Thailand’s crises takes a toll on Cambodian tourism, estimated at a loss of $1 million per day

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
28 November 2008

Thailand’s political crisis is costing Cambodia’s tourism sector $1 million a day in lost revenue, tourism officials say, while worries are growing about security for an upcoming Asean conference and the resolution of a monthslong border standoff.

Anti-government demonstrators have closed Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport in their efforts to oust the prime minister. In Cambodia, 10 flights per day have been canceled between three airlines, and tourism officials say they are missing 2,000 tourists per day as a result.

Ho Vandy, president of the Cambodian Tourism Association, estimated that the average tourist will spend $500 on a four-day trip in Cambodia, amounting to a loss to Cambodia of around $1 million per day.

“The cancellation of international flights affects hotels, restaurants and the work of tour guides, guest houses, taxi drivers, tuk-tuks,” said Bath Sambo, president of the Cambodian Tourism and Service Worker Federation. “We are very concerned about this.”

Officials also said Friday the instability could mean a cancellation of the Dec. 14 Asean meeting, which is to be held chaired by Thailand and held in Chiang Mai.

“In my opinion, the delay of the Asean summit is necessary because of the complicated situation in Thailand, where no one is responsible for the anarchy,” Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said.

The “complicated situation” in Thailand will also adversely affect talks next month, where a joint border committee was expected to discuss demining and demarcation, Hor Namhong said.

PAD upting their anties. Shooting at airport personel.

BANGKOK, Nov 25 (TNA) – The second day of the anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD)’s latest protests turned violent as thousands of protesters blocked the entrance to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport in preparations for a protest of the returning home of Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat after a shooting with government supporters earlier on Tuesday.

Confusion and other obstacles faced both arriving and departing passengers as the protesters blocked the entrance to the airport from the motorway, virtually paralysing traffic in the area. Such action prompted airline passengers and cabin crew to walk, lugging their suitcases to the terminal.

PAD protesters were expected to spend the night as Mr. Somchai’s plane has been delayed and would not arrive until Wednesday night.

The flight, which Mr. Somchai is on, will land at another airport outside Bangkok instead of Suvarnabhumi to avoid confrontation with protesters, according to Nattawut Saikua, government spokesman.

Mr. Somchai had attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru, and is flying from there for home.

Serirat Prasutanont, acting director of Suvarnabhumi airport and acting president of Airports of Thailand (AoT), said officials had urged the protesters to gather peacefully and allow passengers to enter and leave the airport without inconvenience.

He said the protesters were requested to gather at the airport’s parking lot, but no response from the PAD protesters has been made so far.

In the late aftrenoon, police said PAD protesters opened fire and shot on government supporters on Bangkok’s Vibhavadee Road leading to the government’s temporary headquarters. The police said at least five people were wounded, and several motorcycles torched in the attack.

The violence occurred on a road leading to the government’s temporary headquarters at Don Mueang airport where protesters laid siege for the second day. (TNA)

Cambodia promised no Preah Vihear issue during ASEAN meeting

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) — Cambodia will not list its dispute with Thailand over the ownership of the 900-year-old Preah Vihear Temple into the agenda of the ASEAN Summit next month in Bangkok, Chinese-language newspaper the Commercial News said on Friday.

“The ongoing world financial crisis will top the agenda of the summit, and we will not raise the Preah Vihear issue there,” Cambodian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Hor Namhong was quoted as saying here on Thursday at a press conference.

Cambodia needs not to do that, because all ASEAN member countries and other nations friendly to Cambodia have said that they expect Cambodia and Thailand to solve their dispute through bilateral negotiations, he said.

According to the outcome of the recent meeting between the foreign ministers of the two Southeast Asian nations, the two sides will start to measure the border line and locate the existing border posts in December, and the Joint Border Committee and both foreign ministers will convene new meetings in January, said the Cambodian Foreign Minister.

Earlier this week, Phay Siphan, secretary of state of the Cambodian Council of Ministers said that Cambodia will not boycott the summit in Thailand, even as the two countries have border dispute.

An armed clash in October killed two Cambodian soldiers and wounded two others, after Thai troops entered the disputed border area over sovereignty claim.

