Incompetence and mistakes by the PRK on border problems - Incompétence et erreurs de la RPK sur le problème de frontière

Unofficial translation from French

Dear Friends,

Please find here a 10-year Summary Report of the so-called PRK (People’s Republic of Kampuchea installed by Vietnam). The report originated from the office of the Council of Ministers (led by Hun Xen) and was dated 02 December 1988.

Regarding the item titled “border delimitation works” (Page 11), following the signing of territorial treaties with Vietnam between 1985 and August 1988, the authors of the report clearly confessed their incompetence and the mistakes they made on this subject, to the detriment of Cambodia. They also indicated that, from the get go, they had to follow forced orders by their Vietnamese “experts”. As a matter of fact, these are the same “treaties” which were “legalized” in October 2005 – without any discussion – and served as the basis to dream up the Supplementary Border Treaty for the demarcation and the planting of land border posts between Cambodia and Vietnam.

Regarding the maritime border between the two countries, it was and it will be under total disregards of Cambodia’s rights that Hun Xen signed the “Historical Waters” agreements with Hanoi. He is planning to sign the delimitation of the maritime border next between the two countries.

Please find below the document for your perusal.

Cordially,

Dy Kareth

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Chers Amis,

Vous avez ci-joint le Rapport du Bilan de dix années d'existence de la dénommée RPK, Rapport établi par le Cabinet du Conseil des Ministres (de Hun Sen) en date du 02 décembre 1988.

Au point concernant les "travaux de délimitation de la frontière" (page 11), après leurs signatures des traités territoriaux avec le Vietnam de 1985 à août 1988, ils avouent clairement leur incompétence et leurs erreurs en la matière au détriment du Cambodge et, partant, ont dû tout simplement suivre le forcing de leurs "experts" vietnamiens. Or, ce sont ces mêmes "traités" qui, en octobre 2005, ont été "légalisés" sans discussion pour servir de base à la confection du Traité Complémentaire pour la démarcation et l'abornement de la frontière terrestre Cambodge-Vietnam.

Concernant la frontière maritime des deux pays, c'était et ce sera encore dans l'ignorance totale des droits du Cambodge que Hun Sen a signé son Accord sur les "Eaux Historiques" avec Hanoi et signera la prochaine délimitation de la frontière maritime entre les deux pays.

Document ci-joint pour votre réflexion.

Cordialement,

DK

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https://www.box.com/s/a94e458758b7a8e5253f

Soeun Sam, a proud handicap bookseller in Phnom Penh, talks about his life under K-5 (Pat 03)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwdBRR7aNzY

1991 PRK's plan for build K5 - by Nhim Vannda

http://www.box.net/shared/rgf3hvjiody6ul22g0zo

Who’s your daddy?

Pen Sovann (Photo: AP)

Pen Sovann: I am the father of 02 December and 07 January

27 July 2010
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Once again, Pen Sovann, the former prime minister of Cambodia at the beginning of the 80s and currently vice-president of the Human Rights Party, told his party members on Sunday that he was the one who led the army to liberate Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge regime. According to The Phnom Penh Post, Pen Sovann told about 200 HRP party members at the party headquarters that: “I am telling you that I am the father of 02 December and 07 January. I was the true president of the CPP.” He added: “I formed the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK).” He said that when he formed the 1979 government, he nominated Heng Xamrin, the current president of the National Assembly, to the position of chairman of the council of the revolutionary people of Kampuchea, and Chea Xim, the current president of the Senate, to the position of minister of Interior. Pen Sovann was nominated as the PRK prime minister in 1981, but he was subsequently arrested [by Hun Xen] and jailed in Vietnam for 10 years because he opposed the Vietnamese leaders’ policy of sending Viet immigrants to settle in Cambodia, as well as other Viet plans.

Why some Cambodians speak Russian

Cambodian Saing Soenthrith shows photos of friends from his Russian university days. He still speaks Russian, which he learned in the 1980's while on a scholarship from the Soviet government. (Julie Masis)

After the Khmer Rouge wiped out Cambodia's education system, Russia stepped in with a scholarship program. Since 1982, more than 8,000 Cambodians have received their degrees in Russia and other former Soviet republics.

March 4, 2010
By Julie Masis Correspondent
Christian Science Monitor

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - A visitor to this small country might be surprised to hear some locals speaking Russian.

This is because the former USSR established a scholarship program in 1982 to send Cambodian students to study in Soviet universities free of charge. Since then, more than 8,000 Cambodians received their degrees in Russia and in the republics of the Soviet Union, according to the Russian Embassy in Cambodia.

