Thailand pray for UNESCO to delay Cambodia's application to list Preah Vihear Temple

Defer decision on temple bid

Wednesday July 02, 2008
Bangkok Post

It is hoped the Unesco World Heritage Committee (WHC) will see the wisdom in delaying any decision on Cambodia's application to list the temple of Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site at the organisation's meeting this week in Quebec. In light of the ongoing dispute over the Thai Foreign Ministry's decision to sign a joint communique which basically endorsed Cambodia's unilateral proposal for the inscription, the WHC's course seems clear enough.

Article 3 of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in 1972, states: ''It is for each State Party to this Convention to identify and delineate the different properties [of either cultural or natural heritage] situated on its territory.'' This will be a difficult requirement for Cambodia to meet to the satisfaction of Thailand, which is also a party to the convention, since at the core of the issue is a longstanding dispute over the validity of the maps used by the World Court in 1962 to award the temple to Cambodia.

The WHC should weigh the possible consequences of approving the unilateral application from Cambodia. The issue has inflamed nationalistic sentiment in both countries but particularly in Thailand. If the application is awarded to Cambodia now, it is hard to imagine that tensions would not escalate at home and between the two countries. Villagers in Si Sa Ket province near the ancient Hindu temple continue to protest vigorously against its listing. Supreme Commander Gen Boonsrang Niempradit has ordered the Suranaree military task force which oversees the Thai-Cambodian border, to keep a close watch on the protests. On Monday, Democrat party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva submitted a letter to the Unesco office in Bangkok opposing the joint communique signed by Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama and approved by a cabinet resolution.

The move was concurrent with an urgent request by a group of senators to the Constitution Court to determine whether the joint communique on Preah Vihear violates the constitution. Last Saturday, the Administrative Court handed down a temporary injunction against the cabinet resolution.

Most people who have been following the story might well conclude that the time for Thailand to mount a vigorous defence of its claim to Preah Vihear and surrounding vicinity was back in 1962, when the country was under the dictatorship of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat. In this case a picture is worth more than a thousand words, however, and clearly shows why this issue will not go away. The demarcation line is a little curious to say the least. The temple sits in a corner of a level promontory of the Dangrek mountain range; the rest of the promontory is indisputably in Thailand.

As was pointed out in an article in yesterday's Post written by Jurgen Brauer, a visiting professor at Chulalongkorn University, ''many countries in the world have found that tensions over borders can sometimes be lessened by deliberate attempts to create 'fuzzy borders','' with regard to small areas of land. In other words, to establish territories that straddle political borders, commonly known as peace parks.

This would allow for the joint application by Thailand and Cambodia to the World Heritage Committee. Such a proposal would of course have to wait for a future meeting of the WHC, but the advantage is that a Preah Vihear World Heritage Site would then go a long way towards strengthening ties between the two countries, rather than threatening the peace as is the case now.