More conflict at temple possible

February 23, 2011
By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS

Anyone knows, there are two sides to a coin, and at least two sides to any argument; so it takes two sides to make war or peace.

Last week I wrote about the Feb. 4-7 border gunfight between troops from Thailand and Cambodia, countries condemned by destiny to live side by side, sharing much history, similar culture and Buddhist beliefs, and both members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, yet generally unable to get along.

The shooting earlier this month between the two countries’ heavily armed soldiers was not a surprise. It was not the first armed conflict on the border dispute around the Preah Vihear Temple, nor will it be the last. Each side blames the other for shooting first, as if one should be absolved of responsibility for the resulting death and destruction for shooting second.

Each knows it cannot win. Let no person dream of a Thai or a Cambodian “victory” through guns, only colossal losses. Cambodia called for a U.N. Security Council emergency meeting and a deployment of U.N. Peacekeepers. Thailand said no.

The 15-member Security Council didn’t really care to entertain what the Bangkok Post’s Voranai Vanijaka called the “tattletale little punks running to adults,” but listened to both sides tell their stories on Feb. 14.

Security Council members expressed “grave concern” and told both sides to show “maximum restraint,” to establish a permanent ceasefire and expressed support for “bilateral efforts and regional efforts” to negotiate an end to the conflict. ASEAN foreign ministers, guided by their charter principle of noninterference in domestic affairs of states, met in Jakarta yesterday.

Hardly a day after the New York meeting, border skirmishes flared up. Again, Bangkok and Phnom Penh traded blame.

Who owns temple?

The issue of ownership of the Temple of Preah Vihear in Khmer, Phra Viharn in Thai, has been settled since June 15, 1962, by the International Court of Justice’s 9-to-3 ruling to give the temple to Cambodia.

But the World Court never ruled on the 4.6 square kilometres (1.8 square miles) of land around the temple, claimed by both Thailand and Cambodia.

A few events precipitated the recent gunfight. Never mind the Bangkok-Phnom Penh conflict over the United Nations’ designation of the Preah Vihear Temple as a World Heritage Site of universal value in 2008 or the arrest in December 2010 of seven Thai (yellow shirt) nationalists who deliberately crossed the border into the disputed area.

First, there was a stone signboard in the disputed area: “Here is the place where Thai troops invaded Cambodian territory on 15 July 2008.” Thai authorities protested. On Jan. 25, the Cambodian defense minister agreed to remove the sign.

Yet as the signboard was pulled down, a new stone tablet was erected and inscribed with the words, “Here is Cambodia.”

A Thai military commander and 20 armed Thai soldiers met with Cambodian border troops to demand the removal of the stone tablet: “If you don’t remove the tablet, I will erect a ‘Here is Thailand’ stone tablet.”

The Cambodian stone tablet was removed.

But in the place of the signboard and the tablet was Cambodia’s national flag flying over the Buddhist temple.

So tanks and armored personnel were involved on Feb. 4-7.

Both sides are digging in for the long haul.

Meanwhile, on Feb. 17, Europe’s Angora Vox’s article, “Vietnamese armored vehicles en route to Preah Vihear to help Cambodia,” reported from its headquarters in Brussels that a company of Vietnamese armored vehicles crossed Cambodia, headed for Thailand’s border.

Ploy and deception

Both Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Oxford-educated Thai prime minister, and Hun Sen, the pagoda boy made Cambodia’s prime minister by Vietnam in 1985, have used nationalism as a ploy for personal political gain.

For Abhisit, the border dispute is a tool for political survival in his domestic political fight with the yellow-shirted “People’s Alliance for Democracy” that seeks his government’s demise. For Hun Sen, the border dispute with Cambodia’s historical enemy in the West is a blessing to draw domestic attention away from discontent and concerns over Vietnam’s encroachment in the East.

The use of nationalism as a ploy has worked wonders, more for Hun Sen.

For Abhisit, Thais are growing disillusioned because reason and logic tell them Abhisit is less than honest not to admit to the losing fight over Preah Vihear. The temple will not be recovered. He is seen as less than competent for embracing “bilateral negotiation” that has not worked, and for rejecting international intervention that may help solve a problem Bangkok cannot win.

For Hun Sen, nothing draws Cambodians together — not only in the country but, ironically, many expatriates abroad, who should know better — than Hun Sen’s call to stop the “invasion of Cambodia” by the “swallowers of Khmer soil.” Logically, if Thais in the disputed area are invaders, what would Cambodians be in the same disputed area?

Cambodians, in general, are left ignorant of what underlies the June 14, 2000, memorandum of understanding on the survey and demarcation of land boundary, or the June 18, 2000, joint communique that led to the making of Preah Vihear a World Heritage Site.

And so, here we are: In a crisis created by two. If both armies don’t withdraw their trigger-happy troops, new rounds of armed conflict are waiting to happen.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam. Write him at peangmeth.

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