Wolfgang's photos with the keyword: Border conflict

The first temple complex was reached, the Cambodian flag impress us their holy myth.

At first, there was Thai flagstaff located on this site but now it remains only the base.

At many parts of this historical treasure a renovation is necessary. I hope that the Thai/Cambodian dispute will find a soon end that an international organization like UNICEF o.e. can start its program for maintenance this cultural asset.

A flag cannon still display the bad memory happened on this place before

The debris of a crashed Thai chopper still lie beside the ancient place. People tell different stories about the cause of the crash.

As you can see a Cambodian flag now flies over the entrance to the ruins where a Thai flag once flew. There are many bitter feelings toward the Thai from the Cambodian people due to the amount of time the Thais held onto these ruins.

The debris of a crashed Thai chopper still lie beside the ancient place. People tell different stories about the cause of the crash.

The temple ruins here are not in the best of shape. There has been little restoration of the ruins themselves here over the years, actually, none at all. The Cambodians are very poor and do not spend any money toward upkeeping the ruins. Conversely at another Khmer ruin inside of Thailand, the Khao Phanom Rung temple complex, the Thais have restored the ruins with the help of the French archaeologists and the grounds are well kept, beautiful even, and very clean and pleasant.

This helicopter crash site was up there on my trip up back in the 90's. It was a Thai army copter that crashed while bringing up some friend of either the Thai King or the Prime Minister, thats was local people say.

In modern times, the temple's location on the border between Cambodia and Thailand led to a dispute over ownership. In 1954, Thailand formally occupied the temple. In 1959, Cambodia applied to the International Court of Justice in the Hague to rule that the temple lay in Cambodian territory. In subsequent proceedings before the court, Cambodia based much of its case on a map drawn up in 1907 by French officers, some of whom had been part of a 1904 joint border demarcation commission formed by Thailand, then known as Siam, and the French colonial authorities then ruling Cambodia. The map showed the temple as being in Cambodia and was sent to the Siamese authorities as part of formal border demarcation activities. Over the subsequent five decades, in various other international forums, according to Cambodia, the Siamese/Thai authorities did not formally object to the map’s depiction of the temple’s location. Nor did the Siamese object when a French official from the colonial administration received the Siamese scholar and government figure Prince Damrong at the temple in 1930. Thailand counter-argued that the map was not an official document of the 1904 border commission. It also noted that the mutually accepted principle governing demarcation by that commission was that the border would follow the watershed line along the Dângrêk mountain range, which the Thais said would put the temple in Thailand. Thai authorities never felt the need to formally object to the map, the court was told, because they had practical ownership of the temple. Any acceptance of the map, the court was informed, was based on a false understanding that it followed the watershed line. On June 15, 1962, the court ruled that through its long lack of objection and its accepting and benefiting from other parts of a border treaty that grew from the 1904 commission's work, Thailand had in effect accepted the 1907 map, overriding any question of the watershed line, and that the temple belonged to Cambodia. The court declined to take up the question of whether the border as mapped in the vicinity of the temple corresponded to the watershed line. Thailand accepted the court's decision, but many Thais continue to believe that the decision was unfair. The accepted border line now passes just a few meters from the base of the southern steps.