Illicit Activities, Dependence on Thailand Grow in Preah Vihear Community

preah vihear province – On Jan 14, 2003, thousands of Cambo­dians marched up the stone steps of Preah Vihear temple, celebrating improved access to the site once reached only by days of grueling overland travel, helicopter or, from the Thai side, smooth asphalt.

Those flag-waving masses startled Thai border officials, watching from their closed check­point. They wondered aloud how so many Cambodians made it to this 600-meter-high promontory of the Dangrek mountain range.

“We told them the whole road was already paved,” Chhoy Borin, division chief of Immi­gration Police, said, laughing at the lie.

Improvements initiated by former Phnom Penh governor Chea Sophara, carried out over a year, saw most of the 113-km track from the provincial capital of Tbeng Meanchey to the temple patched, graded and demined.

Nothing was paved, however, and nothing has been maintained.

Phnom Penh is almost another 300 km away. By automobile, the trip takes about 12 hours. And after about an hour and a half of National Route 6A’s smooth blacktop, it is mostly jarring.

Consequently, tourist arrivals to Preah Vi­hear temple from the Cambodian side still lag.

“When the road first opened, many Cambo­dians came. But since it has become damaged, not so many come,” said Chan Ra, 40, a food ven­­dor who squats on the temple site with her children.

Preap Tan, Preah Vihear pro­vincial governor, said there were no plans to repair or maintain the road either, as the Phnom Penh mu­nicipality had not contacted him about continuing Chea Sop­hara’s development mission. “We have no money, and I do not hear any news from the Phnom Penh municipality to continue with the construction,” he said.

But Mann Chhoeun, the muni­c­i­pal Cabinet chief, insisted the Preah Vihear project had not been abandoned.

“We have already planned to continue road construction to Pre­ah Vihear temple and to repair the damage in this year. Now we are just talking about the budget. We plan to continue all the work that Chea Sophara began,” he said.

Though the road may no longer be perceived as the symbol of national pride and defiance of Thai imperialism that it was a year ago, it has allowed some assistance, and considerable commerce, legal and illicit, into the area.

“Just since this road has been built, things have improved,” said Var Sareth, 45, who has lived in Mo­ha Thal village, about 10 km from Tbeng Meanchey, since 1975.

Traffic past her roadside home has in­creased, causing the cost of transportation to drop. Selling rice at the Tbeng Meanchey market and buying groceries there to resell in her village are now more profitable, she said.

Farther north, at Sa Em village in Choam Khsan district’s Kon­touth commune, Ke Soeurb, 47, agreed. “During the 1980s, the road was mined, so we couldn’t take the oxcart to get to the market. We walked through the jungle to Choam Khsan town, where there is a small market,” she said. “If we don’t have a good road, our rice is worthless.”

But while the new road has benefited residents, the increased accessibility of their resources has made them more appealing to the powerful and unscrupulous.

The previous day, a man sped up on a motorbike in Thmei commune, Kulen district, and identified himself as a local forest official. He said he recognized newspaper reporters from Phnom Penh and wanted to tell what was happening to the area’s forests—much of which comprises Kulen Prom Tep Wildlife Sanctuary.

“Before, when this road was not built, not many people from Phnom Penh and other places came in. But now, the road is good, and many people come to do logging,” he said.

“They are rich people and the people from far away—Kompong Cham, Kompong Thom and Siem Reap provinces,” he said.

They bring chain saws and flash­lights to cut down the trees after nightfall, the forest official said. Then the timber leaves in ox-drawn carts.

Preap Tan confirmed his story.

“Some powerful people do cutting. Now they start to do it at night,” the governor said.

Men Sara, a coordinator with human rights group Adhoc, based in Tbeng Meanchey, also told of mass deforestation. “They are cutting trees along the new road through Preah Vihear, but it is inside, not along the road. If you look from the road, you see trees,” he said.

Men Sara also blamed the road’s quick deterioration on large trucks hauling loads of smuggled tim­ber and black-market Thai gas­o­line down it during the rainy season.

A provincial police official, who asked not to be named, said the gasoline transportation was the primary cause of deepening ruts.

“The smuggled gasoline is carried on very big Rus­sian military trucks. It is easy for them to damage the road during the rainy season.

“These people have links with the authorities, so it is easy for them to smuggle. If they did not have the local authorities’ support, they could not. So the smugglers do not care about the road. They are just thinking about how to get more money, how they can load more gas­o­­line on one truck,” he said.

Villagers also complained of authorities forcing them off of family land.

“The problem is that we aren’t confident in the authorities be­cause they come and try to steal our land,” said Sok Samay, 58, another resident of Sa Em village.

She said commune, district and provincial officials had evicted her family and five others from property they had occupied for generations without compensation. “Officials told me it is not a violation of human rights. They told me violating human rights is kill­ing the people or raping the girl,” Sok Samay said.

Men Sara of Adhoc said, al­though he had not investigated as far north as Sa Em village, his office spends most of its efforts sorting out land disputes on behalf of Preah Vihear’s villagers.

