BANGKOK POST AND AGENCIES
Thailand and Cambodia will hold an urgent meeting of the General Border Committee (GBC) on Monday to defuse the growing tension over the listing of the old Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage site.
The decision comes as both countries are sending troop reinforcements to the sensitive border area.
Lt-Gen Sujit Sithiprapa, commander of the Second Army in charge of the northeastern region, has closed Khao Phra Viharn national park in Kantharalak district of Si Sa Ket and sealed access to the border in the area, banning visitors from seeing the temple ruins from the Thai side.
The road is now closed from the forestry district office, which is 8km from the borderline at Pha Mor E-Daeng.
The closure means members of the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy will be unable to go to the border today as planned.
Si Sa Ket governor Sanee Jittakasem suggested they stage a protest in the district town instead.
About 900 Cambodians living on the mountain where the temple is located have fled their homes for a safer spot lower down, according to Cambodian border unit commander Seng Vuthy.
Three Thai protesters remained in the disputed area to meditate at Wat Phra Viharn, about 200m from the stone staircases leading to the temple. They were released on Tuesday after being detained, but refused to leave the 4.6 square kilometre disputed area.
The GBC, set up by the two countries to solve border issues, will meet for talks in Sa Kaeo province, the Foreign Ministry said.
The committee is co-chaired by the defence ministers of both countries. But it was unclear whether Defence Minister Samak Sundaravej and his Cambodian counterpart Gen Teah Banh will attend the talks or send representatives. The meeting was set for next month. The decision to bring it forward underlines the worry felt by both governments over the growing tension.
Thailand started reinforcing its troops yesterday after army chief Gen Anupong Paojinda ordered the First Special Warfare Unit to stand by at their base in Lop Buri province, and be ready for an airlift to the border in case of an emergency, an army source said.
Troops from the Artillery Regiment and the Third Infantry Division were already on their way to stations close to the border. The reinforcements from the three units would number about 800. Some 150 paramilitary rangers are already in the disputed area.
Air force chief ACM Chalit Phukpasuk assigned F-16 jets to patrol the border in Si Sa Ket yesterday and questioned the detention of three protesters by Cambodian soldiers in the overlapping zone.
''Ownership of the overlapping area is still open. As the boundary has not yet been established, does Cambodia have any right to arrest us if we enter the area?'' he said.
Pol Capt Soy Burin of the Cambodian border patrol unit said more Cambodian troops had been sent to guard the ruins.
Phnom Penh has 380 soldiers stationed at the temple, according to Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith.
Despite the presence of more troops at the border, Gen Anupong instructed soldiers to avoid a clash with Cambodian soldiers.
Lt-Gen Sujit insisted on the presence of Thai troops in the disputed area unless Cambodia moves its soldiers out.
''If Cambodia does not withdraw its soldiers, we won't either, because it is the overlapping area,'' he said.
Mr Khieu Kanharith backed off his assertion on Tuesday that Thai troops had been captured in Cambodia, saying it was a misunderstand
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen told the public to remain calm and not to ''inflame [the situation] or add fuel to the fire''
Political tensions driving temple row
By Jonathan Head
BBC News, Bangkok
Both Thailand and Cambodia retain troops at the hill-top temple
A week after the controversial listing of the ancient Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage Site, the dispute that has flared up between Thailand and Cambodia is still causing tension.
The 11th-Century Hindu temple lies along the border between the two countries, but in 1962 the International Court of Justice judged that it belonged to Cambodia.
However the land surrounding the temple is still disputed, and the only practical access is from Thailand.
The issue has stirred up nationalist emotions in an already sensitive political climate in both countries.
Early on Tuesday three Thai protesters crossed into the temple - which remains closed - and were detained for a short time by Cambodian troops.
The Cambodian authorities also say 40 Thai soldiers crossed into their territory briefly, although they are putting this down to confusion over the precise line of the border.
For both sides there is more at stake than a temple.
Cambodia is preoccupied with a hard-fought general election campaign, in which Prime Minister Hun Sen aims to extend his more than two decades in power.
Last week he encouraged thousands of Cambodians to join a rowdy celebration of the temple's new international status in the capital, Phnom Penh.
In Thailand feelings are running even higher; the government elected last December was already floundering under a combined assault by street demonstrators, unfavourable court verdicts and the parliamentary opposition.
Its opponents have accused it of incompetence, and of being led by nominees of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed by a coup in September 2006.
