Friday 11 July 2014

Legal, Legalised, and Twisted


“If we still allow this company [Vietnamese land concession holder CRCK] to continue its activities here, this company would clear more and more deeply and they will finish all of Prey Lang. People told me that workers, experts and managers were brought in from yuon country. They have established yuon villages, allowing yuon to enter and live in Khmer land. This area has become a yuon colony.”

CNRP president Sam Rainsy, 12 December 2013


“This [investment] has interests for both sides. Vietnamese companies that are investing in Cambodia also help to find work for thousands of Cambodian labourers... Vietnamese firms have no ambitions to take Cambodian territory and were legally investing in the Kingdom. We are not quite interested in this twist [of the facts]. [We] don’t know why [the CNRP] twists like this.”

Tran Van Thong, spokesman at the Vietnamese embassy, 12 December 2013.


It seems no one is lying, only twisting.

Of course, the Vietnamese investments are legal and legalised, but the issue is their primary intentions and unintended consequences.

Are they of similar nature to the 7 January intervention that puts some Cambodians into debt of eternal gratitude no amount of repayment will suffice? Is the twist of facts mild enough to partially reflect the “unintended” consequences, or intended all along, of these investments?


UBA

16xii13

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