Why Thai-Cambodian temple dispute lingers

Each side has domestic reasons to prolong the conflict.

After a week of saber-rattling over Preah Vihear, which UNESCO recently designated as a World Heritage Site for Cambodia, Thai analysts and Western diplomats say there is a risk that tempers could flare. Neither side wants to be seen backing down, since parties on both sides are using the dispute to further domestic political goals, especially in Thailand.

"Nobody wants to see this dispute escalate," says a Thai military officer, who requested anonymity. "We are doing our best not to let anything happen.... Cambodia understands that the problem arises from domestic political problems in Thailand."

The risk of violence, though, remains slight as the two militaries have a close working relationship. No shots have been fired, and the only injuries came when Thai nationalists clashed last week with local Thai villagers opposed to their campaign against Cambodia's claim to the temple.

Domestic politics fuel conflict

Still, with opposition politicians in both countries playing nationalism cards, the row may prove hard to douse. Five years ago, a rumor that a Thai actress had spoken of taking back Angkor Wat, another temple, sparked anti-Thai riots in Phnom Penh. The Thai Embassy was torched and Thai nationals in Cambodia had to be evacuated by military aircraft.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is campaigning ahead of national elections on Sunday, and opponents who lag far behind in opinion polls have attacked his handling of the row, as well as his lauding of the temple's new status.

A more proximate cause, though, lies in Bangkok. Here, opponents of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, who have led months of street protests and lawsuits against his government, have used the issue to accuse it of surrendering sovereignty.

"It doesn't seem too complicated to fix [the dispute]. But Thai politics [are] so polarized that it's being used to accuse the government of selling out the country. Sentiment is high on the Thai side," says Gothom Arya, a peace advocate and chairman of the National Economics and Social Advisory Council, a government think-tank.

At a summit in Singapore, foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which groups Thailand, Cambodia, and eight others in the region, called for "utmost restraint" on the border. Cambodia said Sunday that it had written to the UN Security Council about the alleged Thai incursions, but insisted it wasn't trying to involve the UN in bilateral talks, the Associated Press reported.

A history of border disputes

Seemingly minor territorial disputes have long plagued Southeast Asia, whose colonial-era borders overwrote divisions of bygone kingdoms. Singapore and Malaysia have scrapped for years over claims to tiny islands. Thailand fought a brief border war with Laos in the 1980s. For their part, Cambodians are suspicious of Vietnamese designs on its territory, a legacy of both centuries-old rivalry and a period of occupation after Vietnam's 1979 ouster of the genocidal Khmer Rouge government.

Thai nationalists are still smarting over France's delineation of their border with Cambodia, a former French colony, which had ruled Thailand during the heyday of the Angkor period, before shrinking in size. In 1962, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Preah Vihear belonged to Cambodia, but the status of the surrounding Thai-administered area wasn't determined.

Overlapping interests

Thai nationalists fear that the temple's designation will weaken Thailand's hand, though UNESCO has said that its decision has no bearing on overlapping land claims.

Earlier this month, Thailand's Constitutional Court ruled that the government was wrong when it signed a joint communiqué with Cambodia on the issue without consulting parliament. Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama later resigned.

Behind the rhetoric is a grinding war of attrition between Mr. Samak and his enemies, whose ongoing street protests are a repeat of events in 2006 that paralyzed Thailand, before former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a coup. Samak is an ally of Mr. Thaksin, who is barred from politics but continues to loom over public life here.

Critics allege that Thaksin is cutting business deals in Cambodia and that his friends in government are smoothing his path. "This is a very sensitive issue on both sides of the border. The [Thai] government should have informed the people from the beginning. The suspicion is that there are dealings under the table," says Kasit Piromya, a former Thai ambassador to Washington and opposition supporter.

For decades, Preah Vihear was off the map as visitors steered clear of war-torn Cambodia. But the surrender of Khmer Rouge troops in the 1990s paved a tourism boom in Cambodia focused on Angkor Wat, the vast temple complex that symbolizes the country's ancient glories. Cambodia hopes to repeat the trick with Preah Vihear.

Until this month, day trippers from Thailand could visit the temple, which sits atop a rocky escarpment that is much harder to ascend from Cambodia. Both countries benefited from this arrangement by levying fees on visitors, but Cambodia eventually plans to channel tourists from its side of the border, capitalizing on its UNESCO designation.

For now, there are no tourists, only soldiers hunkered down around the ruined temple.

Labels: Angkor, Election, hun sen, Preah Vihear

Tomb raiders ... every year, more than two million tourists visit Angkor Wat, the 12th century Hindu-Buddhist temple which is synonomous with Cambodia / Reuters

48 hours in Siem Reap

By Masako Iijima July 15, 2008 09:23am

GOT 48 hours to explore the ruins of the ancient Angkor empire? Foreign correspondents with local knowledge can help you make the most of the temples and Siem Reap, the booming tourist town in the shadow of Angkor Wat.

