[Marxism] [Resend] Re: Cambodian and Thai troops face off at Temple on often-tense border

[Anon Anon <inprekorr@xxxxxxxxx>]

apologies for the previous unjustified post.

> Well, I would take a pox on all their houses position, but
> for the fact that this is being driven by crypto-fascist
> and royalist elements in Thailand.  The present Thai
> government is under attack by the forces which conducted
> the last coup and are using this spurious issue of borders
> of the Khao Phra Vihar (spelling from memory) temple
> complex as a means to bring down the democratically elected
> government.  (That the present Thai government is nothing
> but a facade for the country's chief crony capitalist
> is not in question, but when the choice is a crony
> capitalist who is semi-democratic or the military/royalists
> who are aren't...)
> 
> Khao Phra Vihar is actually a truly fascinating and
> wonderful complex.  Historically as significant as Angkor
> Wat but much smaller, the only way to access the complex is
> from Thailand, up the side of a mountain.
> 
> At the time I visited about 8 years you could still see
> evidence (in more ways than one) of the Khmer Rouge who had
> occupied the strategically important location.  Being on top
> of a mountain with the foothills of Cambodia below, the
> Khmer Rouge spent a good part of the 1980s firing off
> artillery into the fields below.  There were still working
> artillery pieces when I visited.  The KR also mined the
> entire complex....evidence of which was clear from the UN
> helicopter which landed on a mine and exploded during the
> peace negotiations with the Khmer Rouge (from memory as
> late as 1994 in this area actually)....teh rusting hulk of
> which was still there six years later...but the enduring
> Khmer Rouge presence was amongst all the "guards"
> at the complex...part of the deal was that the local Khmer
> Rouge were given control of the complex (collecting the
> US$20 entrance fee for foreigners like me) and jobs were
> provided to all the soldiers.
> 
> So the real irony of all this is that the soldiers who are
> being mobilised now may well have been on the same side
> just a few years ago (ie the Khmer Rouge being supported by
> the Thais)....
> 
> 
> Fred Feldman wrote:
> The Thai-Cambodian border area was a hot spot from 1979
> till 1991, when
> Thaiand ran a string of refugee camps along the border that
> were basically
> handed over to the forces of the ousted Pol Pot regime,
> which they were
> supporting against the Vietnamese and Cambodian forces who
> had ousted Pol
> Pot in 1979.-
> 
> An international agreement in 1991 led to the withdrawal of
> most foreign
> troops and to a UN peacekeeping presence, which
> subsequently ended.
> 
> The government, now headed by Hun Sen, which Vietnam had
> supported and
> Thailand had sought to oust remains in power in Cambodia.
> Despite occasional strains with Washington, the government
> is very much capitalist and neoliberal in orientation. I
> see no sign of US involvement in what seems to me to be a
> threat of aggression against Cambodia.
> 
> But by instinct and force of habit, I tilt toward Cambodia
> on this one.
> Fred Feldman


      

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