RCAF Deputy Commander-in-Chief General Chea Dara said yesterday that Prime Minister Hun Sen had ordered him to cease public statements about the number of Thai soldiers killed during clashes at the border.
Gen Dara said the prime minister had given the order upon his return from the Mekong Summit in Thailand earlier this week and said he thought Cambodian-Thai relations had improved in recent days.
The general on March 24 had told the news media that since July 2008, Cambodian soldiers had killed 88 Thai troops in clashes near Preah Vihear temple. He also claimed at the time that only two Cambodian soldiers had been killed.
Gen Dara’s announcement followed a brief meeting between Mr Hun Sen and Thai officials on the margins of the Mekong Summit on Monday, during which the Cambodian prime minister told Thai officials that fugitive former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was made a Cambodian government adviser last year, was not currently welcome here.
“Prime Minister Hun Sen told me to stop talking about the number of dead Thai soldiers after he returned from Thailand,” Gen Dara said during a briefing of Phnom Penh municipal officials at City Hall. “Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thai leaders had asked him to tell me to stop talking about the dead Thai soldiers.”
After Gen Dara claimed the high kill number last month, a Thai military spokesman was quoted in the Thai media denying them. The Thai military has previously said only three of its soldiers were killed during 2009 gun battles on the border.
Gen Dara said by telephone yesterday he thought that Cambodian-Thai relations had improved since the regional summit in Thailand on April 4 and 5.
“Right now the situation of the leadership in Phnom Penh and Bangkok it looks like there are some good points together,” he said. “There are some good points between both nations’ leaders this month.”
“After Hun Sen came back from the recent meeting [in Thailand] he ordered the military at the border to keep good cooperation with Thai troops,” Gen Dara added.
Information Minister and government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said yesterday evening that he could not comment on Gen Dara’s remarks.
“The situation is usual. It’s not really improving, but we hope we can be out of the forest soon,” he said of relations with Thailand, adding that they would only improve if Bangkok abandoned claims to 4.6 square kilometers of land around the Preah Vihear temple.
During the summit in Thailand, Mr Hun Sen told Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban that Mr Thaksin was not currently invited to visit Cambodia. He also posed for photographs, shaking hands with his Thai counterpart Abhisit Vejjajiva.
Prime Minister Hun Sen left for the Asean summit in Vietnam on Wednesday morning, according to the official news agency Agence Kampuchea Presse. However, Mr Abhisit cancelled his visit to the summit yesterday evening following the continued anti-government rallies by Mr Thaksin’s supporters who are calling for new elections.
During his remarks yesterday, Gen Dara offered fresh criticism of the opposition, something he also did on March 30. Gen Dara claimed yesterday that the opposition parties were conspiring with Thailand to destabilize the country.
“The opposition here and Thailand, they move together,” he said. “I did not come to lobby for the CPP, but I am a CPP supporter too. If we analyze it means that they collude” with Thailand.
By law, military personnel are required to remain politically neutral. SRP lawmaker and acting spokesman Kimsuor Phirith said the general was acting outside of the rules of a democracy.
“Chea Dara violates the RCAF rule, because he is a general but he talks about politics. If he wants to talk about politics, he should resign from RCAF,” Mr Phirith said.
“Right now RCAF is controlled by the ruling party. Cambodia has to look at the other democratic countries, they keep their armies neutral,” he said, adding, “This is a bad action for RCAF because RCAF has to be neutral.”
At the same time, Mr Phirith said the general’s remarks also signaled a possible detente in Cambodian-Thai relations.
“I welcome the goodwill between the nations’ leaders,” he said, “The SRP usually asks the government to find the reasonable resolution for the border problem.”
