A short-term political settlement will require bilateral negotiations and third-party mediation, but the ultimate restoration of peace and order along the border will mainly depend on how Thailand’s domestic endgame is played out in the coming months and Cambodia’s willingness to stay out of it.
At issue in the ongoing bilateral spat is the contested 4.6 square kilometres that adjoin a millennium-old Hindu temple known as Preah Vihear to Cambodians and Phra Viharn to Thais. Phnom Penh insists the disputed land has been under Cambodia’s territorial sovereignty since the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) landmark case in 1962. In its 9:3 verdict, the ICJ ruled that Cambodia’s map, drawn up by French surveyors during 1904–07, put the temple area in Cambodia, and Thailand (Siam, until 1939) had not shown discernible objections previously.
This French-made map became the core of contention because it manipulated natural geographic divisions. Thailand does not accept the map because it contravenes the Franco–Siamese agreement in 1904, stipulating a demarcation along a watershed line separating the two countries. French mapping also took place just a decade after Siam ceded a clutch of territories — much of western Cambodia today — to France. It was a period when France perched atop Indochina as colonial master and when vulnerable Siam was compelled to trade off a host of unequal treaties with European powers for its independence.
But until recently the overlapping claims on the 4.6 square kilometres were not an issue. Villagers and merchants from both sides conducted brisk business and border trade unfettered by the authorities. Bilateral political temperatures rose when Thai politics heated up following the military coup in September 2006 that overthrew the elected government of telecommunications tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra.
In 2008, after Thaksin’s proxy People’s Power Party took power following an election victory, the Thai government signed a joint communiqué agreeing to Cambodia’s listing of Preah Vihear Temple as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The communiqué became the lightning rod for Thaksin’s opponents at home, spearheaded by the yellow-clad People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD). They depicted the Cambodian UNESCO registration as a treasonous sell-out of Thai sovereignty, using it as an instrumental plank to destabilise the pro-Thaksin government. During its rampage in 2008, when the PAD seized control of Government House and Bangkok’s two airports, its protest leaders hectored Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen, likening him to a hooligan. Exacerbating matters, the PAD progenitor of the insult to Cambodia became Thailand’s foreign minister.
When Thaksin’s opponents succeeded in taking power back in December 2008, led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and reinforced by the army, bilateral tensions with Cambodia became inevitable. Hun Sen had scores to settle with the anti-Thaksin coalition of the Democrat Party, PAD and the army. In 2009, Hun Sen even appointed Thaksin as an economic advisor to the Cambodian government, inviting him to deliver a high-profile public address in Phnom Penh. The Thailand–Cambodia relationship has been rocky since, alternating between periods of friction and conciliation.
The latest spate of armed clashes along the border this year stems from PAD provocation, led by leaders who felt betrayed and abandoned by Abhisit and some of his powerful backers. PAD’s yellow shirts returned to the streets with ultra-nationalism over Preah Vihear on the one hand and a domestic anti-corruption drive on the other — openly calling for a military coup to ostensibly clean up Thai politics.
The PAD initially found little traction. The Thai army stayed out of the Preah Vihear controversy and the Abhisit government shrugged off PAD machinations. But as the anti-establishment red shirts increasingly went on the march against the army’s suppression of their fellow demonstrators in April–May last year, the army became agitated. A major tipping point may have been the red shirt leaders’ allusion to the conspicuous royal silence that coincided with the army’s violent suppression. The army’s fear of a clear and present danger to the monarchy was heightened.
The Thai army became increasingly assertive. It unilaterally ruled out the presence of regional observers on the Thai-Cambodian border, a deal mediated by Indonesia in February. The Abhisit government, congenitally beholden to the army, soon took the same cue and effectively reneged on the Indonesia-brokered peace drive — a blow not only to Indonesia as the chair of ASEAN this year but also to the regional organisation itself and its quest to become an ASEAN Community by 2015.
If ASEAN is not allowed a mediating role, the Thai–Cambodian spat may wind its way back to the UN Security Council, which earlier delegated the issue to ASEAN amidst heavy lobbying by Bangkok and Phnom Penh. (Cambodia aims to multilateralise the border conflict as much as Thailand tries to limit it to bilateral negotiations.)
The Thai–Cambodian border battles that involved tanks and heavy artillery are unlikely to degenerate into open warfare on a large scale, as the ASEAN framework acts as a cushion and mutual commercial interests ultimately prevail. But sporadic shooting and verbal antagonism between the two sides will continue as Thailand’s powers-that-be close ranks in a right-wing turn toward symbols and institutions of royalism, entrapping Hun Sen, who should have stayed on the sidelines in the endgame unfolding in Bangkok.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is professor and director of Chulalongkorn University’s Institute of Security and International Studies in Bangkok, and a visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.
An earlier version of this piece was originally published here by Project Syndicate.