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Senior Thai military officials arrived in Phnom Penh Thursday to hold talks with their Cambodian counterparts over border issues.

The preliminary talks will set the stage for a general border committee meeting that was postponed last month, defense officials said Thursday.

The resumption of talks at the military level comes after the resumption of diplomatic ties between the two countries last week and could pave the way for more discussions on a contentious border dispute over land near Preah Vihear temple.

Thailand's military commander for border affairs, Ni Phatthongleng, will meet with Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh over the weekend to discuss border issues like security and immigration.

But he could also work on a date for the general border committee meeting, Chhum Socheath, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said.

Border committee meetings are generally led by Tea Banh in conjunction with his Thai counterpart, Prawit Wongsunwon. It a the basis of discussions on issues ranging from landmine disposal to drug smuggling and human trafficking.

The larger problem of the Cambodian-Thai border dispute will have to be solved on another level, and Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Thursday those talks, between foreign ministers, would have to wait until Thai parliament agrees to several agreements already discussed in border meetings.

Military talks can continue, however, he said, “because they are not limited to the border, but relate to many issues.”

“So I have allowed talks at this level,” he said.

Cambodia will open a consulate in the city of Philadelphia, Penn., later this month, aiming to provide services to Cambodians there and help draw investment back home.

Hor Namhong is expected to open the consulate, Cambodia's third in the US, on Sept. 25. Consulates already operate in Seattle, Wash., and Lowell, Mass.

“Our purpose in opening the consulate is first to facilitate paperwork for Cambodians, whether they hold US citizenship or still have Cambodian citizenship,” Cambodia's ambassador to the US, Hem Heng, told VOA Khmer. “Secondly, to protect their interests in the US. And thirdly, we want to expand trade and cultural relations and cooperation. We want to promote investment in Cambodia and attract US tourists to visit Cambodia.”

Sok Savoeun, a 48-year-old US-Cambodian, has been named consul for the office.

“This area is central to Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese communities and other ethnic groups who like to visit Cambodia,” he said. “As for the investment I have observed that the Korean community here likes to go to do business in Cambodia.”

The consulate will offer visa and passport services and certification of documents, such as marriage and birth certificates, he said.

However, supporters of Cambodia's opposition parties worry the consulate, located in a city of diverse political views and 18,000 Cambodians, will be used to further the interests of the ruling Cambodian People's Party.

“I don't expect much from the consulate,” said Ou Kimhuot, an activist for the minority opposition Human Rights Party. “In my view, the consulate will serve [CPP] political purposes rather than serving the people here. It is placed as their eyes and ears to keep vigilance over the opposition, to see how strong the opposition is, so they can devise a strategy to cope with that.”

Hem Heng rejected the idea. He said the consulate will serve people from all political walks, “so long as they are Cambodians.

“We'll help them all,” he said. “There is no discrimination. Once he begins performing his duties, the consul will be neutral, although he supports the government. It is not set up to counter the opposition.”

The Cambodian government is facing more accusations it has cracked down on freedoms of expression and the media in the past several years.

In a new report by the Paris-based Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, researchers found “trade union leaders, land rights activists and journalists have faced among the worst human rights violations [and are] facing new legal restrictions and fierce retaliation for documenting and denouncing abuses.”

Dozens of land rights activists were detained on charges “designed to remove them from the role as community leaders,” the research group said in a statement.

The group cited the case of venerable monk Loun Sovath, who is embroiled in a land dispute in Siem Reap province, as an example.

Two of Loun Sovath's family members were shot during land protests in Anlong Samnor commune, Chi Kreng district, where villagers and the owner of a water reservoir were disputing ownership of nearly 100 hectares of rice fields.

Loun Sovath, who has led a number of awareness campaigns over the dispute, told VOA Khmer on Thursday the arrests of nine protesters and the wounding of others was “unjust for villagers who led a protest against a land grab.”

“I do not think the violence is calming down,” he said. “But I think that arrests are increasing.”

The international researchers also pointed to the jailing of opposition newspaper editor Hang Chakra as further evidence of the erosion of free expression.

