The Preah Vihear Temple Dispute: When cosmic nationalisms fuel conflict
Julio A. Jeldres
Thursday 28 July 2011
Ambassador Julio A. Jeldres is a PhD Candidate and an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Monash Asia Institute. He served as Senior Private Secretary to King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia and has been since 1993 his Official Biographer. He is a graduate of Swinburne University in Melbourne, has published three books on the Cambodian Royal Family and the Cambodian Monarchy, and has translated the Memoirs of King Sihanouk into English. He has been a Visiting Research Fellow at Chulalongkorn University, and a Guest Lecturer at CASS (Beijing) and ISEAS (Singapore). He was awarded the rank of Ambassador of Cambodia (Honorary) in June 1993 by the King of Cambodia. His PhD thesis, entitled “Norodom Sihanouk Charismatic Authority and Cambodia’s Foreign Policy,” is a study of Cambodia’s Foreign Policy between 1953 and 1993. He has published on Cambodian politics, human rights, democracy development, relations with China and the monarchy, and has worked as a consultant on human rights issues with the UN.
Julio Jeldres provided the historical background and overview of the current developments in the Cambodia-Thai border dispute over the Preah Vihear temple complex. While Preah Vihear was judged to be on territory belonging to Cambodia by the International Court of Justice in 1962, some of the territory bordering the sanctuary is still claimed by Thailand. The issue has been complicated by strident nationalisms and also by decades of cultural acrimony which have made a settlement of the dispute through the involvement of ASEAN or the United Nations impractical. Now, the International Court of Justice has been asked to once again judge whether the territory bordering the Preah Vihear temple actually belongs to Cambodia or to Thailand. But even an ICJ ruling is unlikely to settle the dispute between these two neighbours.