Thailand and Cambodia vie for the high ground in temple standoff

[Coventina]

Source: The Guardian UK

In the capital cities of Thailand and Cambodia, the military standoff that has seen hundreds of troops line up along their border over the past two weeks is widely believed to threaten war. At the heart of the dispute is a 900-year-old temple to which both sides lay claim - and with a Thai government mired in political crisis and its Cambodian counterpart facing elections tomorrow, neither side has been willing to stand down.

But for opposing soldiers patrolling the border just feet apart from each other, the mood was a little lighter as Cambodian troopers joke about their inferior equipment. Over swapped cigarettes, ageing hand-grenades take particular stick. The pins have a lethal habit of falling out, and the soldiers point mockingly at rubber bands that serve as a fail-safe.

In nearby Ban Phumsaral, on the Thai side of the border however, the two-week build-up is no laughing matter. Frightened villagers just a few miles from the Thai exclusion zone that has sealed off the Preah Vihear temple site gather around radios for the latest word, hopeful that Monday's ministerial meeting will offer hope of an end to the dispute.

Nothing is being left to chance, though. As the still of night envelops the village of 520 families, vigilantes armed with crude rifles handed out by district authorities begin their first patrols of dusty roads flanked by rice paddies.



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/26/thailand.cambodia

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Still keeping my fingers crossed that it won't come to violence...