Hang Chakra, the editor of the Khmer Mchas Srok newspaper, was jailed for nearly a year in 2009, after he published articles alleging corruption within the Council of Ministers.

“Since I was in jail, I think media expression has gone down,” he told VOA Khmer Thursday. “The Cambodian government should open their hearts to receive criticism and consider what the NGOs and media are doing. That's better than thinking about a dictatorship against criticism.”

Cheam Yiep, a lawmaker for the Cambodian People's Party, said freedoms of expression and media were not on the decline. “Right now the Cambodian government is reforming step by step on human rights issues,” he said.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday he expects to meet his Thai counterpart on the sidelines of an Asia-Europe meeting in October, where the two could discuss ways to resolve the ongoing border dispute near Preah Vihear temple.

Both sides are at loggerheads over a small stretch of land west of the ancient temple, but they only just resumed diplomatic ties that have been suspended since late 2009.

Both sides had withdrawn their ambassadors over a separate incident, when Cambodia hired Thailand's fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic adviser, incensing Bangkok.

Hun Sen told a graduation ceremony of students at the National Education Institution Wednesday that he expected to see Abhisit Vejjajiva on the sidelines of the Brussels meeting as a matter of course.

Other chances to talk could include an Asean summit in Vietnam later in October and a Mekong countries economic meeting in Cambodia in November.

Talks between the two premiers could focus on the border dispute, but also investment, trade, transportation, environmental protection along the border, transnational crime or regional pandemic, Hun Sen said.

Hun Sen said he was disappointed that Thailand still had troops occupying a small pagoda near Preah Vihear temple that is at the heart of the dispute. Thailand claims the pagoda was built on Thai soil. Both sides have reported thousands of troops amassed along the northern border.

“As long as Thai soldiers have not withdrawn from Cambodian territory, the relations are not normal,” he said.

He also stressed the need for a resolution to the ongoing problem, which could require third-party mediation, a step Thailand has said is not necessary.

“Cambodia cannot wait for so long,” Hun Sen said.

Cambodian human rights workers say they have faced increasing threats and pressure for doing their work over the past two years from police, courts and government officials.

In a report issued Wednesday examining the years 2008 and 2009, the rights group Licadho said it found “the intensified use of the courts as a weapon,... increased use of defamation and disinformation laws to restrict freedom of expression... [and] increased restriction on freedom of association and assembly.”

Licadho President Pung Chhiv Kek told VOA Khmer Wednesday the increase was a result of a judicial system that was biased toward the rich or powerful.

Ministry of Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak denied the finding of the reports, reporting to the number of Licadho staff in the provinces. Were threats and intimidation as bad as reported, he said, Licadho would not have staff there.

Ou Virak, director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, supported the findings in the report.

“Violence has progressed, not only for the NGOs,” he said. “Most of the violence has happened to community representatives in land grabs and in land violence against the Khmer Kampuchea Krom.”

The group called on the government to combat the culture of impunity and corruption by prosecuting government officials responsible for threats and attacks, including investigations into the “unresolved assassinations or disappearances” of 10 journalists since the 1990s.

Licadho also called on the government to cease arresting rights workers in the middle of their duties, to allow peaceful protests to proceed “unhindered by police obstruction of violence” and to “cease using bail as a way of threatening human rights defenders.”

“Bail is meant to avoid unnecessary pretrial detention, not as a probation mechanism to intimidate or control the activities of human rights defenders,” the group said.

The US on Tuesday deported five men to Cambodia, with another 25 expected to follow, a senior diplomat said.

The deportations are the result of an immigration law that sends convicted felons back to their home countries. The US has expelled more than 200 Cambodians under the law since 2001, when Cambodia signed an agreement to take back deportees.

However, many of them had never been to Cambodia and had grown up as children of immigrants from the Khmer Rouge era.

The five men—Kol Ly Hov, Mem Meanrith, Kong Chantha, Kim Thet and Sim Loeurt—left by special plane and are expected to arrive in Cambodia by Sept. 2, Cambodia's ambassador to the US, Hem Heng, told VOA Khmer.

“They came to a developed country and should not have committed criminal acts or wrongdoing,” the ambassador said.

