A turbulent year for Preah Vihear, Cambodian ties

Only a few Cambodian and foreign tourists have visited the disputed Preah Vihear temple recently. Thai and Cambodian soldiers positioned at Wat Kaew Sikha Khiri Sawara near the 11th century temple have withdrawn from the area to ease border tensions. WASSANA NANUAM

30/12/2010
Wassana Nanuam
Bangkok Post

'Please don't speak Thai when you are at Preah Vihear Temple. Thais aren't allowed there," the Cambodian driver warned me while taking me and my photographer up to the temple on Dec 11.

The driver wanted me to speak in English as he would tell Cambodian soldiers that we were non-Thai tourists.

The 11th century temple has been off-limits for all Thais since July 2008 after the armed border clashes in the area, leading to Thai troops being stationed at Wat Kaew Sikha Khiri Sawara at the foot of the temple hill.

Still with the US$20 (600 baht) entrance fee plus other top-up charges, the driver decided to take me to the temple on a three-hour ride from Siem Reap to see with my own eyes the situation on the ground there. The road is under construction by engineer soldiers and Chinese workers as part of Phnom Penh's plan to take more tourists there from Siem Reap, the major Cambodian destination for tourists who want to see Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. The road construction project faces a protest by Thailand in that it enters part of the 4.6 square kilometre disputed area.

I passed a military checkpoint and walked together with several Cambodians to the temple. Since the reopening of Preah Vihear two months ago on the Cambodian side by Phnom Penh after a minor military clash, at least 500 Cambodians visit the place a day, sometimes peaking at 1,000. Unfortunately, the Cambodian government continues to keep closed the border entrance from the Thai side in Kantharalak district in Si Sa Ket and that means no Thais are allowed to go to the temple from the northeastern province.

I hoped that my trip would go smoothly and nobody would notice that I was not a Cambodian. I walked past "the Naga steps" and looked down to the Thai border, seeing the door dividing the two countries locked for Thais since July 15, 2008 when Thai protesters rallied near the ruins against the Cambodian move to promote Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

Yet, what I hoped turned out to be wrong. Cambodian police and soldiers found out from our photographic equipment that my photographer and I were Thais and flagged us down to talk to them. "No Thais are allowed to go up here," the police chief responsible for the area told us. "No Thais have been here over the past two years because they are banned," he added.

I told him that I entered Cambodia legally through an immigration process in Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom and would like to get a chance to see Preah Vihear Temple, too.

The police chief called his supervisor and told us to wait. After 15 minutes, he came back and told us that we had been given the green light to go but four police and soldiers were assigned to accompany us. They took off their uniforms and went along with us in plainclothes.

One thing that Cambodian security authorities are very concerned about is that they do not want outsiders to see soldiers and military equipment at the temple now that it is a Unesco World Heritage site. There was a Unesco flag flying together with the Cambodian flag at the temple and several other Unesco flags were around the area.

I observed several soldiers still there but they were not armed. All artillery has been moved away from the temple. All that remains is a large military bunker behind the temple. But I knew I could not take a picture there because it was not allowed and would have got my colleague and I into trouble.

At the parking lot at the entrance to the temple, children sold several souvenirs including a VCD on the military clash between Thai and Cambodian troops which caused damage to the market there.

The Cambodian government was rebuilding the market despite protests by Thailand to suspend the project because it was in the overlapping area. Second Army chief Lt Gen Thawatchai Samutsakhon has told his Cambodian counterpart that Thailand will not open its border until the market construction stops. But Phnom Penh so far has turned a deaf ear.

On my way back, I told the driver to let me stop at Wat Kaew Sikha Khiri Sawara. The small temple near Preah Vihear once had 30 soldiers from each country stationed there after the border clash two years ago. But the two armies agreed in November to move away from the temple this month.

The driver told me he could not stop because Cambodian police and soldiers had ordered him to take me and the photographer back immediately after the Preah Vihear visit. The best he could do was to slow down a bit to allow me to see whether there were any soldiers there. There are none now.

Under the November agreement, Thai and Cambodian soldiers can come to Wat Kaew Sikha Khiri Sawara only with the consent of the two countries. But the Cambodian army sets the time to visit between 9am and 3pm with no permission for soldiers to stay overnight there. Thailand now has 2,000 soldiers in the overlapping border area.

It's difficult to understand why the Thai army agreed to the condition set by Cambodia because Thailand, like Cambodia, also lays claim to the area around the temple. In July 2008, when I covered the border clash, Maj Gen Kanok Netrakavaesana, then the commander of the Suranaree Task Force, ordered Thai soldiers to go to the temple to show it was part of Thai territory. Keeping Thai soldiers at Wat Kaew Sikha Khiri Sawara is important to reiterate Thailand's claim of sovereignty in the disputed area.

Today, the government and army leaders of the two countries have agreed to "adjust" their troops by moving away from the area. The agreement was to prevent possible direct armed confrontations and ease border tension. But strategically, Thailand is in a disadvantageous position because Thai soldiers now are based at the foot of the hill, while their Cambodian counterparts are on the plain only several hundred metres from the temple. Thai soldiers suspect that some, if not all, 40 monks at Wat Kaew Sikha Khiri Sawara are soldiers in disguise.

What worries Cambodia most is that the presence of Thai soldiers at the small temple would give Thailand a chance to easily seize Preah Vihear, because the two locations are only 300 metres apart.

Relations between Thailand and Cambodia are improving since ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra lost his position as an economic adviser to Phnom Penh. I do not want to make an assumption that the military agreement to move soldiers away from Wat Kaew Sikha Khiri Sawara was part of the deal for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to normalise bilateral ties, as the two countries celebrate six decades of diplomatic relations this month.

Anyway, improving ties led to the visit to the Cambodian capital by army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha on Dec 20 and 21. Prime Minister Hun Sen used the occasion to hand over three Thais who had received a royal pardon from jail after the Cambodian court had sentenced them to 18 months on charges of illegal entry into the country from the border in Surin in August.

Hun Sen opted to return the three to Gen Prayuth rather than Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, who visited Phnom Penh to celebrate relations on Dec 19. "Samdech Hun Sen knows how important Gen Prayuth is," a source close to the army chief said. "More importantly, we all know how the Cambodian leader feels about Mr Kasit. He is a former supporter of the People's Alliance for Democracy who strongly attacked them," the source said.

Gen Prayuth knew what Hun Sen had in mind and brought along with him Thai ambassador to Cambodia Prasas Prasasvinitchai for the handover of the Thais on Dec 20 and to send them back through the border in Si Sa Ket the very next day.

The Cambodian strongman also proposed to Gen Prayuth the reopening of the border at Preah Vihear and to continue border demarcation talks but not allow conflict over the Hindu temple to affect their relations. The army chief did not react to his proposal.

Hun Sen agreed with Gen Prayuth that the two countries should probably have key figures of the government and army visit their soldiers in the disputed area during the forthcoming New Year break as proof to the media that their soldiers now have been moved further away from each other.

He also hoped to see ties with Thailand going forward with no turning back to the old days of conflict.

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Wassana Nanuam reports on military affairs for the Bangkok Post.