Preap Tan acknowledged that land-snatching by powerful figures is widespread and he pledged action. “From now on, anyone who tries to grab land or exploit it un­lawfully will go to court,” the governor said Wednesday. “We do not care who they are.”

Ke Soeurb, a neighbor of Sok Samay, was also troubled. “They give us only 5 meters by 18 me­ters. How can we live? We are farm­ers, not town people,” she said.

“There is plenty of land. They can build anywhere. Why do they want the land of the people in the village?” Sok Samay said. “Maybe they want us to live in the sky…. I don’t think Chea Sophara would do like this.”

Like many people who live along the road, these women credit Chea Sophara with its improvements.

Prime Minister Hun Sen curiously sacked Chea Sophara shortly after last year’s Jan 29 anti-Thai riots, pinning the upheaval in Phnom Penh on the former governor without offering much of a case against him.

Chea Sophara, who at the time was enjoying much attention from the new road’s opening, was traveling back from Preah Vihear at the time of the riots.

Despite his humbling dismis­sal, Chea Sophara is still lionized a year later by most people here for the road and additional largesse.

Ke Soeurb praised him for do­nating rice, soybeans, salt, prahok, blankets and kramas to her community. “Since Chea Sophara disappeared, we do not have any assistance,” she said.

Her husband, Roth Som, 49, com­mented on Chea Sophara’s successor. “Kep Chuktema came here one time for the inauguration of the health center, but he gave no assistance to the people. The people like Chea Sophara, not Kep Chuktema.”

Eng Sophea, who runs a food stall at the market below the temple, was visibly dissatisfied with Kep Chuktema. “That guy is very scared. He never comes to see the temple,” she said.

Despite little attention from Phnom Penh, ven­dors like Eng Sophea are getting by, but they rely on Thai tour­ists and an open border.

Thailand locked its gates, citing the alleged pollution of a stream flowing into its territory, from December 2001 till the end of May 2003. The closure strangled the isolated Cambo­dian economy at the temple and prompted Chea Sophara’s efforts.

Some Cambodians doubted the Thai’s professed reason for closing the border. After all, as the graffiti on its stones attest, the temple’s ownership has been contested by the two countries for many years.

Thai lettering scrawled on the ruins claim them as the achievement of Thai kings, and Cambo­dian vendors sell photographs of men they said were Thai kings who invaded Cambo­dia and claimed Preah Vihear temple.

The vendors could not identify the photograph’s subjects but said they were hugely popular among Thai visitors.

Julio Jeldres, official biographer of King Norodom Sihanouk, wrote this week that he had found no evidence of Thai royalty visiting Preah Vihear temple, though he added that it was not impossible.

Jeldres also wrote that an eminent Thai archeologist concluded  that the architectural and decorative style of the temple is early Bapuan or true Bapuan—a style that flourished during the reign of Khmer King Suryavar­man I.

Further research indicates that King Suryavarman I likely ordered the construction of Preah Vihear temple in the 11th century, at a time when his empire included most of Thailand, Laos and parts of Vietnam, Jeldres wrote.

The International World Court officially decided the ownership debate on June 15, 1962, calling it Cambodian by a vote of nine to three. Thailand was ordered to withdraw its occupying authorities.

Apparently, for some Thais, the ruling still smarts.

In a Jan 15 interview, recently ap­pointed Thai Ambassador Piya­wat Niyomrerks said: “This was not a happy incident for the Thai people. It has been almost 40 years now, and the people of the two countries, especially in Thailand, 45 to 55 years later, they would have only one thing in mind—the Preah Vihear temple,” he said.

Cambodian scholar and activist Lao Mong Hay also noted the Thais attachment to the Khmer temple, comparing it to Spain and Gibraltar, or the Khmer and Kam­puchea Krom.

Lao Mong Hay on Wednesday told of a Bangkok tourist attraction, Ancient Thai Cities, that features scaled-down models of Thai­land’s historical sites and includes the Preah Vihear temple.

“It was built in 1964, two years after the [International Court] verdict. The replica was big enough for me to enter,” he said.

But at least once in recent history the Thais have been baited, according to an anecdote Lao Mong Hay related.

He said that in 1984 he was at the Institute of South­east Asian Countries when King Norodom Sihanouk, then head of the coalition fighting the Vietna­mese-backed government in Phnom Penh, visited to give a lecture.

Lao Mong Hay said one of his fellow researchers, a Thai, asked the King what the fate of Preah Vihear temple would be after Cam­bodia resolved its conflicts.

The Thais will be Preah Vihear’s curators like the French are Angkor Wat’s curators, Lao Mong Hay recalls the King answering.

Since the border at the temple has reopened, relations between the countries’ officials have been tense. There have been con­­flicts between authorities over ac­cu­sations of encroachment. RCAF Corporal Chok Chea re­ported that Thai fighter jets had buzzed the temple about three times a month until three months ago.

But Cambodian authorities stationed there say that, for now, the threats and standoffs have evolved into curt but harmless needling.

Thai immigration police “bring Thai karaoke to sing in Cambodia, and we take Khmer karaoke to sing in Thailand, but we ask each other’s permission first. We are friendly now,” said Chhoy Borin, the local immigration police chief.