Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Gen. Chea Dara: Border disputes caused by critics of the Cambodian and Thai governments

By Khmerization
Source: RFA

Gen. Chea Dara (pictured), Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and commander of the Preah Vihear operations, said the Cambodian-Thai border disputes were caused by Cambodian anti-government groups and Thai anti-government groups, reports Radio Free Asia.

Speaking during a report to government about the military situations along the Khmer-Thai borders, Gen. Chea Dara squarely blamed anti-government groups both in Cambodia and Thailand for causing the year-long border disputes between the two countries. "The (ruling) Cambodian People's Party (CPP) had resolved a lot of issues successfully. At that time, the anti-government, anti-CPP groups in cambodia plus the Thai anti-government groups in Thailand, who were anti-Cambodia, withdrew their swords to oppose Thailand because the anti-government groups in cambodia cannot beat the CPP in the election, so they pushed the issues to become like what we've seen today", he said.

Mr. Yim Sovan, spokesman for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), said the SRP had never owed any grattitude to any foreign country, therefore the SRP had never and will never collaborate with foreign countries to destroy its own nation. "We never cede our territories to any foreign countries and never asked any foreign countries to come and help us, nor are we indebted to any foreign countries. So, we had never collaborated with any countries to destroy our country and to cede territories to any countries, so we don't have any intentions of doing any of these things. What we are doing everyday is to protect our territories", he said.

Dr. Hang Puthea, chairman of COMFREL, the free and fair election monitoring body, said the army should be a neutral institution and should not serve any political parties. "The institution of the army is a neutral institution of Cambodia. It is not an institution that serves any political parties. If any government officials or staff used a forum and their positions to serve any political parties, I think it is a problem", he said.

Mr. Yim Sovan added that opposition parties never betrayed the nation. He also requested the army to be neutral and stays away from politics.

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