Incident at borders with Vietnam

MP ‘injured’ at border

Mon, 29 June 2015

Meas Sokchea and Taing Vida

The Phnom Penh Post

Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmaker Real Camerin (centre) is carried away from the Vietnam-Cambodia border on the weekend in Svay Rieng province after he was allegedly hit in the head.

More than a dozen people were injured in a clash yesterday afternoon, when two opposition party lawmakers led some 200 Cambodians to inspect the Cambodia-Vietnam border in Svay Rieng province.

Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmakers Real Camerin and Um Sam An yesterday led nearly 200 youths, monks and Svay Rieng residents towards the border crossing in Kampong Ro district, said Sin Noeun, a border police chief.

Noeun alleged that when the group, which had been denied permission by Vietnamese officials to inspect a road being constructed in Vietnam that some argue encroaches on Cambodian territory, arrived at 2:30pm, they were attacked.

“I do not know the exact demarcation [of where Cambodian territory ends],” Noeun said yesterday.

“During the scuffle, the Vietnamese used sticks and garden hoes, while our Cambodians had no weapons . . . The authorities tried to intervene to no avail; they fought for about 20 minutes.”

Vietnamese authorities could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The incident occurred shortly after the group was blocked by Vietnamese border officials, Camerin said.

In all, 10 Cambodian people and eight Vietnamese people sustained injuries of varying severity during the clash, according to a report of the incident from the border posting.

Camerin, who said Vietnamese authorities as well as villagers became involved in the brawl, blamed the violence on the Vietnamese yesterday.

During a phone interview, he said he was “seriously injured” and was on his way from Svay Rieng to Phnom Penh to receive treatment.

“I was beaten severely by Vietnamese authorities and villagers on my neck and near my eyes,” Camerin said in an interview yesterday.

“The Vietnamese people started the violence, they walked behind us when we were walking back [after being blocked by border officers] and beat us.”

Sam An, who led the group with Camerin, also said that the melee was sparked by armed Vietnamese people.

He added that he believed they were blocked by Vietnamese border officers, because the road construction that they wanted to inspect trespasses onto Cambodian land by about 100 metres.

“Since this is disputed land, Vietnam must not construct this road, the government must prohibit it,” Sam An said.

CNRP members will meet and file a complaint to the International Court of Justice in the coming weeks regarding yesterday’s incident, Camerin said.

CPP 64th Birthday

It is on this June 24, but it was on a different name, the Khmer People Revolutionary Party, itself the offspring of a group that was affiliated with the Vietnamese Communist Party that was created in the 1930s to fight against the colonial France.
    Until a few weeks ago, the Cambodian People Party (CPP) was presided over by patriarch Chea Sim, President of the Senate who just passed away earlier this month with a funeral in great pump June 16th. A few days later, the CPP leadership met and unanimously voted for Premier Hun Sen to be the President of the CPP. Heng Samrin, now the President of the National Assembly stay on as the CPP Honorary President and CPP Vice Presidents are Sar Kheng, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, and Say Chhu, becoming President of the Senate, filling in Chea Sim position.
    There were a lot of changes since 1951 the year the CPP parent was born, but some analyst says that " the more it changes, the more it remains the same" ...