Far away on a remote border between Cambodia and Thailand, an international conflict is brewing. The United Nations Security Council has been notified. Newspapers in Thailand and Cambodia report on hourly developments and, at least in Cambodia, the Ministry of Education warned students to remain calm in the face of nationalist fervor, recalling past violence triggered by similar disputes.
The problem? Both countries lay claim to the 900-year-old Khmer Buddhist temple of Preah Vihear, which lies on the mountainous border between the two countries. As the temperature of dispute has increased, both sides have mobilized troops and weapons at the border, an undemarcated boundary that is still full of landmines from past conflicts. Reports say the troops are calm, even trading cell phone pictures, though it is smack in the middle of the rainy season and one soldier was quoted as saying that they are like worms in their trenches.
Experts are poring over a 1962 International Court of Justice ruling about the temple and, delving further back into history, a 1904 map of the area prepared by French experts. A marathon meeting in Siam Reap, Cambodia, on July 28, with the foreign ministers and their staffs, seemed to put some oil on the troubled waters but left the crisis essentially unresolved.
The crisis was triggered as Cambodia celebrated a decision by UNESCO's World Heritage Committee awarding world heritage status to the temple. Cambodia's petition was seven years in the works, so the outcome was a source of national pride. But Thailand cried foul.
I was intrigued to explore how religion played a part in the matter--either its provocation or a solution. Speaking to one of the Cambodian negotiators at some length and, more briefly, to someone in Thailand familiar with the religious dimensions, the answer seems to be surprisingly little, given that the whole dispute is about a temple.
At many levels the crisis has all the signs of an old fashioned diplomatic standoff. It came at a time when coalescing popular opinion around national pride seems a convenient result for both disputants. Cambodia and Thailand are close neighbors with many tight ties but also ancient grudges and tensions. Cambodia held elections recently (the government did resoundingly well), while Thailand is in the midst of a political crisis; opposition leaders accuse the government of letting down the nation by mishandling the Temple affair.
Both Thailand and Cambodia are largely Buddhist, and the same type, so this is not a religious dispute. More worrying is that the religious community seems little involved in searching for solutions or pressing harder for peace. There have been at least some calls from Buddhist monks, Cambodian and Thai, for a non-violent settlement, but other monks are facing off in the temple itself. And they are part of the rallying behind "the cause" in the two capitals.
I was told that Buddhist traditions do not support an active peacemaker role. But surely they don't support war-mongering either. If a lasting solution to the temple dispute is to be hammered out, the monks need to be involved. Hopefully in the days ahead the Buddhist principles of violence, harmony, right-thinking, and loving kindness will lead to a solution to the stand-off. Meanwhile, the peripheral role of religion in a dispute about a religious site is a reminder of how removed religious voices are from matters of international import.
