Cold War Conflicts over a Khmer Temple.

• Author: Burgess, John
• Position: Temple of Preah Vihear case between Cambodia and Thailand

Title: Cold War Conflicts over a Khmer Temple

Author: John Burgess

Text:

Judges at the International Court of Justice in the Hague typically rule on dry and technical issues such as rights of passage through foreign air space or obligations under international conventions. But in October 1959, they were asked to determine ownership of a ruined, thousand-year-old stone temple standing on the windy summit of a cliff in Southeast Asia.

The case known as Temple of PreahVihear (Cambodia v. Thailand) transfixed the two countries during the three years of litigation that followed but also drew close attention from the region's American diplomats. While declaring themselves neutral in the dispute, the Americans were eager to see it resolved. To them it was a troublesome distraction from the main job in the region, shoring up South Vietnam, where an insurgency that would become the Vietnam War was already underway.

American claims of neutrality faced an awkward complication a year into the proceedings. One of the biggest living names in American diplomacy, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, signed on as hired counsel for Cambodia. His presence in the court's ornate hearing hall in the Hague led many people to conclude that the U.S. was backing Cambodia.

PreahVihear stands atop a precipice that to its builders was Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods. The sandstone temple was the work of the Khmer Empire, creator of Angkor Wat and other remarkable temples that stand near the Cambodian town of Siem Reap. Originally PreahVihear lay deep within the empire's domain. But with the empire's decline and the emergence of modern states, it had come to sit right at the border between two distrustful neighbors.

In the late 1940s, Thailand sent paramilitary police to occupy the remote, largely deserted temple. At that point, hardly anyone in the two countries had heard of the place. But soon it became a very public point of contention for both peoples. Cambodians saw it as the glorious creation of their ancestors, their country's rightful property, now the subject of a land grab by Thailand. Thais felt it had been part of their country for centuries, giving them rights to guard it against a covetous neighbor.

Cambodia gained independence in 1953 after almost a century of French colonial control. Through diplomatic channels it asked the Thais to withdraw from PreahVihear, without success. As the larger, more militarily powerful of the two countries, Thailand saw little reason to comply. Tensions were compounded by the public insults and threats habitually traded by the two countries' leaders, Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Field Marshal SaritThanarat.

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