PM Hun Sen addresses assembly
- Prime Minister Hun Sen (L) gestures before delivering his speech at the
National Assembly yesterday in Phnom Penh. Minister of Interior Sar Keng
(2nd R) and Deputy Prime Minister Sok An (R) were also in attendance.
Photograph: Pha Lina/Phnom Penh Post
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- Friday, 10 August 2012
- Meas Sokchea and David Boyle
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- Sometimes austere, other times ebullient, Prime Minister Hun Sen spent
his rare, more than five-hour speech to parliament yesterday outlining a
border demarcation plan with Vietnam and taunting the opposition before
refusing to answer anything other than written questions.
Peppered
with vitriolic outbursts at his critics, the premier’s speech to 103
lawmakers at the National Assembly focused on a plan for Cambodia and
Vietnam to compensate one another with unoccupied land for villages it
had been agreed fell in the opposing country’s territory.
“The choice is that we must keep the same situation according to the occupation [of areas] of people,” he said.
Land
for exchange in Kampot, Kampong Cham and Takeo provinces had already
been agreed upon by the two countries, while negotiations to do the same
in Prey Veng and Svay Rieng provinces were under way, Hun Sen told the
parliament.
Cambodians have been occupying 2,160.6 hectares of
territory belonging to their eastern neighbour while Vietnamese are
living on 916.7 hectares of land in the Kingdom, he added, stressing
that exchanges would be equal, hectare for hectare.
The process
of demarcation, the premier said, followed that which was laid down by
King Father and former president Norodom Sihanouk, relying on maps
devised by the French colonial administrations of Cochinchina (southern
Vietnam) and Cambodia.
“I would like to say that with both land
border and maritime border, we followed the map which Samdech Norodom
Sihanouk deposited at the United Nations [in 1964],” he said.
“Your insults of Hun Sen are equal to insults of Sihanouk, because Hun Sen follows Sihanouk for all.”
National
Assembly President Heng Samrin enacted his constitutional right to
quash any debate during the session, though the premier did answer four
written questions sent to him by Sam Rainsy Party whip Son Chhay more
than six weeks prior.
Heng Samrin’s decision infuriated Son
Chhay, who said Cambodia was undoubtedly alone amongst democracies
around the world in having a parliament that was never allowed to debate
anything.
“They don’t allow us to speak, they don’t allow us to
ask questions, for five hours just listening to his threats – we’re
really pissed off,” he said, adding that it was the first time in almost
20 years that Hun Sen had even answered a written question in
parliament.
“If you don’t have any questions, you don’t call it question time, you call it propaganda time.”
The
government, he said, was constantly violating Article 96 of the
constitution by not responding to questions within a week or simply not
answering at all, which had happened with 70 per cent of the letters he
had sent.
Political analyst Lao Mong Hay said he felt the
solution the government had presented to resolve the long-running
process of demarcating the border with Vietnam was fair but also
expressed disappointment about the premier’s conduct in parliament.
“We heard one side of the story, so we should be able to hear the other side as well,” he said.
In
response to the written questions, Hun Sen clarified Cambodia’s
position on once-disputed Phu Quoc Island, which is currently part of
Vietnam but known by Cambodians as Koh Tral Phu Quoc, as well as two
villages in Kampong Cham province.
The premier said Sihanouk had
told former Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong that Cambodia no
longer demanded Koh Trol back in 1999, relinquishing the Kingdom’s right
to the island.
Sihanouk’s personal adviser and secretary,
Prince Thomico Sisowath, refused to comment on any discussion the king
father might have had with Pham Van Dong in 1999 but said the map the
king father had taken to the UN made no such concession.
“The map
which the King took to deposit at the UN claimed that Koh Trol is in
Khmer land. Cambodia denied that France took Koh Trol to give to
Cochinchina,” he said. In June, senior minister in charge of the
Cambodian Border Affairs Committee, Va Kimhong, said the government
would have to cede two villages to Vietnam to keep Thlok Trach and
Anlung Chrey villages in Kampong Cham province’s Ponhea Krek district.
Ever since, the opposition has been demanding to know which villages
would be ceded in exchange for the territory that includes the
birthplace of Heng Samrin.
But Hun Sen yesterday simply confirmed
that part of Heng Samrin’s village was in Vietnamese territory and that
the National Assembly president had been lobbying hard for it to remain
in Cambodia, without explaining whether or not it would.
The Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh did not reply to enquiries from the Post.
Not
for the first time, Hun Sen accused Son Chhay of political skulduggery,
rehashing his old claim that the lawmaker, whom he belittling referred
to as his “younger brother”, had acted as “his little spy” in 1997 in
exchange for US$10,000.
The premier took the allegation further
yesterday, claiming 20 pages of documents and a CD recording proved Son
Chhay had tipped him off about a plan to overthrow him in 1997.
“During
that time, you reported [to me] about the military situation that was
organised by [then-Funcinpec military commander] Nhek Bunchhay, Khan
Saveoun and Ho Sok. It was a good report that made me have enough time
to prevent the situation in advance,” he said.
Hun Sen, then
second co-prime minister next to Funcinpec’s Prince Norodom Ranariddh,
became Cambodia’s unopposed leader shortly after, following bloody
factional fighting that the premier has repeatedly argued was not a coup
d’etat.
Son Chhay said it was sad that the prime minister of
Cambodia behaved in such a dishonest, undignified way in a speech
broadcast across the country.
“This is a dirty game, this is a
cheap thing, that this man has been using. So they play this game,”
Chhay said, rejecting all Hun Sen’s accusations as complete rubbish.
Son
Chhay has previously conceded that he did indeed accept US$10,000 from
Hun Sen, but only when he returned to Cambodia in 1997, money he
believed parliamentarians that had stayed had also be given.
Not
taking the money, Son Chhay told the Post in December 2006, could have
been seen as a “negative reaction” to a goodwill gesture from the
premier and jeopardised his negotiations with Hun Sen to secure the
return of other politicians who had fled.
To contact the reporters on this story: Meas Sokchea at sokchea.meas@phnompenhpost.com
David Boyle at david.boyle@phnompenhpost.comWith assistance from Vong Sokheng
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