By Bertil Lintner
Asia Times Online
CHIANG MAI - The verdict by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on November 11 should have been the final word in a decades-long conflict between Thailand and Cambodia on ownership of an ancient temple and its surrounding areas. But while many hoped the decision would resolve the sometimes lethal border dispute, both sides have nationalistic cause to stir new tensions based on the decision's undefined aspects.
In 1962, the ICJ ruled that the temple on the border between the two countries - which is called Prasat Preah Vihear in Cambodia, and Prasat Khao Phra Viharn in Thailand - is Cambodian territory. Earlier this week that decision was reaffirmed, with the latest verdict also stating that all of the temple's promontory belongs to Cambodia and that Thailand has an obligation to withdraw any security forces stationed in the area. The court rejected Cambodia's argument that the judgment should also award it the adjacent hill of Phnom Trap and left vague the ownership of over four square kilometers of territory around the temple complex.
Despite the international ruling, the issue is unlikely to be completely resolved. It could even rekindle old animosities between the two countries and peoples, as the dispute reaches well beyond the 900-year-old temple and its adjacent lands. It is also about national pride and domestic politics in both countries, a volatile mix that has fueled a series of deadly armed confrontations and much diplomatic squabbling in recent years.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, currently buffeted by anti-government street protests, can ill-afford to be seen as soft on the issue. On November 12, she stated that Thai military forces will stay put in the border area and that she had set up a sub-committee to analyze the verdict before holding direct talks with Cambodia. Questions are already being raised about the precise definition of the "promontory" raised in the verdict.
The political opposition has alleged that Yingluck's elder brother, former self-exiled premier Thaksin Shinawatra, has personal business interests in Cambodia and that he is behind a deal to swap sovereignty over the temple area for joint development of an untapped oil and gas field in the Gulf of Thailand.
At the time, the Thai government was headed by Thaksin's political adversaries, namely the Democrat party and then premier Abhisit Vejjajiva. Abhisit's government regarded Thaksin's appointment as a special adviser as an insult to Thailand's judicial system because Thaksin was, and still is, on the lam from a two-year jail sentence for a corruption-related conviction handed down in 2008, two years after his military ouster.
Hun Sen rejected Thailand's frequent requests to have Thaksin extradited and frequently traded public barbs with Abhisit and his foreign minister, Kasit Piromya. Bangkok eventually downgraded diplomatic relations with Phnom Penh, scrapping a previous deal on contested maritime areas and dropping plans to fund the construction of a new road from the Thai border to Siem Reap in Cambodia. In 2010, Thailand was also shaken by anti-government protests led by pro-Thaksin "Red Shirts", several of whom sought refuge in Cambodia after the Thai military crushed their uprising.
Among them was Jakrapob Penkair, a former spokesman for Thaksin's government and head of two state-owned television channels under former premier Samak Sundaravej, who led a pro-Thaksin government from January to September 2008. While at home, Jakrapob was accused of insulting the monarchy during a speech he made at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in August 2007. From his sanctuary in Cambodia, he has continued to write columns for Red Shirt publications that some view as having republican leanings.
One of his former Red Shirt colleagues, Somyos Prueksakasemsuk, is serving 11 years in prison on anti-royal charges for two articles Jakrapob wrote under a pseudonym. Somyos was first arrested at a border post in 2011 while trying to enter Cambodia.
The Democrats mobilized around the Preah Vihear issue to garner support for its campaign to unseat Thaksin-aligned governments in 2008. Then, the party alleged that the Thai Foreign Ministry had agreed to accept a modified version of a map that Cambodia had presented to the court in The Hague in 1962 in a quid pro quo arrangement to secure bilateral business concessions for Thaksin. Abhisit went on to say that Thailand had never accepted that particular Cambodian map and that the country intended to seek the return of Preah Vihear "when the opportunity arose".
Nationalistic politics
In Cambodia, Hun Sen's government has also used the border issue to rally popular support. Billboards with images of Preah Vihear, adorned with nationalistic slogans, have been on display in Phnom Penh for years. The verdict in The Hague could provide him with a tool to once again play up the issue, particularly in light of his Cambodian People's Party's slippage at general elections held on July 28 this year. The CPP won, but with a significantly reduced majority; the opposition, led by Sam Rainsy's Cambodian National Rescue Party, claimed that the result was marred by irregularities and that it had actually won.
In September, tens of thousands of Cambodians including Buddhist monks and opposition groups held mass demonstrations in Phnom Penh to protest the result. Rallying people behind an anti-Thai cause would not be difficult in Cambodia, where many view the Thais as bullying neighbors who do not respect their independence.
The actual temple was built in the 11th and 12th centuries by Cambodian kings at a time the Khmer empire was large and prosperous. As the empire fractured, territories were lost to neighboring countries including Thailand, which explains the existence of Khmer-style temples in modern day Thai provinces.
The biggest such temple, Phanom Rung, in Buriram province, is well inside Thai territory and has therefore never been disputed. Preah Vihear is located on the top of a cliff several hundred meters above the Cambodian plain. Thais argue that it is on their side of the watershed and therefore Thai territory. Almost all access to the temple throughout history has been from what now is Thailand's Sisaket province. It was only in 2003 that a passable road was constructed from the Cambodian side.
For Cambodians, Preah Vihear is a key part of their heritage, next in importance to Angkor Wat, an even stronger symbol of Cambodian nationalism. Tensions between Thailand and Cambodia flared into riots after a Thai actress in January 2003 was reported to have said that Angkor Wat should belong to Thailand. It did until 1907, when Thailand had to cede the provinces of Battambang, Siem Reap - where Angkor Wat is located - and Sisophon to then colonial France.
During World War II, when the Japanese military occupied Cambodia, Battambang and Siem Reap were ceded to Thailand - but the Japanese, acutely aware of the sensitivity of the issue and the strained nature of Thai-Cambodian relations, excluded Angkor Wat from the deal. Angkor Wat remained nominally part of the rest of Japanese-occupied French Indochina throughout the war.
The Thai actress' alleged remark made Phnom Penh explode into a fiery outburst of anti-Thai demonstrations. Protesters broke into and torched the Thai embassy. Offices of Thai companies based in the Cambodian capital were ransacked by angry mobs. It was alleged at the time that Cambodian authorities had allowed the riots to take place in order to generate popular support by playing on nationalist sentiments. The fact that gangs of youths could roam freely for hours around Phnom Penh destroying Thai property lends some credence to this suggestion.
As both sides digest the implications of this week's verdict, it's not clear yet whether it will spark similar spasms of nationalistic violence. Anti-government protest groups currently on the streets of Bangkok have attempted to extend and escalate their demonstrations against a blanket amnesty passed in parliament through the ICJ ruling, but the appeal to nationalism has not yet had the same popular resonance of the anti-amnesty rally cries.
Still, there is too much national pride at stake in both countries for the issue to simply fade away with the ICJ's ruling, particularly with large areas of their shared border still not demarcated. Thai or Cambodian politicians could yet take advantage of that uncertainty to push their own agendas for or against their respective governments.
Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review and currently a writer with Asia Pacific Media Services.
No comments:
Post a Comment