[Tlc] TC-border politics

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Forwarded from Dr. Charnvit Kasetsiri.
Thanks,
justin



http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a0/?vgnextoid=0e1ab39d2380b110VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&ss=Asia&s=News
 
Disputed temple becomes political football threatening a government
 
 HERITAGE
Tom Fawthrop in Bangkok
Jul 10, 2008
 
When Unesco granted World Heritage status this week to Preah Vihear, the Hindu temple on the Thai-Cambodian border, people danced with joy in the streets of Phnom Penh. In Thailand, however, there was fury.

So angered are Thai nationalists by Unesco's decision that it might yet help to bring down Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej's government, already under siege for being seen by its enemies as a proxy for deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

According to Kraisak Choonhavan, former chairman of the Thai Senate foreign relations committee, "worse is to come" from nationalists who are using the issue to attack the rickety government of Mr Samak.

Already, the opposition Democrat Party has begun collecting signatures for the impeachment of Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama, who signed the joint communique with Cambodia backing its application to register Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site.

The moves follow a ruling on Tuesday by the Constitutional Court that Mr Noppadon's signature on the communique was unconstitutional because the government had failed to consult parliament, and some members of the Senate have said they may seek to impeach Mr Samak's entire government.

"Whipping up nationalist fervour will become easier for anti-Thaksin and anti-government people," said Mr Kraisak. "Unesco's decision has successfully made Samak and Noppadon into real `traitors'. The call for the resignation of the entire government will be now relentless. The Cambodian government, unfortunately, will also be attacked for its supposed collaboration with Thaksin and Thailand's `defeat'."

Such is the recent level of Thai protesters' passion about the temple and the small patch of land on which it sits that the dean of Thammasat University's faculty of liberal arts, Thanet Aphornsuvan, wrote in The Nation: "They appear willing to die for an area covering four square kilometres."

Much may be at stake. Just as World Heritage status greatly  enhanced the status of Angkor Wat, it is expected the elevation of Preah  Vihear will also boost conservation efforts and cultural tourism.

The temple's ornate structures date back to the 11th century but the site has been occupied since the 9th century. As recently as the 1950s and 1960s, it was occupied by Thai military regimes.

Cambodia began seeking World Heritage status for the temple in 2001, but previous applications to Unesco's World Heritage Committee were vetoed by Thai governments, based on border disputes over the adjoining areas. The committee had in the past deferred its decision pending Cambodian-Thai agreement on the border.

With Mr Noppadon's signature on the communique, the Unesco committee accepted that there was consensus between the neighbours.

This would be long overdue. Since the decline and fall of the Angkor empire during the 14th and 15th centuries, Cambodia has suffered a series of invasions from Siamese armies, and Cambodia's only major victory since this long period of retreat has been won not on the battlefield but in the courts.

In the 1960s, Cambodia's head of state at the time, King Norodom Sihanouk, filed a case in the International Court of Justice in The Hague seeking sovereignty over Preah Vihear. The judges declared Cambodian sovereignty over the temple, and the Thai dictatorship, run by general Sarit Thanarat, reluctantly complied with the judgment, removing Thai soldiers from the temple.

There has since been no serious challenge to Cambodian sovereignty over the temple for the past 46 years - until the latest bid by Phnom Penh to secure World Heritage listing.

There was also little concern in Bangkok when Khmer Rouge forces, with help from the Thai military, seized the temple in 1993. The temple was closed to the public until Pol Pot's soldiers surrendered in 1998.

Preah Vihear has now become hostage to Thai domestic politics. Mr Samak's government has been under pressure both from the rolling street protests in Bangkok led by the so-called People's Alliance for Democracy and no-confidence motions tabled by the Democrat Party.

The controversy was also fuelled by suspicions that the Thai government originally backed the Cambodian heritage application as part of a secret deal involving Thaksin's investment ambitions in Cambodia's Koh Kong province. Phnom Penh has strongly denied the allegation.

Thongchai Winichakul, historian and author of Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo Body of a Nation, said that the temple furore demonstrated that "the dark side of nationalism is dangerous as ever".

Writing in The Nation, he said: "It has now become a weapon in today's Thai politics. The Preah Vihear World Heritage case has gone beyond technicalities. It is abused to arouse delusion that the temple belongs to Thailand and a desire to revive the claim. The purpose is to generate hatred in Thai politics. Nationalism is dangerous, especially a foolish one like this."

Additional reporting by Associated Press 

______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
3046 INTN
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu