Thailand Cambodia border stand-off

High level talks between Thai and Cambodian officials have failed to come to terms on the week-long military stand-off over the disputed Preah Vihear temple on their shared border. While both sides expressed the desire to ease tensions, neither have given ground in talks in the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet, 380 km from the 11th century temple at the centre of the dispute. So far there have been no casualties and both sides talked up the peace. Thai Supreme Commander Boonsrang Niumpradit saying Thailand had a “reasonable offer” while Cambodian commander Chea Mon said he didn’t want armed troops disturbing Buddhist monks praying at the temple.

Both countries are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). An ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Singapore originally scheduled to discuss the aftermath of Burma’s cyclone Nargiss was sidetracked by the border spat between Thailand and Cambodia. The two countries agreed to "exert utmost efforts" to find a peaceful solution to their border standoff. Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo says both sides were urged to resolve their differences amicably in the spirit of ASEAN solidarity and good neighbourliness. "Both sides affirmed that they would abide by their ASEAN and international obligations and exert their utmost efforts to find a peaceful solution to the issue," said Yeo in a statement.

However Yeo’s statement appeared optimistic given what was happening on the ground. More than 500 Thai troops face off against well over 1,000 Cambodian soldiers stationed around a small Buddhist pagoda leading to the ruins of the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, where nearby land is claimed by both sides. Although traditional Thai land, it was ceded to French Indochina in a 1906 treaty with Thailand. While Japan promised the land back to Thailand during World War Two, Thailand agreed to return it to Cambodia after the war in order to secure UN membership. Cambodian ownership has since been confirmed by an International Court of Justice ruling.

However Matters came to a head when UNESCO listed Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site this month. UNESCO said the site was exceptional for three reasons: firstly its natural situation on a promontory, with sheer cliffs overlooking a vast plain and mountain range; secondly the quality of its architecture adapted to the natural environment and religious function of the temple; and thirdly, the exceptional quality of the carved stone ornamentation of the temple. It cited the fact that both the governments of Cambodia and Thailand were “in full agreement that the Sacred Site of the Temple of Preah Vihear has Outstanding Universal Value.”

However the decision triggered political uproar in Bangkok, where the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) accused the government of selling out Thailand's history by backing the listing. PAD have fastened on to the nationalist strains of this “sell out” to oust Thai PM Samak Sundaravej. The anti-Thaksin Shinawatra party have been conducting street demonstrations against the government since June. Their protests gained new impetus with the UNESCO decision and they claim Sudaravej had gained business concessions in Cambodia in payment for ceding Thai territory.

The Thais call Preah Vihear “Khao Phra Viharn”. The temple was the subject of a prolonged legal tussle between the Thai and Cambodian governments, both of which claimed ownership after centuries of rivalry, invasions and fluctuating borders. In 1961-62, the International Court of Justice got involved and declared that the site belonged to Cambodia. In 1963, Thai Prime Minister Sarit told his country in a televised address that Thailand would comply with the Court ruling and withdraw from Khao Phra Viharn. The site has been under Cambodian administration since then.

But for tourists the site is still easiest reached from Thailand. Telegraph journalist Alex Spillius visited the site in 1998 by Cambodian army helicopter but says he was lucky to survive the experience. For those not inclined to hitch a lift from the military, the journey to Preah Vihear from Cambodia involves a two-day journey from Siem Reap , the town that serves Angkor Wat, “on small roads that, although improved, would still not do your spine any favours.” From Thailand, a visit can be built in to a tour of the north-east, (known as “Isaan”) starting at Nakhon Ratchasima or Ubon Ratchathani airports, both short flights from Bangkok. It is a short walk across a border where passports were not required. However no tourists are welcome to Preah Vihear for the time being.

Gautama and Buddhism

Thousands of Buddhists are marching worldwide in solidarity with the current protests in Buddhist Tibet. With 365 million followers, over 6 per cent of the world’s population claim to be Buddhists. It is the fourth largest religion in the world behind only Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. Established in India in the sixth century it spread out across south, east and south-east Asia before emerging as a truly international movement in the 20th century. Arguably not even a religion, Buddhism is certainly a tradition that focuses on personal spiritual development that dates back almost 2,500 years.

The first external evidence about the existence of Buddhism comes from inscriptions made by King Asoka who ruled the Mauryan state of North India from 269 BCE to 232 BCE. This was some two hundred years after the death of the Buddha himself. The majority of what we know about the life of Siddartha Gautama comes from the voluminous Buddhist scriptures written in various Asian languages. The most useful of these texts were written in Pali, an extinct north Indian dialect which was close to Magadhan, the language most likely spoken by Gautama.

