Preah Vihear revisited

By KAMOL HENGKIETISAK

Bangkok Post

Read Khmerization's editorial on the Preah Vihear issue.

Recently the Samak Sundaravej administration agreed with the Cambodian government in its application to Unesco to declare Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site. The most contentious point is whether or not a part of the Preah Vihear site is located on Thai soil, noted a Matichon writer.

The reason the Cambodian government needed the Thai government's approval before submitting the application is that this is still very much disputed by some, as it has yet to be settled permanently by clear-cut demarcation line. If the Cambodian government submitted the application without consent from Thailand in July next month during the Unesco meeting in Canada, it is unlikely it would be successful.

The Preah Vihear issue became big news when Lt Gen Pitsanu Pujjakarn, former Defence Ministry spokesman, expressed publicly that the Defence Council was worried that Cambodia would encroach on Thai territory if Preah Vihear was declared a World Heritage Site, because both countries still claim parts of a buffer zone around the area.

Looking back, Preah Vihear is the last territory that Thailand ceded to a foreign country. From 1904 to 1908, France, as Cambodia's protector, concluded a few treaties with Siam. The treaty signed on 13 July 1904 stated that disputed territory shall use a mountain range as the demarcation criteria and that a joint border committee would be appointed to survey the disputed areas.

In 1907 Siam requested France to draw up a border demarcation map. France agreed and submitted one to Siam. The map included Preah Vihear on the Cambodian side. This map was later used by an independent Cambodia to claim sovereignty over the Preah Vihear temple when Cambodia took Thailand to the World Court at the Hague, Netherlands for an arbitration settlement in the early 1960s.

Thailand argued that the French map was not drawn by a joint border committee, and thus could not bind Thailand, and also said the map did not use the mountain range as demarcation criteria.

However the Thai border committee did not express opposition to the map in a timely manner during the committee meeting in Bangkok in 1909, and Thailand's own map by the Mapping Department also indicated clearly that Preah Vihear was in Cambodia's territory. During the reconciliation talk in Washington DC in 1947, Thailand did not raise any objections to the map.

For this reason, the World Court decided that the French map was legitimate and awarded Preah Vihear to Cambodia on June 15, 1962.

Now some wonder if history may be repeating itself with a renewed boundary dispute. When the Samak administration agreed to the Cambodian-drawn map outlining the Preah Vihear area for the Unesco World Heritage Site, some were questioning whether the site encroached on a 4.6 sq.km. area claimed by both countries. The Matichon writer wanted to remind Mr Samak to be careful before signing the agreement, and not allow Cambodia to claim any Thai territory under the pretext of being the protector of a World Heritage Site.