Border problems
krethya
Since the Comité de Frontières du Cambodge in France (CFC) has come to the
United States and elsewhere in Europe to collect signatures I would like to
publish the translation in English of an "approach on the border problems"
written in french by Sok dyvathann about the book of Mr Sarin Chhak entitled
" Les Frontières du Cambodge" for your information . You will understand why
the CFC has raised this problem to you .
Part I
" Within the present context where
-our neighbours try to find a drift to their domestic problems by violating
the borders of Cambodia and the cambodian students make rally against this
menace after the protestations from the CFC
-Vietnam ,by the treaties of 1979, 82, 83 and 85 signed by the then Foreign
Affairs Minister Hun Sen , try to consolidate these latter by creating a
mixt committee to negociate about the border problems
- the Treaty of the 11 August 1997 between Vietnam and Thaïland causes the
lost of about 30,000km2 of cambodian maritime surface for each out of its
95,000 km2 surface
-the judicial problems about the borders between Thaïland/Cambodia from the
one part and Cambodia/Vietnam in the other part cannot thouroughly be
applied by Thaïland nor Vietnam,
it is important to go back to the history to find out the origin of the
problems.
I would like to contribute to Cambodians by bringing what Mr Sarin Chhak has
written .
The book has two volumes : the first one talking about the frontier between
Cambodia and Vietnam and between Cambodia and Laos; the second one talking
about the frontier between Cambodia and Thaïland with a fundamentally
different aspect of the problems. We try to start with the first volume.
" While the lay-out of the khmer/thaï borders results from international
juridical acts putting face to face Thaïland and France , the border with
Laos and Vietnam is a product of purely internal colonial french policy :
1)-France has defended its influence zone ( Cambodia ) against expansionnist
thrust of Vietnam that was beyond her control
2)-France has drawn internal divisions inside a territorial aggregate.
We should make a distinction between the frontiers of a protected territory
( Cambodia )and the frontiers of colonial lands of Cochinchina - the
frontiers of Annam protectorate and an uncertain territorial entity of Laos
( part of France at the epoch ).
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century there
were stabilization of the frontiers. But Cambodia was constanly and
systematically disfavoured by loosing its territory during the border
delimitation operations in the regions. The origin of the situation was the
ambiguity of status of Cambodia. Was it a territory of french protectorate
or a french colony ( Cochinchina)? Since the french Lieutenant- governor of
the epoch who was the chief of the colony of Cochinchina acted as
Representative of the French Republic with Cambodia instead of the chief of
a simple french province.
Anyhow in the practical way here is what the colonial period has left : the
present border lay-out has been formally and unilaterally fixed by Gouvernor
of the Cochinchina , thus causing important lost of portions of cambodian
territory annexed to the ancient Cochinchina. These portions of territory
belonged historically to Cambodia. Mr Sarin Chhak did not claim for these
territories but brought forward a judicial criticism about a recently
established frontier and would like to find an answer to the border lay-out
made during the french colonial period.
Does it exist genuine international frontiers between Cambodia and the
countries linked to her within the frame of ancient French Indochina ? Would
these frontiers be opposable to Cambodia once she becomes independant ?
( to be continued )
Space
krethya wrote:
> 1)-France has defended its influence zone ( Cambodia ) against expansionnist
> thrust of Vietnam that was beyond her control
I would like to correct this point.
Got hooked with the Oriental Vietnamese girsl made the Frenchmen beyond control
Now they must reverse for what they had done or the millions of Khmer Kampuchea
Krom will still continue suffer for many generations to come.
krethya
The frontiers set by the colonial powers in the ancient colonial world
Africa and Asia ) araised sometimes from the international accords
establishing an influence zone split to comply with the equilibrium of
forces of colonial nations but not from basic local considerations of
historical, ethnical and linguistic order neitheir about natural
geographical datas but often the outcome of a colonial administrative
policy, thus necessity to reexamine the arbitrary decisions of the moment
when a country gets its independance.
As there were no precise frontiers before the colonisation the rights raised
by the parties are uncertain and the international community tender to
maintain the ancient colonial frontiers : this is the principe of Uti
Possidetis. Mr Sarin Chhak would like to discard this principe for three
reasons :
1) for the intrinsic reason of practical value of the principe,
2)for the juridical scope of the principe,
3)for the specific reasons applied to the Indochina case.