There are now 73 demarcation posts along the 805-km border between Cambodia and Thailand, 50 percent of which are recognized by the Thai side. Cambodia still plans to plant hundreds more posts there in order to specify the border line.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded the Preah Vihear Temple and its surrounding lands to Cambodia, but Thai nationalists have turned down the decision and used to stir up protests and demonstrations over its ownership.

Thai general re-assigned and makes a bold prediction

Fri 21 Nov 2008

BANGKOK (Reuters) – A maverick Thai general who has threatened to bomb anti-government protesters and drop snakes on them from helicopters has been reassigned as an aerobics teacher, the Bangkok Post said on Friday.

Major-general Khattiya Sawasdipol, a Rambo-esque anti-communist fighter more commonly known as Seh Daeng, reacted with disappointment to his new role as a military instructor promoting public fitness at marketplaces. “It is ridiculous to send me, a warrior, to dance at markets,” he said, before launching an attack on his boss, army chief Anupong Paochinda. “The army chief wants me to be a presenter leading aerobics dancers. I have prepared one dance. It’s called the ‘throwing-a-hand-grenade’ dance,” he said.

Seh Daeng is something of a folk hero in Thailand on account of his reputed undercover exploits in Cambodia and Laos during the Cold War.

His predictions of grenade attacks against People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters occupying Government House made headlines last month, especially when they turned out to be correct.

One protester was killed and 23 wounded by a grenade blast on Thursday.

Seh Daeng has denied any involvement.

Grenade blast at the Thai Prime Minister Office

Thursday, November 20, 2008
By Tim Johnston
Washington Post Foreign Service

BANGKOK, Nov. 20 — An explosion at an anti-government protest site in central Bangkok early Thursday killed one man and wounded 23 others, prompting a leader of the demonstration to call for a mass rally against the government on Sunday.

Police said they believe the explosion was caused by a grenade. It exploded about 3:30 a.m. at Government House, the prime minister’s office complex that demonstrators have occupied since late August. The explosive landed on the canvas of a large marquee, showering those who were sleeping below with shrapnel.

“It landed on the roof, otherwise many more people would have been injured,” said Kamron Trongma, who was nearby when the explosion happened.

Police told news services that a 48-year-old man received shrapnel wounds to the chest and neck area and was killed. Some of the others who were injured were taken to hospitals.

The demonstrators, led by the People’s Alliance for Democracy, have vowed to bring down the government, which they accuse of being a proxy for controversial former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The current prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, is Thaksin’s brother-in-law.

The dispute between the predominantly urban, middle-class demonstrators and the government, which was voted into power last year with the backing of millions of Thailand’s rural poor, has paralyzed the country’s political process and gouged deep political divisions between the rural and urban populations.

The demonstrators have ruled out any compromise, vowing to maintain their protest until the government is forced out of office.

In the wake of the attack, media magnate Sondhi Limthongkul, the protesters’ most influential leader, called on supporters to gather Sunday for a major rally against the “killer government.”

He accused the police of cooperating with whomever attacked the protesters Thursday.

“Without police cooperation, they could not have access to such weapons,” he said.

Thursday’s death is the fourth associated with the current protests. In early September a supporter of the government was killed in a clash with demonstrators. Last month a protester died after she was hit in the chest by a tear gas grenade fired by police trying to clear demonstrators from barricades around the nearby parliament building. On the same day, another protester was killed in an explosion in a car.

Thaksin, who became a billionaire in the telecommunications industry, has fled Thailand, where he faces a jail sentence after being convicted in October of charges of breaching conflict-of-interest laws. His whereabouts are not known because he left his home in Britain recently after his visa there was revoked.

Thailand protesting UNESCO flags. Why is that?

16th November, 2008
By Mayarith
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Khmerization

The raising of the Unesco flags and the Khmer Kathen ceremony at Wat Keo Sekha Kirisvarak have enraged Thailand which led it to lodge a strong protest.

Radio Free Asia’s reporter based in Thailand reported that Thailand has protested in a statement issued on Friday, 14th of November, 2008.

The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs has protested against a number of activities performed by Khmer authority in the Preah Vihear areas where one activity took place on the 7th of November and the other took place on the 12th of November. Thailand accused that these sorts of activities have violated its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

On the 7th of November, Khmer and Unesco officials have raised Unesco flags in the Preah Vihear complex and on the 12th of November, the Khmer authority has held a Kathen ceremony inside the Wat Keo Sekha Kirisvarak pagoda.

