Phnom Penh Post
Monks and tourists
walk among the ruins of the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple in November
in 2012. Photograph: Heng Chivoan/Phnom Penh Post
Thailand's lead lawyer for the upcoming International Court of Justice
hearings over Preah Vihear is downplaying statements by a senior Thai
official that seemed to lay out the country’s legal strategy for the
hearings in April.
Darm Boontham, director of the Boundary Division under the Thai
Foreign Ministry’s Department of Treaties and Legal Affairs, reportedly
told a government committee this week that a 1962 decision by the ICJ to
award Cambodia the 11th-century temple had nothing to do with the
current hearings, which only pertain to the 4.6 square-kilometre area
surrounding the ruin.
Therefore, the reasoning goes, Cambodia had no right to ask for
clarification about the surrounding area in 2011 – after several years
of deadly cross-border clashes – and the court has no authority to rule
on it.
But as hearings over the disputed territory are roughly three months
away, Thailand’s Ambassador in The Hague, Virachai Plasai, who is also
the lead lawyer on the case, told the Post that it’s premature to come
out with an
official strategy.
official strategy.
Darm was “expressing just a view of an officer who works on this case, and we have many people who work on this,” he said.
“I think we should not jump the gun here,” he added. “And I can tell
you that it has not been decided yet what we are going to say. So please
don’t pay too much attention to that. He meant well, he was trying to
give information.”
From the beginning of the year, it seems as if a week hasn’t passed
without a Thai official’s comments over the Preah Vihear dispute making
it into the press and stirring up emotions. Tensions started to rise
earlier this month after the Thai foreign ministry announced plans to
launch a public awareness campaign about the temple, which many
interpreted as an early admission of defeat ahead of the hearings.
Ambassador Virachai, like other officials in Thai diplomatic circles, rejects that interpretation.
“I am not hopeless at all, I am not overconfident, but I am not hopeless,” he said. “
Koy Kuong, spokesman for Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said
the matter is in the court’s hands, and he declined to comment. Council
of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said that though he’s not a legal
expert, the comments about legal strategy from Darm felt more like
public relations than litigation.
“I feel this is a tactical effort to do damage control,” he said.
Both Cambodia and Thailand will send delegations to the ICJ for the hearings from April 15-19.
To contact the reporters on this story: Vong Sokheng at
sokheng.vong@phnompenhpost.com
Joe Freeman at
joseph.freeman@phnompenhpost.com
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