The Preah Vihear temple for the most part was unknown to people not from the area until Thailand’s now former and disgraced Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama signed a document with Cambodia in June 2008. From that point on the issues evolving around the Preah Vihear temple have come to the front burner on the stove with the burner set on high.
Looking at this issue as an outsider would, they would first see a dispute of ancient ruins of a Hindu temple that sits on the border between Cambodia and Thailand. Looking further they would see that the disposition of the temple as to what country it belongs to was ruled on in 1962 and that ruling awarded the temple to Cambodia. Apparently there is some of the temple that sits on Thai soil and the actual border has never been established. What happened in June of 2008 and why it flared up is a blending of political and Thai national pride.
Although the court ruled against Thailand, many Thais never accepted the ruling in their hearts. As a result the signing of the documents between Thailand and Cambodia was all it took to set this off. Thailand’s ruling party the People Power Party (PPP) is under attack for a variety of reasons, this signing became just another avenue of attack. The signing was ruled to be in violation of the Thai constitution in that parliament was excluded. The reputation of the PPP of not caring about laws, rules and the Thai people and now also being seen as very possibly giving up Thai soil to Cambodia has set this nationalism movement in motion. This has lead to escalation of conflict ant the site of the temple with both Thai and Cambodian military on the scene. There is no doubt to outsiders that the temple issue is being used as leverage to force this apparently useless Thai government out.
In the interest of sorting this matter out quickly and fairly, Connecting the Dots offers this as a fair and un-bias solution.
There are many such places that fall on the borders between two countries. A good example is Niagara Falls that is both in Canada and the United States. Both see the financial benefit to sharing this display of nature.
Between the immigration checkpoints of Cambodia and Thailand in what is known as a ‘transit zone’ where technically you are not in any country according to your passport. In this area there are Restaurants, casinos and duty free shops. The immigration check points are several meters from the actual border, so essentially part of the transit zone is still physically in the country however no sovereignty is lost.
To simply place a border checkpoint and place all of the Preah Vihear temple inside this transit zone makes the most sense as no sovereignty is lost by Cambodia or Thailand. The actual physical borer can be made as a straight line between the end points of the disputed border area.
As for what type of stamp for your passport is needed could be sorted out later. Perhaps non at all as a person could not enter the other country beyond the transit zone without an exit stamp in their passport. As for the people guards or whoever working in the transit zone, the minor details of that can be worked out later.
This simply defuses the situation and allows the entire site to be jointly beneficial to both countries as both can lay claim to the site as a whole. This is the same as a mother and a father claim their children as a whole. So simply the temple becomes a child of both Cambodia and Thailand.
