Thailand-Cambodia Conflict: Open-ending the truce is better than full-scale war

YELLOW PAD BY ED QUITORIANO

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The Thailand-Cambodia truce which began July 29 is fragile but holding. It gives hope that conflict parties use the agreement as an opportunity to negotiate a long-term solution to the border conflict.

While guns are silent, conditions are susceptible to the resurgence of violence. Military units on both sides maintain positions without a third-party peacekeeping force to act as a buffer. The Thai army vows no retreat from 11 border positions. Cambodia also reinforced its military presence in border zones a day after the truce was agreed upon.

Between the two frontline forces are issues of un-retrieved corpses of Cambodian soldiers, other Cambodian soldiers held by Thai forces as prisoners-of-war, and landmines that date back to the Cambodian civil war and Vietnamese invasion against the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, displaced communities have lost opportunities for cross-border economic exchanges.

The points of contention are the Preah Vihear and Ta Muem Thom temples, ancient temples dedicated to the Lord Shiva. The majority of Thais and Cambodians are Theravada Buddhists who do not worship the Hindu deity. The border conflict has nothing to do with religion. It is about claims of sovereignty over cultural heritage and the pieces of territory around the temples etched in colonial cartography. These are competing claims that can go on for a long time, as it had been, without use of force and mainly through international arbitration of the International Court of Justice.

The July 24 escalation of violence was not driven by renewed desire for territorial conquest. It was triggered by internal struggles of power and rule. In Thailand, it was an opportunity for the Thai military, royalists, and the Yellow Shirt movement to dislodge the Shinawatra political dynasty.