In a statement issued on Friday the 14th of November, the Thai Foreign Ministry has said that it had sent a protest letter to Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs because the Cambodian authority did not inform the Thai side about its activities in the areas and accused Cambodia of violating Thailand’s territory around the Wat Keo Sekha Kirisvarak pagoda.

The Thai Foreign Ministry has accused Cambodia of violating its sovereignty and territorial integrity because Cambodia’s activity on the 7th of November include the raising of three flags on the towers of the Preah Vihear temple and the construction of two large signposts on the staircase of the temple. Thailand has accused the Cambodian officials who went to raise the flags by crossing through its territory without prior permission from the Thai authority.

There is no news regarding the Cambodian reactions to the protest of the Thai Foreign Ministry.

However, Cambodian border activists based in Europe has reacted to the Thai protest.

Mr. Kiri Setha, a Khmer from The Netherlands, said: “The raising of the Unesco flags, flags representing the International Court of Justice and Cambodian flags is the sovereignty of Cambodia in order to confirm the ownership of its heritage. And the holding of a Kathen ceremony at Wat Keo Sekha Kirisvarak is purely a Cambodian matter, it’s the right of Cambodia.”

Mr. Kiri Setha said that, because of the outrage against Thai invasion of the Cambodian territories that caused about 270 Khmer people from around the world to stage a demonstration in front of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, The Netherlands, on the 1st of November.

Those 270 protesters include Khmer people from Cambodia, France, The Netherlands, Norway, America, Canada as well as from Germany.

UNESCO Begins Demarcating Preah Vihear Temple

PHNOM PENH, Nov 7 (Bernama) — A UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) delegation has begun marking out the boundary of the Preah Vihear temple, said China’s Xinhua news agency quoting national media reports Friday.

The Preah Vihear temple was listed as a World Heritage site in July and has since been at the centre of a border dispute between Cambodia, which owns the monument, and Thailand, where nationalists claim the 11th-century ruins were unfairly taken from the Thais.

Both sides have faced off over contested territory near the temple and elsewhere along the border, with troops opening fire on each other last month in a brief clash that left at least four soldiers dead.

Although the border has remained quiet since then, tensions remain high and Cambodian military officials said they would protect the UNESCO team.

“We are ready to provide security for the delegation when they post markers at the temple,” Brigade 12 commander Srey Doek was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying.

“Security is good and well-organized,” he added.

Meas Yoeun, deputy military commander of Preah Vihear province, said that after the UNESCO had demarcated the temple border, troops guarding it would be withdrawn to another site.

“We will remove (the troops), but we are waiting for orders from higher levels,” he said.

He added that both Cambodian and Thai soldiers at the front line are considering declaring the demarcated area a protected zone after the departure of the UNESCO team.

U.S. President-elect, Barack Obama won in a landslide victory.

After following last nights election, I wasn’t surprise to see Obama win.  However, I was a bit surprise at how much he had won.  Traditional Blue States like Virginia, Ohio, and Iowa were won by Obama.  He didn’t need all the States to capture 270 electral votes.  In other words, it was a landslide victory.

What does this mean for the international community, and Cambodia in particular?  The previous Bush administration had paid little to Southeast Asia, choosing to ignore it in favor of the war in Iraq.  Secreatary Rice also missed an important meeting with ASEAN members.  In an Obama administration, expect more interaction between the United States and ASEAN members.  An Obama presidency will guarantee that Cambodia will continue to enjoy favored trading status in Garments and other sectors.

US ties with ASEAN set to expand if Obama wins

Friday, October 31, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US ties with Southeast Asia could see significant expansion if Senator Barack Obama wins the White House race, as his advisors favor his participation in a key East Asian summit and the expansion of US alliances in the region.

They consider the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a largely neglected entity under President George W. Bush’s administration, who has refused to participate in the 16-nation summit organised by the group.

The summit comprises leaders of the 10 ASEAN states — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — as well as Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

The United States has not been invited by ASEAN to join the East Asian summit because it has refused to sign the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), a non-aggression pact whose ratification is mandatory for a seat at the regional leaders’ meeting.

Frank Jannuzi, a senior Asia advisor to the Obama campaign, told AFP that he would advise an Obama administration to sign the TAC and participate in the East Asian summit.