Free college education is no longer available to all Russians, but the Russian government still provides funds to send a group of Cambodians to Russian universities every year. It covers full tuition, health insurance, and a stipend for living expenses. There are currently 110 Cambodians studying in Russian post-secondary schools, according to the embassy, a decline from the 1980s, when as many as 500 Cambodians attended Soviet colleges annually, says Sergei Kolesov, the director of the Russian Center of Science and Culture in Cambodia’s capital.

The center, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in February, caters to Russian-speaking Cambodians with a collection of Russian books and movies. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many such centers closed – particularly the centers in Africa, Mr. Kolesov says – but the center in Cambodia still operates in the same building.

One of the people who benefited from an education in the USSR is Saing Soenthrith, an associate editor at a newspaper in Phnom Penh. Had it not been for a Russian scholarship he received in 1983, he never would have gone to university, he says.

Mr. Soenthrith, who still speaks Russian, says his parents were killed during the “Khmer Rouge times” and as a child he found shelter in a Buddhist monastery. After returning to Cambodia from Russia, however, Soenthrith became a teacher and later an editor.

“Sweet memories,” he says, as he looks through heaps of black-and-white photographs, naming his Russian friends and teachers. “I always remember.”

Abhisit and Hun Sen: a clash of leadership styles

November 12, 2009
By KAVI CHONGKITTAVORN
THE NATION

Beyond leadership style and the generation gap, the current dispute has its roots in Thailand's past support for the coalition government of Democratic Kampuchea that fought against the Vietnam-backed government when Hun Sen served as foreign minister

ON THE SURFACE, the squabbling between Thailand and Cambodia is about fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra and his shenanigans. Deep down, however, it is all about leadership style and the generations that Thaksin and Cambodian premier Hun Sen represent, as well as their views of the world. In addition, there are some old scores to be settled.

This is the first time in Asean's history that a young leader - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is 45 years old and also the current Asean chair - has had to face off with the region's longest-serving leader. Both are veteran politicians in their own countries, but with different experience and vision. Within the Southeast Asian political context, Hun Sen's status amounts to that of a big brother, or phu yai in Thai.

Hun Sen considers himself a revolutionary hero. He has fought several battles in the unfortunate modern history of Cambodia - first as a Khmer Rouge cadre and later as the Vietnam-backed leader in the Heng Samrin government of the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea, Cambodia's former name.

In 1979, at 28, he was the region's youngest foreign minister. He took over as prime minister in 1985, and has served in this position since then. He obtained his political training at the Nguyen Ai Quoc Institute, Hanoi. His thesis was on the true Cambodian revolutionary, which received praise for its theoretical grounding.

To him, a true revolutionary must protect the national interest and the country's independence and be able to utilise all factors, including personnel, to obtain objectives set out by the ruling revolutionary organ.

He has been reiterating to the Cambodian media, often in a forceful and angry voice, that when he was playing politics (meaning in the war of national liberation), Abhisit was just a little kid. In this sense, he is serious about his seniority and political acumen. During their several meetings in Phnom Penh, Pattaya, and Cha-am, the chemistry between the two leaders has not been right. Hun Sen thinks the Thai prime minister does not give him sufficient respect as one of the region's elders.

The controversial interface between Hun Sen and Asean-based civil society groups during the 14th Asean Summit at the end of February was a good case in point. Hun Sen, who almost boycotted the inferface, confirmed later that he did not want to destroy the summit, and wanted the Thai host to save face. Later on, Abhisit met separately with the Cambodian representatives. At the 15th Asean Summit last month in Cha-am, Hun Sen did not bother to show up at the interface. After all, he has dealt with a dozen different Thai governments and prime ministers since 1979.

During the Cha-am meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban told Hun Sen and Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Nam Hong about Thaksin and his standing inside Thailand. He emphasised to them that Thaksin was a fugitive. In addition, it would be difficult for him to make a comeback. Apparently, his comments fell on deaf ears.

Thaksin's appointment as Hun Sen's personal adviser and economic adviser to his government came right after the Asean Summit on October 27. It showed the Cambodian leaders did not pay any attention to Suthep's information or views.

Somehow, Hun Sen strongly believes Abhisit is not sincere in engaging with him, especially on negotiations over the disputed Preah Vihear Temple. He also questioned the Thai government's motive over the temple's inclusion on the Unesco World Heritage list. So, in this current dispute, Hun Sen has deliberately upped the ante by making use of Thaksin, who will do anything to undermine the Abhisit government, compensating for what he does not have against his young nemesis.

