Tuesday, 15 July 2008

Dharmayatra call hunger strike

The Bangkok Post
Tuesday July 15, 2008

ANCHALEE KONGRUT AND AP

Dharmayatra, the ultra-nationalistic Thai group which is trying to reclaim the Preah Vihear ruins for Thailand, announced it will launch a hunger strike to try to pressure the government to take action on the temple issue.

The group, led by Samarn Sringarm along with nine of its members, will begin its hunger strike today.

The group has already been exerting pressure on the government as some of them managed to get across barbed wire Thai soldiers had put up at the border with Cambodia. They sat in meditation in a Cambodian village within the overlapping area between the two countries.

The barrier had been erected by the soldiers to prevent protesters in Si Sa Ket province heading to the Cambodian village and clashing with locals.

The Thais want the Cambodians to be evicted from the overlapping area.

Despite the move being seen as only a media stunt, it paved the way for anti-government protesters to launch their campaign against the government, said Pranee Hriphong, a member of the Dharmayatra group.

On Thursday, activist Veera Somkwamkid will make a speech on the Thai side near the temple and on Sunday, hundreds of farmers from the Association of Northeastern Small-Scale Farmers _ a powerful grassroots group _ will camp overnight there.

The Cambodian government, meanwhile, organised another mass rally yesterday to celebrate the listing of the 11th century Preah Vihear temple as a world cultural landmark.

Around 10,000 people were expected to gather late yesterday to celebrate Preah Vihear temple's new status as a Unesco World Heritage site, said Mann Chhoeun, deputy governor of Phnom Penh municipality which organised the event.

The ceremony will be presided over by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An in the wake of his return from Canada, where he lobbied a Unesco committee meeting to designate the temple as a cultural treasure.

''We have succeeded in this goal not by just sitting idly. We struggled hard to get it,'' Mann Chhoeun said.

Preah Vihear was declared a World Heritage site a week ago in spite of the strong objections from Thai anti-government groups.

The two countries have a long-standing dispute over the land that surrounds the temple, and Thai activists have recently revived nationalist sentiment over the issue.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded the temple and the land it occupies to Cambodia.

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