Thai army officer recounts his experience with Cambodian landmine tricks

Deputy Commander of the Second Region Army, Maj-Gen Nath Sri-in, has recalled his real-life experiences with anti-personnel landmines, allegedly planted by Cambodian troops along the porous natural border with Cambodia in Si Sa Ket and Surin provinces.

In his Facebook post today, Nath said the first encounter was on July 21st, 2009, when about 50 Cambodian troops were reported to have crossed the border to seize the Sattasom Mount, in Kantharalak district of Si Sa Ket, at about 4.30pm.

He said that he led troops to the mountain to confront the invading Cambodians and successfully forced them to retreat at about 11pm. He ordered his troops to stay put until the morning, when they began to comb the area for bombs and found many landmines, both old and freshly-planted, which were destroyed.

One soldier stepped on a landmine. Luckily, it was an old mine and the explosion only slightly damaged one of his combat boots, he wrote.

The second incident was in June 2011. Nath recalled that his patrol stumbled on several freshly-planted landmines while on a jungle route in Chong Krang in Phanom Dongrak district of Surin province.

He notified the Cambodian field commander, who claimed that they were old landmines, but he demanded that he go with him to investigate. It was then that he agreed that they were newly laid landmines and defused them, but only after Nath had threatened to retaliate.

The third experience was on October 9th, 2011, when he led a group of his men to force a group of invading Cambodian troops to withdraw from the Prasat Kana ancient ruins, in Karb Choeng district of Surin. After the Cambodian troops withdrew, his men found and destroyed 42 newly-planted landmines.

Thai border troops, said Nath, should exercise great caution in areas from which Cambodian troops have recently withdrawn, on old patrol routes that the Cambodians do not want the Thai soldiers to use and on new patrol routes.