No withdrawal of Preah Vihear temple case at ICJ: Cambodia PM

Cambodia will not withdraw its request for the interpretation of the Court's judgment of 1962 on the case concerning the Preah Vihear temple, said the Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday.

"For the temple case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Cambodia will not withdraw its complaint at any cost, even in this government's mandate or next mandate, let's the Court to proceed it," he said during a graduation ceremony at the Royal School of Administration.

The premier made the remarks after the Bangkok Post online newspaper reported that Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on June 5 Cambodia should withdraw all border dispute cases from international bodies and return to talks with Thailand.

"Cambodia should first show good will by withdrawing his country's request that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) interpret its 1962 ruling on Preah Vihear temple," said Abhisit.

He also insisted that a joint management plan for the disputed area near Preah Vihear temple must be made, and that Cambodia must also withdraw the temple from world heritage listing.

Hun Sen said: "It's impossible for the joint management plan for Preah Vihear temple with Thailand."

"Cambodia has never known and heard about the overland overlapping areas with Thailand; Cambodia does not know where the 4.6 square kilometer area is."

He reiterated that the dispute between Cambodia and Thailand on the border dispute near Preah Vihear temple has already reached the hands of international bodies--the United Nations Security Council, the ASEAN and the Hague, "it is no way to return to bilateral talks as insisted by Thailand."

"Cambodia cannot withdraw its troops from its own territory in order to exchange with the deployment of a few Indonesian observers," he said.

Cambodian and Thai border has never been fully completed. The conflict occurred just a week after Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple was enlisted as a World Heritage Site on July 7, 2008.

Thailand claims the ownership of 4.6 square kilometers (1.8 square miles) of scrub next to the temple.

Since then, both sides have built up military forces along the border and periodic clashes have happened, resulting in the deaths of troops and civilians on both sides.

The latest flare-up between the two countries' troops from April 22 to May 3 at the 13th century Ta Moan temple and Ta Krabei temple in Oddar Meanchey province have left 19 people dead on both sides as nearly 100,000 civilians fled homes for safe shelters.

The two sides agreed to accept Indonesian observers to monitor a ceasefire on their respective border side on Feb. 22 at the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Jakarta, but the deployment was always delayed because Thailand demanded that Cambodian soldiers and locals be withdrawn from the disputed area of 4.6 sq km near the temple first.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

Graft suspect Nunun, now in Cambodia, eludes KPK hunt

Welcome to Cambodia, the place for all crooks to get pampering.  Nunun Nurbaeti has found her big brother Hun Crook Sen.  Buying the vote had always been tradition his CPP.

Nunun Nurbaeti, a graft fugitive her family claimed suffered from “severe forgetfulness”, seems to have kept one step ahead of Indonesia’s anticorruption body.

Law and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar told reporters on Monday that Nunun was no longer in Thailand as reported earlier by several media outlets.

“According to the immigration office report, she’s not in Thailand anymore but in Phnom Penh [Cambodia],” the minister said, adding that Nunun traveled from Thailand to Cambodia two months before his ministry revoked her passport on the request of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Last month, the commission announced it had named Nunun a suspect in the high-profile bribery case centering on the 2004 election of Miranda S. Goeltom as the central bank’s senior deputy governor by the House of Representatives.

Nunun is accused of distributing traveler’s checks to legislators to buy votes for Miranda. This case has implicated 25 politicians from the country’s major parties, including the Golkar Party — a gadfly in the ruling coalition — and the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

Nunun, however, fled to Singapore when the graft scandal arose last year. She ignored the KPK’s subpoena, saying she suffered from acute amnesia and needed medication in the neighboring country.

She was reportedly apprehended by the Thai authorities after failing to show a valid passport when she was about to leave the country last week. The KPK later sent a team to the neighboring country to coordinate her extradition.

The Indonesian Embassy in Bangkok has filed an extradition request to the Thai Foreign Ministry. But the effort was two months late.

Patrialis said Nunun left Thailand for Cambodia on March 21, while her passport was revoked on May 27.

Bambang Irawan, the director general of immigration at the ministry, confirmed Nunun had fled to Phnom Penh. “We received the information from our counterpart in Bangkok early this month that Nunun was recorded to have left for Phnom Penh,” he said.

Bambang said his directorate had cooperated with the related institutions to bring Nunun home to face questioning. But the fact that she is currently in Cambodia has made it more difficult for the law enforcers to extradite her.

Indonesia does not have an extradition treaty with Cambodia. The KPK was hoping to nab her in Thailand because Jakarta and Bangkok have signed such a treaty. “We have coordinated with the Foreign Ministry and our representative offices abroad, including in Cambodia,” Bambang said.

“Once we know where she is, we will cooperate with our representative offices and issue a travel permit for her to come home.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Michael Tene declined to comment further on the development of Nunun’s case. “One thing for sure is that we always cooperate with all government and law enforcement institutions,” he said.

As of Monday, the KPK still did not know where Nunun had been hiding.

KPK spokesman Johan Budi said the commission had no information on Nunun being in Cambodia. “I learned of this from media reports,” he said. (rcf) Read more!