Enemies turn allies in temple battle
By Stephen Kurczy
PREAH VIHEAR and PHNOM PENH - Comrade Neak Vong spent nearly two decades
fighting against the Cambodian government. Now, he and other former Khmer Rouge
soldiers are fighting on behalf of their former adversary in what some fear
could escalate into a full-blown war with neighboring Thailand over claims to
ancient temples and their surrounding territories.
Along the Thai-Cambodia border, where fighting broke out on October 15 between
Thai and Cambodian troops, loyalties have blurred as longtime enemies fight for
the same cause. Ten years after a nearly two-decade civil war between the Khmer
Rouge and the Cambodian government ended, military generals from both
sides have picked up their weapons in a standoff with Thailand.
Currently the secretary general of staff for the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces,
Neak Vong fled with the Khmer Rouge to Cambodia's northwest when Vietnamese
forces pushed the genocidal Maoist regime into the border jungles in 1979. For
the next 17 years, the cadre sparred with Thai troops to the north and
Cambodian troops to the south while he guarded several ancient temples and
their surrounding land.
In 1996, he laid down his arms as Khmer Rouge Brother Number Three, Ieng Sary,
led the first wave of defections to the government. Ieng Sary today is in
detention facing war crimes at the United Nations-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal
in Phnom Penh. Neak Vong, however, is back on the frontline, called on by the
Cambodian government to help maintain sovereignty over one of the three
disputed temples on the Thai-Cambodia border.
He now leads 550 Cambodian troops at Ta Moan temple, 200 kilometers west of
Preah Vihear temple where fighting erupted Wednesday and left two Cambodian
soldiers dead. "I'm used to fighting with Thailand along the border," Neak Vong
recently quipped.
The current military standoff at Preah Vihear temple began in mid-July days
after Cambodia successfully listed it as a United Nations World Heritage Site.
Hundreds of Thai demonstrators had amassed nearby to protest what they
considered an attempt to steal Thai land and, in response, Cambodia
chain-locked the Thai's entrance gate and stationed a number of soldiers at the
temple. Within weeks, Thailand locked Cambodia out of Ta Moan temple and
stationed a number of solders there. Both scenes quickly devolved into military
standoffs.
Fighting for Cambodia aligns Neak Vong with the man he fought against during
the Khmer Rouge's guerilla war, Som Bopharoat, one of the Cambodian military
commanders now leading operations to defend Preah Vihear temple for Cambodia.
Som Bopharoat's headquarters sit at the highest point of the 800-meter-long
temple structure.
A meter from his camouflage green tent, a sheer cliff drops 575 meters to the
sparsely inhabited Cambodian plains. In a recent interview outside his tent,
Som Bopharoat recalled fighting Neak Vong and the renegade Khmer Rouge in the
1990s. Both sides would eavesdrop on the other's radio communications, he said,
sometimes breaking into a frequency to curse and threaten the other.
"I heard the enemy's voice through the radio," he recalled. "After they
defected to the government, I saw the voice and said 'You used to fight against
me'!" Som Bopharoat doesn't know if he ever heard Neak Vong's voice, but he
knows of him and he smiled at the irony of former enemies now fighting
alongside one another.
It's all part of what Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said is a
"win-win policy in dealing with the cadres of the former DK [Democratic
Republic of Kampuchea]". When Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea
defected to the government in December 1998, Prime Minister Hun Sen said they
should be welcomed "with bouquets of flowers, not with prisons and handcuffs".
He told the press then: "If a wound does not hurt, you should not poke at it
with a stick to make it bleed. If we put those two men in prison, will this
benefit society or lead to civil war?" While Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea are
now both in pre-trial detention, along with Ieng Sary, Hun Sen's comments in
retrospect speak more towards lower-level Khmer Rouge-defectors like Neak Vong.
National reconciliation is more important than punishing all former Khmer Rouge
members, government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said in a recent e-mail with this
correspondent, and, at the same time, the Khmer Rouge troops "are very familiar
with the areas".
Marginal advantage
Experts question if that will help the Cambodian forces against Thailand's
better-equipped and United States-trained forces. Bertil Lintner, a regional
security expert based in Thailand, said Preah Vihear temple's cliff-top
location isn't suitable for the type of guerrilla warfare with which the Khmer
Rouge is acquainted.
"There is nowhere to go, nowhere to retreat for the Cambodian forces except by
helicopter - or an extremely steep and vulnerable climb down the cliff. The
[Khmer Rouge] fought a guerrilla war in the jungles of the Cambodian lowlands,
not on top of the Preah Vihear cliff," he said in an e-mail message. What is
more, he added, most of the Khmer Rouge forces have since retired from battle.
Nevertheless, the fact that ex-Khmer Rouge guerillas like Neak Vong are members
of the Cambodian forces has opened the military to a measure of criticism: not
only are the former Khmer Rouge fighters familiar with Cambodia's remote
northwestern areas, they're also familiar with the laying of anti-personnel
mines of the type that severely injured two Thai soldiers earlier this month.
During their civil war, both the Khmer Rouge and Cambodian government are
estimated to have laid tens of thousands of mines around Preah Vihear temple.
Thai officials have claimed - including in a presentation to foreign diplomats
on Thursday - that Cambodian troops recently planted the Russian-built mines on
Thai soil, representing a violation of Thai sovereignty.
Virachai Plasai, the director of the Treaties and Legal Affairs Department with
the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accused Cambodia on Friday of violating
the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning landmines. "This is a grave threat for the
international community as a whole," he said.
Meanwhile, the Cambodian Foreign Ministry has issued several statements saying
its soldiers did not plant the mines, and Khem Sophoan, director-general of the
Cambodia Mine Action Center, said the area where the two Thai troops lost their
legs had never been de-mined.
"These are old mines, laid during the war between the government and the Khmer
Rouge," he said by telephone Friday. "After Cambodia signed the Ottawa
Convention, we destroyed all of our supplies and did not lay new mines. We only
clear mines." Those conflicting accounts, if not resolved, could ignite more
hostilities, security experts say.
From Cambodia's base camp below Ta Moan temple, Neak Vong said he thinks it
makes sense for former Khmer Rouge cadres to lead the mission against Thailand.
"I know this area and I am not afraid of Thailand," he said from his jungle
headquarters, giving an insight into his military tactics. He said he sent 100
Cambodian troops on August 5 trekking up a rocky ledge through a thick, wet
jungle in the steep ascent to Ta Moan temple. Familiar with the terrain, they
were able to surround a 20-person Thai camp stationed inside what he claimed to
be Cambodian territory.
"After we circled them, they withdrew," recalled one of Neak Vong's troops.
Twenty Cambodian military remain stationed there. Wearing Converse sneakers and
flip-flops, they patrol the camp with B40 rocket launchers and AK-47 rifles.
Som Bopharoat and Neak Vong both claim to know the lay of the land and how to
hold their positions. Both also said that, unlike when Khmer Rouge fighters
patrolled the area, diplomatic negotiations are probably the best course of
action. But as accusations fly between both countries about landmines, land
boundaries and who fired first on Wednesday, a truce for now seems elusive.
It might yet be a long standoff at both Ta Moan and Preah Vihear temples, the
two military leaders said. With thunderclouds rolling in over the hillside and
lighting striking down in the distance, the rainy season has taken its toll on
his troops, said Neak Vong before this week's skirmish. Nonetheless, he's
prepared to live in the jungle for a while.
"We're used to having a difficult time,'' the former Khmer Rouge fighter said.
Stephen Kurczy is a Cambodia-based journalist.
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