Thailand’s military provided Reuters with access to videos and photographs of what it said were subsequent PMN-2 demining operations carried out by its troops around the site of the Jul 16 incident, as well as another border-area mine blast on Jul 23.
During an August visit to frontline Thai military units, the news agency took photos of shrapnel that service members said they recovered from those incidents, as well as images of dozens of intact mines Thailand said were retrieved from along the border area.
Reuters examined the metadata on seven of the supplied images, which show they were taken at the same time as Thai demining operations carried out along the frontier between Jul 18 and 23 that were listed in two undated military documents about landmines on the border seen by the news agency.
The metadata did not include location information, and Reuters was not able to confirm independently where the images were taken.
Four independent landmine experts, asked by Reuters to evaluate the material, said the images depicted PMN-2s that had been freshly laid. However, the analysts were not able to determine who placed the ordnance.
The Cambodia Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA), a governmental agency that oversees demining activities, told Reuters that a determination on the incidents could only be made after an impartial third-party investigation. Cambodia’s military does not have stockpiles of live anti-personnel mines, it added.
CMAA’s First Vice President Ly Thuch, who reports directly to Prime Minister Hun Manet, said visual appearance alone is not conclusive proof of age.
“Environmental and disturbance factors can make long-buried items appear relatively fresh,” he told Reuters.
A Thai foreign ministry spokesperson said Bangkok’s investigations had determined that the landmines that injured its soldiers were newly planted PMN-2s: “They were found in new condition, still with clearly visible markings.”
Bangkok is a longtime US ally which did not have widespread access to Soviet-origin munitions and says it has never deployed the PMN-2.
The defence ministry of Russia, which previously said it stopped manufacturing PMN-2-type mines in the late 1990s, did not respond to Reuters’ questions.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/thailand-cambodia-landmines-tensions-border-clash-5405741
