Thailand announced on Monday (Nov 10) it was suspending the implementation of a peace agreement with neighboring Cambodia after a landmine blast injured two Thai soldiers near the border.
The Peace Agreement had been widely praised, not least because of the involvement of U.S. President Donald Trump. (In fact, Trump had nothing to do with the Agreement.) The five main points were the following:
- Commitment to peace.
- Military de-escalation
- Release of 18 soldiers
- Normal diplomatic relations
- Refrain from misinformation
Numbers 1, 4, and 5 are pretty much empty words.
Number 2 has actually been complied with. Reliable photos have been released, showing columns of armored vehicles being pulled back from the border.
Number 3 is still a mystery to me. Yesterday morning was scheduled to be the release date of the 18 hostages. Ambulances were brought to a pre-arranged border crossing, in anticipation of bringing the hostages into Cambodia. If it had happened, there would have been tremendous hoopla in the media. The absence of any news seems to indicate that the turnover never happened. Why not?
The Agreement is important for what it does NOT address: the underlying core issue of the border dispute. That dispute is not even mentioned in the agreement. This fact suggests that the Agreement was at best a patch job designed to shut the major parties up temporarily. At its most cynical, it was a staged photo-op for Trump to show off to the world that he had stopped another war.
Standoff between Thai soldiers and Khmer villages.
The usual modus operandi is for Thai soldiers to encroach upon Khmer-held land, and put up coils of barbed wire as a way of ‘claiming’ the land.
Thai internal politics is admittedly complex. To oversimplify the situation, let’s think of it as a Nice Guy Faction (siding with the Shinawatra family) versus a Tough Guy Faction. One of the triggers to the recent conflict was a conciliatory telephone call from Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra to Hun Sen, in which she called Hun Sen ‘uncle’, made some guarantees about the border dispute, and criticized a Thai general. This so infuriated the Tough Guys that the Prime Minister was forced to step down.
The following is a timeline of the past couple of days. It is rather mysterious:
Monday – Thai soldiers step on landmines
A word about the landmines: This border area was once one of the most heavily and densely mined places in the world. Much of the land around O Bey Chuan village was demined, and IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) were resettled there.
By sheer coincidence, several years ago I was sent to O Bey Chuan on a research consultancy to determine the profiles (especially skills) of the IDPs, along with the types of crops that could be grown and marketed from demined land in that area.
The fact that much of the land around O Bey Chuan had been demined does not prove that Thai soldiers stepped on newly-planted mines, as they claim. Indeed, there were border areas that had not been demined, so the Thai soldiers might have stepped on 30-year-old mines. However, no Khmers have been injured by mines there; they knew that the area was dangerous and didn’t go there. If there had been recently laid mines, that fact would be known, as the Thais and the international observers would have seen the mines being laid. I conclude that that the Thai generals knew that the area was mined.
Monday – Almost immediately after mine incident, the Thai Prime Minister announces cessation of the Peace Agreement. The timing here indicates to me that the mine incident, followed immediately by the announcement, was planned by the Tough Guy Faction.
Wednesday Morning – The scheduled release of the 18 hostages. Ambulances were brought to the handover point. This would have been a concession to the Nice Guy Faction, but apparently the Tough Guys blocked it. As far as the media have been telling us, no one was released.
Wednesday afternoon 4 p.m. – Thai troops open fire on unarmed villagers. This was clearly a victory for the Tough Guys. The Thai press reports that only rubber or plastic bullets were fired, and tear gas was used to disperse the crowd, but the Cambodian authorities report at least 29 people injured, and one woman killed. A video on Facebook by SreyLeak Loeung clearly shows the confrontation, where the Thai soldiers were firing point-blank at the villagers. If the bullets had been real, there would have been great loss of life.
It would seem, therefore, that the Nice Guys Faction, while gaining some leverage with the Peace Agreement, have lost out to the Tough Guys Faction.
In all of this, it seems that the whole dispute, war, and peace agreement had little to do with Cambodia, but everything to do with internal Thai politics. That will continue to be the case. If the Tough Guys continue to hold sway, we can expect continued skirmishes initiated by Thailand, just to show the Thai people what tough guys they are. If the Thai populace grows tired of these little skirmishes, the Tough Guys may resort to more major incursions and warfare. Let’s hope not.
Sorry, Trump, you can no longer claim to have stopped 8 wars. (But you probably will continue that claim anyway.)