Friday

6 pm: Cocktail hour

Relax on rattan armchairs in the pleasant garden of the Singing Tree Cafe just down the street from the Siem Reap river. It's a nice place for an evening drink or a healthy meal or for those seeking to unwind completely, there's an evening yoga class in the wooden, traditional Khmer house.

8 pm: Starlit temples

Every year, more than two million tourists visit Angkor Wat, the 12th century Hindu-Buddhist temple which is synonomous with Cambodia. By day, flag-waving guides herd package tourists through the world heritage site.

Saturday

7 am: Hit the temples After a quick breakfast, head for the temples. Drive around the Angkor Wat moat to Angkor Thom, the last and capital of the Khmer empire. The Bayon temple, with its 200 enormous faces smiling down on visitors from stone towers is a must-see. The Terrace of the Elephants, the platform from where King Jayavarman VII viewed public ceremonies, is well preserved compared to some of the surrounding temples which need a bit of imagination to appreciate.

11 am: Crafty potters

Go back to Siem Reap to avoid the midday sun. On the way, take a detour on the airport road to the National Centre for Khmer Ceramics Revival, a workshop which seeks to recreate ancient Khmer pottery using clay from the nearby hills, fired in a giant kiln built based on information found by archaeologists researching similar ancient sites.

Watch the potters create giant jars like the ones that are found at archaeolgical digs or try throwing a pot yourself on the primitive potters' wheel the women use and take home a special souvenir.

12.30 pm: Amok for lunch

Siem Reap's food choices have expanded dramatically in recent years. Go to Amok Restaurant, named after the Khmer curry which is made by steaming the coconut-based dish in a banana leaf for a typical Cambodian lunch. Besides the fish amok, the banana flower salad and the green papaya salad – which is similar to the Thai version but without the chillis – are also nice.

1.30 pm: Shopping hour

A good time to wander around the air conditioned shops selling silks and trinkets. Angkor Candles stocks a selection of handcarved candles in the shape of guardian lions, faces of Bayon and other local motifs.

Rajana is a fair trade shop which sells handmade silver jewellery, cushion covers and other knick-knacks. For cotton "krama" or gingham check scarves worn by Khmer Rouge fighters, head to the Old Market where they are sold in every color combination imaginable.

3.30 pm: Try the fried crickets

For a quick and unusual snack, try the fried crickets and other creepy crawlies sold on the bridge spanning the Siem Reap River. Or, for those less adventurous, you can go to the Blue Pumpkin for a banana ginger tart and iced coffee before journeying back to the temples.

4 pm: Play Tomb Raider

If the Angkor temples had not been restored, they would all look like Ta Prohm, located about 1km from Angkor Thom. Trees with enormous roots threaten to swallow the moss-covered walls of this temple and return the monument to the jungle that surrounds it. It's a familiar sight for Tomb Raider fans.

Proceed on to Pre Rup, a 10th century Shiva temple whose sandstone and brick walls glow orange in the late afternoon light. Then, climb up Phnom Bakheng, a temple mountain also dedicated to Shiva, to watch the sun set over what remains of the Angkor empire.

7 pm: Chat up an archeologist

To catch the latest gossip on archaelogical finds, have a drink with the experts. The French team will be at the Laundry Bar in the centre of town. The Japanese, who are the second largest contingent of achaeologists after the French, are usually at Cafe Moi Moi on the road back to town from the temples.

8 pm: Recall colonial Indochina over dinner

Keeping with the Angkor theme, dine at Le Malraux, a bistrot named after writer and statesman Andre Malraux who embarked on an exploratory mission into the Cambodian jungle in the early 1900s and was arrested by French colonial authorites for trying to steal bas-reliefs from one of the Angkor temples. Confit de canard and other things French will help you enjoy the atmosphere of Indochina of bygone years.

10 pm: Chase the neon lights

Night comes early to Siem Reap. But if you follow the neon lights and noise emanating from places like the Sok San Palace and Sokha Entertainment Club, you'll find yourself amid young Cambodians singing, dancing and trying their luck on the poker machines.

Sunday

7.30 am: Try a Khmer breakfast

From dawn, the Old Market is a hive of activity as housewives rush to buy fresh vegetables, meat and fish to feed their families. That is also when the food stalls offer the most choices. Rice porridge, duck noodles and sticky rice steamed in banana leaf packets make an interesting Khmer breakfast.

8 am: Hike with the Hindu gods

Drive out to Kbal Spean or the Valley of the 1000 Lingas. Wear sturdy shoes as it is a bit of a hike to the myriad of stone lingas carved into the riverbed and boulders on the banks. The Angkoreans believed the water passing over the symbols of Shiva would fertilize their rice fields and ensure a bumper crop. There are also carvings of various Hindu motifs depicting gods and sacred animals which have been watching over the water since the 11th century.

