Cambodia, Thailand border dispute 'worsening'

[Coventina]

Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen says his country's border dispute with Thailand is "worsening" and has called for the immediate withdrawal of Thai troops and protesters from the area.

The Cambodian leader has described the three-day stand-off at the disputed Preah Vihear temple as "very bad" for relations.

(snip)

Earlier, the Cambodian military said Thai troops had again crossed the border, saying some 400 soldiers are now in the country.

Thailand has denied the allegation, insisting it has troops in the border area, but none in Cambodia itself.

Read more: http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200807/s2307130.htm?tab=asia

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Keeping my fingers crossed that violence won't erupt...

C'mon Thailand, you are better than this! 400 soldiers? That's outright provocation!

[newmajority]

1. McCain is salivating already

"When I'm president, I'll use any excuse I can find to get my revenge on those goddamn gooks!!!!!11!!!"

[jeff30997]

2. Quick! Send US troops over there ASAP!

Domino Effect!!!Where are Kissinger and McNamara when you need them?

I can here some Wagner.Prepare the Napalm! :nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke:

[grantcart]

3. well let me explain this fuck up

In a very remote area there are remains from an ancient temple


Thais have been going to this temple for years while Cambodia has Ankor Wat that has been neglected for most of the last 600 years.


The World Court ruled that the temple is in fact in Thailand. However it is on a cliff and the only way to get to it is from Cambodia.


So Thais going to the temple have to 'illegally enter' Cambodia for a few yards to get to the temple.




It makes you cautious about putting to much trust into the World Court. They could have given the whole thing to Cambodia (in which it would have fallen into complete disrepair like Ankor Wat) or given the whole thing to Thailand so that they could take care and protect it.


During the time of the Khmer Rouge Thai troops were put in the area to prevent the Khmer Rouge from destroying it.

[Coventina]

4. Actually, you have it almost completely wrong

Angkor Wat has not been "neglected for 600 years." The local population has been worshiping there, even after the fall of Angkor. It is actually in remarkably good shape considering its age, the climate, and what it has been subjected to. Also, archaeologists have been working almost continually (except during times of warfare) to restore and preserve the site. Cambodia is a very poor country, it has had to rely on other entities to help it with this preservation. Thailand has been one of the biggest obstacles in this, as a lot of the looting of the site is done through Thailand and by Thai nationals.

The International Justice Court ruled that the temple currently in dispute is in Cambodia NOT Thailand, but the easiest access is through Thailand.

And don't wax poetic about the behavior of Thailand during the Khmer Rouge, either. Thailand mined the border to keep refugees from escaping from Cambodia. And Thailand also insisted that relief efforts for those refugees be partially diverted to the Khmer Rouge. Otherwise, they refused to let the supplies come through Thailand.

[grantcart]

7. Your correct my memory was playing tricks on me I had it reversed

The role of the Thais in the refugee crises contained both heroic and unfortunate moments as it also did for the Malays and the Americans.

The basis for the numbers and treatment of refugees in Thailand goes back to the fact that after 30,000 mostly catholic refugees from North Vietnam reached the northeastern part of Thailand in the summer of 1954 the Thais wanted to give them only temporary sanctuary and then ship them to the south. The United States promised that they would resettle them and never did. The Thais assimilated the refugees but retained suspicions of US promises when the South fell.

The Thai government (and the Malaysian) took in hundreds of thousands of refugees but the resettlement effort was agonizingly slow and when repeated minimum numbers were not made then refugees were forced back to Cambodia from Thailand and back to sea from Malaysia. After the resettlement numbers increased no more forced repatriations were made. (Malaysia also took in a large number of Muslim refugees from Cambodia - a fact that has never been made public as the Malaysians wanted their public image to be worse than the reality).

The border between Cambodia and Thailand was closed as part of a joint operation between Thailand,China, the United States and the Sihanouk Family. Vietnam had invaded Cambodia in order to stop the irritation of the Khmer Rouge on their western border and China invaded Vietnam in a bloody but short war in 1977-8. The Khmer Rouge took sanctuary in a small sliver of jungle that the Vietnamese could not penetrate. The main advocates for this was the United States and China who both supported keeping the Cambodian seat at the UN in the name of the Khmer Rouge. They allied countries wanted to keep a civiliam population together in Cambodia under Khmer control to support the fiction that the Khmer Rouge was the legitimate government of the Khmer people.

