Prime Minister Hun Sen has ordered the government to launch a satellite surveillance system to monitor the country’s border areas in an effort to bolster national defense and curb illegal activities such as logging, drug trafficking and people smuggling, officials said Sunday.
Mr. Hun Sen announced the ambitious plan during a Council of Ministers meeting on Friday, and tasked the Cambodian Border Committee with carrying it out, according to council spokesman Phay Siphan.
“We want to establish the satellite system to check on the authorities…working along the border on issues of national defense and security, such as human and drug trafficking, and people smuggling,” Mr. Siphan said. “The satellite [system] will also let us check along the border for logging, environmental destruction and people building illegal shelters.”
Mr. Siphan said he did not know how many satellites would be deployed, but that the equipment would be purchased by the government. He said the border committee would begin on a master plan for the project “soon,” and that international experts had already been hired to advise the committee.
Asked whether the government could realistically afford even one satellite—advanced models can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and launching one costs millions more—Mr. Siphan accused a reporter of being disrespectful.
“You are Cambodian but you look down on Cambodia,” he said. “Have you ever heard Samdech Prime Minister Hun Sen lie to the Cambodian people?”
“If the equipment is too expensive, we can rent it,” he added, declining to discuss the matter further.
Border committee president Var Kimhong, who is also the minister in charge of border affairs, said the satellite equipment would be purchased from a foreign government.
“We are not able to build the satellite [system], but we will buy it,” he said, adding that the system would be capable of capturing still images and video of Cambodia’s borders.
“We want to establish the satellite [system] because we want to collect data about what people are doing along the borderline,” he said.