1.30 pm: Sunday lunch

Despite the Hindu overtones, there's no Kama Sutra at Kbal Spean. But there is in Siem Reap. The Indian restaurant is one of the classier ones in town and serves both north and south Indian favourites. Try their dosas – very thin and crispy.

2.30 pm: Weave some magic

Cambodia's weaving masters at the Institute of Khmer Traditional Textiles (IKTT) will be back from siesta and at their looms creating silk in intricate ikat designs. You can watch them spin, dye and weave at their workshop on the edge of town.

If you are a textile fanatic, journey to their farm to see silk worms being raised and dyes of different hues being created from tree bark, leaves and other natural sources. The organisation is trying to revive the country's silk traditions which were lost during decades of conflict.

4 pm: Explore village life

Follow the road to the right of IKTT, past the crocodile farm and basket shops, and you will soon be in Roluos, an area that is home to a clutch of 9th century temples.

Ancient architecture buffs can study the structural differences between the Bakong and Preah Ko temples and Angkor Wat, which was built centuries later. Ordinary tourists will enjoy the journey which takes you through villages, rice paddies and herds of water buffalo wallowing in the mud.

6 pm: Massage out those knots

Paved roads are increasing in Cambodia, but many are still spine-jarring dirt tracks. Go to Chai Massage near the road to Angkor Wat and let the masseuse knead the knots away and work out the kinks.

7 pm: G&T o'clock

Tourism exceeds journalism by far in Siem Reap, but there is still an FCC – Foreign Correspondents Club. It's near the river and the garden is the perfect place for a last gin and tonic before the journey home.

Labels: Angkor, Tourism

The new Angkor National Museum in Siem Reap has stirred controversy in Cambodia. Above, the exterior of the museum with the "Cultural Mall" on the right.

A New Museum Puts a Thai Imprint on Angkor

SIEM REAP, Cambodia: A common disappointment for visitors to Angkor today is the paucity of sculptural artifacts offered by the site. Without the "furniture" that once graced its magnificent temples, it can be hard to imagine the customs and rituals that animated Cambodia's formidable empire in its heyday.

Of the religious icons that survived looting or appropriation to French museums, many were relocated over decades to Cambodia's National Museum, created in the 1920s by the architect and curator George Groslier. The snag for Angkor-bound tourists in Siem Reap is that the museum is in the capital, more than 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, away.

Now Vilailuck International Holdings, based in Bangkok, has opened what it has opted to call the "Angkor National Museum" only a few kilometers from the Angkor park. Constructed over three years from a Thai design, it is currently displaying objects borrowed from the National Museum in Phnom Penh.

The other source of artifacts is the Conservation d'Angkor, a storage facility of some 6,000 pieces created by the Ecole Française d'Extrème Orient (French School of Asian Studies) in 1908 and currently in the hands of the Cambodian Ministry of Culture. Previously inaccessible, the collection has functioned as a hospital for broken pieces but also contains important Buddhas from several periods, as well as stone steles with invaluable inscriptions.

Thai interest dates to 2001. For 16 years Vilailuck's parent company, the Samart Corporation, has been a major investor in Cambodia in the telecommunications and air traffic control sectors. Charoenrath Vilailuck, the company's CEO, has an acquisitive interest in Cambodia's patrimony as evidenced by his own large collection.

But the new museum has picked up powerful detractors, especially among the tight-knit international restoration community that casts a hypercritical eye over what happens at Angkor.

The name has drawn the most controversy. The vast majority of offerings come either from pre-Angkorian times or from centuries after. Then, as the Siem Reap-based historian Darryl Collins pointed out, an enterprise that is foreign-owned and "primarily interested in turning a profit" can hardly be called national, especially when Cambodia already has a National Museum.

Collins is among those concerned that the new venture will deter tourists from visiting the National Museum in Phnom Penh, with its profusion of Khmer treasures spanning several centuries. For the Cambodian cognoscenti, too, the Angkor National Museum's appearance on the scene seems ominous, especially given centuries-old sensitivities concerning Thai designs on Cambodian patrimony.

Until 1908 Thailand had control not only of Angkor but of large swathes of northern Cambodia. In spite of a 1962 International Court of Justice ruling in Cambodia's favor, its neighbor still disputes the "ownership" of land surrounding the 10th century Preah Vihear temple at Cambodia's northern border and once threatened to veto Unesco's plans to honor the mountain temple with World Heritage Site status, which is still pending. Anti-Thai riots, which claimed the Thai Embassy and several Thai businesses, broke out in Phnom Penh in 2003 after a Thai actress allegedly said Angkor Wat still belonged to Thailand.

