Political Fallout from UNESCO Site

The UNESCO award of World Heritage listing to the Preah Vihear Hindu temple in Cambodia has led to political fallout in Thailand and a Minister has resigned.

News has just reached me that Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama has resigned over the affair of the Preah Vihear Hindu Temple. A top court ruled that he had violated the Constitution by signing a deal .

As the temple is built on land disputed by the two countries, the judges ruled that the Foreign Minister should not have backed Cambodia in its petition to have the temple on the Thai-Cambodian border listed as a world heritage site, without first asking parliament.

The Thai people are intensely patriotic and are proud of the fact that as a nation they were never conquered. They will not countenance the sale of national property, seing this as an implicit surrender of sovereignty. Ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra found this out to his cost when he sold off his Shin Corp Telecommunications to Singapore.

Foreign Minister Mr. Noppodon’s appointment was a controversial one as he used to be a lawyer for the former Prime Minister Thaksin, ousted in a military coup in 2006. His support for the UNESCO listing (see blog of July 9th) sparked a wave of nationalist anger which grew with the announcement by the Constitutional Court that he had erred in his decision.

He announced that he was stepping down on national television, insisting that he had done nothing wrong. He fought back the tears as he told the viewers he had not sold out his country. “I love Thailand” he said, “and I would not cause any damage to the country”.

The 900-year old Hindu temple has been the subject of a border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia for decades. In 1962 the Internatioanl Court of Justice ruled that it belonged to Cambodia and ever since it has been at the centre of a bitter dispute between the neighbouring countries.