Late last week, I reported that as clashes between Cambodian and Thai military forces entered a second day, Thailand’s acting prime minister warned that the border dispute “could develop into war.” Initial reports indicated the areas under dispute were Khmer Empire temples claimed by both nations, but assigned to Cambodia via the United Nations.
There is now some positive news. It appears that Thai and Cambodian leaders met in Malaysia on Monday and agreed to halt the conflict.
Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to an “immediate and unconditional” cease-fire in a significant breakthrough to resolve deadly border clashes that entered a fifth day, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Monday.Anwar, who chaired the talks as head of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional bloc, said both sides have reached a common understanding to take steps to return to normalcy following what he called frank discussions.Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Thai Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai have agreed to an “immediate and unconditional cease-fire” with effect from midnight local time Tuesday, Anwar said as he read out a joint statement….Military and officials from both sides will also hold meetings to defuse border tensions, he said. The foreign and defense ministers of Malaysia, Cambodia, and Thailand have been instructed to “develop a detailed mechanism” to implement and monitor the cease-fire to ensure sustained peace, he added.
President Donald Trump commented on the development, highlighting his role in bringing the two sides to the negotiating table.
Thailand and Cambodia reached a ceasefire deal “through trade,” President Donald Trump announced Monday, ending a burgeoning conflict that displaced 260,000 people.The declaration from Trump comes after he said over the weekend that he had spoken to the leaders of Cambodia and Thailand, urging a ceasefire, adding the U.S. would not get back to the “trading table” with the southeast Asian countries until fighting stops.The fighting began Thursday after a land mine explosion along the border wounded five Thai soldiers. Both sides blamed each other for starting the clashes that have killed at least 35 people and displaced more than 260,000 people on both sides.”Numerous people were killed and I was dealing with two countries that we get along with very well, very different countries from certain standpoints. They’ve been fighting for 500 years intermittently. And, we solved that war … we solved it through trade,” Trump told reporters during his trip to Scotland.
Indeed, the deal may have been inspired by Trump, who offered both nations some sizable carrots to put aside hostilities in the form of trade deals.
Interestingly, there appears to be much more to this conflict, which reportedly began over a dispute about the ownership of temple complexes. Hun Sen, Cambodia’s long-serving former prime minister (now Senate president), and Thaksin Shinawatra, ex-prime minister of Thailand and head of the Shinawatra political dynasty, were once close allies. Thaksin lived in exile in Cambodia for years after his 2006 ouster, and Hun Sen named him an economic advisor, heightening both men’s reputations as power brokers in Southeast Asia.
They apparently had a falling out, which may lie at the heart of this conflict.
But what makes the current flare-up most bamboozling is that it pits two of Southeast Asia’s most formidable and, until recently, closest aligned families against each other. When border tensions first flared up last month, Thailand’s then-Prime Minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, called up Cambodia’s 72-year-old former strongman Hun Sen—Hun Manet’s father—to soothe tensions.However, Hun Sen leaked their June 15 phone call, during which Paetongtarn adopted a subservient tone and criticized one of her own generals, leading to her suspension by Thailand’s constitutional court pending an ethics investigation after 10,000 people took to the street demanding her resignation.“The Thai government and the Shinawatras were gobsmacked when Hun Sen leaked that very damaging phone recording,” says Phil Robertson, the Bangkok-based director of the Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates. “He really threw down the gauntlet.”It was a Shakespearean betrayal given Hun Sen had for decades been thick as thieves with Paetongtarn’s 75-year-old father, Thai political patriarch Thaksin Shinawatra, whom he had once described as his “god brother.”
Not only is the battle playing out on the border, but it is also taking place on social media.
Hun Sen [and Thaksin] lobbed insults at each other on social media. Mr. Thaksin said that many countries had offered to mediate but that he wanted to “let the Thai military do their duty to teach Hun Sen a lesson about his cunning ways first.”Mr. Hun Sen fired back at Mr. Thaksin on Facebook while referring to himself in the third person: “Now, under the pretext of taking revenge on Hun Sen, he is resorting to war, the ultimate consequence of which will be the suffering of the people.”Analysts say Mr. Hun Sen has sought to exploit the turmoil within the Thai government to shore up his own legitimacy. Even opposition figures in Cambodia have taken the government’s side, arguing that the disputed temples that lie along the border belong to the country. A crisis can also help solidify the nationalist credentials of Hun Manet, the current prime minister and Mr. Hun Sen’s son, who has implied that Cambodia’s one-party rule is better than the domestic chaos in Thailand because there is “no confusion or conflicting orders.”
The former close relationship between Hun Sen and Thaksin had provided a backchannel for defusing tensions in the past. Their personal and business falling out clearly limited the options for diffusing the conflict and made the situation precarious — at least until Trump interceded.
Hopefully, Cambodian and Thai leaders will rapidly settle the differences and resume a more peaceful coexistence.
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