Press Conference HE. Sok An Deputy Prime Minister 4

Press Conference HE. Sok An Deputy Prime Minister after UNESCO, World Heritage Committee Meeting on 33rd Session 2009 at Seville, Espanola

Seville, June 30, 2009
INSCRIPTION OF THE TEMPLE OF PREAH VIHEAR, CAMBODIA, DID NOT PROVOKE
LONG-PLANNED INVASION BY THAILAND
On the eve of the 33rd Session of the World Heritage Committee, senior Thai officials, including
the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, and the head of the Thai delegation, made a series of
surprising attacks on UNESCO and the Committee. In continuing to object to last years
unanimous decision by the Committee to inscribe the Preah Vihear Temple as a World Heritage
Site, the Thai officials blamed the inscription for having caused fighting at and around the
Temple in the past year. In fact, it was the unilateral military actions of the Thai government that
caused the fighting.
In the interest of the preservation and development of the Temple, Cambodia requested
that it be inscribed at the 2007 session of the World Heritage Committee at Christchurch. Thai
objections to its listing were addressed by Cambodia the following year. As Thailand previously
had agreed to support the inscription at the 2008 meeting in Quebec City, Cambodia again had
the inscription put on the agenda. Unfortunately, by the time of the 2008 session, political
turmoil in Bangkok forced the Thai government to withdraw its support and argue for
postponement. However, with Cambodia having met its obligations, the Committee unanimously
decided the inscription of the Temple.
One week after the Committee's unanimous decision, Thai troops crossed the border with
Cambodia and moved toward the Temple. This violation of Cambodian sovereignty is also a
violation of the 1962 decision of the International Court of Justice, which required Thailand to
remove its armed forces stationed in Cambodian territory in the vicinity of the Temple. In
response, Cambodia exercised its obligation to defend Cambodian territory, an action that can
only be understood as a response to the Thai militarization of the area.
Thailand justifies its invasion by making territorial claims. Since the Christchurch
meeting, Thai officials have been promoting a map of the border that is at a variance with the
map used by the ICJ in its famous 1962 decision. Unlike the ICJ map, the Thai unilateral map
places the border of the two countries at the immediate edge of the Temples structures.
For more than 40 years, Thailand did not openly dispute the ICJ border. But it created the
unilateral map for the time when it could expand into Cambodia. A map produced by the Royal
Thai Survey Department during the period of Khmer Rouge influence in the region was recently
discovered that traces the border found in the Thai unilateral map. It was marked "secret,"
apparently in order to hide their territorial ambitions.
Since the Temples inscription in 2008, Cambodia has fulfilled its obligations for
management of the site. There is no cause for a review, joint listing, joint management, or
de-listing, as suggested by the Thai party on various occasions.
In the year since the Thai invasion, fighting has occurred three times, the most recent of
which destroyed the village market. Never before has a State Party to the World Heritage
Convention used an inscription of a heritage site as a pretext to invade and militarily occupy
another State Party's territory. To attempt to put the blame for the fighting on the Committee or
UNESCO is to ignore Thailands own responsibility for sending armed forces across the border
into what had previously been a peaceful region.

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