The real reason behind Hun Sen's belligerence over temple

16-10-2008
Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation (Thailand)

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen may have begun beating the war drums too early this week when he issued an ultimatum to Thailand that he would use force to resolve the border dispute at Preah Vihear, but he had reasons for doing so.

In fact, no one believed he would really order his troops to open fire, but an ultimatum like that needs to be thoroughly examined for its hidden meanings.

Some analysts read too much into it when they linked Hun Sen’s move with deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The machiavellian scenario they suggested was that the Cambodian strongman wanted to help his associate Thaksin – and Thaksin ’s brother-in-law, Somchai Wongsawat, the present Thai prime minister – to overcome Thailand’s domestic political difficulties.

The move,they said,was intended to divert attention from domestic political chaos by renewing external problems, and even hostilities,with Cambodia.

But the analytical framework was too complicated and misinterpreted the clear picture of Thai-Cambodian relations.

Moreover, Somchai’s government is too weak to generate external interest in its domestic problems.The present Cabinet would probably be unable to mobilise sufficient resources to wage war against Cambodia, and rather than finding support among Thais, Somchai may easily be accused of dragging the country into war. So the threat could worsen his situation rather than help it.

The rattling of Hun Sen’s saber was not intended to achieve a military goal, but rather was a back-up manoeuvre for diplomatic moves to achieve his development objectives.

The Cambodian government put a lot of effort into the listing of the Hindu temple of Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site.

The Khmer sanctuary was expected to welcome a fresh surge of visitors after Unesco accepted it for listing earlier this year. Other World Heritage sites have enjoyed an immediate boost in tourism, but the listing of Preah Vihear has brought Cambodia no more than a bitter row with Thailand,on whose border the revered ruin sits.

The site has been closed since the listing and has not earned Cambodia one single tourist dollar.

In 1962 the International Court of Justice ruled Preah Vihear belonged to Cambodia, but easy access can only be made from Thailand. Phnom Penh needs space to build its own route to the temple, but unfortunately the area it needs is also claimed by Thailand.

Military occupation will not secure the area permanently. Only precise demarcation of the boundary between the two countries can divide the two sides,and that requires advanced technology and negotiations.

The two countries have not sat down for talks about their common border at Preah Vihear for some time, because of internal political difficulties.

For many reasons,Thailand remains unable to activate the Joint Commission on Demarcation of Land Boundaries (JBC).

The present Constitution requires the foreign ministry to obtain a parliamentary mandate before commencing negotiations on boundaries.

The ministry has already submitted the framework of negotiation to the parliament, but parliamentarians have hardly been in the mood to read it.This week ’s session of the House of Representatives was postponed following the recent bloodshed.

The JBC is normally co-chaired by a deputy foreign minister,but foreign minister Sompong Amornwiwat has no deputy. He must assign one of his advisers to the job and told his Cambodian counterpart Hor Namhong on Monday that he would name a Thai co-chairman within a few weeks.

Hun Sen cannot wait that long, because his government is required to submit an administrative plan for Preah Vihear to the World Heritage Committee by next February. The plan cannot be completed as long as the boundary between Thailand and Cambodia remains a hotly contested issue.

Hun Sen ’s threatening tactics seem to have worked well.

Thailand, although responding with strong words and assurances of retaliation in the case of attack, urged Phnom Penh to calm down and continue with talks.The Cambodian leader will be happy to see Thailand ’s new eagerness to talk and reactivate the JBC.

Cambodia relics vulnerable to further ruin

Dougald O'Reilly; in the trench, an archaeologist from the University of Sydney, collects soil samples during excavation of an Angkorian hydraulic site in Siem Reap province, Cambodia, on Wednesday Jan. 23, 2008. An international research group is now trying to dig up answers to the question about Angkorian hydraulic network as par of its quest to shed more light on the puzzles left since the demise of the Angkor city centuries ago. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
A Cambodian worker collects soil samples during an excavation of an Angkorian hydraulic reservoir in Siem Reap province, Cambodia, on Wednesday Jan. 23, 2008. An international research group is now trying to dig up answers to the question about the Angkorian hydraulic network as part of its quest to shed more light on the puzzles left since the demise of the Angkor city centuries ago. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

February 22, 2008
By Ker Munthit

SIEM REAP, Cambodia (AP) - By destroying vast tracts of forest to enlarge their farmland, inhabit- ants of the wondrous city of Angkor ignited the fuse to an ecological time bomb that spelled doom for what was once the world's largest urban area.

