Kanchanaburi backs heritage bid for Kwai bridge and Death Railway

Dr Prawat Kithammakunnit, president of the Kanchanaburi Provincial Administrative Organisation (PAO), spoke about promoting tourism in Kanchanaburi, particularly calls to push the Bridge over the River Kwai and the Death Railway, Second World War historical attractions, towards World Heritage status.

He said the area should be promoted as a world-class destination because it was a valuable historic site.

At present, many visitors who are unaware of its historical background come only to take photographs and leave.

The PAO wants to develop a museum so people can absorb the history of the war, when the Japanese army forced prisoners of war to build the railway.

However, he said it was regrettable that the PAO could not take action because the area is under the supervision of the State Railway of Thailand.

At present, parts of the area have been leased for commercial purposes, with shops operating in a disorderly manner.

Only Australia’s Hellfire Pass Interpretive Centre provides historical information, but it is still insufficient because, in fact, there is much more to the story.

The annual memorial event now held there is more like a temple fair and does not truly create a world-class tourist destination.

Personally, he believed that if this were overseas, the issue would attract strong interest and stand out clearly.

However, the State Railway of Thailand is currently developing a railway extension from the line ending at Nam Tok Sai Yok Noi station to Hellfire Pass station, which is also part of the original historic route.

This is a positive development, and if the government attaches importance to the matter and appoints an agency to push it forward concretely, the PAO is ready to support it.

Reports said the Ministry of Culture had previously taken up the push for World Heritage registration for consideration and study, but it had stalled for political-policy reasons, as Kanchanaburi was not a strategic area for the governing political party.

Representatives of Kanchanaburi had submitted requests asking about progress.

Akaranun Khankittinan, Deputy Minister of Education and a Kanchanaburi MP for the Pheu Thai Party, also sent a letter to the Ministry of Culture in May, but there has still been no progress.

At the same time, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, whose Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning, or ONEP, serves as secretariat to Thailand’s World Heritage Committee, agreed with the push.

Raweewan Bhuridej, permanent secretary of the ministry, said the Death Railway was historically important and had distinctive potential for registration as a cultural World Heritage site.

It could also be proposed as a mixed cultural and natural World Heritage site because some parts of the railway are in park areas, and Thailand has no mixed World Heritage site.

The World Heritage Centre also wanted a mixed proposal, but few countries had proposed such sites because the criteria were complicated.

The permanent secretary also said Thailand’s World Heritage sites still did not include any site related to the world wars.

In the past, several war-related World Heritage sites overseas, including in Japan and Korea, had been proposed for registration.

Thailand’s Death Railway, by contrast, had been very well preserved and maintained by the State Railway of Thailand because the section on the Myanmar side had been completely dismantled, leaving only the Thai side.

Its technical importance and the engineering principles behind its historical construction could also be explained.