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Remarks at the Opening Workshop on Maritime
Security
Raffles Le Royal, Phnom Penh, 26th May 2009
- H.E. Carol A. Rodley, US Ambassador to
the Kingdom of Cambodia,
- H.E. Margaret Adamson, Australian
Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia,
- Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen!
I have
known that many of you Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen have traveled a long
way to gather here for the cause of contributing and sharing your experiences to
make sure that Cambodia has the foundation of knowledge for preparing and
creating its new institution to be in charge of Maritime Security.
I would like to highly evaluate your physical and mental sacrifices for the
joint assessment on the general situation of our Maritime Security. In November
2007, I presided over this workshop once, during which my speech clearly
notified the participants that the Maritime Security is a key factor for
national security, peace and socio-economic development. In particular, the
Maritime Security will contribute, as a regional and global partner, to the
fight against pirate activities; illegal drugs and human trafficking, and other
activities related to the regional and global security and in the meantime
participating in the combat against terrorism acts across the world.
The
workshop in 2007 actually integrated and promoted the awareness of the Maritime
Security to participants as well providing the Royal Government with the vision
of building and developing the capacity of Maritime Security. For this workshop,
through the special working group in charge of Maritime Affairs, I would like to
urge for the creation of The National Committee for Maritime Security (NCMS) in three months after this workshop. As experienced by many countries, this
National Committee will comprise of the Minister of National Defense who is the
Chairman, and the Vice-chairman and other members will be the representatives
from related ministries and institutions. At the same time, the establishment of
the Secretariat, which is an agency for this National Committee, has to be
quickly established at the time of setting up of the National Committee for
Maritime Security.
On the 17th of April 2009, the
National Counter-Terrorism Committee (NCTC) established a working group under
the leadership of His Excellency Senior Minister Om Yin Tieng to carry
out three main tasks toward setting up a national mechanism for maritime
security. This has boasted the spirit of the first workshop on maritime security
held on 27-28 November 2007.
This working group has assisted His
Excellency the Admiral of the French Navy, head of the squadron in charge of the
Indian Ocean that has captured pirates three times in the area. Furthermore,
this working group has met and discussed with legal teams from the US and
Australia specialized in maritime security.
As recommendations, I would like to draw
your attention on two main points. Firstly, the institution in charge of
maritime security should be organized to respond to current trends and reality.
The main responsibility should fall into the armed forces’ jurisdiction,
especially that of the navy with active coordination from specialized
institutions and sectors, such as: customs and excise, fisheries, commerce,
environment, industry and mines, petroleum authority, criminal police, maritime
police, immigration police, air force, maritime transport and port authorities
etc. I believe that the National Committee for Maritime Security needs to be
composed of these mix elements in order to ensure this vast and comprehensive
task. We have no difficulty in organizing these components together, thus we
need not to wait!
Secondly, this National Committee can bear
the name as the "National Committee for Maritime Security" or any other names.
But, the important thing is that the institution needs to carry out its main
task, which is to prepare sufficient laws in line with national and
international legislations to ensure smooth conduct of maritime security
activities. Operations in any foreign vessel need to respect national laws of
the country where the vessel is transiting. For this, national legislations need
to be strong and conform with international laws to ensure vessel owners'
confidence.
Regarding Maritime Security, the national
law must clearly reflect the international law aiming at ensuring the support to
our operation from foreign vessels’ owners. In the sense, the Secretariat of the
National Committee for Maritime Security should be comprised of a large amount
of great lawyers to carry out their up-coming hard duties.
The task force for preparing the national
mechanism for maritime security has decided to launch a seminar which I am
confident that it would produce more fruitful achievements. Furthermore, the
team must be ready to draft necessary acts to establish the national mechanism
for maritime security and timely submit to the Legal Council of the Council of
Minister for review. Then, I believe that the national mechanism for maritime
security is responsible for effectively forming its secretariat, human resource,
lawyers and several operational sectors.
From the first seminar to the second, it
takes 19 months. For this second seminar, I believe that the 3-months time is
long enough for the team to well and completely perform its task.
The seminar should pay more attention on
the vision of maritime security - the relationship between maritime security and
other security related issues - and the international relation of national
mechanism for maritime security which are created by the national committee for
maritime security and invite experts from the United States and Australia to
share their experiences on the issue.
Taking the opportunity, I would like to
praise to Secretariat of the National Committee for Maritime Security and the
American and Australian partners for their good cooperation in launching this
seminar.
I would like to express my appreciation to
and wish all delegates, Lok Chumteav, Excellency, ladies and gentlemen, national
and international guests, good health and new achievements.
Let me now give the discussion about the
establishment of the National Committee for Maritime Security to the seminar.
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