We were ready: "They left with their hands in the air!" Cambodian General Chea Dara said of a group of 10 Thai soldiers whom the Cambodians captured and returned -- claimed a great victory in the little skirmish that took place Oct. 15
Chim
By SETH MYDANS THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: Sunday, November 2, 2008 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, November 1, 2008 at 8:40 p.m.
PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia -- Brightly colored lines of washing hang by
the gray stone walls. A vendor offers sunglasses, shampoo and
cigarettes from a plastic sheet under a tree. A man with a Polaroid
camera sells souvenir photos to the Cambodian soldiers camped on the
temple grounds.
At the main gate, where an hourlong firefight with Thai troops broke
out less than three weeks ago, the commander of a Cambodian border
police unit is playing cards with his men.
It is a sleepy interlude here at the Preah Vihear temple, on the Thai-
Cambodian border, where this summer a dispute over sovereignty became
the most volatile international confrontation in Indochina in 20
years.
Cambodian troops occupy the swooping cliff-top temple, which is in
Cambodia but is most easily reached from the high ground on the Thai
side. The Thais, who claim parts of the territory around the temple,
are mostly out of sight in the hills or in camps nearby in Thailand.
But the Cambodian government seems to be digging in for a long siege.
A new budget expected to be approved in the coming week would double
the country's military budget to $500 million -- or 25 percent of all
government spending.
"We cannot sit and watch Thai troops encroach on our border," Cheam
Yeap, deputy head of the finance commission of the National Assembly,
was quoted by Reuters as having said. "Our army needs to be more
organized, better trained, with newer bases and well-fed troops."
The encampment here has the village feel of Cambodian deployments
throughout conflicts in recent decades. A small market has opened
under red and blue tarpaulins; a barber has put out his chair; a
satellite dish brings in both Thai and Cambodian soap operas for the
officers to watch.
Soldiers calling their families wander the cliff's edge searching for
a cell phone signal, which switches between Thai and Cambodian
carriers as they walk.
At the bottom of the great stone causeway, giant loops of silver razor
wire close off the main entrance, guarded by armed men wearing
sandals; the 900-year-old temple, with its sagging walls and tumbling
columns, is empty of tourists.
The commander of the forces here, Gen. Chea Dara -- a man who looked
to be in his 50s and wore a white tank top along with his gold
wristwatch, and held a dripping red dragon fruit -- claimed a great
victory in the little skirmish that took place Oct. 15.
"They left with their hands in the air!" he said of a group of 10 Thai
soldiers whom the Cambodians captured and returned. He raised his arms
and shook them, adding: "They were trembling! They thought we would
kill them."
Other tales are told on the Thai side, and the origins and outcome of
the clash remain unclear. Soldiers here say that three Cambodian
soldiers died, two by gunfire and one from a heart attack. The Thais
admit to one death and several wounded.
Tiny marks of shrapnel fleck the great stone staircase that rises from
the Thai side to the temple, along with two stone dragons that flank
the steps. But nothing seems to have been gained or lost in the
fighting.
The dispute flared in July, when UNESCO, the cultural agency of the
United Nations, declared the temple a World Heritage site, based on a
Cambodian government proposal. Domestic politics in Thailand fueled a
nationalist response, and troops, artillery and tanks were moved into
position.
The confrontation echoes with the history of the rise and retreat of
empires over the centuries, and old fears and hatreds still burn
between Cambodia and its more powerful neighbors, Vietnam and
Thailand.
The dispute also draws together the tangled strands of more recent
conflicts, with roots in the Vietnam War and the brutal decades of
massacres and civil war involving the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia.
One Chinese-made 85-millimeter artillery piece at the lip of the
precipice was brought to Cambodia by invading Vietnamese soldiers in
1980, and it may have been used against American troops a few years
before that. Since then, both Khmer Rouge and government soldiers have
fired it as control of Preah Vihear changed hands.
After the Cambodian civil war ended a decade ago, the Khmer Rouge were
integrated into the government army, and the combined force is facing
off now against Thailand.
The Thais, armed and equipped mostly with American weaponry, have the
advantage in firepower as well as air cover from fighter jets. Their
300,000-strong military is three times the size of the Cambodian armed
forces.
But the Cambodians, with their more tormented history, are more
hardened soldiers. Some have fought since they were boys in the 1960s.
"They wanted to test us, to see if Cambodian troops are easy to
intimidate," said Col. Meas Yoeun, 48, a ranking commander in Preah
Vihear province.
"They curse us and mock us and look down on us," he said of the Thai
soldiers. "They say we have old weapons and ask us if they really
fire."
According to the Cambodian soldiers camped here, the Oct. 15 battle
began with taunts as Thai troops across a small stream shouted at
them, "Come on, let's fight!"
Touch Socheat, 39, a captain in the border police, said he had come to
know some of the Thai soldiers by name over the weeks as they called
back and forth, and he felt betrayed when they started shooting.
"One guy got hit right over here as he was taking a bath," he said,
pointing to an open pump. "I'm not going to trust them anymore."
Srum Mao, 45, a deputy post commander for the border police, said the
two sides were keeping a close eye on each other now.
"We watch what they do," he said. "When they carry ammunition, we
carry ammunition. When they dig a bunker, we dig a bunker. When they
put down their weapons, we put down our weapons. We are watching each
other."