At Least 2 Thai Soldiers Killed in Cambodia Border Clash

Thai soldiers patrol at the entrance of the Preah Vihear temple in Si Sa Ket province near the Thai-Cambodia border, 03 Apr 2009

By Daniel Schearf
Voice of America
Bangkok
03 April 2009

Thai officials say border clashes between Thai and Cambodian soldiers have left at least two Thai soldiers dead and seven others wounded. There were conflicting reports of casualties on the Cambodian side.

The casualties came after Thai and Cambodian soldiers exchanged fire in two incidents Friday in a disputed border area.
The first clash was early Friday morning. Thailand's foreign ministry issued a statement saying there were no casualties on the Thai side from the morning fighting.

But, more fighting broke out during the afternoon and Thai officials later confirmed the casualties.

There were conflicting reports of casualties on the Cambodian side.

Cambodian foreign ministry spokesman Koy Kuong says Thai soldiers were to blame for starting the fighting on what he called Cambodian territory.

"This is a disgraceful and intentional aggression without any legal ground by the Thai soldiers," he said.

Thailand's foreign ministry in turn blamed the Cambodian side for starting the fighting and encroaching on what it said was Thai territory.

Thailand's government spokesman, Panitan Wattanyagorn, says there were casualties on both sides, but he could not give exact numbers as the situation was still under investigation. He sought to play down the clashes, saying the incidents were possibly sparked by a misunderstanding.

"This is not a war. This is not a sharp conflict," he said. "This is just a border incident, a small incident that has taken place."

A Thai soldier lost his leg Thursday after stepping on a landmine in the area. The Thai foreign ministry statement says the landmine was believed to be laid recently and that Thai soldiers were in the disputed area to investigate the incident.

Both sides confirmed their military commanders in the met soon after the fighting to discuss the incidents.

The fighting took place near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, where both sides claim territory.

An international court in 1962 declared the temple to be in Cambodian territory but Thai nationalists dispute the ruling.

Border clashes first broke out last year after the UN granted world heritage status to the temple.

Fighting has periodically broken out since then, with casualties on both sides.

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Dispute turns deadly as Thai and Cambodian troops fight it out

BORDER CLASH
April 4, 2009
By SUPALAK GANJANAKHUNDEE
THE NATION

One Thai soldier, two Cambodians killed; PM cites misunderstanding

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has blamed a "misunderstanding" as the cause of a Thai-Cambodian border clash yesterday near the Preah Vihear Hindu temple in which one Thai and two Cambodian soldiers died.

Several other people, including officials, were injured as both sides exchanged gunfire on two occasions, in the morning and afternoon.
The first round at 7am lasted only five minutes and caused no casualties. But the second clash at around 2pm at Phu Ma Khua hill, west of the Hindu temple, killed one Thai soldier and injured seven officials.

Private Wuthikrai Weruwanarak died in the battle, the Thai military said.

Two Cambodian soldiers whose names were unknown were also killed, according to Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith.

The gunbattle and mortar explosions from the hill were heard for 25 minutes in the afternoon, said a local villager some 5 kilometres from the clash site.

Local residents did not panic and continued to work in their farms as usual since there was no instruction to evacuate, said the villager via a phone interview from Si Sa Ket province.

The afternoon clash erupted just seven hours after the morning's brief gun exchange and a phone call by Thai Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to discuss the problem.

The skirmishes followed a warning by Hun Sen last Tuesday that Thai soldiers should refrain from entering Cambodian territory. He said his soldiers had been instructed to fire on any intruders.

Prime Minister Abhisit, who returned from the London Group-20 Summit yesterday, said there may have been misunderstanding between troops in the area.

"It could happen - since both sides claim the same area as their respective territory. We try to use the existing mechanism of negotiation to prevent the conflict from escalating," Abhisit said.

Abhisit, who planned to visit Phnom Penh on April 18, said, if necessary, he might make a phone call to Prime Minister Hun Sen to discuss the situation.

"At this stage, I'll let the concerned officials of both sides work it out," he said.

The clash yesterday took place in the same area where, last October, fighting killed four soldiers on both sides.

Cambodia has claimed Thai troops had invaded its territory and would write a letter of protest to Bangkok.

