Vietnam Violates Border

geovalin · August 10, 2016

Provincial authorities in Ratanakiri said Vietnamese soldiers built two settlements in the O Koma area near border pole No. 30 in Pok Nhai commune in O Yadav district late last month, violating an agreement between both countries that prohibits any construction near boundary lines that have not yet been demarcated. On January 17, 1995, Vietnam and Cambodia signed an agreement designating the area, near Vietnam’s Gai Lai province, as a no-man’s land until defined borders had been created.

Nhem Sam Oeun, the deputy governor and provincial spokesman, said police watching the border in O Yadav district saw Vietnamese soldiers laying concrete for the foundation and pillars of potential structures and told them to stop immediately. “We told them to cease all construction and meet with us to discuss it,” Mr. Sam Oeun said, adding that he sent a report to the Interior Ministry and the National Border Committee to resolve the issue with Vietnamese diplomats.

Last April, at least eight ponds, approximately four by eight meters wide and three to four meters deep, were dug by Vietnamese soldiers in the area near Pok Nhai commune. Government officials said they would handle the issue diplomatically, but many nearby residents say the Vietnamese soldiers continue to dig deeper into the ponds. An ethnic Rochom Kham resident in Lom village who asked not to be named told Khmer Times he saw the structure himself and said it was built next to a pond also built by Vietnamese soldiers near the border office in the village. In the past, he said, Vietnamese soldiers were seen digging deeper into the pond.

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