SRP blocked on Takeo border visit

Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Tok Vanchan of Takeo province crosses a river in Borei Cholsa district’s Chey Chauk commune on Thursday, after a police blockade prevented a group of lawmakers from using the nearby bridge. (Photo by: Heng Chivon)

Friday, 04 June 2010
By Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post

Takeo Province

POLICE in Takeo province on Thursday prevented a delegation of Sam Rainsy Party lawmakers from visiting a site along the Vietnamese border in Takeo’s Borei Cholsa district, in the latest in a series of showdowns between the opposition and the government over alleged Vietnamese encroachment.

Last week, Borei Cholsa residents complained that newly planted border posts along the Vietnamese frontier had cut off large portions of their farmland. Provincial authorities, they said, had prevented them from examining the border posts and had threatened them with imprisonment if they were to protest. Takeo provincial Governor Srey Ben said Wednesday that Vietnamese and Cambodian authorities had only been on a surveying mission in the area, and had not yet planted permanent border markers.

On Thursday, 20 SRP parliamentarians and around 100 supporters attempted to visit the border posts in question, but were confronted in Borei Cholsa’s Chey Chauk commune by around 30 provincial and military police and about 50 local residents who prevented them from going farther. The two sides exchanged words heatedly before the SRP delegation turned back.

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