Uddar Mean Chey – The Latest Province
In 1966, under the Sangkumreastr Niyum the province was established with a provincial office designed by the Cambodian famous architect – Van Molyvan. Because of the wars and the Pol Pot’s genocide, the province was ravaged and had been the frontline where stationed the division 286, which now becomes the division intervention II currently under the leadership of General Uy Sopheap …
On January 28, 1995, the province was once again declared re-established but nothing could be done because war was still prevalent in this area. In the elections of 1998, Uddar Mean Chey was only a part of the Siemreap constituency until April 7, 1999 HE Sar Kheng came here to declare the re-establishment of the province. If I am not mistaken we occupied a warehouse and transformed into provincial workplace … today, we have the possibility to have in front of us here the new administrative office of the province …
23 Provinces and Municipalities
I would take this opportune moment to express my sincere thank to efforts made by the provincial officials, Ministry of Interior as well as the Ministry of Economy and Finance for making this wonderful achievement possible. I last came to this province in 2006 and I remember telling you all to keep large space for future use … like building this office, etc. Now we have the city of Samraong for the province of Uddar Mean Chey. Let me just make one thing clear, we have changed separate towns before – like Sihanoukville, Kep and Pailin to the provinces of Sihanoukville, Kep and Pailin whereas all provincial towns in any respective province would be named the city – like in Siemreap province we have the city of Siemreap, and here in Uddar Mean Chey we have the city of Samraong.
On May 17, 2009, we have non-universal suffrage elections of the provincial and district councils and from here I could foresee that there is a need for more buildings on the way … I would take this chance to clarify that the governor of the province is by no means an office director of the Ministry of Interior or it would be a major confusion. The provincial governor is the representative of the Royal Government to that particular province entitled to place commands on the armed forces – military, military police and police. The Prime Minister is the only legitimate person in proposing promotion for Royal Decree approval by HM the King …
The Ministry of Interior is the Prime Minister’s proxy in municipal/provincial management … so you may take it as my clarification of the issue … because of changes of provincial and municipal structures above, we will have 23 provinces and 23 municipalities while three cities have been established because of their specialties – Poi Pet (Banteay Mean Chey), Bavet (Svay Rieng) and Suong (Kompong Cham).
Nationwide VDO Conference
Take this opportune moment I would like to make an announcement that today we have put into official use not only the new provincial office but also the operation of the nationwide VDO links which is a part of the e-government project. This has indeed helped us in accelerating communication where before we need a day to get to Phnom Penh just to clarify a few things. Upon my return from Kuwait I went for a conference with the provincial leaders. All 24 provinces/Municipalities were online except Takeo because of the technical difficulties. It has indeed modernized our way of life and work … We will continue to expand this system to military regions and other important locations …
I would recommend that you be prepared because I will be in regular contact with all of you. It was indeed a long time effort to get this far as before I have requested companies to work on that but the best it does was for audio communication and not the video … This is possible thanks to the cooperation between the Ministry of National Defense and Vietel Company and it is indeed a change in this field as we now have finished the 5,000 kilometers wiring of cable and between 5,000 and 8,000 kilometers more underway.
I would recommend the provincial leaders to study the possibility to link up with districts and I would suggest that big companies to make use of the online possibility for own use. It helps us saving fuel for cars to travel to and from and also time which is impossible to make it up. With this facility, provincial heads can sit down at their place and listen to the Cabinet’s meeting, the result of which is that they learn of the Government’s decisions and they could clarify related issues.
At this moment I wish to thank the province of Uddar Mean Chey in particular and the all the provinces along the Thai-Cambodian border in general for the efforts they made starting from July 15, 2008 to the present with one hand defending the country from infiltration from neighboring country and the other solving internal demands. I would like to take this opportunity to once again stress on the importance of win-win policy which has indeed brought our country into unity with unified administration, armed forces, Royal Government, HM the King under the roof of sole Constitution … The win-win policy has not left anyone to lose except that the person intends to … Starting from mid 1996 through to 1998, integration has completed and our people have not got anything more to pay for it.
Fighting has been too much for Cambodia and I am so sick of the former generation leaders who made use of the people’s blood for winning power and I also have a bad feeling on what is said in Khmer “fish eats ants in flood, ants eats fish when flood recedes” (which literally means endless revenge). In Khmer history, when General Lon Nol took power he avenged those who supported Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk, when Pol Pot came to power, he did the same on those who used to support Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk and General Lon Nol … I would like to take this chance to also thank our Buddhist monks and people for providing encouragements to the frontlines and efforts made by two TV stations – CTN and Bayon for collecting fund to build and repair the road to Preah Vihear … The engineering teams of the Cambodian Armed Forces have also presented through their efforts in wet and dry seasons to build roads …
My vision to transform battlefields into development sites is not only for the people of Uddar Mean Chey, Banteay Mean Chey and Preah Vihear provinces but for all our people of Cambodia as it is a major target to reach for socio-economic development and to serve national security and defense. The win-win policy has been implemented with great success with no one to lose. The Cambodians are now together and united for its sake on the basis of three basic solutions – guaranteeing lives, ranks, jobs and properties …
The Cambodians no longer fight each other … but they now face with threats from outside. This time they do not retreat but stay facing with the fact … I would like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation for our soldiers of all ranks for their heroism … My ambition has been to transform the border areas with neighboring countries into developmental zones … People living in these areas are the ones who used to have fears because of various kinds of risks and threats … I wish to see that the people living in the border areas with Vietnam, Laos and Thailand to live in peace, free from armed clashes and development … We have developed quite some places along the border with Vietnam, where before they were artillery bases against each other, into factory zones with electricity …
We have also developed some with Thailand like in O Smach, Poi Pet, Jam Yeam (Koh Kong) etc. while more is being developed on the part of Thailand. We trust in developing relations that are to be born out of cooperation and mutual understanding.
