Thai Foreign Minister Tej Bunnag, right, shakes hands with Cambodian counterpart Hor Namhong before a Preah Vihear meeting in Hua Hin, Phetchburi Province, Thailand, Tuesday. (Photo: AFP)By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
20 August 2008
Extensive bilateral talks between the Thai and Cambodian foreign ministers failed to produce a full solution to the Preah Vihear crisis, with both sides welcoming the recent "reduction of tensions" but neither declaring a full withdrawal of troops from the area.
Foreign Minister Hor Namhong arrived in Cambodia early Wednesday, addressing reporters following discussions with his Thai counterpart, Tej Bunnag, that lasted until Tuesday night.
Representatives from both countries will meet again at the end of August to discuss a second phase of redeployment, following the partial reduction of troops in a pagoda and areas surround Preah Vihear temple this weekend, according to a joint statement released following Monday's meeting.
The two sides also hoped to have a meeting between committees again in October to discuss broader border issues, which stem from longstanding conflicts of the early 1900s.
Cambodian and Thailand have had hundreds of troops on the border at Preah Vihear since the occupation of Thai soldiers of the Keo Sikha Kirii Svara pagoda, which is claimed by both sides, on July 15.
The issue was further complicated by the fortification of a second set of temples, the Ta Moan complex in Oddar Meanchey province, in early August, by Thai soldiers.
Both sides agreed Monday to discuss the issue of the Ta Moan temples in a later meeting between foreign ministers.
Foreign Minister Hor Namhong arrived in Cambodia early Wednesday, addressing reporters following discussions with his Thai counterpart, Tej Bunnag, that lasted until Tuesday night.
Representatives from both countries will meet again at the end of August to discuss a second phase of redeployment, following the partial reduction of troops in a pagoda and areas surround Preah Vihear temple this weekend, according to a joint statement released following Monday's meeting.
The two sides also hoped to have a meeting between committees again in October to discuss broader border issues, which stem from longstanding conflicts of the early 1900s.
Cambodian and Thailand have had hundreds of troops on the border at Preah Vihear since the occupation of Thai soldiers of the Keo Sikha Kirii Svara pagoda, which is claimed by both sides, on July 15.
The issue was further complicated by the fortification of a second set of temples, the Ta Moan complex in Oddar Meanchey province, in early August, by Thai soldiers.
Both sides agreed Monday to discuss the issue of the Ta Moan temples in a later meeting between foreign ministers.
9 comments:
Guys,
I have found an interesting article talking about Thai scholars on Thai history. Here is the link:
http://www.straitstimes.com/Asia/South-east%2BAsia/Story/STIStory_269235.html
Hslo! Mr. Hor Nam Hong don't forget the Banteay MeanChey Province's border; Ah Siamese have encrauched deep in side Cambodian territory for Many years ago,please adress this issued as well.
Beware Cambodia, accepting Negotiation( in fact we already did), may mean that we agree to what they disagree.
Thank to 4:41AM.
Here is the article:
Thai historian Charnvit Kasetsri, a former rector of Thammasat University, and Chulalongkorn University's political science professor Puangthong Pawakapan have been on a lonely campaign across university campuses to inform young Thais about the realities of history.
Often, the Thai media has twisted and distorted what the two have said.
It is a complex reality, of the rise and fall of kingdoms and armies, and the expansion and contraction of territories, with each country - including Laos - seeing history through its own prism.
Asean was designed to transcend this fraught past. Currently, Thailand has chosen the bilateral path - no less a test for the architecture of regional treaties, meetings and joint commissions which are supposed to prevent conflict.
Major parts of modern Thailand were once under the sway of ancient kingdoms in Laos and Cambodia. When the kingdom of Siam rose, tables were turned and, at one time, parts of Cambodia such as Battambang and Siem Reap were under the kings of Siam.
But most Thais grow up learning only about the high points of their country's history. School textbooks often contain outright fictions, fuelling a sense of wounded history and what Professor Puangthong calls the 'love-hate relationship' between Thailand and Cambodia.
For instance, generations of Thai students have been told that the Khmer King Satha attacked Ayutthaya while Siam was busy fighting the Burmese. But Siam's King Naresuan defeated and personally executed him, washing his own feet in King Satha's blood, the students are told.
King Naresuan today figures prominently on the banners and T-shirts of the nationalist-royalist People's Alliance for Democracy, which raised the Preah Vihear issue in its months of ongoing anti-government street protests in Bangkok.
But the story is fictitious; King Satha was able to escape to Laos.
Thai children also do not learn that a king of Siam once burned down Phnom Penh. They do not learn that Thailand supported the genocidal Khmer Rouge.
These gaps and fictions leave relationships dogged by false stereotypes.
Thais, for example, look down on Lao culture - a fact resented by Lao people. And Thais view Cambodians as 'untrustworthy and ungrateful', says Prof Puangthong.