Now the government is being attacked for selling out the country over Preah Vihear, because it initially supported Cambodia's bid to list the temple.
One of Thailand's top courts judged that decision to be unconstitutional, as it was in effect a treaty which needed parliamentary approval, and it has barred the government from offering any further co-operation with Cambodia.
As a result Foreign Minister Noppodol Pattama was forced to resign last week, one of three ministers to lose his job over the past two months.
Opposition from elite
The volatile state of Thai politics is the principal reason the row has blown up.
Thai society is still deeply polarised between those who support Mr Thaksin, and want him to stage a political comeback, and those who loathed his leadership style and mistrust the motives of the government, which is led by his party.
The fact that before being appointed foreign minister, Mr Noppodol had been Mr Thaksin's chief lawyer made his position particularly vulnerable.
His critics accuse him of putting his former client's business interests in Cambodia before the country's interests over the temple, something he has strongly denied.
That suspicion harks back to the five-and-a-half years Thaksin Shinawatra was in office. As an immensely wealthy and successful businessman himself, he promoted his can-do ethos around the country, especially in poorer rural areas.
He believed in the global marketplace, and in exposing Thais to its risks and opportunities. He pushed hard to privatise state-owned industries and get free trade agreements with as many countries as he could.
Inevitably he provoked opposition from those who felt they would lose out, or from those who felt he cared more about making money than about Thailand's traditions and interests.
The most vehement opposition to the Preah Vihear World Heritage bid comes from the same groups who objected to many of Mr Thaksin's policies: the traditional, royalist and aristocratic elite and elements of the Bangkok middle class.
Historical rivalry
But there are also genuine historical grievances at play.
The international court decision awarding Preah Vihear to Cambodia in 1962 was not unanimous. It rested largely on Thailand's failure to protest against the French-drawn border line in the decades before.
At the time it was mapped, a hundred years ago, Thailand had few skilled cartographers of its own.
The French colonial cartographers were supposed to draw the border along the forested edge of the Dangret Escarpment, but they veered in a few hundred metres to put the temple on the Cambodian side. It is not clear why the Thais did not object then.
But it is worth remembering that in 1941 Thailand fought its only war of the 20th Century with French colonial forces over where the border with Cambodia should lie. A huge monument in the centre of Bangkok still commemorates that conflict.
At different periods in the past Thai and Khmer empires have vied for dominance in the region; the town next to the famous Khmer ruins at Angkor Wat is Siem Reap, which means "Siam [Thailand] flattened".
Khmer-style temples like Preah Vihear still dot much of Thailand's north-east.
That historical rivalry still resonates today. Only five years ago the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh was burned down by an angry mob after a Thai actress was wrongly quoted as saying Angkor Wat should belong to Thailand.
As it awaited news of the listing of Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site, the Cambodian government took the precaution of reinforcing security around the re-built Thai embassy.
thai-Cambodia stand-off continues
Both Thailand and Cambodia claim territory that surrounds the temple
Officials from Thailand and Cambodia have called for dialogue as a military stand-off at an ancient border temple enters its second day.
Two hundred Thai and 380 Cambodian troops are said to be deployed at Preah Vihear temple, which sits on disputed territory along the border.
The build-up happened after Cambodia said Thai troops had crossed to its territory - a charge Thailand denies.
It comes days after Unesco listed the temple as a World Heritage Site.
The International Court awarded Preah Vihear temple to Cambodia in 1962, but areas around it remain the subject of an ongoing border dispute.
The Unesco move has reignited nationalist tensions, particularly in Thailand. Opposition forces are using the issue to attack the government - which initially backed the heritage listing.
'Misunderstanding'
The stand-off began on Tuesday, when Cambodian guards arrested three Thai protesters.
Thai troops then began crossing the border, Cambodia said. Thai military officials say their troops are deployed in Thai territory.
On Wednesday, as troop numbers increased, officials from both sides sought to defuse the situation.
"I think it's better to say this is some kind of misunderstanding," Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said, when asked if the incident constituted a Thai invasion.
The soldiers were interacting peacefully at the site, he said.
Thai army commander General Anupong Paojinda, meanwhile, called for dialogue to resolve the row.
"There should be negotiations between the two countries. The problem has been unaddressed for a long time because there has been no demarcation of the border yet," he said.
"I want the problem to be solved, and the solution must be accepted by both countries."
Local residents are reported to have left the site but so far the only casualty of the stand-off is a Thai soldier injured by a landmine - likely left over from when the Khmer Rouge occupied the site.
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