Battling for God's Kingdom: Cambodian-Thailand questions of border

OPINION

- DR. SHADAB AHMED

The international border that runs between the Kingdom of Cambodia and Kingdom of Thailand has traditionally switched back and forth between the ethnic Khmer people speaking the Khmer Austro-Asiatic language in Cambodia and the ethnic & sub-ethnic groups of Siamese, Phuan, Mon and Lao Wiang people speaking the Tai language in Thailand.

The same border has historically been the apple of discord between the French, British and Japanese prior to and after the World Wars.

Cambodia and Thailand by divine prognostication have been separated topographically by the Dangrek Mountain Ranges, which forms a natural barrier between both the kingdoms.

Under Jayavarman VII, adherent follower of Mahayana school of Buddhism, Emperor of the Varman Dynasty and the Khmer Empire of Cambodia, the Dangrek mountain ranges became a majestic part of the Khmer Empire.

Little did the Hindu and Buddhist Varman dynasty and the preceding Zhenla dynasty of Funan know retrospectively that the Preah Vihear Temple, nestled in the Poy Tadi cliffs at the Dangrek mountains, dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva in his manifestation as the mountain Gods Sikharesvara and Bhadresvara, would become the source of a sustained and contiguous frontier dispute all through the Victorian Era, Industrial Age to the Modern Era.

The 1950s in Indo-China saw the converging and consolidation of Chinese, Soviet, American and French interests in the Indo-china geopolitical region - with communist, anarchist and fascist socio-political ideologies solidifying the Cold War dynamics and geopolitical fluctuations.