BANGKOK – Democrat party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva has threatened to censure the People Power Party if it does not protect Thailand’s claim to the 750 parking spaces next to the ancient Khmer temple of Preah Viharn.A motion by Cambodia to have the temple registered as a UNESCO world heritage site has renewed a decades-old border dispute. In 1962, the International Court of Justice ruled that the temple belongs to Cambodia but some land around the temple belongs to Thailand.
“If the Samak government cedes even one parking space to Cambodia, we will launch a motion against them for not preserving Thai sovereignty,” announced Abhisit. “These parking spaces belong to all the Thai people.”
The parking lot was built by Thailand in the 1990s in order to capitalize on tourist traffic to the temple, which is legally part of Cambodia but essentially inaccessible via roads in that country.
Abhisit said the parking lot “is an essential part of our national heritage, without which Thailand would never be the same again. We have always reaped huge financial windfalls from our incompetent neighbors, and the parking lot outside the black magic Khmer temple of Preah Viharn is part of that centuries-old cultural tradition.”
He suggested placing red, white and blue striped cones in all 750 spaces until the dispute was settled.
