Prasat Ta Muen Thom - a tug of war between Cambodia & ThailandIf you're not aware, one of my biggest passions is visiting ancient Khmer temples, dotted around the Cambodian countryside. However, there are a series of Khmer temples in northeast Thailand that I have yet to visit so I was particularly interested in a report from Radio Free Asia's correspondent Kim Pov Sottan yesterday - the full report is in the Comments section - which highlighted the issue surrounding the 12th century Angkorean temple of Prasat Ta Muen Thom - which is in fact three ruined structures all with the same name - in a location that seems to be on the very border between Cambodia and Thailand. If you speak to the Khmers in the locality, they'll tell you that the temple is Cambodian and that the Thai's have stolen it in the last few years, whilst the Thai's have assumed responsibility for the temple and built a paved road for easy access for visitors. The report from RFA suggested that even the Thai military commmander for the area claims that the temple is in a 'white zone' which is technically a disputed, no-man's land. Cambodia has experienced border disputes with Thailand and Vietnam over many years and the long drawn-out process to resolve them and agree on the exact position of the border markers is frustratingly slow. Cambodia has a history of disputing temple ownership with Thailand, with Preah Vihear being the most publicized but Prasat Ta Muen Thom is important in it's own right and if both countries are claiming ownership, somehow the deadlock needs to be broken. At the moment, Thailand is in possession and Cambodians are left to peer over the fence at this reminder of their glorious past. Photo:

On July 8, 2008, the World Heritage Committee decided to add Prasat Preah Vihear, along with 26 other sites, to the World Heritage Site list, despite several protests from Thailand.
As the process of Heritage-listing began, Cambodia announced its intention to apply for World Heritage inscription by UNESCO. Thailand protested that it should be a joint-effort and UNESCO deferred debate at its 2007 meeting.
Following this both Cambodia and Thailand were in full agreement that Preah Vihear Temple had "Outstanding Universal Value" and should be inscribed on the World Heritage List as soon as possible. The two nations agreed that Cambodia should propose the site for formal inscription on the World Heritage List at the 32nd session of the World Heritage Committee in 2008 with the active support of Thailand. This led to a redrawing of the map of the area for proposed inscription, removing the 4.2sq kilometres of border territory awarded to Cambodia but still occupied by Thailand and leaving only the temple and its immediate environs.
Thailand's political opposition launched an attack on this revised plan (see New dispute over ownership), claiming the inclusion of Preah Vihear could "consume" the overlapping area of the dispute lands. In response to the political pressure at home, Thailand withdrew its formal support for the listing of Preah Vihear Temple as a World Heritage site.
Cambodia continued with the application for World Heritage status and, despite official Thai protests, on July 7, 2008 (July 8 in Cambodia), Preah Vihear Temple was inscribed on the list of World Heritage sites.
The renewed national boundary dispute of 2008 has been a reminder that despite the World Heritage ideals of conservation for all humanity, operating a World Heritage site often requires use of national authority at odds with the local cultures and natural diversity of the landscape. Prior to listing, Cambodia considered Preah Vihear part of a Protected Landscape (IUCN category V) defined as "Nationally significant natural and semi-natural landscapes that must be maintained to provide opportunities for recreation." However, Category V is generally defined as "Land, with coast and seas as appropriate, where the interaction of people and nature over time has produced an area of distinct character with significant aesthetic, cultural and/or ecological value, and often with high biological diversity. Safeguarding the integrity of this traditional interaction is vital to the protection, maintenance and evolution of such an area."
Around 1994, Thailand held a World Heritage proposal conference in Srisaket in which the local cultural traditions were considered along with monuments like Preah Vihear that stimulate more nationalistic sentiments. Reportedly the use of passes in the Dongrak Mountains tied together cultural communities and practices divided by a militarized (and imperfectly demarcated) modern border line. A Mon-Khmer ethnic minority, the Kui or Suay (the ethnonyms have multiple spellings), used the passes to hunt and capture elephants in the forests below the Dongrak cliff edge, including the Kulen area now a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary. Kui in Cambodia were skilled ironsmiths using ore from Phnom Dek.[9]
While elephant hunting in the vicinity of Preah Vihear was touched upon in the International Court of Justice proceedings, the World Heritage plans overlook local culture and species protection to facilitate national revenues from tourism. One international law professor has urged that practicality calls for laying aside exclusive sovereignty in favor of an "international peace park."[10] A scholarly article concurs in concluding: "since Thailand and Cambodia have brought only blood and bitterness to this place, it might be desirable to preserve it from both. It could be given back to nature and the indigenous peoples, to be managed cooperatively between the two governments in equal partnership with local communities, as a transborder Protected Landscape-Anthropological Reserve (IUCN category V and old category VII)."[11] Given the massing troops in 2008, perhaps such a transborder reserve would create not only a demilitarized buffer zone in which any future demarcation can be amicably undertaken, but a recognition of the added ecological and cultural aspects of an area which both Cambodia and Thailand may still save from the destructive and exploitative impacts of rapid development so often suffered in other ASEAN countries.

Preah Vihear, Cambodia - Preah Vihear, a millennium-old temple dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva - the divine destroyer - has been a magnet for conflicts in its recent history.The temple, which was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO last year, prompted an ownership spat between Cambodia and Thailand that led to a suspension of diplomatic relations in 1958 and eventually ended up in The Hague for an international settlement in 1962. Cambodia won, but even today embers of the old border dispute burn on.Preah Vihear also provided the 'last stand' in two very different Cambodian civil wars. In May, 1975 the last remnants of the pro-US Lon Nol army finally fell to the Khmer Rouge at the mountain-top Preah Vihear and then in December 1998, the temple site was used to negotiate the surrender of diehard remnants of the Khmer Rouge.Scars from these recent military conflicts remain, including strategically situated cement bunkers around the temple complex, bullet holes in its limestone bricks that the Khmer Rouge shot up for AK-47 target practice and rusting artillery pieces. The leftover land mines have allegedly been removed.Perched on a 525-metre high cliff on the Dangrek Mountain range, Preah Vihear provided an ideal setting for a temple dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva by the past monarchs of the Brahman-influenced Khmer Empire.It is believed that construction on the temple, built in several stages starting with the Shiva sanctuary at the top and moving down the mountain side in four levels, began some time in the 9th century, well before Cambodia's spectacular Angkor Wat complex was built.At its height of power in the 12th to 13th centuries, the Khmer Empire encompassed much of modern-day Thailand.'It included everything right up to Lopburi and all of what is now Bangkok,' said Sulak Sivaraksa, a well-known Thai historian and social critic.The Thai empire didn't really become a regional force until the 15th century, with the rise of Ayutthaya.Thai invasions of Cambodia, then in its decline, led to the adoption of many Khmer cultural traditions by the Thais, including the Hindu concept of god-kings and court rituals, and an ongoing fondness for Brahman-inspired black magic, especially among Thai politicians, noted Sulak.Besides Preah Vihear there are many other Khmer-style temples to be found in Thailand, especially in the north-eastern provinces bordering Cambodia such as Buri Ram, Surin and Si Sa Ket.Preah Vihear, arguably the most magnificent, has proven the most contentious.The French, former colonial masters of Indochina, began delineating the Thai-Cambodian border in 1904, using the watershed along the Dangrek Mountain range as one of the landmarks.