Sun, Aug 01, 2010
The Nation/Asia News Network
It was a close call as far as Thailand is concerned. On the other hand, the decision by the World Heritage Committee of Unesco to delay considering Cambodia's management plan for the Preah Vihear Temple to next year must have felt to Phnom Penh like a sucker punch. A diplomatic time bomb has been defused, but barely just, and the most important question is: What's next?
Blame took place in Brazil. Thailand was accused of trying to rock the boat and cling to something that no longer belongs to it. But to the Bangkok government, although the World Court ruled more than four decades and a half ago that the temple was on Cambodia's territory, things are not as simple as it looks. The management plan, the Thai delegation in Brazil insisted, would at least refuel territorial claims around the temple because the plan incorporated some information that Bangkok did not agree on.
Unesco must have been worried. This is not the first time a World Heritage site has become a source of neighbourly conflict. But given the on-and-off military tension at the Thai-Cambodian border and the stormy ties between the two countries, the international organisation must have felt it was best to postpone the Preah Vihear issue to next year.
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