THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Thailand and
Cambodia will face off at the United Nations' highest court Monday, in
the latest move to settle a decades-old battle for control of a disputed
border region that has erupted into deadly military clashes.
Cambodia
is asking the International Court of Justice to order Thailand to
withdraw troops and halt military activity around a temple at the center of the dispute between the Southeast Asian neighbors.
The conflict involves small patches of land along the border that have been disputed for more than half a century.
Fighting has repeatedly broken
out since 2008, when Cambodia's 11th-century Preah Vihear temple was
given U.N. World Heritage status over Thailand's objections.
Talks mediated by Indonesia's
president earlier this month between the two countries' prime ministers
failed to hammer out a lasting cease-fire.
Fighting around the temple has cost about 20 lives and sent tens of thousands fleeing.
Cambodia is asking for an
"interpretation" of a 1962 ruling by the court that the temple is on its
territory and warns that if the intervention request is rejected and
clashes continue, "the damage to the Temple of Preah Vihear, as well as
irremediable losses of life and human suffering ... would become worse."
The dispute has stirred
nationalist sentiment on both sides of the border. But analysts say
domestic politics may also be fueling the conflict, especially in
Thailand, where the military that staged a coup in 2006 could be flexing
its muscles ahead of July 3 elections.
Cambodia said in April that a
written explanation of the 1962 judgment "could then serve as a basis
for a final resolution of this dispute through negotiation or any other
peaceful means."
Hearings Monday and Tuesday will
not deal with the substance of the case, which will be debated at a
later date, only the Cambodian request for the court to order a halt to
military action.
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