai black-clad soldiers came in to prevent the demining work performed by the Halo Trust organization. In 2006, Thai soldiers brought in a steel building (AUSCO) and installed it inside the Cambodian borderline.