Development of NR 6 Southern Side
We have asphalted and are in the process of completing 6 major road lines of 432 kilometers and 69 bridges of 1,541 meters – that include the road from Sam Taong to Anlung Veng and from Anlong Veng to Sra Em – to be implemented by the Ministry of Public Works and Transports and the military engineering team… We need financial support for three more roads with the total length of 368 kilometers, two of which – the road 56 from Sam Raong to Si Sophon and the road 68 from O Smach to Sam Raong and Kralanh towns have all been classified projects that seek for assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) … the road 62 of 129 kilometers from Tbeng Mean Chey to the NR 6 is now under construction with the financial assistance from China.
The road 68 has indeed been requested for assistance from the former Thai Government of HE Thaksin Shinawatra and after the change of Government in Thailand after the coup in 2006, I raised the matter with Prime Minister HE Surayuth Chulanand and I got the same answer from him that I got from Thaksin – let’s wait until the road 67, which they offered Cambodia, is finished. When HE Samak became the Prime Minister, in principle, he offers Cambodia Baht 1,400 million for the restoration of the road 68 from O Smach to Sam Raong and Kralanh … From then on we had Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, and now Prime Minister Abhisit, but Cambodia has not shifted the project to a different donor yet and we hope that the current government will follow what has been decided by its predecessor’s… We have to seek fund to finish 360 kilometers more for roads …
I would urge the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology to be responsible in setting up a system for drinking water in all areas where we have armed forces stationed along the Cambodian-Thai border … we have to make ball holes if possible or to build up reservoir in cases of shortage of underground water sources … As we have now readjusted our troop positions and their families, these facilities have to be taken into consideration … I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks and appreciation for those who have contributed their resources through our CTN and Bayon TV stations for the sake of our soldiers at the front …
We are now building armed forces bases along the border – each one with not less than 100 hectares and as of now we have twenty construction sites underway … As we move our soldiers closer to the border is not for fighting but for making us secure … We do not want to fight but if for any reason we are being pushed into the situation like on October 15, 2008, we have no choice but to defend ourselves. However, we want to talk and we would engage talking wherever possible … We fought because it was for us to defend our land. We do not want any country’s land, not even a millimeter but to defend what has been left from our ancestors …
In the course of incident 13 Thai soldiers within the compound of the Buddhist pagoda dropped their weapons and 12 others were detained but we inflicted no harm on them … I asked the commander to send our deputy commander to sit with them … The 13 soldiers in the following day did not eat, so I ordered them to send someone to get chicken to make food for them … What we did is indeed our moral values of our soldiers … in the name of the Royal Government of Cambodia I would solemnly assure them my praise and it is our soldiers’ moral values that no hostage is being avenged or tortured.
Some politicians campaigned to fight for the Cambodian territories – both at present and from the past. What on earth are they talking about? The Cambodian opposition parties did not want the general elections to happen and we have made a thorough investigation … They wish a war to happen along the Thai-Cambodian border so that the whole or parts of the general elections could not be held, especially those constituencies along the border, because they were certain that they could not win … We were smart enough to prevent that happening …
Taking this opportune moment I have some messages to send to our compatriots but also to the Thai counterpart about the position of the Royal Government and the Prime Minister of Cambodia on issues relating to the border disputes. The position of the Royal Government of Cambodia which I am the Prime Minister is by no means similar to that of the opposition parties in Cambodia and that of Sean Peng Se’s border committee in France – I wish that this is well noted and not to be confused. The Royal Government of Cambodia’s positions are as follows:
1. Prevent the armed clashes and end the military confrontation which has been our position since July 16 up to the present…
2. Conduct bilateral dialogue/negotiation. We will not forward the issue to multilateral forum or to ASEAN, the international court in The Hague. I may need to clarify this to you that the Governments of Prime Minister Samak and Prime Minister Somchai and to the current Prime Minister Abhisit have accepted to resolve the issue within the framework of the Franco-Siam convention of 1904, the Franco-Siam treaty of 1907 and the memorandum of understanding of 2000 …
3. Narrow down conflicts while expanding cooperation in matter with Thailand as well as between Cambodia and Laos, and Cambodian and Vietnam…
4. Contain dispute from spreading to other areas – we should prevent the generalization of the conflict. We have trade to conduct as usual – for instance we just had the Thai famous golfer who competed and won the competition in Cambodia
I made this declaration in the province bordering with Thailand to make clear once again that Cambodia has no intention to seize Thai territory no matter what size it could be and continues to be patient to resolve the matter peaceful negotiation and in the bilateral framework.
Cambodia will only use force to defend itself and the UN Security Council will be a forum when we have open aggression. We will seek for help from the third party when negotiation fails. Cambodia would not raise this matter in the forthcoming ASEAN Summit for Prime Minister Abhisit to feel uncomfortable at all…■
