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Thai and Cambodian troops clash


Coss

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The UN needs to call in both countries for an explanation - televised.

 

What a spectacle that would be....

 

More like 2 kids fighting at recess - the whole he started it, no he did, well his daddy's son did.

 

Would be very entertaining to the rest of the world - if only real people didn't get killed by both sides there.

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Unfortunately, this is how most wars start. Look at the US-Mexican War in 1848. Both countries argued over where the border was. US troops moved in and camped on what they said was US soil. Mexican troops crossed the river and attacked, killing Americans ... and the war was on (and welcomed by both countries, despite what the historical revisionists like to say nowadays).

 

World War I - a Serbian member of a secret terrorist group assasinated the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary and his wife. Austria demanded to be allowed to hunt the terrorists inside Serbia. Serbia said no, and Imperial Russia backed them up. Austria insisted - and Russia mobilised against both Austria-Hungary and their German ally. The war proceeded after that like falling dominoes. Think of the PRC-Indian squabbles over remote mountain peaks, long considered Indian under the raj but now claimed by a militant PRC. Who should control Kashmir? The Iraq-Iran war over rather worthless border areas. The PRC's attempt to force a border settlement on Hanoi ...

 

Doesn't take much to get adults acting like angry children. Just shout nationalism and wave the bloody shirt.

 

 

 

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The UN needs to call in both countries for an explanation - televised.

 

What a spectacle that would be....

 

More like 2 kids fighting at recess - the whole he started it, no he did, well his daddy's son did.

 

Would be very entertaining to the rest of the world - if only real people didn't get killed by both sides there.

 

 

I know there was a push to make KPV a UNESCO site. There was also some proposal to have the "disputed territory" made part of some international/UNESCO zone shared by both countries or something like that. Both sides spit on that proposal.

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On June 15, 1962, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that, ‘the Court, by nine votes to three, finds that the temple of Preah Vihear is situated in territory under the sovereignty of Cambodia.’ The Cabinet of the time made a resolution and announced that Thailand, as a member of the United Nations, accepted the ICJ ruling.

 

Although Thailand protested and reserved the right to request a revision of the ruling as allowed by Article 61 of the Statute of the Court within 10 years after the date of the ruling, Thailand has never officially made any application for such a revision, nor made any request for the Court to clarify the meaning or scope of the judgment, as allowed indefinitely under Article 60. ...

 

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Doesn't take much to get adults acting like angry children. Just shout nationalism and wave the bloody shirt.

 

I don't have the exact Mark Twain quote in front of me, but it goes something like this : 'Patriotism is based on the belief that your country is the best because you were born there'. I always get nervous when politicians start waving the Australian flag in front of me.

 

 

 

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<< In a nutshell, the ancestors of the Khmer people built and owned the Preah Vihear Temple in the first place. >>

 

Therefore every Roman ruin across western Europe, in North Africa and the Middle East belongs to Italy! So does Britain south of Hadrian's Wall.

 

I'd say those most likely to have worked on the construction were the ancestors of the Khmer in Surin and Buriram, not anyone living in Phnom Penh.

 

 

<< On March 23, 1907, Bangkok’s King Rama V signed the Franco-Siamese boundary treaty with the President of France, agreeing to exchange Siam’s Battambang, Srisophon and Siem Reap, as well as the Preah Vihear Temple, for the French-occupied Chantaburi, Trat provinces and Dan Sai in Loei. Once independent from France, Cambodia claimed the Preah Vihear Temple, based on the Treaty. >>

 

More Cambodian BS. The temple was not mentioned!

 

 

<< In 1904, Siam and the French colonial authorities ruling Cambodia formed a joint commission to demarcate their mutual border. [color:red]In the vicinity of the temple, the group was tasked by the two governments to work under the principle that the border would follow the watershed line of the Dângrêk mountain range, which places nearly all of Preah Vihear temple on Thailand's side.[/color] In 1907, after survey work, French officers drew up a map to show the border’s location. [color:red]However, the resulting topographic map, which was sent to Siamese authorities and used in the 1962 (ICJ) ruling, showed the line deviating from the watershed without explanation in the Preah Vihear area, placing all of the temple on the Cambodian side.[/color] >>

 

The Froggies stole it!

 

<< The minority on the court however wrote a scathing dissent, Australian justice Sir Percy Spender saying:

 

[color:red]Whether the Mixed Commission did or did not delimit the Dangrek, the truth, in my opinion, is that the frontier line on that mountain range is today the line of the watershed.[/color]

 

The Court however has upheld a frontier line which is not the line of the watershed, one which in the critical area of the Temple is an entirely different one. This finds its justification in the application of the concepts of recognition or acquiescence.

 

[color:red]With profound respect for the Court, I am obliged to Say that in my judgment, as a result of a misapplication of these concepts and an inadmissible extension of them, territory, the sovereignty in which, both by treaty and by the decision of the body appointed under treaty to determine the frontier line, is Thailand's, now becomes vested in Cambodia.[/color] >>

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preah_Vihear_Temple

 

 

But all of this is irrelevant, since the court's decision holds and Thailand accepts that the temple is now Cambodia's. What Thailand challenges now is the Cambodian claim to the rest of the land. (I expect another World Court decision would decide that the disputed land was also stolen by the French and is Cambodia's.)

 

 

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Kasit: Cambodian has much to explain

 

 

Clashes between Thai and Cambodian soldiers along the border since Friday had demonstrated the clear strength of the Thai army, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said on Wednesday.

 

"[color:red]In the fighting the Thai army fired at Cambodia's military zones, while Cambodian soldiers fired at our villages.[/color]

 

"Moreover, there were Cambodian soldiers at Preah Vihear temple, when the two countries had already agreed that they will not deploy their troops to the temple," Mr Kasit said in a television interview on Tuesday night.

 

Cambodia must explain these two issues to the global community, he said.

 

Mr Kasit said he had asked for a meeting with Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong.

 

"If he wants the United Nations to intervene in the border row, the Thai government is ready to clarify the situation.

 

"At least, the Thai government has never used the media to incite hatred," said the minister.

 

Cabinet ministers have been visiting areas affected by the border clashes to take care of the villagers, he added.

 

 

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Border villagers reject PAD relief visit

 

 

About 300 residents of Ban Phum Srol, which was emptied after the cross-border shelling, marched on Wednesday in protest against the People's Alliance for Democracy's plan to visit them on Friday to distribute relief supplies.

 

Wichit Duangkaew, 46, a village leader, said the PAD was not welcome.

 

He blamed PAD leaders for causing the clashes between Thai and Cambodian soldiers. The cross-border fire damaged many houses at Phum Srol in Si Sa Ket's Kantharalak district and villagers had been evacuated for safety.

 

"They are not welcome. We don't want to see them, because they may bring us more trouble," he said.

 

Mr Wichit said regardless of what the PAD leaders' objective may be - to topple the government or anything else - they should not take the Thai-Cambodian conflict as a pretext for their activities.

 

"When Cambodian rockets and artillery rounds landed on our village, were PAD leaders with us and did they run for their lives like we did? They were the cause of trouble," he said.

 

Si Sa Ket deputy governor Channa Iamsaeng told the protesting villagers that the government had asked PAD leaders not to travel to the border at this time.

 

PAD leaders on Tuesday decided to abandon their plan to march to some key locations in Bangkok on Friday. They said they would instead deliver relief supplies to the people sufferring from border clashes and soldiers on that day.

 

 

 

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