Seemingly in an effort to get a handle on the border situation with Vietnam that has escalated in the last two weeks, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has announced plans to build a road along the border and ordered all governors of border provinces to make more of an effort to populate areas close to Vietnam.
Speaking to a crowd of about 700 during a forum on the protection and conservation of natural resources at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh on Monday, Hun Sen said he signed off on a proposal to construct a paved road in Takeo province as an olive branch to those who say his desire for more people to live in areas along the border is hampered by the almost non-existent levels of development in these areas.
“Before coming here, I signed and agreed to a proposed road that will be constructed along the eastern border of the country,” the Khmer Times on Tuesday quoted him as saying. “I have instructed the Takeo provincial governor [Lay Vannak] and other governors of border provinces that the best way to protect the border is to send Cambodian people to live in the eastern, western and northern borders of the country.”
But he added that the government had to do its part in making these areas amenable to populations.
“We cannot abandon the people who will be sent to live at the border. We need to prepare infrastructure, facilities and development for these areas,” he said.
Var Kim Hong, a senior minister in charge of the Cambodian Border Affairs Committee, agreed with the prime minister and said the lack of roads in border provinces was itself causing instability because it made it difficult to transport materials for new border posts under construction.
“We need to build roads along the border to transfer some materials to install sub-border posts which will be connected to the main border post in areas along the border with Vietnam that we have already demarcated,” he said.
He added that without roads, his committee was finding it difficult to transfer sand, cement, stones and water to build the sub-border posts. The military’s engineering unit will be in charge of building the planned roads along the border.
“Rattanakiri, Mondulkiri, Kratie and Takeo provinces have no roads along the border with Vietnam,” Var Kim Hong added.
Political analyst Sok Touch, who himself was tasked with studying the border with Vietnam before his research was dismissed by the government, said Cambodia’s eastern border with Vietnam was sparsely populated and had little infrastructure connecting it to other provinces.
“It is good that the government wants to build roads and send people to live there,” Touch said. “If any possible [border] encroachment happens, people will alert the government immediately because they are serving as live border posts.”
He added that the government should develop the area by constructing hospitals, pagodas and public schools.
In February, Touch, the head of a research group from the Royal Academy, released the findings of his four-month study of the border with Vietnam. He found that both Vietnam and Cambodia were violating each other’s borders and certain areas had few, if any, posts marking either country’s borders.
“I could not tell you how many posts. If I told you all now, there would be a big war and the government would have a headache because of this. Let’s wait [until] after the Ministry of Land management takes pictures and registers the land and then see.
“The border area has no villagers living on it. If I pointed out the irregularities, some might grab the land there and it would bring argument,” Touch said during a press conference earlier this year.
Controversy has swirled around the border with Vietnam in recent weeks after local residents reported seeing Vietnamese soldiers constructing buildings and ponds in an area that both countries agreed to stay out of until the border had been fully demarcated.
When provincial officials told the soldiers to stop building earlier this month, the soldiers refused, saying they would only follow orders from their superiors.
Cambodia has sent 23 diplomatic notes to Vietnam asking them to stop construction on the border. Vietnam has not responded to any of them.