These traditions began to be preserved shortly after his death. Itinerant Buddhist monks wandered around the cities of the Gangetic Plain and taught Buddha’s message of enlightenment and freedom from suffering. During the impassable monsoon rains, the monks retreated to their settlements where they discussed doctrine and practice. Eventually some began to collect their testimony of Gautama and formalised it into songs, discourses and rules of their orders in formulaic and repetitive style. Several monks were assigned the role of committing anthologies to memory.

After a hundred years, these discourses became formalised as the Pali Canon. They covered the Buddha’s sermons, stories about his life, suttas about the Eightfold Path and the makeup of human personality, anthologies of his epigrams and poems, and the Book of Monastic Discipline which codified the rules of the Buddhist Order of monks. They paid more attention to the philosophies of the Buddha than the key dates of his life, which remain frustrating vague for modern scholars. These Pali texts became the provenance of Theravada Buddhism which stressed the importance of yoga and honoured monks who became “Arahants”, accomplished ones who had achieved enlightenment like the Buddha himself.

Siddharta Gautama was born in the sixth century BCE in Kapilavatthu in the foothills of the Himalayas. His father was one of the leading men of the town and showered his son with every pleasure he could desire. But young Siddharta felt suffocated by his lifestyle and took to the road at the age of 29, leaving behind a wife and son of his own. India was undergoing an economic transformation at the time with power transferring from the priestly caste to the merchants. Gautama believed that family life was not conducive to spirituality and he joined the thousands of mendicants, mostly men, who settled in the forests near the plain in a search for “brahmacariya” (the holy life).

Gautama’s Holy Grail was Nibbana or Nirvana (“blowing out”); a deathless, sorrowless and incorrupt place where it was possible to extinguish life’s passions, attachments and delusions. It was also an attempt to deal with the North Indian belief of karma, the endless cycle of death and re-birth. Gautama was preoccupied especially with the horror of re-death and Nirvana, like many other theories of the day offered a way to extricate people from this endless cycle.

Gautama travelled to the Kingdom of Magadha, in modern Bihar south of the Ganges. There he came to the attention of King Bimbisara who was apparently so impressed by the young almsman, he offered to make him his heir. But Gautama instead set off in search of a teacher to guide him through his spiritual apprenticeship. He found what he wanted in Vesali, the capital of the Videha Republic. The school here, under Alara Kalama taught that ignorance not desire was at the root of human problems and suffering derived from lack of understanding of the true Self.

Gautama mastered the essentials of Kalama’s path by using the disciplines of yoga. The word is derived from the verb “yuj” meaning ‘to yoke’ or ‘to bind together’. Yoga was an ancient Indian tradition which cultivates a different mode of consciousness. Gautama used it to train his mind into a state that lay beyond error and illusion. This required the young monk to practice five prohibitions to bring his mind under control. They forbade him to steal, lie, take intoxicants, kill or harm, or have sex. He practiced ‘asana’ the physical cross-legged posture characteristic of yoga where he learned to cut the link between mind and senses by refusing to move. Once he entered a trace, he moved through a succession of stages until he reached the third ayatana – blissful ‘nothingness’.

But Gautama remained dissatisfied he had not found a truly unconditioned and uncreated self. He tried asceticism which proved as fruitless as yoga. Eventually he gave himself up to a childhood memory of sitting under a rose-apple tree when he had gained an ecstatic moment. He wondered if this was the way to enlightenment. He began to notice the ebb and flow of his feelings and sensations and took note of sensual desire when it happened. He became supremely aware of himself and took on as he called it, a state of mindfulness. This purification process took many years. One day around the year of 528 BCE he was walking by the Neranjara River where he spotted a pleasant grove for meditation. He sat there and took up the asana position determined not to move until he achieved enlightenment. It was here he became a Buddha. The word Buddha meant the Enlightened or Awakened One. This spot, now known as Bodh Gaya is an important site of Buddhist pilgrimage.

The rest of the Buddha’s life was spent helping others achieve the same state. But he did not preach. He became known as Sakyamuni the Silent One from the Republic of Sakka because his knowledge was ineffable and could not be described in words. He had no doctrine, no theology, no theory about root cause and no definition about ultimate reality. What was important to him was ‘letting go’, his purpose was to enable people transcend pain and attain the peace of Nirvana. Buddha lived a long life and died an old man in an obscure town. But a Buddhist has no time to think of himself, even on his deathbed. To the last he taught. His final advice to the monks that followed him was “All individual things pass away. Seek your liberation with diligence”.