Diplomacy Gears Up in Thailand-Cambodia Feud

Nations Set Meeting
In Effort to Resolve
Conflict Over Ruins

By JAMES HOOKWAY
July 25, 2008;

BANGKOK -- Diplomatic efforts are accelerating to address a newly revived dispute between Thailand and Cambodia over who controls the ruins of a centuries-old Hindu temple overlooking their contested border.

About 500 Thai soldiers and 1,700 Cambodian troops have been on alert for more than a week near the Preah Vihear temple site, which is just inside Cambodia's side of the border. Cambodia has lobbied the United Nations Security Council and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to help find a solution.

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Domestic politics in Thailand and Cambodia are feeding the feud over the two square mile Preah Vihear temple site.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Thursday urged the two sides to resolve their differences peacefully. France's ambassador to the U.N. said the 15-member Security Council "should meet as fast as possible" to defuse the tensions, the Associated Press reported.

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said the Thai and Cambodian foreign ministers will meet Monday to discuss the dispute. Cambodia has asked the Security Council to postpone a formal meeting on the standoff pending the foreign ministers' meeting, Vietnam's U.N. envoy said, according to news reports.

Domestic politics on both sides of the border are feeding the dispute. Thai opposition politicians are trying to brand the Bangkok government as insufficiently nationalistic over the issue. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen -- facing a parliamentary election Sunday -- is invoking similarly heated rhetoric over the standoff.

Associated Press

The International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the Preah Vihear temple belonged to Cambodia. Thailand was then forced to withdraw its claim to the site.

While the spat is unlikely to escalate into a shooting war around the two-square-mile temple site, neither Thailand nor Cambodia will find it easy to disentangle from the dispute.

The biggest fallout from the affair is in Thailand, where the government is trying to shore up support against a barrage of criticism for its failure to oppose Cambodia's successful application to get the 11th-century temple listed as a World Heritage Site by Unesco.

In the eyes of the international community, the temple has belonged to Cambodia since 1962, when the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled in Cambodia's favor and Thailand was forced to withdraw its claim to the site. Many Thais have rejected the decision, saying it was based on French colonial-era maps.

Mr. Samak's opponents -- who have been leading street protests demanding his resignation over his close ties to ousted populist leader Thaksin Shinawatra -- have leapt on the issue over the past several days. Busloads of Thai royalists and antigovernment activists have traveled to the disputed area, where Thai soldiers have prevented them from crossing into Cambodia.

A key opposition figure -- publisher and broadcaster Sondhi Limthongkul -- spurred on the self-styled pilgrims, describing their journey as a "sacred mission to protect our motherland and take back Thai territory."

Thailand's foreign minister resigned this month under pressure for not opposing Cambodia's Unesco bid, and Mr. Samak is now stepping up Thailand's military presence in the area to head off accusations he isn't doing enough to stop what Thai nationalists describe as Cambodian "occupation" of the area.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political-science professor at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, says Mr. Samak is effectively being held hostage by ultranationalist Thai sentiment now running high. "If he doesn't act he could be accused of being a traitor," Mr. Thitinan says.

Separately, the political party Mr. Samak leads could be dissolved by Thailand's Constitutional Court for allegedly violating election laws in a December national election, which restored democracy following the military coup that ousted Mr. Thaksin in 2006.

Still, tensions could subside in coming days regardless of how the U.N. Security Council responds to Cambodia's plea.

Mr. Samak predicted that Cambodia would be more willing to reach a diplomatic solution, without intermediaries, after Sunday's national elections, which Mr. Hun Sen is expected to win.

But Thailand could be underestimating the depth of the feeling the controversy has stoked in Cambodia. The much smaller of the two countries, Cambodia has seen its sovereign territory shrink over the centuries as its larger neighbors have expanded.

Thursday, Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith insisted his country wouldn't back down. "We cannot soften our position because this is a violation of our territorial integrity," he said at a news conference, the Associated Press reported.

Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@awsj.com