Negotiate toward success, not stalemate

The Preah Vihear Temple, awarded to Cambodia by the International Court of Justice on June 15, 1962. A resident of Thailand’s Ban Phumsarol village near the temple chases a PAD activist on Sept 9, 2009.

Villagers felt the activists from the People’s Alliance for Democracy were a nuisance that upset their livelihood, which depended on trade with their Cambodian fellow villagers.

19/02/2011
William Roth
Bangkok Post

The saga over the Temple of Preah Vihear continues to drag on, seemingly without an end in sight. Blood has been spilled and lives lost on both sides of the border, with the United Nations Security Council now calling for a “permanent ceasefire”.

Yet Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva “has rejected Cambodia’s proposal for the two countries to sign a ceasefire agreement”, because “it was too early to talk about such a move”.

The Security Council further asked that the parties negotiate an end to their dispute, but the current imbroglio is further complicated by opposing views on the form negotiations should take. Thailand insists that any talks be strictly bilateral, although allowing for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations “facilitation”, but rejects Cambodia’s desire for third-party mediation or active involvement by other countries or any “regional framework”.

But what is the objective of the negotiations?

Presumably it is “the demarcation of land boundary” between Thailand and Cambodia, for which the Joint Boundary Commission was established in 2000. Indeed, Thailand has been strenuously urging the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation not to proceed with its listing of Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site until the border there has been demarcated.

But, like the proverbial elephant in the room, what no one seems able to mention is that no amount of negotiation, however it might be structured, will ever result in an agreed upon demarcation of the border in the area of Preah Vihear.

The reason is quite straight-forward: each country has an extremely good argument for why the so-called 4.6-square kilometre disputed area is theirs, and political and emotional considerations on both sides of the border make it absolutely impossible for either country to budge from their respective position.

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