So theorize archaeologists engaged in groundbreaking research into the ancient civilization of Angkor.

They are warning that history could repeat itself through reckless, headlong pursuit of dollars from tourists flocking to see Angkor's fabled monuments.

"It's just a weird cycle. It seems like Angkor is self-repeating itself," said Mitch Hendrickson, who recently led an excavation as part of research into Angkor as a human settlement.

Conservationists have long expressed concerns about the state of the monuments, especially the stress from the tourist invasion. They also say the uncontrolled pumping of underground water to meet rising demand of hotels, guesthouses and residents in the adjoining town of Siem Reap might be destabilizing the earth beneath the centuries-old temples so much that they might sink and collapse.

"There's just so much building going on without any concern about the long term. Things are moving so fast in Siem Reap today that it's going to chew itself up very quickly and become unsustainable," said Mr. Hendrickson, an archaeologist from the University of Sydney in Australia.

From their city, Angkorian kings ruled over most of Southeast Asia during their pinnacle between the ninth and 14th centuries, overseeing the stone constructions, including Angkor Wat, regarded as a marvel of religious architecture.

Although the 1431 invasion from what is now Thailand has long been regarded as a major cause of Angkor's fall, archaeologists from the Australian university's Greater Angkor Project suspect earlier ecological forces led to the city's demise.

Their findings supported a theory put forward in the early 1950s by Bernard-Philippe Groslier, a French archaeologist, that the collapse of Angkor resulted from exploitation of the environment.

Angkor's inhabitants started rice farming from the low-lying area near the Tonle Sap lake, just south of the town of Siem Reap, said Roland Fletcher, another archaeologist with the project.

They gradually cut down natural forest to extend their farmland to the slope of Kulen mountain, 50 miles to the north, said Mr. Fletcher, who led 10 archaeologists to excavate various sites near the Angkor complex.

Flooding ensued, and huge amounts of sediment and sand washed into canals, probably choking the vital water-management system.

Using NASA's airborne imaging radar data, the project has conducted numerous aerial and ground surveys across nearly 1,200 square miles, which revealed that the city — with about 1 million inhabitants — was far larger than previously thought.

It covered about 385 square miles and featured a sophisticated hydraulic system that proved too vast to manage.

Angkor was "a huge, low-density, dispersed urban complex" comparable to Los Angeles and "by far the most extensive preindustrial city on the planet," Mr. Fletcher said.

Its water network included an artificial canal used for diverting water from a natural river about 15½ miles north of Angkor, and two mammoth, man-made reservoirs known as the East and West Barays.

"They probably didn't necessarily need any of this extra water ... because just a rain-fed rice agriculture is quite sufficient to feed a very substantial population," said Damian Evans, a project member.

One theory, he said, is that the Angkorian kings built the water system just "to demonstrate their power and their authority to rule."

He said only excavations and soil analysis could yield more clues.

"It's a process of going to those sites on the ground and looking for finer detailed information like the profiles of the canals underneath the ground and the types of sediment that lie within those canals," he said.

Armed with a printed digital map of the Angkor area, Mr. Evans and Mr. Fletcher toured an excavation site at the West Baray where archaeologists dug trenches to seek traces of an ancient channel through the bank. They were trying to determine whether the channel really existed and could have served both as water inlet and outlet.

The reservoir is walled by four banks — now covered with jungle — each 40 feet high, 110 yards wide and about 12 miles in length. It can store up to 1.8 billion cubic feet of water.

Mr. Fletcher called it "the single largest artifact and piece of engineering in the preindustrial world."

"All of this work is aimed at understanding how the water-management system of Angkor functioned ... and how it stopped working," he said, adding that forest clearance is "the current key piece of information" about the ecological peril that caused Angkor to tumble.

Although past environmental problems were associated with deforestation, they also underline the menace the tourism boom is posing to the temples, the researchers said.

"The same types of things which we knew were problems of Angkor are essentially being repeated in our modern-day context in the Angkor area — things like unsustainable use of water, massive overdevelopment without any consideration of the long-term effects," Mr. Evans said. "There's definitely lessons to be learned from what happened here before."