However, some development experts worry about the effects of deportation on men who have lived most of their lives in the US.

Some do not speak Khmer, or have no relatives or job opportunities when they arrive in Cambodia, said Kloeung Aun, executive director of the Returnee Integration Support Center, which is based in Cambodia.

Deportees may know nothing of Cambodian culture and may be split from their families back home, he said.

Fourteen members of Cambodia's nascent Anti-Corruption Unit were sworn in Tuesday, vowing to use their full legal rights to investigate the country's graft problem.

Members include senior government adviser Om Yientang, who is the head of the unit, and his three deputies, Seang Borath, Chay Svauth and Nuon Phal.

“We have full legal rights to make corruption investigations,” Om Yientang told reporters after the ceremony, which was held at the national Court of Appeals in Phnom Penh. “We can now start to investigate complaints, confidential information and cooperation from various informants.”

The Anti-Corruption Unit was formed under a new anti-graft law, which administration officials have touted as an attack on corruption, but which critics say lacks the teeth to tackle the widespread problem.

All 14 members of the unit swore to uphold their duties or “face miserable damage or destruction and death, separated in the next life from our beloved parents, brothers, sisters and children and facing extreme poverty.”

“We will implement our profession as judicial police with dignity, conscience, loyalty, honest, humanity, independence, with respect for the constitution and the laws of the Kingdom of Cambodia forever,” the unit pledged.

Uk Savuth, who presided over the ceremony as prosecutor-general of the Appeals Court, said the unit was now empowered to arrest lawbreakers. But he warned the unit to “greatly increase” its legal capabilities in order to maintain the laws recently passed by the National Assembly.

But he also said the unit should act with humanity, to deeply interpret a case and act morally, such as delaying the arrest of a serious ill or pregnant offender.

“When we see wrong, we speak of the wrong,” he said. “When we see right, we speak of the right. We do not make decisions with rancor, incitement or hate. We implement the laws to serve justice for all, because a victim needs justice, and an offender also needs justice.”

Khmer Rouge tribunal officials are prepared to appoint a new head of the court's victims unit as judges move toward a second trial of regime leaders, two court monitors said Tuesday.

That appointment is expected to go to Rong Chhorng, who is currently the acting head of the unit, officially known as the Victims Support Section, and will coincide with the appointment of the head of civil party attorneys and the head of outreach for the victims unit, according to the monitors.

The victims unit is a key function of the tribunal, which was designed to bring some measure of reconciliation to the country following the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.

The section has seen two directors resign and has been criticized for slow movement on key issues for Cambodians who file complaints or testimony at the UN-backed court.

Meanwhile, thousands of victims have filed with the tribunal as it prepares for Case 002, to try leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith for atrocity crimes, including genocide.

Im Sophea, former co-director of the Center for Justice and Reconciliation, is expected to be appointed as outreach coordinator, and Pich Ang, a lawyer for civil parties at the victims unit, is expected to be appointed head of the civil party attorneys, according to Hang Chhaya, director of the Khmer Institute for Democracy.

“But we urge that the [chief of the Victims Support Section] must be properly selected through the announcement or through another way that can fit everyone because this a crucial issue,” he said.

Tribunal officials would not immediately confirm the appointments, but a second tribunal monitor confirmed the package on the condition of anonymity.

Rong Chhorng, who occupies a position at the Council of Ministers, is also the chief of personnel inside the tribunal. He has been acting head of the victims unit since July.

Rights groups have complained the victims unit has been slow to respond to the needs of tribunal complainants, in part because its acting director is wearing too many hats.

“This is unavoidable,” said Latt Ky, a tribunal monitor for the rights group Adhoc. “If he has many jobs, how can he be thinking efficiently?”

Last month, the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee said the tribunal was acting too slowly in appointing a new, permanent head of the victims unit, a position that was vacated when its former director retired in June.

“Only a full-time qualified senior official who is experienced with victims rights can deal adequately with the thousands of victims seeking participation in the second case,” the group said in a statement.

Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said the section would not have efficiency problems were Rong Chhorng to be appointed as its permanent head.