It seems unreasonable to me to think that a relatively poor country like Thailand should be expected to open its border for an additional 2 million refugees when the rich countries refuse to pay or support it. It was the United States who insisted and payed for those supplies to be diverted to the Khmer Rouge. The feeling was not strictly based on payback of the Vietnamese but that the idea that countries in SE Asia could invade their neighbors with impunity was not a healthy one and the fact that it made the Khmer Rouge and the United States on the same side was an awkward reality to say the least.

Eventually the Vietnamese agreed to leave, a regime of ex Khmer Rouge soldiers who had revolted against the KR leadership and went to Vietnam was installed. The government became more or less legitimized, became increasingly independent of Vietnam and shed any residue of communism. The border was open and Thailand absorbed another huge wave of refugees. At this point the United States not only agreed to take in huge numbers of refugees but decided to concentrate Khmer refugees in 7-8 cities so that community centers could develop that would help perpetuate Khmer culture. That is why you will find cities like Long Beach that have large numbers of Khmer refugees. At the height of operations in 1980-1983 more than 12,000 refugees left Thailand for the United States every month and a regional processing center was set up in the Philippines to try and teach survival English and other basic skills for six months before being sent on to the United States.

[Coventina]

8. I never meant to imply that Thailand was the only bad guy during the genocide

If anything, I agree with you that the United States bears the biggest share of the blame (after the Khmer Rouge itself, and maybe China).

But I felt I had to point out, based on what you said in your prior post, that Thailand certainly is not blameless, and that they helped make a bad situation worse.

And all that about the condition of the temples was just flat out wrong and unfair.

[PerceptionManagement]

5. You enter the Temple from Thailand. The cliff is in Cambodia.

The Thais will kick ass. Khao Phra Viharn is very, very hard to attack from the Cambodia side. The freaking Cambodians offer to sell tourist scotch, ivory, cigarettes even people and heroin as you enter the temple. Mine fields surrounding the Temple were cleared in the 1990's by the French, I think.

[Coventina]

6. "The Thais will kick ass" ?!?!

Um, that sounds like you are hoping for armed conflict.

Incidentally, I was in Cambodia a few months ago and I was never offered any of the things you mentioned. Trinkets, textiles, books, etc. yes; scotch, ivory, cigarettes, people & heroin, never.

[Coventina]

9. Excerpts for an excellent Times Online article

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4360257.ece

With its friezes of kings, gods and elephants, its ancient buildings and its location at the top of a beetling cliff, the temple of Preah Vihear is one of the most spectacular and historic sites in South-East Asia. Now it is threatening to make history for a different reason, as the first World Heritage Site to become a battleground.

(snip)

Perched on the top of a 1,600ft (488m) cliff, Preah Vihear is far more accessible from Thailand than from Cambodia. The territory was awarded to Cambodia in a ruling by the International Court of Justice in 1962, after legal arguments about the validity of maps produced during Cambodia's French colonial period. Its inaccessible position made it a natural fortress - it was the last hold-out of the forces of the Lon Nol regime, driven out by the genocidal Khmer Rouge in 1975. Even after their own defeat, Khmer Rouge forces held out in the temple until 1998.

(snip)

Ill-feeling was defused because Thai locals and tourists were allowed to visit the temple freely from Thailand without a visa, and the dispute was largely forgotten until this month when the UN cultural organisation, Unesco, granted an application for Preah Vihear to receive World Heritage status. The decision would do much to promote tourism to Preah Vihear and bring business to both sides. When it turned out that the Thai Government had supported the application, there was an uproar in Bangkok.

______________________________________________________________________________

The information here says that the Khmer Rouge actually occupied the temple, so it doesn't appear that Thai troops were protecting it at that time.

:shrug:

I think the Times UK is a pretty reliable source, isn't it?

It seems that this is all a manufactured crisis brought on by political factions trying to bring down the Thai government in the name of nationalist fervor. Disgusting.

[ohio2007]

10. Three Buddhist 'fundie' protesters are at the center of that story

from the original article;

The Thai prime minister says he blames three Thai protesters who illegally crossed a Cambodian borderpoint for the military standoff between the two countries.

The three - a man, a woman and a Buddhist monk - tried to reach the Preah Vihear temple on July 15, vowing to reclaim it for Thailand.


Doesn't China have an issue with the Buddists in Tibet ?

[Coventina]

11. The whole situation is just silly, really.

Thailand has not (so far) given a straight answer as to why they rushed troops into the area. Excuses like maintaining order & protecting their sovereignty just don't hold water.

Yes, those three protestors crossed into Cambodia illegally. I don't know if you could call them "Buddhist fundies" or not, since their expressed purpose was to seize the temple in the name of Thai nationalism, not religion.

China definitely has issues with the Buddhists in Tibet, but I don't see that it's connected with this situation at all.