The Thai Foreign Ministry said it had also prepared an official protest, since Cambodian troops apparently opened fire first on a Thai patrol.

Both sides should exercise utmost restraint since the Thai-Cambodia Joint Commission on Demarcation for Land Boundary (JBC) is working out a settlement to the border dispute and demarcation of the boundary, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat. The JBC is scheduled to meet in Phnom Penh on April 6-7.

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Preah Vihear: No Cambodian casualties (Official)

03 April 2009
By Leang Delux
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Tola Ek
Click here to read the article in French

Khieu Kanharith denied the AFP news reporting two Cambodian casualties.

On the Thai side, the spokesman for the Cambodian government, indicated 4 deaths and 10 soldiers captured.
The number of human casualties during the border incident on 03 April leads to numerous speculations. Seven Thai would have been killed and several dozens injured, Koy Kuong, the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, indicated citing “unofficial source.”

The heavy gun fighting took place after a Thai soldier stepped on landmine the day before in the Veal Entry zone.

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Thai, Cambodian Border Fighting Stops, Thailand Says

By Daniel Ten Kate

April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Fighting between Thai and Cambodian soldiers in a disputed border region has stopped after an exchange of heavy gunfire, Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat said by telephone.

“The army chiefs are now talking,” Tharit said. “We asked for a ceasefire and do not want to use force.”
Cambodian and Thai troops engaged in “large-scale fighting” today, Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan said by phone. Two Thai soldiers were killed and six wounded, he said. Tharit denied the claim and said Thailand had suffered no deaths or injuries.

Two Cambodian soldiers were killed after soldiers fired at each other in at least three locations on the border, Agence France-Presse said, citing government spokesman Khieu Kanharith. Phay Siphan said he couldn’t confirm the Cambodian deaths.

The fighting erupted before the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Thailand and Cambodia are members, will hold a summit from April 10 to 12 in Pattaya south of Bangkok with the leaders of China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen plans to attend.

The disputed area has been the site of numerous incidents since July, when Thailand objected to Cambodia’s efforts to list Preah Vihear temple as a United Nations World Heritage site. The countries agreed in October to avoid clashes in the area after two Cambodian soldiers were killed in a gun battle.

Warning Issued

Hun Sen warned Thailand on March 31 that fighting would break out should troops from its neighbor cross into Cambodian territory.

Thailand plans to write a letter of protest to Cambodia after a five-minute exchange of gunfire between their troops earlier today, Tharit said.

The shooting erupted after Thai troops invited the Cambodians to inspect the site where a soldier from Thailand stepped on a landmine and lost his leg, Tharit said.

The meeting failed to resolve matters and the Cambodians left, then started firing, Tharit said. Thai officers suspect a newly laid landmine caused yesterday’s blast, he said.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice ruled in a 9-3 vote that Cambodia had sovereignty over Preah Vihear. The court didn’t rule on the disputed land near the temple.

Thai and Cambodian officials have scheduled meetings to continue work on demarcating their 803-kilometer (499-mile) border. The two countries have yet to divide 10,422 square miles in the Gulf of Thailand that may contain oil and gas reserves.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is due to visit Cambodia later this month.

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at
dtenkate@bloomberg.net.

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Cambodian genocide lawyer hits at corruption issue

Saturday, April 4
By GRANT PECK, Associated Press Writer

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - An international prosecutor at Cambodia's genocide tribunal accused a defense lawyer Friday of a "strategy of disruption," saying his focus on corruption allegations is an attempt to undermine the court's legitimacy.
Belgian co-prosecutor Vincent de Wilde lashed out at French lawyer Jacques Verges for "explicitly and fundamentally challenging the legitimacy" of the tribunal working to find justice for atrocities of the 1970s Khmer Rouge "killing fields" regime.

The accusation came after the flamboyant Verges, best known for defending Nazi war criminals and terrorists, attempted to introduce reports of tribunal corruption in a legal hearing Friday.

Verges was speaking at a hearing for his request for pretrial release of his client, former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan, who is charged with crimes against humanity related to the communist movement's 1975-79 rule, under which an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died.