Thaksin has international exposure and a track record of economic policies. It is a marriage of convenience. However, it will be difficult for Cambodia to learn anything new from Thaksin's economic views, as Hun Sen has pursued an economic policy that centralises his power and networks - similar to Thaksin's strategy.

In contrast, Abhisit is a cosmopolitan, polite and polished politician. He was three years old when Asean was founded. Who would have thought that this young Oxford-educated economist would become Thailand's 27th prime minister and lead the country at this most turbulent time? But he has handled the crisis in Thailand and also spoken on behalf of Asean at various international meetings.

At the Cha-am Summit, Abhisit urged Hun Sen to separate his personal affection for Thaksin from the national interests of both countries. Apparently, Hun Sen did not like this comment. At the same time, the Thai media had criticised the prime minister for taking no action against Cambodia.

However, last week Thailand decided to recall its ambassador and review ongoing and future bilateral agreements. Cabinet early this week agreed to cancel an oil and gas exploration deal with Cambodia signed under Thaksin. Thai media outlets and columnists have since hailed the government's actions.

To demonstrate that the current row has nothing to do with bilateral relations or the temple dispute, Hun Sen ordered the withdrawal of Cambodia's elite Brigade 911 paratroop unit from the border. Security forces on both sides of the border have been told to stay calm. For the past week, border trade has continued as usual without any disruption. The pullback has puzzled the Thais but not Cambodian insiders, who understand Hun Sen's brinkmanship.

Disruption of cross-border trade and casinos would harm both countries' revenues. Border casinos generate billions of baht of income for the Cambodian power elite. But Hun Sen was more succinct in saying that border trade benefited Thailand more than Cambodia. If the Thai government closes the border, he told the Cambodian press that he will make sure that not even "one pig" from Thailand will be able to cross the border.

Beyond leadership style and the generation gap, the current dispute has its roots in Thailand's past support for the coalition government of Democratic Kampuchea that fought against the Vietnam-backed government when Hun Sen served as foreign minister. After he returned from Tokyo to attend the Mekong Summit, he told the Cambodian media that Thailand did not care when he asked for the extradition of Ieng Samrin and Khieu Samphan, top Khmer Rouge leaders, who at one time hid inside Thai territory.

Cuba still has a score to settle with the KR which fought its PRK-client state

History, the Implacable Judge

BY ARNALDO MUSA
Periodico26 (Cuba)

The name Pol Pot is related to genocide and massacres. The youngest generations perhaps haven’t heard of the systematic murder of between 1.7 and 4 million Cambodians (half of the population) between 1975 until 1979.

The time of permanent violence began in 1970 with the US military intervention and support for corrupt governments and extended until 1989. During this time education for children and teenagers was suspended, public health was virtually non-existent and Cambodia took over the top of the list of the poorest countries in the Far East.

Nowadays, with the beginning of the trial of the most notorious killers in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, the matter returns to the forefront 30 years after the fall of Pol Pot and 20 since the defeat of the opposition bands that tried to retake or seize power without popular consent.

The Khmer Rouge Genocide Tribunal began its sessions with the trial of Kaing Guek Eau, director of the Tuol Sleng jail in the capital (today the Genocide Museum), where 16,000 innocent people were tortured to death.

This year the trials will also begin against Khieu Samphan, ex President of the State Presidium of Democratic Kampuchea; Leng Sary, ex-foreign minister; Leng Thirit, ex-minister of Social Affairs, and the late Nuon Chia, second in command under Pol Pot. Some tried to elude responsibility blaming the crimes on the leader, giving him full responsibility for the excesses of the regime; but they couldn’t free themselves from history, the most implacable judge.

SOMETHING TO NEVER FORGET

Pol Pot and his circle of power were not revolutionaries. They imposed a regime based on isolation and the eradication of urban populations, conceiving only in a peasant country.

They went to such an extent that since its victory in 1975 the regime prohibited all types of modernity in the country. The cities were emptied by force and the Cambodians obliged to move to work camps. The population of Phom Penh fell from two million to 25,000 in just three days.

Money was banned and the central bank disappeared. Motor vehicles were also eliminated and religion was prohibited. Communications with the outside world were cut off, postal service ceased and schools and hospitals were closed.

People that wore glasses and those that spoke a foreign language or had a higher education, were interned for "reeducation." The majority were killed by a regime that considered neighboring Vietnam as its main enemy, attacking it repeatedly and killing many of its citizens.

NOT JUST THE POL POT REGIME

Analysts, including US linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, believe that not only should the living Khmer Rouge leaders be tried by the International Court, but also the US secretary of state at the time, Henry Kissinger, and other authors of the US bombardment of Cambodia, —which killed more than 600,000 civilians—, as well as their support of the criminals after Vietnam and Cambodian patriots managed to expel them from power in 1979.

