By Denise Hruby
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
The United Nations has agreed to loan historic maps to the Cambodian government to help solve ongoing questions over the country’s border with Vietnam.
Cambodia’s opposition has long claimed that neighboring Vietnam was encroaching onto Cambodian land, while the government has been working to properly mark the more than 1,200-kilometer shared border.
“While the United Nations Dar Hammarskjöld Library does not, as a matter of policy, loan maps in its keeping… it has been agreed that the library would, on an exceptional basis, loan the aforementioned maps to your Government for a limited period of time,” the UN’s General Secretary Ban Ki-moon wrote in a letter Thursday.
A specific map that dates to 1969 and was requested by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was not in the hands of the UN, which however offered to give Cambodia other maps that “may be of interest to your Government,” Ban wrote to Hun Sen.
Cambodia's Council of Ministers spokesperson Phay Siphan said in an interview with Anadolu Agency on Saturday that the government welcomed the UN's decision.
“The opposition is challenging our government and accusing our government of using fake maps. They say we allow Vietnam to take away our land, and I hope this map makes the difference,” Siphan said. “I hope we can once and for all finish these allegations.”
In an immediate response to Ban’s letter, Hun Sen on Thursday formed a special committee headed by Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong and consisting of 11 members that would review the maps.
Var Kimhong, the deputy chair of the new committee who is also in charge of border affairs, said the committee would wait for the maps to arrive, despite having received digital copies already.
“The commission will start working as soon as the maps are handed over to the Cambodian government,” he told The Phnom Penh Post.
“Regarding the attached conditions, we now are negotiating with UN. I cannot talk about it yet,” Var said.
Last month, a joint committee consisting of 25 members from Cambodia and Vietnam each met to discuss further border demarcation, and said that the last posts would be set up “very soon.”
The meeting, the Cambodian side of the committee said later, was held “in good spirits with mutual respect over sovereignty and territory of the two countries.”
The opposition has repeatedly accused the government of ceding land to Vietnam, accusing them of collaborating with Hanoi and calling them “puppets”.
In 2009, Cambodia National Rescue Party leader Sam Rainsy removed border markers he said were placed inside Cambodian territory. He was charged with racial incitement and damaging property and fled to exile in France, escaping a 10-year prison sentence he later received.
On request of Hun Sen, King Norodom Sihamoni pardoned him in 2013, allowing Rainsy to return in time for the national election that year.