Corruption reports involving the tribunal surfaced in 2007, when New York-based legal group Open Society Justice Initiative alleged that Cambodians on the tribunal staff had paid for their jobs. Results of a U.N. investigation were not publicly revealed.

Judges on Friday told Verges he could not bring up the corruption issue in the context of the appeal for his client's release, but he managed to speak about it indirectly by suggesting he sympathized with the court.

"I shall keep silent because it's not good to be shooting at ambulances and victims and the wounded," Verges said. "It is not good to be shooting at horses and dying people or institutions."

De Wilde retorted that Verges' comments were part of a "strategy of disruption" on the part of the defense, which de Wilde asserted had refused to cooperate with the tribunal's administration.

He suggested that Khieu Samphan's lawyers might not be competent to defend their client.

Charging that the defense was willfully disrupting and delaying proceedings to keep justice from being done, de Wilde asked, "Can this be tolerated?"

Verges was the second defense lawyer in two days to try to introduce the corruption issue into their appeals for their clients' release. On Thursday, the lawyer for Ieng Sary, the former Khmer Rouge foreign minister, tried to argue that the failure to resolve the corruption allegations could delay the trial of his client indefinitely, so he should be allowed to leave the tribunal's jail for house arrest instead.

The lawyer, Michael Karnavas, at a press conference after Thursday's proceedings, called for a U.N. report investigating the corruption allegations to be made public.

Lawyers for Nuon Chea, the chief Khmer Rouge ideologue, also had brought up the issue earlier this year.

The defenders' arguments appeared to be in vain, however. A press release from the tribunal Friday said the judges handling the pre-trial hearings decided that they did not have jurisdiction to investigate corruption.

Trial observers including human rights groups have expressed concern about the corruption issue.

London-based Amnesty International urged the United Nations and the Cambodian government to address allegations.

The charges cast "serious doubts on the chambers' competence, independence and impartiality," it said.

"Any corruption allegations must be investigated promptly and thoroughly," said Brittis Edman, Amnesty International's Cambodia researcher. "A failure to do so risks undermining the credibility of the whole institution and what it is trying to accomplish."

The U.N.-assisted tribunal represents the first serious attempt to hold Khmer Rouge leaders accountable for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians from starvation, medical neglect, slave-like working conditions and execution. The group's top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

It began its first trial on Monday, of Kaing Guek Eav - also known as Duch - accused of running a torture center from which as many as 16,000 men, women and children were sent to their deaths.

The other defendants, Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, who was minister for social affairs, are expected to be tried sometime over the next year.

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Fighting Erupts on Preah Vihear Border

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
03 April 2009

Cambodian and Thai troops exchanged gun, rocket and artillery fire in clashes along the disputed Preah Vihear border on Friday, with both sides blaming the other for firing first in the most serious fighting to date in a months-long standoff.
Two Thai deaths and six injuries were confirmed by the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh, but Cambodian military sources said late Friday at least two more Thai soldiers were killed in afternoon battles. The Thai Embassy was not able to confirm the other two Thai fatalities.

There were conflicting reports of casualties from within the Cambodian government.

Ten Thai soldiers were being held as a result of the fighting, said government spokesman Khieu Kanharith, who told VOA Khmer no Cambodians were injured or killed.

However, Royal Cambodian Armed Forces commander Gen. Pol Sareoun said two Cambodians had been killed, in fighting started by the Thais.

Around 7:15 am, five Thai soldiers entered Veal Entry, or Eagle Field, encountering a forest encampment of Cambodian soldiers, who ordered them to turn back, military officials in Phnom Penh and on the border said.

Cambodian infantryman Chan Chhorn, who was monitoring radio traffic near Eagle Field Friday morning, told VOA Khmer the Thais had fired first.

The Thai Embassy could not confirm who shot first, but a Thai military spokesman told CNN in Bangkok that the fighting was sparked by an “intrusion” of Cambodian troops on Thai soil.

By 1:30 pm, the fighting had spread to three other sites—Phnom Trap, an area known as “Beehive,” and Krom market, near Preah Vihear temple—according to Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan, who provided reporters a map of the fighting late Friday.

A civilian market area burned and portions of Preah Vihear temple were damaged by rocket and machine gunfire Friday afternoon, Chan Chhorn said.

