By SETH MYDANS
Published: October 15, 2008
BANGKOK — Thai and Cambodian soldiers exchanged rocket and rifle fire
for about an hour on Wednesday, according to reports from the scene,
threatening to escalate a tense confrontation at the border over a
disputed 900-year-old mountaintop temple.
Several hundred soldiers from both sides have faced each other at the
border since July, when Unesco, the United Nations agency, approved
Cambodia's request to have the temple named a World Heritage Site.
There were no immediate reports of deaths. Brig. Gen. Yim Pim, the
Cambodian Army commander, said none of his men had been hurt. A
spokesman for the Thai foreign ministry said seven Thai paramilitary
soldiers were wounded. Ten Thai soldiers surrendered to the Cambodians,
according to press reports in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.
The two nations have made claims for decades over the temple, Preah
Vihear, which stands at the lip of an escarpment on the border looking
out over the mountains of northern Cambodia.
In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded the temple to
Cambodia, based on a map prepared at the start of the century by
colonial French rulers. Unesco placed the temple in Cambodia partly
based on that map when it awarded Preah Vihear world heritage status.
As a result of the rising tensions, Thai officials said they had
prepared aircraft to evacuate some 1,500 citizens living in Cambodia.
Thai authorities ordered a similar evacuation in 2003 when Cambodians
rioted in the capital in protest against Thailand, setting fire to Thai
businesses and to the Thai Embassy.
That earlier violence also involved claims to a temple, in that case the
crown jewel, Angkor Wat, which is well within the borders of Cambodia.
"Thai businessmen who have no need to be in Cambodia now, please rush
back to Thailand," Foreign Minister Sompong Amornvivat said Wednesday.
Thai nationals were reported to have huddled in a hotel in Phnom Penh
for safety, uncertain if they should evacuate. Riot police were deployed
outside the Thai Embassy.
Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia on Tuesday issued an ultimatum to
about 80 Thai soldiers to withdraw from a portion of the temple area.
His noon deadline passed with the Cambodian side saying the Thais had
retreated and the Thais saying there had been no troop movements.
"At any cost we will not allow Thai troops to invade this area," Mr. Hun
Sen said Tuesday. "I would like to be clear about this. It is a
life-and-death battle zone."
The fighting on Wednesday was not the first since the two sides have
deployed soldiers at the temple. Early this month, one Cambodian and two
Thais were reported wounded in an exchange of gunfire.
Three days later, two Thai soldiers lost legs when they stepped on some
of the many thousands of land mines strewn through the area.
Thailand's 300,000-strong military is far better equipped and trained
than the Cambodian army, with F-16 fighter jets and Blackhawk
helicopters. But Cambodian soldiers have been fighting in the area for
decades and are hardened by guerrilla warfare.
The disputed temple was in the hands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas until a
decade ago, when the movement collapsed, 19 years after the fall of the
Khmer Rouge regime in Phnom Penh. Many soldiers and commanders in the
Royal Cambodian Armed Forces are former members of the Khmer Rouge.
No comments:
Post a Comment