“I don’t know whether Senator Obama as president will do that but it will be my own personal recommendation,” said Jannuzi, an East Asia specialist in a US Senate foreign relations panel led by Obama’s running mate Senator Joseph Biden.

Robert Gelbard, another Obama advisor, also pushed for a US seat at the East Asian summit, expressing regret that the Bush administration had ignored Asian efforts to build a “regional architecture” over the last decade.

“We’ve left the terrain wide open for China and Russia as it’s moved forward,” he told a recent forum.

“One of these issues could very well be signing onto the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, with reservations,” said Gelbard, a former ambassador. “We need to assure our own basic fundamental security issues, including nuclear issues.”

Australia, for example, signed the pact in 2005 on condition that its accession will not affect its bilateral and multilateral treaty commitments nor rights and obligations under the UN Charter.

Michael Green, an Asia advisor to Obama’s Republican rival Senator John McCain in the November 4 election, indicated that a McCain administration could be open to any participation at the East Asian summit.

“I think many Asian experts would say we need to look at a way to get more engaged in the East Asia summit,” he said.

McCain has emphasized strengthening existing US alliances, especially with Japan and South Korea, as a key pillar of his Asia policy.

The United States is the only major power that has refused to sign the TAC, which bans signatories from using violence to settle conflicts in the region.

Jannuzi also said that an Obama administration wanted its current Asian partnership with key allies such as Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore to be augmented by “new partners” such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Citing Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest nation and the world’s biggest Muslim democracy, Jannuzi said the scope for US cooperation could go beyond counterterrorism to cover areas such as maritime security.

“An Obama administration would give greater focus to ASEAN because ASEAN is 500 million people, it is such a vital part of the world which is often neglected and usually we view it through a narrow prism of counterterrorism,” he said.

Aside from maritime security, he proposed broader engagement to improve “economic relationships, good governance, sustainable economic development and environmental protection.”

Military-ruled Myanmar, which is under US and EU sanctions over its long record of human rights abuses, has been a thorn in US-ASEAN ties, but Jannuzi said it should not prevent deeper US engagement with ASEAN.

“Rather, the United States should work with ASEAN to ensure that Burma (Myanmar) lives up to its obligation as an ASEAN member,” he said.

ASEAN members are expected by year end to formally adopt a charter committing them to promote democracy and human rights.

Bush’s plans to hold a first US-ASEAN summit failed to take off because of Myanmar, although he meets key ASEAN leaders on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit.

Oppinions by Khmerization: Thailand’s Betrayal of the 1907 Treaty

Recent statements by Thailand’s director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Varachai Plasai, are not helping the cause of the search for the solution to the current Khmer-Thai border disputes. Thailand’s stance, by the statements of Mr. Varachai, in rejection of the mutually agreed 1904 convention and the 1907 Khmer-Thai treaty, has dashed any hope of an amicable solution to the already complex Khmer-Thai border issues. On the contrary, his statements will fuel and add more diplomatic and border tensions between the two countries.

His statements: “We acknowledge the existence of the maps which are the results of the demarcation works of commission of delimitation of the boundary set up under the 1904 and 1907 treaties of Siam-France but we don’t accept”, and “Thailand will reject any attempt made by Cambodia to use the 1904 French map as a basis for border delimitation because according to this map, all the disputed Khmer temples are located inside Cambodia”, are clear indications that Thailand is not keen on settling the border disputes amicably and mutually, but on Thailand’s terms. Thailand has consistently reiterated that it will only agree to negotiate based on maps unilaterally drawn by Thailand. In other words, Thailand will not settle the current border disputes with Cambodia if Cambodia does not allow Thailand to keep the territories it had claimed and occupied to date. So, is peace and border solution possible between Cambodia and Thailand in the future?

Thailand, as a neighbour of Cambodia, must realise and understand that good neighbourly co-existence is based on mutual understanding and mutual respect. Its refusal to accept and honour the mutually-agreed conventions and treaties with Cambodia will not be reciprocated with due respect from Cambodia, but will only create irreversible mistrusts and suspicions.

