The Editor,

I am very impressed by the very real news that your esteemed paper publishes concerning

my country, especially the truth concerning the daily politics from our slow moving

capital.

I am a returning Cambodian, having spent my childhood and schooling in England for

my school. This was a long time ago, my schooling.

The Malaysian Foreign Minister was here to speak with our Prime Ministers to help

to calm down the conflicts within the Cambodian inner politic.

But what worries me the most about Cambodia joining ASEAN next year, which shall

bring to Cambodia more problems than benefits, is a subject nobody speaks - the ability

of the citizens of these ASEAN countries to enter and leave each other's frontiers

very easily and quickly without visas.

This visa-free movement of the ASEAN populations shall have trumendous impact

on the population constituent of Cambodia, since more Vietnamese can enter Cambodia

legally and freely, and more Vietnamese can permanently stay in Cambodia legally

and to vote legally in our elections using an identity card from the Cambodian local

police station, identity cards which anybody can buy from outside as long as they

have money.

The main point is that more Vietnamese people can cross the border freely and legally

to enter Cambodia without a visa. Cambodians don't often migrate to Vietnam without

money support.

This shall be a disastrous problem for Cambodia, this problem of Vietnamese legal

entry into Cambodia which ASEAN nations must honour as a legal right. It shall change

the population composition of our nation, and nobody wants to talk or to publish

this problem, to awake our politicians in the National Assembly on this subject.

That is why I must beg you to publish this subject in your newspaper to awake our

population on the legal aspects of this ASEAN treaty, which shall put Cambodia in

a very disadvantaged position.

- Veak Rin Van, Phnom Penh.