Cambodia has accused Internet giant Google of being “professionally irresponsible” over its map of an ancient temple at the center of a border dispute with Thailand, a letter seen by reporters showed yesterday.
The Google map “places almost half of the Khmer [Preah Vihear] temple in Thailand and is not an internationally recognised map,” said the letter written by the Cambodian Council of Ministers Secretary of State Svay Sitha.
He described the map as “radically misleading.”
PHOTO: EPA
“We, therefore, request that you withdraw the already disseminated, very wrong and not internationally recognised map and replace it,” Svay Sitha wrote.
The complaint was made as Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen made his first visit to the 11th century Preah Vihear temple yesterday, angering Thailand.
Hun Sen began a tour of the area close to the temple by opening a school and giving supplies to villagers caught up in violence last year between the two countries’ troops.
“I have never asked for compensation. For me, it doesn’t matter about compensation,” said Hun Sen, referring to the destruction of a Cambodian market during a gunbattle last April. “They [the Thais] have invaded us and look down on us.”
Hun Sen, with his wife, Bun Rany, and several senior ministers, gave bags of rice, blankets and mosquito nets to villagers before proceeding in a heavily guarded convoy to visit the 11th-century temple ruins.
Cambodia and Thailand have been at loggerheads over their border for decades. Nationalist tensions spilled over into violence in July 2008, when the Preah Vihear temple was granted UNESCO World Heritage status.
Relations between the countries deteriorated further in November after Hun Sen appointed ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who lives abroad to escape jail for corruption, as an economic adviser.
Four soldiers were killed in clashes in the area in 2008 and three more in a gunbattle last April. Smaller flare-ups continue to be reported between troops in the area.
During Hun Sen’s one-day visit he also accused Thailand of plotting to “invade” again.
“They are still keeping it in their minds to invade Cambodia and do not know when they will stop. The invaders have never left us, even though they can kill their own citizens,” he told the crowd.
More than 100 Thais gathered on the Thai side of the border to protest against Hun Sen’s visit.
The Thai-Cambodia border has never been fully demarcated, partly because it is full of landmines from decades of war in Cambodia. The World Court ruled in 1962 that the temple belonged to Cambodia, but its main entrance lies in Thailand.
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