The Khmer-Thai borderlines have been settled once and for all since 1907. The delimitation of the borders between Cambodia and Thailand have long been recognised under international law as having been once and for all settled by the findings and the works of the Franco-Siam Mixed Commission instituted and ratified by the Convention of 1904 and the Franco-Siam Treaty of March 23, 1907. Furthermore, the Franco-Siam Treaties of 1925 and 1937 as well as the adjudication of June 15, 1962 of the International Court of Justice, in which the Preah Vihear temple was adjudged to belong to Cambodia, reaffirmed the border disposition as prescribed by the works of the Franco-Siam Mixed Commission.

In regard to the current disputes, Thailand has consistently insisted that the surrounding areas in the vicinity of the Preah Vihear temple have never been delimited and that the verdict of the International Court of Justice in 1962 did not cover the issue of those surrounding areas. The notion that the areas in the vicinity of the Preah Vihear temple have not been settled is a misconception. The Cambodian ownership of the temple and the surrounding areas, deemed disputed by Thailand, has been settled once and for all by that court’s verdict. And that verdict has vindicated the Cambodian claims and render justice to the 1907 treaty. The court adjudicated that:

1. “the Temple of Preah Vihear is situated in territory under the sovereignty of Cambodia;”

2. “Thailand is under an obligation to withdraw any military or police forces, or other guards or keepers, stationed by her at the Temple, or in its vicinity on Cambodian territory”

3. “Thailand is under an obligation to restore to Cambodia any objects of the kind specified in Cambodia’s fifth Submission which may, since the date of the occupation of the Temple by Thailand in 1954, have been removed from the Temple or the Temple area by the Thai authorities.”: ICJ Reports 1962, p. 36, 37.

The second judgement of the court was crystal clear that Thailand is under the obligation to withdraw all its forces from the temple or from “its vicinity on Cambodian territory”. As the court’s judgements were based on the maps of the 1904 and 1907 treaties, the issue of the ownership of the temple and “its vicinity” has been resolved, as the maps of the 1904-1907 treaties placed both the temple and “its vicinity” inside Cambodia.

Thailand has long claimed that Franco-Siam treaty of 1904-1907 has always been in favour of Cambodia to the detriment of Thailand’s territorial integrity. The same was said by Cambodia, as evident by king Sisowath’s letter of protest to the French Governor in 1906. King Sisowath demanded the return of all Khmer provinces occupied by Siam by which he said “We insist on the former natural limits of the Khmer Kingdom which, prior to the Siamese invasion, included on Siam’s side the provinces of Battambang, Siem Reap, Stung Treng, Tonle Ropov, M’lou Prey, Kuckhan [currently known as Sisaket], Prey Sar, Soren [Surin], Sankeac [Sangka], Neang Rong, Nokoreach Seima (Korat), beyond the Phnom Dangrek Mountain, Koh Kong, Krat and Chantabor (Chantaboun [Chantaburi]) touching upon Bacnam and the Kingdom of Champassac (Passac). All these provinces are still populated by Cambodians and they preserve their absolute Khmer patriotism.”

Contrary to Mr. Varachai’s comments and in respect to international laws, maps from the 1904, 1907 treaties should be used as a basis for the settlement of border disputes between Thailand and Cambodia because they are the only internationally-recognised treaties as they were agreed, signed and ratified by both countries. Furthermore, they were vindicated and rendered justice by the International Court of Justice in 1962.

Thailand’s insistence on the use of maps unilaterally drawn by Thailand, without Cambodia’s agreement, is against the spirit of good neighbourly respect and contrary to international laws. Those maps have no legal basis under international laws. Under any circumstances, Cambodia should never agree to use maps unilaterally drawn by Thailand as a basis for the negotiations. If the 1904, 1907 maps were not used, and instead the maps unilaterally drawn by Thailand were used, it would be a betrayal of the treaties and a tragedy as it will set a precedent because it will trigger future violations of subsequent treaties.

So, if Thailand is intransigently insisting on using the maps unilaterally drawn by Thailand itself, will there ever be an agreement and peace at all? If that is the case, is there any room for Cambodia to manoeuvre in the negotiations? If Thailand does not conform to international laws by accepting the internationally-recognised treaties of 1904, 1907 treaties, the Khmer-Thai border disputes will become a quagmire and result in future deadly armed conflicts as what has happened on the 15th of October. And that would be a tragedy in the Khmer-Thai relations. No one single country, but both countries, will lose from these insignificant and petty disputes.