By Lauren Crothers
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
Cambodia’s prime minister has written to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon seeking access to original 1969 maps in order to draw a line, once and for all, under questions that have arisen about the sovereignty of the country’s borders.
The country’s opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) has repeatedly called the demarcation of the border of Cambodia and Vietnam into question. Lawmakers have made several trips to the region of late to highlight the issue and meet with villagers who say that their lands have been encroached upon.
In the letter, which was posted on Hun Sen’s Facebook page Monday, the premier tells Ban that the request comes as a bid to “avoid and to end the incitement of extreme nationalism and ill-intention to cause confusion within national and international public opinions.”
It warned of attempts to “make political gains by some quarters in Cambodia that may lead to catastrophe to the whole Cambodian nation.”
Hun Sen wrote that access to the original maps, which were recognized by the UN in 1969, would enable his government to compare them to maps currently used by the country.
The writing of the letter came on the same day that CNRP leader Sam Rainsy claimed he had found irregularities with some border posts, according to a report in The Cambodia Daily.
Hong Sok Hour, a senator for the Sam Rainsy Party — which Rainsy founded before establishing the CNRP — said the request was a welcome move, because he did not believe in the integrity of a supposed copy he had been given to assess.
“This is good news that the prime minister has written to the secretary-general to have the real copy of the map,” he said in an interview with the Anadolu Agency on Monday night. “I think this is a good way to resolve the problem in Cambodia and Vietnam.
Asked what the reaction would be if the map is found to correspond accordingly with where border markers currently sit, he said: “What we want is a correct border with our neighbor and we would not like to see our compatriots on the border claim that they lost something.”
He said a 2005 treaty outlined that demarcation lines should go around, and not through, any properties in dispute.
“If its possible we would like to have a copy, it’s not a state secret,” he added. “We are all owners of the country. The government should have done this 10 years ago.”
The idea was echoed in part by independent political analyst Ou Virak, who told Anadolu Agency by telephone Monday that the letter was a significant move.
“It’s quite significant for a head of government to be requesting something like a map,” he said.
He stressed that “it’s telling a lot that Cambodia hasn’t moved far from the post-conflict period and that these issues play pretty prominently within Cambodian politics, but we also haven’t taken care of basic stuff like demarcation.”
The request is also noteworthy as an apparent attempt by Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) to prove its independence from Vietnam, which effectively put it in power in the 1980s after ending its caretaker period of Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge.
“The biggest problem for the CPP is shaking its past image. It came to power through Vietnam, and it’s difficult to shake that image and easy for the opposition to exploit that,” Virak said. “Even from a public relations perspective, it’s difficult to tell the public that they are independent of Vietnam.”
