Thread: Cambodia : State urges discretion in border coverage

State urges discretion in border coverage
Vong Sokheng
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JAMES O’TOOLE
Friday, 03 September 2010

OFFICIALS from the Ministry of Information met yesterday with their Thai counterparts in Phnom Penh, emphasising the need for media outlets to report accurately and avoid fanning the flames of the border dispute.

The meeting came just weeks after Cambodia and Thailand returned their respective ambassadors and restored full diplomatic ties following the rift over Phnom Penh’s appointment of fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an economics adviser. Thaksin, wanted in
Thailand on graft charges, resigned from the position last month.

Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said that as the countries work to repair their frayed relationship, their media must avoid needlessly stoking nationalistic passions.

“I appreciate the mature attitude of media from the two countries who don’t publish reports that will cause hatefulness or racism among the populations of the two countries, even though we’ve had problems in diplomacy,” Khieu Kanharith said.

Media outlets have often played a contentious role in Thai-Cambodian relations. In 2003, rioters burned down the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh following a false report, cited in a speech by Prime Minister Hun Sen, that a Thai actress had claimed the famed Angkor Wat temple complex belonged to Thailand.

More recently, Bangkok’s The Nation newspaper quoted Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva as saying last month that Bangkok would consider “both diplomatic and military means” to solve the disagreement with Cambodia over a patch of land adjacent to Preah Vihear temple. Hun Sen cited this quotation in a letter to the president of the United Nations Security Council, calling it an “obvious threat”.

Officials in Bangkok, however, later said that Abhisit’s statements had been misquoted and taken out of context, citing Thailand’s commitment to a 2000 Memorandum of Understanding with Cambodia that provides for peaceful demarcation of the border.

“We want to solve these problems peacefully, without the use of force,” Abhisit said last month, according to the Bangkok Post.

Moeun Chhean Narridh, director of the Cambodian Institute for Media Studies, said reporters had a responsibility to carefully handle the “very sensitive and delicate” issues at the centre of the Thai-Cambodian conflict. He said he worried about the tendency of news outlets in both countries to trade in inflated nationalism and war-mongering.

“The media has a role to not take sides and avoid conflict,” he said.

Ongart Klampaiboon, Abhisit’s Office Minister and the leader of the visiting delegation, said dubious media reports on the dispute were a continuing problem. On Wednesday, Ongart said, several Thai media outlets incorrectly reported that Hun Sen had backed out of a proposed meeting with Abhisit at an international summit scheduled for next month in Belgium.

But just as news outlets need to be discerning in their reporting, officials from the two countries should be discrete in their communications with one another, Moeun Chhean Narridh said, and avoid doing diplomacy through the media.

“The government should not rely on the media as statements representing any side,” he said.

phnompenhpost.com

TV station provides cover for troops
Thet Sambath
Thursday, 09 September 2010

ONE OF Cambodia’s top broadcasters, the Cambodia Television Network (CTN), has received more than 200 tonnes of cement and thousands of dollars in donations to help construct bunkers for soldiers stationed along the border with Thailand as part of a controversial government initiative to pair private businesses with the military.

“We have received more than 200 tonnes of cement and US$4,000 for buying steel to build military bunkers” since beginning to televise pleas for goods last month, CTN director Tok Kimsay said Thursday.

Since border tensions with Thailand erupted in 2008, several local television stations have broadcast pleas for the public to donate food, clothing, medicine and other materials to help support border troops.

CTN continues to make on-air appeals for donations, regularly listing the names of those who have contributed to the campaign.

A series of business-military partnerships were first laid out in a document signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen in February.

Though government officials have characterised the partnerships as a form of corporate charity, critics say the scheme could leave the military beholden to private interests

phnompenhpost.com