Sam Rainsy says no

Sam Rainsy

Friday, November 06, 2009
The Nation

Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy said on Friday that he would never serve a foreign government, which has problems with his own country.

"It would never cross my mind to serve a foreign government that is at odds with my own country. All my time and resources are, and will be, exclusively devoted to serving and defending my sacred motherland Cambodia," Sam Rainsy said in a statement issued on Friday.

Rainsy's name cropped up during the current conflict between the Thai and Cambodian governments following Cambodia's appointment of convicted ex-Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra as economic adviser to Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen and his government.

In October, Hun Sen declared that he would appoint fugitive ex-Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as his economic adviser and criticised the Thai media of inviting Sam Rainsy to Thailand and interviewing him.

Hun Sen said he did not see his plan to appoint Thaksin as interfering in Thai politics, given the fact that Sam Rainsy was invited to appear in a television interview and criticise his own government.

On Thursday, when the Thai government recalled its ambassador in protest at Cambodia's appointment of Thaksin as the economic adviser, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban asked what the Hun Sen government would say if Sam Rainsy were appointed as the Thai government's economic adviser.

"I am surprised to see my name associated with that of Mr Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand on his official appointment as an adviser to Cambodia's government led by Mr Hun Sen," Sam Rainsy said in the statement.

Stung Cambodians say ready to take on Thailand

16 Oct 2008
By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH, Oct 16 (Reuters) - An eruption of fighting on the Thai-Cambodian border triggered a wave of patriotism in the Cambodian capital on Thursday, with many ordinary people saying they were willing to take up arms to protect their country.

"We need to defend our land. We must not lose to the Thais," security guard Bun Roeun, 36, said as he sat at a street-side stall, flicking through newspapers plastered with coverage of Wednesday's clashes near the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple.

"If the Thais continue their attempt to cross our border, I am ready to join the army to fight back," he said.

After eight centuries of decline, from the mighty Khmer empire that built Angkor Wat and dominated the region to a small, war-scarred nation sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodians are very touchy about their territory.

The country's precise area -- 181,035 square km -- is drummed into every schoolchild, and any perceived squeezing of its borders is taken as a personal affront by many of its 13 million people.

"You have to defend your house," said 48-year-old motorbike taxi driver Chea Sokean, 48. "If the Thai troops want to steal our house, we have to chase them away."

"We can't stand and watch the Thai army take our land," another 48-year-old, Yos Kan, said.

Such sentiments limit the room for manoeuvre for Prime Minister Hun Sen, even though the wily former Khmer Rouge guerrilla won an election landslide in July to add to his two decades in power.

Newspapers were awash with the Cambodian claims of Thai aggression -- just as Thai papers were awash with the exact opposite -- and Kampuchea Thmei (New Cambodia) ran an editorial headlined "Ready for Sacrifice".

Phnom Penh has admitted that two of its soldiers died in the fighting. Both sides are sending reinforcements in the form of armour and artillery to the border, raising fears of an escalating and wider conflict.

However, Rasmei Kampuchea, Cambodia's largest circulation paper, also ran a front-page government appeal for Thai businesses and people to be left alone in the capital.

The exhortation is a far cry from 2003, when a nationalist mob torched the Thai embassy and around a dozen Thai businesses in Phnom Penh in a row over Angkor Wat, Cambodia's most potent national symbol.

(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Alan Raybould and Valerie Lee)