The Temple of Preah Vihear
tries agreed to cooperate towards a nomination by Cambodia of the Temple to the World Heritage List. In Thailand, this joint statement was received very negatively, and the political backlash led to a change in the Foreign Ministry and a formal with- drawal of Thailand’s support for the nomination.
In 2008, Cambodia submitted the nomination file to the World Heritage Committee. The nomination was approved, though the Committee encour- aged negotiations to be reinitiated with Thailand for the management of the site and the creation of a buffer zone around the Temple (and eventu- ally even a joint nomination by Cambodia and Thailand, to include the surrounding natural area). According to the International Council on Monu- ments and Sites, an important NGO in the field of heritage protection and an active advisor to the World Heritage Committee, the importance of the Temple of Preah Vihear, especially if compared to Angkor Wat (which has been on the World Heri-
34 104°37'E 104°37'30"E 14°26'N 104°38'E 104°38'30"E 104°39'E 104°39'30"E 104°40'E
tage List since 1992), is the interaction between the Temple of Preah Vihear itself and the natural environment surrounding it. Without the natural environment—a significant portion of which is in Thai territory—the significance of the Preah Vi- hear site is greatly diminished.
The World Heritage Committee has since issued annual decisions urging Cambodia and Thailand to agree on a joint management plan for the site. However, cooperation seems a distant goal. When the Temple’s inclusion on the World Heri- tage List was announced in 2008, another wave of protests erupted across Thailand, renewing an- ti-Cambodian sentiments and creating a sense of urgency that escalated into additional border skir- mishes and military confrontation in and around the Temple of Preah Vihear, causing damage to architectural features of the Temple.
These skirmishes prompted Cambodia to file an
sketch–map of provisional demilitarized zone identified by the court This sketch-map has been prepared for illustrative purposes only
104°40'30"E T H A I L A N D 14°25'30"N 104°41'E 104°41'30"E 104°42'E 104°42'30"E 104°43'E 104°43'30"E
C 14°25'N 14°24'30"N
D
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B 14°23'30"N
Temple of Preah Vihear
14°23'N A 14°22'30"N 14°22'N
provisional demilitarized zone road track path
(former) stairway contours, interval 20 m
WGS84 Datum Elevations are metres above sea level C A M B O D I A ILSA Quarterly » volume 20 » issue 1 » October 2011 0 0.5 1 2 km
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