Reach Sambath, Tribunal Spokesman in Cambodia, Dies at 47

The cause was a stroke brought on by high blood pressure, his family said.

Mr. Reach Sambath often said that as the spokesman for the United Nations-backed tribunal, he was helping to represent the 1.7 million who died during Khmer Rouge rule, from 1975 to 1979. Among them were his parents and all but one sibling. He called himself “a spokesperson for ghosts.”

Mr. Reach Sambath entered journalism in 1991 as a reporter for Agence France-Presse, the French news agency. He was one of the first Cambodians to work for a foreign news agency, and he covered the nation’s first democratic election, a coup, a lingering civil war and finally the collapse of the Khmer Rouge insurgency and the death of its leader, Pol Pot. During these years he also worked as a reporter and translator for The New York Times, whose global edition is The International Herald Tribune.

He was present in 1998 when two of the last Khmer Rouge holdouts, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, both of whom are now on trial, surrendered to the government.

“When I see them, it is difficult to forgive — very difficult,” he said at the time. “But we have to forgive and move on.”

Mr. Reach Sambath sold ice and ferried passengers on a bicycle to support himself after the fall of the Khmer Rouge while he attended elementary and high school and learned English. He graduated in 1987 and became an English teacher. He then won a place as one of the first post-Khmer Rouge students to be sent abroad, to study agriculture in India, before returning to join Agence France-Presse. On leave from that job, he earned a master’s degree in 2001 from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

He left the news agency in 2003 to become a professor of journalism and communications at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, a job he continued to hold after he joined the tribunal staff in 2006.

He is survived by his wife, Chhoy Chanthy, as well as a daughter, Reach Champaradh, and two sons, Reach Rithivong and Reach Samborakh.

Mr. Reach Sambath often returned to his home village in Svay Rieng Province, where he became a patron to his former neighbors and helped many of their children find work in Phnom Penh. One of his greatest moments of pride, he said, was to have earned enough money to conduct an elaborate Buddhist ceremony at his village for the souls of his parents.

 

Thailand and Cambodia Clash Again in Border Dispute

BANGKOK — Thai and Cambodian troops clashed for a third day on Sunday in the first major territorial encounter since an informal cease-fire that followed four days of fighting in February. At least 10 people were killed and thousands of residents were evacuated from border areas, according to reports from both sides.

The United Nations called on the countries to settle the conflict peacefully, with an effective and verifiable cease-fire. The exact cause of the latest clash, which began early Friday, was unclear, with the two sides accusing each other of making the first move in what was mostly a long-range artillery duel.

The fighting was reported at border areas 100 miles west of Preah Vihear, an 11th-century temple that has been the focus of armed tensions since it was listed in 2008 by the United Nations as a World Heritage site under Cambodian administration.

Both nations claim ownership of a strategic area of 1.8 square miles near Preah Vihear. Two other ancient Hindu temples in the border area are the focus of the latest eruption of fighting.

In his weekly television address, the prime minister of Thailand, Abhisit Vejjajiva, accused Cambodia of starting the fighting. “When there is firing into Thailand, we must fire back,” he said.

Mr. Abhisit added: “We must not fall into Cambodia’s trap in trying to spread a picture of conflict, or say the conflict is unsolvable through bilateral talks.”

A sticking point in efforts at negotiations is Thailand’s resistance to Cambodia’s demand for mediation by international bodies. In the past, outside judgments have favored Cambodia. In 1962, the World Court ruled that Preah Vihear, which stands on a border bluff overlooking the Cambodian countryside, belonged to Cambodia.

The disputes involve border demarcations between the two countries made by former French colonial administrators and include references to competing maps and interpretations of maps.

The conflicting claims are a rallying cry for nationalists on both sides. In Thailand, they have become a focus of the antigovernment “yellow shirt” protests in recent months.

In February, the United Nations forwarded a Cambodian request for mediation to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in which both sides agreed to allow unarmed military observers to be posted along the border.

But the Thai military resisted that plan, and the country’s foreign minister, Kasit Piromya, said that his government was trying to secure the cooperation of the armed forces to find a peaceful settlement.

Cambodia accused Thailand over the weekend of firing artillery shells “loaded with poisonous gas” and of flying jet fighter sorties over Cambodian territory. Thailand rejected the accusations as groundless.

 

Cambodia and Thailand Extend Battle

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Reuters) — A second day of fighting between Thai and Cambodian troops on Saturday killed at least four soldiers, bringing the two-day death toll to 11, the worst bloodshed since the United Nations called for a cease-fire in February.

Thousands of villagers have been evacuated from the disputed border area in jungles near the Ta Moan and Ta Krabey temples, about 90 miles west of the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple, the site of a deadly four-day standoff in February.

Lt. Gen. Thawatchai Samutsakorn of the Thai Army said one of his soldiers had been killed. A local hospital said 13 were wounded.

Suos Sothea, deputy commander of Cambodia’s artillery unit in the area, said three Cambodian soldiers had been killed and 11 wounded, bringing the two-day toll of wounded on both sides to at least 43.

The Cambodia Defense Ministry condemned “these repeated deliberate acts of aggression” and called on Thailand to cease “hostilities.” It accused Thailand of firing cluster munitions — weapons banned by many countries — as well as shells “loaded with poisonous gas.”

The Thai foreign affairs minister, Kasit Piromya, denied those accusations as “groundless.”

Sovereignty over the ancient, stone-walled Hindu temples — Preah Vihear, Ta Moan and Ta Krabey — and the jungle of the Dangrek Mountains surrounding them has been in dispute since the withdrawal of the French from Cambodia in the 1950s.

Ta Moan and Ta Krabey, perched on an escarpment about seven miles apart in terrain riddled by land mines, were built in the 12th century when the Khmer empire stretched across parts of Thailand and Vietnam before shrinking to present-day Cambodia.

Thailand says that according to a 1947 map, the two temples are in its Surin Province. Cambodia rejects that claim and says they are in its Oddar Meanchey Province. Before Friday, the two countries jointly patrolled the area largely without incident.