[Thai] Patriots rally against ICJ hearing

PM confident both sides will be heard, urges peaceful protest

( ANN/The Nation)-- About 1,000 members of the Khon Thai Rak Chart (Thai Patriots) group gathered at Lam Takhong reservoir in Nakhon Ratchasima's Sikhiu district yesterday to express their objection to the ongoing World Court hearing of the Thai-Cambodian dispute over the Hindu temple of Preah Vihear.

However, Yingluck Shinawatra's secretary, Suranand Vejjajiva, said the prime minister was confident the International Court of Justice (ICJ) would listen to both sides, while Yingluck herself urged the public to listen peacefully and open-mindedly to the Thai legal team's testimony to the 17-member court today.

While handing out documents to passers-by on nearby Mitraprap Highway, Thai Patriots leader Chaiwat Sinsuwong said the group would not join other demonstrators at the disputed border area close to Preah Vihear, at Phumisarol village in Si Sa Ket's Kantharalak district today, but would mainly proceed with its efforts to make the Thai public understand its point of view.

Chaiwat stressed that the group's focus was to make people understand that if Thailand lost its case at the World Court, it would lose 4.6 square kilometres or some 3,000 rai of land around Preah Vihear temple, and subsequently another 1.8 million rai in seven provinces along the Thai-Cambodian border in addition to 17 million rai in the Gulf Of Thailand, according to the French-made 1:200,000-scale map.

He said the group had been trying to get this point across all over the Northeast since March, before setting up camp at the reservoir. However, they are now preparing to take their rally to Bangkok.

Chaiwat added that his group believed that the World Court had been used by some politicians who wanted to use it to cede Thai territory legitimately to Cambodia.

'MOST DAMAGING'

He also warned that if this happened, it would be the Kingdom's 15th and largest loss of territory, and also its most damaging given that the said areas contained high-value energy resources.

Meanwhile, Suranand, in his capacity as head of the Government House coordination centre to follow up on the World Court's hearing on the Preah Vihear dispute, cited Yingluck as saying that Cambodia's testimony had gone as expected, hence she was confident that the court would accept what Thailand had to say.

He said his centre would work with the Foreign Ministry team to gather and summarise key points each day in order to update the Thai public, while the official announcement would be the responsibility of the Thai team in The Hague, where the ICJ sits.

Commenting that she backed the Thai team fully in the court battle and that the Cambodian testimony had not been surprising, the prime minister urged the public to hear the Thai team's testimony peacefully and with an open mind, as she believed the team could respond to all the points raised by Cambodia and protect the Kingdom's sovereignty.

She added that Thailand still had to maintain bilateral relations with its neighbour, hence everyone should remain calm.

Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said in a telephone interview with the Blue Sky Channel yesterday that Cambodia's claim about Thailand's intrusion was untrue, and that the government must therefore clearly point this out to the court.

He insisted that the border clashes were not the result of a lack of understanding or defiance over the ICJ's ruling, but had actually come from Cambodia's alleged attempt to have the Hindu temple one-sidedly listed as a World Heritage Site.

Abhisit also urged the Thai team to point out clearly that the 1:200,000-scale map, which Cambodia was using as evidence to claim the disputed 6 square kilometres of land, was not the work of the Joint Boundary Commission.