Even by the standards of Thai-Cambodian relations, the current saber-rattling taking place along their shared border is excessive, with leaders on both sides of the border dispute at Ta Muen Thom temple using the military stand-off to rally their people behind struggling governments.
Cambodia’s former Prime Minister Hun Sen, who handed power to his son Hun Manet after the 2023 election, has led from the front, consistently comparing last week’s shootout in a disputed border area, which left one Cambodian soldier dead, with the 2008-2011 conflict over Preah Vihear temple.
Hun Sen is playing a deft hand, saying that the deployment of troops and heavy weaponry is not intended for war but to prepare for potential adverse developments should there be any violations from the other side.
The stand-off dates back to February, when a group of Khmer women arrived at Ta Muen Thom, 150 kilometers east of the Preah Vihear, singing a nationalistic song that went: “All Khmer people are happy to sacrifice their lives when the nation is at war and shedding blood.”
It has since escalated to the point where Hun Sen has warned that Cambodia now has a developed comprehensive air defense system in place along the border.
“If enemy aircraft fly at high altitudes without initiating attacks, we let them be,” he said. “But if they descend to strike, they will be met with thousands, even tens or hundreds of thousands, of anti-aircraft rounds.”
Hun Sen said that he also wants a three-pronged approach to resolving the dispute with military, diplomatic, and legal approaches, a doctrine straight out of the Preah Vihear playbook.
That conflict erupted after Thai troops crossed the border and occupied the Angkorian temple at Preah Vihear, which had already been recognized as Cambodian territory by a decision of the U.N.’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1962. The boundaries were quite clear.
In 2013, after the guns fell silent, the verdict was reaffirmed by the ICJ, and Cambodia effectively won the day. But the low-level conflict left 34 people dead, injured many more, and forced thousands of Cambodian villagers to flee inland or across the border into Thailand.
A major difference confronting Cambodia between then and now is the current lack of independent reporters working in-country: trusted, objective sources that people go to for the facts to form their own opinion as opposed to the nationalist jargon thrown out by the state-run media apparatus.
It was those independent journalists – perhaps hundreds of them – foreign correspondents and Western journalists working on English-language newspapers who helped set the international agenda on the Preah Vihear conflict, particularly among diplomats.
Then Foreign Minister Hor Nam Hong was quite pleased by the response to the Thai incursion because rarely had Cambodia enjoyed the almost unanimous support of the free press, which quite rightly viewed the Thai incursion as an invasion of Cambodian sovereignty.
That made his job a damn sight easier but this time around in what’s known as the Emerald Triangle, where the borders of Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos converge, the demarcation is far less clear amid overlapping claims in densely forested land.
The robust independent press corps is long gone, reduced to barely a handful of journalists who work at considerable risk, a demise which began with a relentless crackdown on opposition voices in 2016 that continues to this day. Phnom Penh can only hope that the world believes its official line.
It’s a difficult ask, given that the official line delivered with great bluster is too often at odds with the international community, over issues ranging from human trafficking and scam compounds to local corruption, assassinated politicians, the Ream Naval Base, and the state of the economy.
In Thailand, where the media is much more robust and independent – the country sits 48 places above Cambodia on the World Press Freedom Index – the coverage has been less shrill and focused on direct negotiations within the well-established Joint Boundary Committee.
Hun Sen again wants his country’s claims in the Emerald Triangle heard before the ICJ, including the disputed Chong Bok Pass in Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province, but this idea was rejected by Thai Army spokesperson Maj. Gen. Winthai Suvari on Sunday.
Thailand is content to have the disputed area governed and resolved by existing agreements made through the boundary committee, which until Sgt. Suan Roan, 48, was killed, had served both sides reasonably well.
Unlike in the Preah Vihear case, an ICJ hearing would lack precedent, while Cambodia lacks international influence, with a state media providing little more than an echo chamber for wishful thinking.
The road ahead may well be much harder than the 2008-2011 Preah Vihear conflict.