SMD BORDER VISIT,THAI SOLDIERS BURNED KHMER PEOPLE’S HOUSES AT POIPET

Cambodian military officials claim Thai soldiers crossed into
Cambodia and burned people’s homes in Banteay Meanchey province on November 10, 2006. The officials, speaking by telephone Wednesday of Nov 11, 2006, said six homes were destroyed. They claimed some 300 Thai soldiers were involved in the incident.

The officials, including Col. Khuon Vanna of a border unit and Hay Nam Heng, a commune chief in the town of the Poipet, said the Thai soldiers told villagers that they destroyed the homes because they were illicitly built [at Tuol Prasat village, Poipet commune, O’ Chrau district] on disputed territory.

In order to find out the living situation of villagers and the geography where was invaded by Thai ambitious soldiers, the Students’ Movement for Democracy (SMD) set up a Dec 23, 2006 border visit led by SMD president, Mao Veasna.

Some 65 participants (4 monks) are SMD members and various partner-NGOs’ representatives such as Youth Council of Cambodia (YCC), Khmer Student Association (KSA), Cambodian Independent Teachers Association (CITA) and Free Trade Union (FTU), said Sorn Sarath, SMD secretary general, adding that FTU president Chea Mony participated in the visit as well.

“The border conflict, we would keep for Cambodian Border Commission president, Va Kimhong, to resolve”, said Col. Chhuk An, border police chief appointed to replace former border police chief, Khuon Vanna. We are not enough eligible to tackle this issue, we are only compromiser, he said.

 “There are 1270 families of villagers living at abovementioned scene; some of them are new residents and the others are old ones”, said Khuon Vanna, community chief. They have fed their lives by going to cut sugar-cane in
Thailand and they can get daily small income—they have been living hand-in-mouth, Vanna said.

Five key requests of the people who proposed SMD to help as below:

-         Creating a school for their children

-         Creating a health center to cure their diseases

-         Creating an irrigation system and hygienic water source

-         Resolving border dispute as soon as possible

-         Offering Col. Khuon Vanna the previous position