The most serious incident occurred in 1999. Large sections of walls with superb bas-relief images of the multi-armed Lokeshvara were looted from the 12th-century Banteay Chhma temple near the Thai border on what was generally assumed to be the orders of a Thai collector. The stolen art was intercepted by Thai police and returned to Cambodia, but suspicions linger.

The museum's design has also provoked some derision. The hint of Angkor Wat's honeycomb towers and its surrounding moats tends to be overshadowed by pink sandstone walls, which clash with its glazed orange corbel-vaulted roofing. It doesn't help that the lion's share of the 20,000-square-meter, or 215,000-square-foot, interior takes the form of retail space or a "Cultural Mall."

"This seems to have been foremost in the mind of the designers, while the collection came second," said Azedine Beschaouch, a special adviser to Unesco's assistant director general for culture and an expert on Angkor.

Anxious to promote the museum as a "learning cultural institute," the Thais are easily stung by such criticism. "We want to educate Cambodian people about their own history," said the museum's managing director, Sunaree Wongpiyabovorn. There are those "who know little about its monuments, and even less of the progress of Buddhism and what led up to it," she added.

Wongpiyabovorn insists there is no fortune to be made from the Angkor National Museum. Given that Vilailuck had to triple its original investment of $5 million due to the cost overruns, the company said it didn't expect to see a profit until at least a third of the 30-year lease has expired; under its "build, cooperate and transfer" contract, the management and financial control of the collection will then revert to the Cambodian authorities and the Ministry of Culture.

Moreover, several complications seem to have left the Thais frustrated, especially with regard to the terms and conditions of the loans. Under the original plan, the Phnom Penh museum's former director, Khun Samen, agreed to hand over as many as 1,000 artifacts - more than 950 hundred of them small 20th-century Buddhas - for the 30-year term, as well as 31 major pieces for a six-month loan.

His successor Hab Touch immediately reduced the 31 pieces to 23. "I am not going to surrender important pieces that should be permanently displayed here for the integrity of the collection," he said.

Another deal signed with the government in 2003 that gave Vilailuck extensive rights to a Conservation d'Angkor collection was threatened when, to the dismay of the Thais, the Cambodian government granted control to a South Korean company calling itself Angkor Treasure. Vilailuck requested that Deputy Prime Minister Sok An "release" the Koreans from the contract. He did, but only on the condition that the Thais agree to compensate the Koreans for an undisclosed sum.

According to Wongpiyabovorn, Unesco "maintains a strong sense of ownership of Cambodia's patrimony." Beschaouch supports the Thai initiative but is impatient about what he called "presentation that cannot claim to reflect international standards in museology." The majority of the wood, stone and silver Buddhas in the gallery of "1,000 Buddha Images," he said, "allude in design to later Ayutthaya-era temples in Thailand and have no aesthetic link with Angkor."

Unesco is engaged with the Angkor museum in improving the situation. But it didn't help that by the time of the grand opening last fall, months behind schedule, not only had most of the Angkor National Museum's artifacts still not been captioned but some copyrighted images had been lifted without permission for display. In the museum's defense, Wongpiyabovorn said that the Conservation d'Angkor's outdated card system of documentation was lost during Pol Pot's reign, leaving many artifacts with few historical records.

Will the museum have been worth the trouble? As it stands today, it will have negligible interest for the connoisseur or serious student of Angkorian art. At $12 compared to $3 for the National Museum in the capital, the price of admission for foreigners is high - the result of high fuel costs for air-conditioning, said the management.

But the museum has its uses. It should be commended for facilitating the display of objects long out of view. And, for a first time, the equinox sunrise simulations over Angkor Wat, the documentary-style videos in seven languages and the like go some way in explaining to visitors the temples' significance.

As for content, the "apsaras" and architectural features like decorated lintels replicate a lot of what is already copiously displayed on site. Yet sculptures from the pre-Angkorian capitals of Sambor Pre Kuk and Phnom Kulen merit attention. The 7th-century Phnom Da Standing Vishnu and the blue-tinted 9th-century Standing Shiva from Prasat Trapeang Phong reveal Cambodia's Hindu and Brahmanist legacy, and there are further galleries devoted entirely to Buddhist Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom and to the devaraja, or god-kings, who built these temples.

The museum insists it needs more time to develop its identity. Although its strength may not yet lie in a permanent collection, it aims to create exhibitions that inform and illuminate. The museum's curator, Chann Charouen, who is Cambodian and a former employee of the World Monument Fund, plans to rotate artifacts in a series of exhibitions from the aforementioned collections and from other Cambodian provincial museums such as those at Battambong and Kompong Cham.

It remains to be seen if the museum will embrace the growing scholarship and broad debates that currently characterize Angkorian studies, or be content to target tourists making an obligatory stop and bound inevitably for the inflated knick-knacks of the Cultural Mall.

Labels: Angkor

Labels: Angkor, Tourism

Labels: Angkor