At the time of independance access, to believe that the principe according
to which the administrative colonial frontiers become ipso facto the
international frontiers is a hasty vision of things because this does not
solve difficulties araising from the conflict between two interpretations of
the same principe : the Uti Possidetis of Rights which tender to stabilize
the frontiers on the basis of the juridical titles of the parties leading to
many contestations about the exact scope of these tittles ; the Uti
Possidetis of Feat consisting to copy the frontier on the feat situation
existing at the moment of independance access but this is a direct
invitation to take a position of strength from the beginning when the
frontiers and the administrative implant of the colonial period had a
hasardous caracter, which is often the case. A second element of negative
scope adds to this principe : the Uti Possidetis principe is not a general
costumary principe of the International Law. It does not have a juridical
value for that stand. Besides Cambodia has continuously protested against
the assignment of the Cochinchina colony to Vietnam in such a way determined
by France. Cambodia has renewed her claims at the Geneva Conference and
henceafter for may times. Laos has also rejected this principe not adaptable
to the Indochina case. This fundamental inadaptability to the region is
first the result of the colonial structure of Indochina made of territories
with mixed juridical status. Cambodia was a protectorate and did not lose
her state personality thus escape in a certain extent to the french
authority while Cochinchina was instead a colony and part of France. Another
point important to be raised is the inequality in the treatment : natural
tendency for the colonialist to systemetically favoured the colonial lands
detrimental to the protected country. There were inequality in the behaviour
of the protector power and the maintenance of the principe as such leads to
directing this principe against one of the parties - Thus erronous principe
from the beginning. Before the arrival of the colony the territorial rights
of the states were already set up. The colonial authority was faced with
preexisting realities. And if it had not respected the historical datas and
the people settlement , its frontier delimitations oppose directly to the
rights of the states . Conflicts of rights not simply a vacuum to be filled.
In Cambodia or in Indochina the colonial frontiers cut straight in the
middle of rich regions thronged with peoples. These frontiers took people
off their national belonging , off their linguistic ethnical and religious
community with entire villages submitted not without revolt or
protestations. They hit directly to the self determination rights of the
peoples. They deliver the minority to the oppression , to the suppression of
peoples 'social cultural and religious originality - another reason to
reject the principe of Uti Possidetis. That is why we must determine with
precision the territorial rights of Cambodia. The lands with khmer
soveraignty cam be determined correctly though there were no frontiers in
the modern sence of the term. We must take the lay-out set by the colonial
power as the basis for discussion then examine their conditions of
establishing and their signification.
The frontier operation is not a unique operation because it has been
realised at different epoches with particular conditions of facts at each
epoch and at each sector.
(to be continued)
krethya
krethya
expansionnist
> thrust of Vietnam that was beyond her control
krethya
Mr Sarin Chhak gave himself the task of making a useful judicial study of
the frontiers of Cambodia, of Vietnam and of Laos. Two questions have to be
raised during this study :
1)In what degree France has set a territorial frontier or a simple
administrative line but left untouched the border problems ?
2)In what extent the established line is purely declarative and grounded on
the rights of the parties or on the contrary attributive, which then put
forward the problem of juridical validity of the transfert of soveraignty so
realised that can be generally analysed as annexations ?
According to him , for each of the studied sectors, we should underline the
extent of the rights of Cambodia recessed during the frontier setting up.
With these datas as basic, we should study the juridical and materialistic
conditions of the frontier setting . Then he concludes : the present
frontiers are under the requirements of the decolonisation, necessity of a
new frontier lay-out.
Title I .-
The title I is made of 4 sections dealing with the province of Stung-Treng
left bank of Mekong river) . It is about the section between the Mekong
river and the spring of Dar-Hoyt ( 1893-1929 ). The present
khmero-vietnamese frontier in the cambodian province of Stung-Treng leaves
under vietnamese domination a territorial fringe which is undoubtedly
cambodian from an historic ethnical and juridical viewpoint . This province
has witnessed many successive events starting from the elimination of the
siamese domination to the institutionalisation of a french colonial
soveraignty the to the binding to Laos, then to a fragmentary transfert to
Annam and a partial retoration to Cambodia.
In 1893 France had claimed this territory on behalf of cambodian soveraignty
with partial retoration in 1904.
In a preliminary section the author talks about the elimination of the
siamese domination. The 1893 Convention was an international accord
indicating the abandon of the siamese soveraignty of feat over laotian
territories as well as annamite or cambodian territories on the left bank of
the Mekong river including the Stung-Treng area. This restoration is made
to France on behalf of Annam and Cambodia. It behoves France to restore
these territories to their ancient respective masters , thus to realise
application measures either by way of administrative decision consistent to
international law, or by way of convention, accord with the protected
countries.