But Thailand's court rituals are in Khmer, and though school books say Thai script was invented by King Ramkhamhaeng of Sukhothai in northern Thailand, the truth is Thai is a simplified form of Khmer.
The tension over Khmer culture goes back a long time. During the reign of King Mongkut - Rama IV of the Chakri dynasty - he sent Thai troops to take apart a Khmer temple in Angkor and cart it back to reassemble in Bangkok.
Local Khmers attacked the troops to protect the temple. A court official dissuaded King Mongkut from sending reinforcements, saying the temple was a complicated structure in any case and not worth the trouble.
'It appears to be quite difficult for the Thai elite to admit that a country such as Cambodia, so poor (and) war torn...could own such a great civilisation like Angkor,' Prof Puangthong told an audience last week at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT).
Occasional paroxysms of nationalism complicate the fundamental rivalry.
During World War II, for instance, Thailand's Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsongkram depicted the French as wolves and Thailand as a lamb, and started a campaign for the return to Thailand of Cambodia's Battambang and Siem Reap.
When the International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that Preah Vihear - which Thais call Phra Vihar in a different pronunciation of the same name - belonged to Cambodia on the basis of a map drawn up by the French, Thais blamed the defeat not on their legal team but on Cambodia's King Sihanouk.
'What is of deep concern...is that the hostile attitude towards Cambodia is not limited to Thai elites but widespread among Thai people in general - and it seems to be the case for the Cambodian attitude towards Thailand as well,' Prof Puangthong said.
Cambodian media and the blogosphere have matched Thai nationalists abuse for abuse, and ahead of the Hua Hin talks, Cambodian nationalists yesterday held a demonstration in Phnom Penh denouncing Thai 'thuggery'.
Late last month, as troops massed at Preah Vihear, telethons in Cambodia raised funds to help fight off the Thais. In Phnom Penh markets, vendors refused to stock Thai fruit, saying it was poisonous.
'This quarrel is nonsensical,' Dr Sumet Jumsai, one of Thailand's foremost scholar-architects, said at the FCCT forum.
In a letter to the Thai media on July 26, he wrote: 'Neither (domestic politics nor nationalism) has anything to do with history and, in this case, architecture, which none of the vociferous parties involved has shown any appreciation for.'
He said at the forum: 'Phra Vihar is one of the most stunning monuments ever devised by man. It belongs to mankind.
'All these (Thai) ultra-nationalists may one day be reborn as Khmers,' he quipped.
nirmal@sph.com.sg
Ah Hun Sen, Ah Ho Nam Hong and their See Pee Pi care only themselves not the country.
It is so incredible to me that AH HUN XEN government is willing to negotiate with a fucken Thaicong thief!
Hey! AH HUN XEN is the mafia boss and he needs the Thaicong thief to help him make more money for him and he is sacrificing Khmer dignity as a nation in the name of greed and power!
Execute AH HUN XEN for treason!
Pourk Ah Hun Sen khlach pourk ah siems nas. Khmean hearn thveu ey ké té. Pourk ah Hun Sen chès tèr samlab khmer khnear èng té.
Pourk ah kboth cheath.
This mother-fucker Hor Namhong went to Hua-Hin just to pay the visit to club, bar, and prostitute woman only. The result of the border talk is because he can not concentrate on his work and just day dreaming about woman and young girl there only.
Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978, and in January 1979 installed in Phnom Penh a new communist regime friendly to Hanoi.
This invasion not only provoked a Chinese attack on Vietnam in February 1979 but also posed a threat to Thailand's security. Bangkok could no longer rely on Cambodia as a buffer against Vietnamese power. Bangkok was forced to assume the role of a frontline state against a resurgent communist Vietnam, which had 300,000 troops in Cambodia and Laos. The Thai government began increasing its defense capabilities. While visiting Washington in February 1979, Prime Minister Kriangsak asked for and received reassurances of military support from the United States. His government also launched a major diplomatic offensive to press for the withdrawal of all Vietnamese forces from Cambodia and for continued international recognition of Democratic Kampuchea under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. As part of that offensive, Kriangsak also journeyed to Moscow in March 1979--the first visit ever by a Thai prime minister--to explain the Thai position on the Cambodian question and to reassure the Soviets that Thailand's anti-Vietnamese position was neither anti-Soviet nor pro-Chinese. Such reassurances were believed to be necessary in view of Vietnamese accusations that Thailand collaborated with China and the United States in aiding and abetting the Khmer Rouge forces against the Heng Samrin regime.
The Thai offensive, backed by Bangkok's ASEAN partners, was rewarded in a United Nations (UN) General Assembly resolution adopted in November 1979. The resolution called for immediate withdrawal of all foreign forces from Cambodia, asked all nations to refrain from interfering in, or staging acts of aggression against, Cambodia, and called on the UN secretary general to explore the possibility of an international conference on Cambodia.
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