The Cambodian military mounted a rare public test of rockets yesterday amid a lingering troop standoff over disputed territory with Thailand.
In their first public drill since the country’s civil war ended more than a decade ago, troops fired some 200 rockets from truck-mounted launchers at an airfield 180km from the Thai border.
Cambodian defense ministry spokesman Chhum Socheat said the display was “not about flexing our muscles” against Thailand.
“The drill is not a threat or a show of force against neighboring countries or foreign countries,” Chhum Socheat said before the rockets were fired in front of assembled media and top brass.
Muffled thumps could be heard as salvos of rockets landed far from the launch site.
“It is about the strengthening of the abilities of our forces in order to fulfill the duties of national defense against invaders,” Chhum Socheat said.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen declared in a speech last week the rockets would be fired to gauge the quality of the Russian and Chinese-made Cold War-era weapons which have long lain unused in warehouses.
Cambodia and Thailand have been locked in nationalist tensions and a troop standoff at their disputed border since July 2008, when Cambodia’s 11th-century Preah Vihear temple was granted UNESCO World Heritage status.
Four soldiers were killed in clashes in the temple area in 2008 and three more in a gunbattle in April last year. Smaller flare-ups continue to be reported between troops in the area.
The Thai-Cambodia border has never been fully demarcated, partly because it is littered with landmines left over from decades of war in Cambodia, which ended in 1998. The World Court ruled in 1962 that the temple belonged to Cambodia, although its main entrance lies in Thailand.
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