For years, the United States and Great Britain supported Pol Pot in exile in Thailand, managing to keep alive a counterrevolution and mercenary groups, principally in the border areas. During this period, Washington and London supported the representation of the genocidal Cambodians at the United Nations.

Later they unsuccessfully tried to manipulate the efforts to form the tribunal that would judge the criminals. In that context, Vietnam demanded severe punishment for those who led the genocide and today’s Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said: "Nobody should escape justice. The Khmer Rouge must be brought before the Tribunal. But those that supported them should also be there."

Pen Sovan, Hun Sen Argue Who Between Them Was Boss When Vietnam Invaded Cambodia

Who was the boss: Pen Sovann (L) or Hun Sen (R)?

24 Dec 08
By Sok Hean
Moneaksekar Khmer
Translated from Khmer by Anonymous

Former Prime Minister Pen Sovan responded to Prime Minister Hun Sen's attack on Monday 22 December when Hun Sen told the students during a graduation ceremony at the National Education Institute that he was higher in rank than a person who was his comrade in arms during the revolution, whom Hun Sen did not mention by name but who was known to most as being Pen Sovan, when the Cambodian forces supported by Vietnamese troops overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime on 7 January 1979.

Ex-Comrade Pen Sovan, currently vice president of the Human Rights Party in charge of Disciplinary Commission, talked at length about his role in the creation of the Kampuchean National United Front for National Salvation [KNUFNS] on 2 December 1978, now known as the Kampuchean National United Front for National Development, headed by Heng Samrin, currently chairman of the National Assembly.

Pen Sovan asserted, "I am certainly the Father of the 2 December anniversary." He went on to say, "Hun Sen is certainly one of my underlings at the start of the Khmer People's Republic regime, created following the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime."

In a cutting remark intended for Hun Sen Pen Sovan said, "History has already been written. Hun Sen should be ashamed because at that time he was merely a member of the Front movement in charge of youth affairs." Pen Sovan further said that it is because January is drawing near that Hun Sen wants to cover up the truth.

"I do not want to respond to a man who does not know his own Cambodian history, a man who is distorting history in this manner. If Hun Sen really has guts, I ask the national television to give me one hour to replay the 2 December and 7 January documents that I have preserved to these days. And I ask the Cambodian people to look at these documents on the screen and draw their own conclusion as to who was bigger than whom and who said what in these documents on 2 December 1978 and 7 January 1979. When they have seen the documents on TV all Cambodian people will know who was bigger than whom.

"Last Monday Hun Sen said that he was shown a tape recording of Pen Sovan's remarks broadcasted over Radio Beehive in which Pen Sovan was heard claiming that his status was bigger than Hun Sen's in the movement that overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime. Pen Sovan was prime minister in the 1980s and vice chairman of the KNUFNS founded on 2 December 1978, or 30 years ago, to topple the Democratic Kampuchea regime of the Khmer Rouge.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said, "In 1979 I was the big leader in the region east of the Mekong. However, a man claimed he was the Father of 2 December and 7 January and he even claimed that I was one of his minions.

"The man mentioned by Hun Sen was Pen Sovan and Pen Sovan at that time was in reality a second lieutenant in the Vietnamese army under Heng Samrin, who then was chairman of the Front and now chairman of the National Assembly.

Hun Sen said, "I want to send a message to him that he should behave properly. Please do not make too many lies. I do not want to show his name. You are lying to other people.

"Hun Sen went on to say that what Pen Sovan was correct in his speech was that "I was the one who arrested him right in his house. This is the only thing in his speech that was right.

"Hun Sen also affirmed that it is now too late for Pen Sovan to return to the Cambodian People's Party.

Appointed prime minister in May 1981 but arrested in December the same year on charges of treason against the communist regime and opposition to the presence of Vietnamese troops in Cambodia at that time, Pen Sovan was detained for 10 years in Hanoi without any trial. He was released from prison in Vietnam in 1991 following the signing of the Paris Peace Agreements by the Cambodian side on 23 October 1991.

Nonetheless, monitors of the political situation have predicted that Hun Sen would not allow the state television TVK to give Pen Sovan an hour of air time to show the documents concerning the 2 December and 7 January events. This is because if Hun Sen allows Pen Sovan to broadcast the documents that he claimed he had in his possession the Cambodian public could clearly know that between Hun Sen and Pen Sovan who the real boss was when the Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia in early 1979.