Cambodia, Vietnam begin formal border demarcation
SVAY RIENG - Cambodia and Vietnam on Wednesday formally began installing markers along their 1,270-kilometer (790-mile) land border under a controversial agreement reached between the two countries last year.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Vietnamese counterpart, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dzung, presided over a marker laying ceremony at the Bavet-Moc Bai border crossing point, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of the capital Phnom Penh.
"Installing border markers is a historical task of great importance" for the two neighbors, Hun Sen said in a speech at the event attended by some 2,000 Cambodian and Vietnamese civilians living on both sides of the frontier.
"A new historic chapter filled with hope has just been opened, providing our two countries with a clear and permanent border...and allowing our (respective) people to live within a border where they can develop without fear, with peace and cooperation," he said.
The event was the culmination of a border agreement Hun Sen signed with Vietnamese leaders in 2005. His critics have complained that it has ceded Cambodian land to its larger communist neighbor.
Hun Sen responded by suing several people who were later jailed. He allowed their release on bail early this year, following strong domestic and international condemnation.
Border issues are a passionate subject for many Cambodians, who have seen their vast territory once ruled by ancient Angkorian kings swallowed up over the centuries by larger neighbors Vietnam and Thailand.
The Vietnam border is especially contentious, since Hanoi's troops occupied Cambodia for a decade after toppling the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. Hun Sen was foreign minister under the Vietnamese-installed communist government in the 1980s, and then prime minister.
The two countries plan to finish installing the markers before December 2008, Var Kim Hong, the head of Cambodian government's border committee, said at the ceremony.
The Associated Press - September 27, 2006.
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