Preah Vihear fight shifts to Unesco

Arrival at Suvarnabhumi. Ambassador Virachai on the left, Minister Surapong on the right.

The fight for the 4,6 square kilometers at Hindu temple Preah Vihear, which has provisionally ended in The Hague after last week's hearings, has now shifted to Unesco's World Heritage Committee (WHC), which will meet in June in Phnom Penh.

The opposition and several academics fear what they call Cambodia's 'Plan B'. They fear that the management plan for Preah Vihear contains the disputed area, so that Thailand will lose its claim to the area through this detour.

The legal team returned from The Hague yesterday. It was welcomed by a large group of supporters with flowers and banners thanking it for its efforts. Delegation leader and ambassador to the Netherlands Virachai Plasai said: 'We did our best. The defense went as planned and there was no leakage to Cambodia's side.'

Virachai's words are confirmed by a poll from Abac. Most respondents (61,3 pc) said they had confidence in the Thai delegation; 33,1 percent had no idea and 5,6 percent said they were not confident. Asked if they would be disappointed if Thailand loses, 80 percent said they were 'most disappointed'; 13,4 percent 'moderately disappointed' and 6,6 percent a little bit.

The team is not yet disbanded, as one of the judges of the International Court of Justice has asked both countries to draw a map of the temple and its surroundings and to mark the border. Thailand's version will be based on the border established by the then cabinet in July 1962 after the Court assigned the temple to Cambodia.

The revelry now threatens to be dampened by the prospect of the WHC meeting. Democratic Party spokesman Chavanond Intarakomalyasut, while appreciating the efforts of Virachai and the four foreign lawyers, warns that the country is still at risk of losing the 4,6 square kilometers. "Prime Minister Yingluck should clarify Thailand's position and say we object to Cambodia's management plan for the Preah Vihear area."

The Thai World Heritage Information Center chaired by Chote Trachoo, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, has already announced in June that it will object to the management plan. If Phnom Penh pushes through consideration of the plan, Chote and Suwit will leave the meeting in 2011.

Preah Vihear acquired UNESCO World Heritage status in 2008. A condition is that a management plan for the temple and surroundings is made. The first time Cambodia submitted such a plan was in 2009 during the WHC meeting in Seville. Thailand has since blocked approval of the plan.

In June 2011, Head of Delegation Minister Suwit Khunkitti (Natural Resources and Environment) left the annual meeting of the WHC in Paris, when the plan seemed to be discussed anyway. He threatened to cancel his membership of the WHC, but that never happened.

(Source: Bangkok Post, Apr 22, 2013)