Thailand needs to back off temple claims: Author
Updated
When Asian and European leaders meet in Beijing this weekend they will focus on the economy.
But on the sidelines, Thailand's Prime Minister Somchai Wangsawat and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen are expected to discuss tensions over the Preah Vihear temple. Last week, troops from both sides traded gunfire, leaving two soldiers dead and several injured. The Preah Vihear temple issue is symptomatic of border sensitivities between the two neighbours.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Emeritus Professor David Chandlerfrom Monash University
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CHANDLER: Well, there's no legal legitimacy, because I think these were decided by the issue was decided by the International Court of Justice in 1962, a judgement that Thais didn't like, but it was final at the time and it reflected the way the border was drawn by the French and the Thais together in 1907 when those northwestern provinces returned from Thailand to Cambodia.
Now yeah, the temple is inside Cambodian territory, because of an anomaly on the border. In other words to get to the temple in Thailand, you walk along a flat plain, to get to it from Cambodia, you have to go up a cliff. So this border was not there before obviously in the 10th Century when the temple was built. But it's a matter of the Cambodians of course attach a great deal of importance, may be we might say too much, but you can't judge them to their ancient past and their glorious temples and the fact that this was given World Heritage status by the UNESCO, gave them another boost in their own prestige. Now the Thai have never taken the Cambodians seriously and in almost any way. They have always looked down on them and this seemed like a good sideshow that they could develop for their own purposes and I think the Cambodians reacted in a predictable way, may be overreacted, but still they didn't want their temple taken away from them.
LAM: Indeed, there is a perception that the Cambodians are fed up with being pushed around by the Thais. What's your view of all of this?
CHANDLER: Oh I think absolutely, but it's just a matter of how 80 million pushes 12 million. It's going to happen and the Cambodian economy is dominated with Thai products and so on. Along the border the trade is always to the benefit of the Thai. I think the Cambodians are fed up with it and they were for sometime fed up with being pushed round by the Vietnamese, so their reaction is sensible. But yeah.
LAM: How have previous border disputes been settled between Thailand and Cambodia?
CHANDLER: Well, there haven't been too many. I mean there was quite a bit of fighting along the Thai border in the 1980s when the Khmer Rouge took refuge in Thailand, quite a lot of fighting along the border there. The border has not been in much dispute outside of the area around the Preah Vihear temple. I think a lot of its through uninhabited territory for one thing and other places they are just in agreement that the border has been established for a long time. But there hasn't been disputes of this dimension really for a long time.
LAM: And on a broader front, I mean as we've touched upon the Thailand and Cambodia have had a long difficult relationship. What do they need to do to move on from these kinds of conflicts?
CHANDLER: Well, I think the Thai have to back away from this particular Preah Vihear issue. I think the Cambodians have to back away from inflaming the issue with racial rhetoric as they did in the riots of 2003 and as they might be doing to an extent now. Everybody has got to sort of cool it, and I think ASEAN has a role to play in this regard to try and pull these people back. I think on the diplomatic level, I think both sides do not want to have this thing escalate, because there is no way that a fighting war could be to the advantage of the Cambodians and also no-one's going to come to the rescue of the Cambodians either, no outside power, so you just can't have or the Thai for that matter. So you just have to not have this escalate and I think they are realising this and they are backing away from increased tension.
LAM: And of course the whole issue doesn't show ASEAN in a very good light, does it, given that Thailand is a founding member?
CHANDLER: Well, ASEAN is always fairly hands off on political issues. I mean they were hands on when Cambodia was outside of ASEAN. They made a lot of meetings about Cambodia and that was one of the main things they did. Now that Cambodia is in ASEAN, and now that Myanmar is in ASEAN they don't say much about the way these places behave. There is a sort of an agreement to not to insult or put pressure on individual members, so I think it's the way ASEAN has always operated. It doesn't put them in a good light, but it would be unprecedented for them to figure intervention on the political issue.