Development pressures threaten Angkor Wat ruins

An aerial view over Banteay Srey temple, one of the many stone monuments built during the Angkorian period, in Siem Reap province, Cambodia, on Wednesday Jan. 23, 2008. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Wed. Feb. 13 2008
The Associated Press

SIEM REAP, Cambodia -- By destroying vast tracts of forest to enlarge their farm land, inhabitants of the wondrous city of Angkor lit the fuse to an ecological time bomb that spelled doom for what was once the world's largest urban area.

So believe archeologists engaged in groundbreaking research into the ancient civilization of Angkor.

And they are warning that history could repeat itself through reckless, headlong pursuit of dollars from tourists flocking to see Angkor's fabled monuments.

"It's just a weird cycle. It seems like Angkor is self-repeating itself,'' said Mitch Hendrickson, who recently led an excavation as part of research into Angkor as a human settlement.

Conservationists have long expressed concerns about the state of the monuments, especially the stress from the tourist invasion. They also say the uncontrolled pumping of underground water to meet rising demand of hotels, guesthouses and residents in the adjoining town of Siem Reap may be destabilizing the earth beneath the centuries-old temples so much that they might sink and collapse.

"There's just so much building going on without any concern about the long term. Things are moving so fast in Siem Reap today that it's going to chew itself up very quickly and become unsustainable,'' said Hendrickson, an archeologist from the University of Sydney, Australia.

From their city, Angkorian kings ruled over most of Southeast Asia during their pinnacle between the ninth and 14th centuries, overseeing construction of architectural stone marvels, including Angkor Wat, regarded as a marvel of religious architecture.

While the 1431 invasion from what is now Thailand has long been regarded as a major cause of Angkor's fall, archeologists from the Australian university's Greater Angkor Project believe earlier ecological forces led to the city's demise.

Their findings supported a theory in the early 1950s by Bernard-Philippe Groslier, a prominent French archeologist, that the collapse of Angkor resulted from over-exploitation of the environment.

Angkor's inhabitants started rice farming from the low-lying area near the Tonle Sap lake just south of Siem Reap town, said Roland Fletcher, another archeologist with the project.

But gradually, they cut down natural forest to extend their farmland up to the slope of Kulen mountain, 80 kilometres to the north, said Fletcher, who led 10 archeologists to excavate various sites near the Angkor complex.

Flooding ensued, and huge amounts of sediment and sand were washed down to fill up canals -- thus probably choking the vital water management system.

Using NASA's airborne imaging radar data, the project has conducted numerous aerial and ground surveys across nearly 3,110 square kilometres which revealed that the city -- with about one million inhabitants -- was far larger than previously thought.

It covered some 1,000 square kilometres and featured a sophisticated hydraulic system that proved too vast to manage.

Angkor was "a huge low-density, dispersed urban complex'' comparable to Los Angeles and "by far the most extensive preindustrial city on the planet,'' Fletcher said.

Its water network included an artificial canal used for diverting water from a natural river about 25 kilometres north of Angkor, and two mammoth, man-made reservoirs known as the East and West Barays.

"They (people) probably didn't necessarily need any of this extra water ... because just a rain-fed rice agriculture is quite sufficient to feed a very substantial population,'' said Damian Evans, a project member.

One theory, he said, was that the Angkorian kings built the water system just "to demonstrate their power and their authority to rule.''

But he said only excavations and soil analysis could yield more clues.

"It's a process of going to those sites on the ground and looking for finer detailed information like the profiles of the canals underneath the ground and the types of sediment that lie within those canals,'' he said.

Armed with a printed digital map of the Angkor area, Evans and Fletcher toured an excavation site at the West Baray where archeologists dug trenches to seek traces of an ancient channel through the bank. They were trying to determine whether the channel really existed and could have served both as water inlet and outlet.

The reservoir is walled by four banks -- now covered with jungle -- each 12 metres high, 110 metres wide and about 20 kilometres in length. It can store up to almost 51 million cubic metres of water.

Fletcher called it "the single largest artifact and piece of engineering in the preindustrial world.''

"All of this work is aimed at understanding how the water management system of Angkor functioned ... and how it stopped working,'' he said, adding that forest clearance is "the current key piece of information'' about the ecological peril that caused Angkor to tumble.

Although past environmental problems were associated with deforestation, they also underline the menace the tourism boom is posing to the temples, the researchers say.

"The same types of things which we knew were problems of Angkor are essentially being repeated in our modern-day context in the Angkor area -- things like unsustainable use of water, massive overdevelopment without any consideration of the long-term effects,'' Evans said. "There's definitely lessons to be learned from what happened here before.''