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 Modern Asian Studies
32
,
4
(
1998
), pp.
849
–
890
.
©
1998
Cambridge University PressPrinted in the United Kingdom
 Borders on the Fantastic: Mimesis, Violence, and Landscape at the Temple of Preah Vihear
P. CUASAY
University of Washington
 Peace based on a fallacy is not for the living. The living must and shall demand thetruth, for such is the way of nations, and such is the way of man.
—Seni Pramoj,speaking at the World Court, March
27
,
1962
(Pleadings,
564
)
On
15
June
1962
, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) pro-nounced judgment on a dispute between Cambodia, formerly acolony of France, and Thailand, formerly called Siam, a neighboringkingdom which had never been formally colonized. The disputeregarded territorial sovereignty over the area of an ancientBrahmanic temple named Preah Vihear (following the Khmer lan-guage of Cambodia) or Phra Viharn (following Thai language). TheTemple is perched high on a spur of the Dangrek mountain chain which roughly forms the boundary between both countries. North of the Dangrek lies the Khorat Plateau of Northeast Thailand, whileto the south the Temple affords a magnificent view of the forestedCambodian plain below. The judgment was peculiar in that it reliedupon absence to startling effect. Applying the principle
qui tacet con- sentire videtur si loqui debuisset ac potuisset
(Judgment,
23
) [He who keepssilent is held to consent if he must and can speak—
 ibid.
,
96
], ICJheld that Thailand’s failure to protest the inaccuracy of a map pur-porting to reflect the watershed line between the two states, and thusby the Treaty of 
1904
the international boundary between them,constituted tacit acceptance of the map line as the line establishedby treaty. The effects of this reasoning were as follows: (a) a grossrepresentation, a
1
:
200
,
000
scale map that made a considerableerror in placing the watershed, was held to fix the boundary, sup-planting the treaty text, which specifies a physical fact, the water-shed line, as the boundary; (b) concrete acts of sovereignty on theground were largely dismissed as being ‘exclusively the acts of local,provincial authorities’ (Judgment,
30
) while mere inferences aboutbehavior taken to be absence of official protest received legal force;and (c) the ‘general political conditions existing in Asia at thisperiod,’ (Judgment,
128
) i.e., the enormous facts of French colonial-
0026
–
749
X/ 
98
 /$
7
.
50
+
$
0
.
10
849
 
P. CUASAY 
850
ism, were ignored. The response to the judgment in Thailand wasincredulity and outrage. The World Court reasoning was seen, in the words of Thai Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman, as a ‘miscarriage of  justice,’ while other ‘Officials contacted were puzzled that the courtbased its judgment on a map, considered actually only a roughsketch.’ (
 Bangkok Post
, June
18
,
1962
)Looking back on the oral pleadings and the judgment together with the dissenting opinions, what seems truly strange is that if ICJ,in resolving the dispute with a map, hoped to uphold the stability and finality of conventional agreements between States rather thancapitulate to achievements of sheer conquering force, then the basisfor its judgment ran exactly in reverse. Dramatizing the failure toprotest, the World Court seemed to announce not an end to violence,but a need to perpetually anticipate it, to respond with unmistakable vigor to any threat against sovereignty, real or imagined. Envisioningthis kind of fortress mentality, where every uncertainty in repres-entation might open a credibility gap and every silence might be adoorway to danger, the World Court of 
1962
may appear to us today as a haunted Hague, encircled by the ghosts of the Cold War. Butalready at that time, other ghosts were conjured up during the caseof Preah Vihear. Acts of the delimitation commissioners of 
1905
–
1908
and their dead presidents were scrutinized for their effect onthe Thai–Cambodian border, and the meeting of a dead prince anda dead archaeologist became fraught with consequence. And haunt-ing for its absence among these ghosts of colonialism was any men-tion of the contemporary Holy Men’s Rebellion that so preoccupiedthe populace of this borderland which, before consolidation of modern nation states, had been a largely autonomous collection of tributory principalities in the Khorat marginal highlands, an areathe Siamese Kings called Forest Khmer Domains [
 huamuang khamen padong
in Thai]. This paper is a route map to these mutual hauntings,as I brush international law against the grain on a sightseeing tourof the many sites at which this border’s history, in words Counselfor Thailand used in the case, ‘borders on the fantastic.’ (Pleadings,
621
)
Picturing Absence
Let us see, first of all, how the court read a
gift of souvenir photographs
.In the written memorials and oral pleadings, both Cambodia andThailand highlighted one event from
1930
as a clear display of the
 
THE TEMPLE OF PREAH VIHEAR 
851
meaning of their conduct. It was precisely this event which ICJ alsospotlighted in
1962
as a clear example of their reasoning.
In this connection, much the most significant episode consisted of the visitpaid to the Temple in
1930
by Prince Damrong, formerly Minister of theInterior, and at this time President of the Royal Institute of Siam. . . . The visit was part of an archaeological tour made by the Prince with the permis-sion of the King of Siam, and it clearly had a quasi-official character. Whenthe Prince arrived at Preah Vihear, he was officially received there by theFrench Resident for the adjoining Cambodian province, on behalf of theResident Superior, with the French flag flying. The Prince could not possibly have failed to see the implications of a reception of this character. A cleareraffirmation of title on the French Indo-Chinese side can scarcely beimagined. It demanded a reaction. Thailand did nothing. Furthermore, when Prince Damrong on his return to Bangkok sent the French residentsome photographs of the occasion, he used language which seems to admitthat France, through her Resident, had acted as the host country.. . . Looking at the incident as a whole, it appears to have amounted to atacit recognition by Siam of the sovereignty of Cambodia (under FrenchProtectorate) over Preah Vihear, through a failure to react in any way, onan occasion that called for a reaction in order to affirm or preserve title inthe face of an obvious rival claim. (Judgment,
30
–
31
)
In a dissenting opinion, Wellington Koo of Nationalist China madeout an entirely different picture and ultimately concluded the ICJreasoning was ‘strained and unreal.’ (Judgment,
98
)
The incident of a visit of Prince Damrong to the Temple of Preah Vihear in January 
1930
and the presence of the French Resident of the neighbouringCambodian province of Kompong Thom on the scene in his official uniform with decorations and the appearance of the French flag on a pole in frontof his own pavilion is regarded as particularly significant. But the facts aresimple and do not support the claim of significance assigned to it. ThePrince was no longer Minister of the Interior; he was President of the RoyalInstitute of Siam. . . . He made the trip . . . in the latter capacity, accompan-ied by his three daughters and a suite of officials. The French Resident had with him his assistant and the noted French archaeologist Henri Parment-ier. When the parties met on the Temple grounds, speeches of welcomeand thanks were exchanged and toasts were drunk. The Resident said hehad come to present the compliments of the Superior Resident and his ownto the Prince for his ‘reputation as a sincere friend of France and her sub- jects and proteges’ and also as a well-known archaeologist. No allusion wasmade by the French Resident to any question about the territorial sover-eignty of the Temple, though Parmentier, speaking as a fellow archaeologistand extolling the fame of the Prince for his interest in archaeology, referredto the Temple as ‘another monument of our Cambodia.’ The Prince, in hisreply, said that ‘he had come to see the Temple and had nothing to do withpolitics.’
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