The fighting had stopped by Friday evening, officials said.

No civilians were reported dead Friday. A villager living near the temple said those who had motorcycles or cars had fled the area.

The shooting follows the injury to a landmine by one Thai soldier near Eagle Field Thursday and a tense armed standoff without shooting at Eagle Field on Monday and Tuesday. Eagle Field was also the site of fighting in October, where at least one Thai and three Cambodians died.

Thai and Cambodian troops have been amassed along the border since July 2008, when Preah Vihear temple’s Unesco World Heritage listing sparked protests in Bangkok and on the border. Friday’s fighting was the most serious so far, in a series of escalations since July.

Both sides lay claim to a small stretch of land near the ancient cliff-top temple, with each using different map versions to mark the border.

Friday’s fighting had not canceled a scheduled meeting between joint border committees in Phnom Penh on Monday and Tuesday, according to Var Kimhong, chief of Cambodia’s border committee.

Prime Minister Hun Sen is expected to attend an Asean forum in Thailand next week. Officials could not confirm whether that trip will be canceled as a result of Friday’s fighting.

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Thailand, Cambodia in deadly border clashes

Friday April 3, 2009

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Thai and Cambodian troops fought heavy gun-battles on their disputed border Friday, leaving at least two soldiers dead in the biggest flare-up for months in a bitter feud over an ancient temple.

Soldiers exchanged rocket, machine-gun and mortar fire near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple on the frontier, following a brief skirmish earlier in the day, officials from both sides said.
The area was the scene of several clashes last year after Cambodia successfully applied for United Nations world heritage status for the ruins in July, with four soldiers killed in a battle there in October. One Thai soldier died at the site of the clash on Friday and another passed away in hospital later, while 10 others were injured, regional Thai military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Wichit Makarun said.

Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith initially announced that two soldiers from his country were killed, but later retracted the statement, saying it was an unofficial figure but without providing further details. "We are fighting with each other, it is serious gunfire," Khieu Kanharith said, adding that the fighting happened in at least two separate areas near the temple.

Military commanders later held talks to ease tensions near the clifftop temple, ownership of which was awarded to Cambodia in 1962 by the International Court of Justice, although the land around the ruins remains disputed. But a war of words continued between the two sides after the clash, coming just one week before the prime ministers of the neighbouring countries are due to meet at a key regional summit in Thailand.

"This is an intended aggressive invasion by the Thai military," said Cambodian foreign ministry spokesman Koy Kuong. "The foreign ministry will... write a protest letter about the invasion by Thailand."

Thai premier Abhisit Vejjajiva said he was ready to call his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen about the matter but defended Bangkok's right to "preserve our sovereignty." "It was likely caused by a misunderstanding or accident," Abhisit said on his return from the G20 summit in London.

The first clash erupted on Friday morning after Cambodian soldiers went to inspect an area where a Thai soldier lost a leg in a landmine blast a day earlier. Both sides blamed each other but said there were no casualties.

Heavy gunfire then broke out at 2:00 pm (0700 GMT) in a number of spots near the border, which has never been fully demarcated due to landmines left after decades of war in Cambodia. Several officials said the fighting lasted between half and hour and an hour.

A Cambodian soldier posted at the border, Yeim Kheang, told AFP by telephone that a Cambodian market at the gateway to the temple had been badly burned. "We used heavy weapons including rockets, machine-guns and mortars. In general, we used every weapon given to us. Many Thai soldiers ran away, leaving their weapons behind during the fight," Yeim Kheang said.

The clashes came three days after Hun Sen warned Thailand that it would face fighting if its troops crossed their disputed frontier. Thailand denies claims that about 100 of its troops went over the frontier a week ago.

Tensions first flared along the border in July last year over the granting of UN heritage to the temple on the border, although the countries have been at loggerheads over the site for decades. Subsequent talks between Cambodia and Thailand have not resolved the dispute and Thailand's foreign minister was forced to apologise Thursday, after being accused by Hun Sen of calling him a gangster.

Further talks are due on Monday and Tuesday in Phnom Penh. Hun Sen and Abhisit are also scheduled to take part in a summit between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and key regional partners in the Thai resort of Pattaya, starting on April 10.

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