To the editor,
The report in the Post's first December issue headlined:
"Families forced from land as Vietnamese border dispute flares" whereby an
estimated 1,000 families were evicted from their land by Vietnamese authorities
yet again underlines, if you can't get your way by cool-headed subtle
deceptions, force it in!
In my recent article to the Post I humbly
attempted to show the consistency with which Vietnamese leaders past and present
pursue the territorial policy. During my visit to Cambodia in 1993 I had the
privilege to traverse and meet people from various walks of life including those
who lived in border regions such as Prey Veng and Svay Rieng. I shall not go
into detail about the social topography of these provinces which had been
drastically shaped by Vietnamese occupation policies and the proceeding KR
misrule. Suffice it to say that Hanoi appears to have taken the opportunity
during its occupation to unleash a program of active settlement as well as to
annex substantial portions of Cambodian territory partly because it felt it
could get away with it, but also because the annexed territory acts as an
insurance policy for the illegal settlers. As Cambodia settles to relative peace
and unity once more (at last) the nation would direct its attention to the
question of territorial disputes. Thus, the seized land is intended to
strengthen VN's bargaining stake and at the same time to further burden and
complicate the whole process of dispute settlement, of claims and
counter-claims.
No nation can bring itself to tolerate such naked attacks
upon its sovereignty and dignity. All available instruments of diplomacy and
non-violence must now be considered: the UN, the International Court of Justice,
and France whose colonial administration was prejudiced against and generous
with Khmer territories. If nothing else it is barely conceivable that a people
the Vietnamese have always looked down upon as lazy for not making use of every
available square of land should feel the need to cross over the border to farm
on rented foreign soil. What a reversal in more than two thousand years of
history!
The government is right to point out that future generations
will complain if Cambodia were to lose the claims. My overwhelming impression is
that this very generation is already bitterly unhappy about the whole episode.
It is to be expected that the newly acquired land will be given Vietnamese names
["Phu Quoc" is a relatively recent example] and granted to it the usual status
of having been under Vietnamese control "for generations."
Some foreign
friends can not comprehend this national obsession with territorial boundary.
After all, it is reasoned, had not the nation enough urgent crises on its plate
already? Rural poverty, insurgency, drought, unexploded mines, urban migration,
deforestation? Indeed, these are sufficient to choke and enslave any country. It
is essentially my contention that these are directly or indirectly outcomes of
this obsession. In a region where the rule of law is not the established norm
such acts of aggression between nations can only throttle attempts to bring
about harmony and peace between peoples and ultimately stimulate and promote the
radical cause. After all, what is a country if not its sea, its islands, its
rivers, its lakes, its pagodas, its land? In their inextricable total they
constitute its very flesh, blood and soul. The real challenge for Cambodia now
is not learning to live "on the same planet as Vietnam", but to fight for the
right to have any planet at all to live on.
- Marith Pen, London, England.
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