News dailyJuly 28, 2008 9:42 am

ASEAN Fails to Resolve Cambodia-Thailand Border Dispute

By VOA News
22 July 2008

The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations failed to resolve a simmering border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand during an emergency meeting Tuesday.

Diplomats said both countries presented their side of the issue during a lunch meeting, but no progress was made.

Thai soldiers enter to a Cambodian Buddhist pagoda, near Preah Vihear temple in Preah Vihear province, Cambodia, 22 Jul 2008
Thai soldiers enter to a Cambodian Buddhist pagoda, near Preah Vihear temple in Preah Vihear province, Cambodia, 22 Jul 2008
Cambodia has requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to mediate the military standoff with Thailand over disputed territory around a historic temple.

The appeal to the world body Tuesday came a day after talks between top defense officials from Thailand and Cambodia failed to end the stalemate.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for both sides to exercise restraint.  

Both countries have voiced willingness to peacefully resolve the territorial dispute.

The dispute centers on ownership of about 4.6 square kilometers of land surrounding the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple. An estimated 4,000 troops are facing off near the ancient Hindu temple.

Tensions flared last week, when Thai soldiers crossed the border to follow three Thai protesters trying to reach the temple. The protesters were detained for illegally entering Cambodia but were later released.

The U.N. cultural organization, UNESCO, recently approved Cambodia’s application to name the Preah Vihear temple a World Heritage site. The move renewed a decades-old dispute over who owns the temple and the land around it.

The International Court of Justice granted Cambodia sovereignty over the temple in 1962, but did not rule on which country owns the surrounding land.

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News daily 9:36 am

Thai FM to join border dispute talks with Cambodia

2008-07-28 12:28:02 

BANGKOK, July 28 (Xinhua) — Thailand’s newly-appointed Foreign Minister Tej Bunnag left Bangkok Monday morning for Cambodia’s Siem Reap to hold a talks with his Cambodian counterpart Hor Namhong aimed at solving a diplomatic and military standoff between the two neighbors on the border dispute around the Preah Vihear temple.

    Before his departure, Tej said that the dispute not be easy to resolve, but he will do his best in his first task after officially taking office on Sunday.

    The minister said he believed that the atmosphere of the talks would be positive and constructive based on what has achieved from last week’s meeting between Thai Supreme Commander Gen. Boonsang Niempradit and Cambodian Defense Minister Gen Tea Banh.

    Tej had discussed with concerned top military officials before heading for Cambodia. On Sunday he also met with some foreign ministry officials concerning the dispute.

    Tej, a veteran diplomat, was appointed as the head of Thailand’s Foreign Affairs days after Noppadon Pattama resigned earlier this month over the Preah Vihear dispute which has arouse a wave of nationalist sentiment in the country.

    The two countries has been locked in a military standoff on the border areas between Kantharalak district, Si Sa Ket province in Thailand’s northeast and Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province where the 11th century Khmer-style Hindu temple Preah Vihear is located.
    

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News dailyJuly 23, 2008 12:48 am

Cambodian PM writes to UNESCO, accuses Thailand of aggression

PHNOM PENH, July 22 (Xinhua) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has written a letter to UNESCO, accusing Thailand of aggression by moving troops into disputed border territory, and warned that Thailand threatened peace in the region.

    "Thai behavior gravely threatens peace and stability in the region" and Thailand is "defying all principles of international law," Hun Sen said in the letter addressed to Koichiro Matsuura, director general of UNESCO.

    Thailand’s "unwarranted aggression" violates international convention designed to protect World Heritage sites during times of conflict by stationing heavily armed soldiers near the Preah Vihear Temple, he said in the letter dated Monday and made public Tuesday.

    "The encroachment by large number of Thai armed soldiers in an area adjacent to the temple, with the attendant risk of provoking conflict in and around a World Heritage Site, clearly qualities as a prohibited action and thus constitutes a violation of the World Heritage Convention," he said.

    The government of Cambodia would like to request UNESCO assistance in resolving this matter and request it to take urgent actions for the protection of this World Heritage Site, he said, adding that the military standoff may ruin the site.

    Currently, both sides stationed over a thousand troops at the border near the Preah Vihear Temple, which was listed as a World Heritage Site on July 7 by the UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee.

    Monday, bilateral talks failed to produce any agreement to end the military standoff. Cambodia has asked UN and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to intervene and find peaceful solution for the week-long stalemate.

    Last Tuesday, three Thai protesters trespassed the border to reclaim the temple, but were immediately arrested. Thai troops then came in to fetch them, thus triggering face-off with Cambodian soldiers there. Bilateral military build-up occurred dayby day. Currently, the troops there were widely estimated at thousands.

    In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded the 11-century classic Khmer-style Preah Vihear Temple, together with the land it occupies, to Cambodia.

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News dailyJuly 14, 2008 12:52 am

Cambodian opposition leader finds no judge to receive his evidence over defamation charges

PHNOM PENH, July 9 (Xinhua) — Sam Rainsy, president of the eponymous opposition party, here Wednesday found no staff members at the local court to receive his evidence over the defamation charges filed against him by Cambodian foreign minister Hor Namhong.

    Rainsy went voluntarily to the court to submit documents in his defense, but no prosecutors showed up to receive them.

    "The prosecutors all fled. They are scared by Sam Rainsy," he told reporters as left the court.

    Court officials could not be reached for comments immediately.

    Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Hor Namhong filed a defamation lawsuit in April at Phnom Penh Municipal Court against Sam Rainsy over his remarks alleging that the minister was a former member of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK).

    Hor Namhong has long said that he and his family were prisoners at a DK camp, and has successfully sued people in the past for claiming that he had links to the regime that is widely held responsible for the death of over 1.7 million people during the 1970s.

    Rainsy is now leading his party as the main opposition force to campaign for the general elections on July 27.

    Altogether 11 parties are participating in the election. The current ruling Cambodian People’s Party is widely expected to score landslide victory.

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