Fresh fighting breaks out on Thai-Cambodian border

Apr 23, 2011
DPA

Bangkok/Phnom Penh - Thai and Cambodian troops clashed Saturday in the second day of fighting near a disputed temple on their common border in a conflict that has already claimed at least seven dead and 19 injured.

'Fighting started at 6:15 am (2315 GMT Friday), but no casualties have been reported yet,' said Thai army deputy spokeswoman Colonel Sirijan Nathong.

'We're still investigating who started it,' she said. 'They are using artillery but the fighting is not as heavy as yesterday's.'

Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan again blamed Thai forces for instigating the clashes, which he confirmed were taking place in the same area as Friday's fighting. He said there was no word on casualties.

Phay Siphan said Thai F-16 warplanes were staging mock attack runs on Cambodian positions.

'This time we have seen on a number of occasions Thai F-16 airplanes. This time they are not just doing reconnaissance, but air support, but they have not dropped bombs,' he said.

He said thousands of Cambodian civilians had fled the area for locations 60 kilometres from the border.

Friday's clash left four Thai and three Cambodian soldiers dead and about 13 Thais and six Cambodians injured, officials on both sides said.

About 10,000 Thai civilians have been evacuated from villages along the border in Surin province, 360 kilometres north-east of Bangkok, which is near the new flashpoint around a temple known as Ta Krabei in Khmer and Ta Kwai in Thai.

It was the latest of several Thai-Cambodian clashes over the past three years, in a standoff over their disputed border which shows little sign of resolution.

Thai and Cambodian troops most recently clashed on February 4-7 near Preah Vihear temple, a UNESCO world heritage site about 200 kilometres east of the location of the latest skirmish, leaving five dead.

Thailand has blamed UNESCO for escalating the tensions along the border with its decision to list the 11th century Preah Vihear temple as a world heritage site in July 2008 despite Thai claims that a 4.6-square-kilometre area near the temple is still the subject of a border demarcation dispute.

Thailand and Cambodia share a 798-kilometre border, defined by 73 border demarcation pillars, half of which are missing or disputed.

Thailand claims Cambodia is instigating the border clashes in order to get international intervention in what they insist is a bilateral border dispute that happens to include a handful of ancient Hindu temples such as Preah Vihear and Ta Kwai, which are of Cambodian origin but which it said are not necessarily in modern-day Cambodia.

'The Thai side has informed both UNESCO and the World Heritage Committee that the inscription of Preah Vihear by Cambodia would lead to clashes and loss of life among people from both sides,' Thai Natural Resources Minister Suvit Khunkitti told the Bangkok Post.

Suvit, tasked with representing Thailand's stance at the next meeting of the UNESCO committee in June in France, added, 'My warning has come true.'

Cambodia is lobbying to have Indonesian monitors in the disputed areas, a move that Thailand has so far rejected on the grounds that it would be a step towards international involvement in the dispute. Phay Siphan said again Saturday that Cambodia wanted monitors on the ground.

The UN and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), to which both Cambodia and Thailand belong, have called on both governments to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.

ASEAN has tried to mediate negotiations, but talks held this month in Indonesia, which now holds the rotating chairmanship of the bloc, failed to resolve the situation.

The 11th-century Hindu Preah Vihear temple, perched on a cliff in the Dong Rak mountain range, which vaguely defines the border, has been a bone of contention for the past five decades.

Both countries claim a 4.6-square-kilometre plot of land near the temple, which has been included under Cambodia's management plan for UNESCO's World Heritage Committee.

Since July 2008, both Cambodia and Thailand have beefed up their forces near Preah Vihear, leading to several border skirmishes.

The temple called Ta Kwai, or Buffalo Eye, which was the subject of Friday's clash, is another Hindu complex that is about 900 years old.