Dispatch: Thailand and Cambodia Fighting a 'Real War'?

Analyst Matt Gertken examines how Thai political divisions and Cambodia's bid to bring in international mediators have heated up the ongoing territorial conflict between Phnom Penh and Bangkok.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has declared that the conflict with Thailand on the border is a real war. Meanwhile the Thais are moving more tanks to the area and the issue is being caught up with international politics as well as Thailand's internal politics.
Thailand and Cambodia are ancient rivals and this particular dispute which is about a patch of land that really controls access to a disputed temple that's a world heritage site has flared in a number of times especially since 2008 when it received that official status from the UN. So it's not unusual for these two to spar back and forth. This time, however, the fighting was particularly intense; it lasted several days in a row, a number of casualties on both sides and a large number of villagers were evacuated from the area.
Domestic politics in both countries helped to drive into the point that they started fighting again. On the Thai side you have elections approaching which are supposed to be held in the first half of the year. These are very contentious elections and that's forced all the special-interest groups and factions in Thai politics to push on their major issues including the People's Alliance for Democracy, which is the yellow shirt group that helped bring the current government to power but really has kind of turned against it and is really driving this territorial and sovereignty issue hard hoping to put pressure on the current government to take a tougher stance against Cambodia.
And this is all taking place with the underlying fact that Thailand is going through a monarchical secession. The king hasn't died yet but he's very old and he's ruled for 65 years so as that transition takes place and the elections, in the more immediate sense, there's a lot of tension between Thailand's factions.
In Cambodia, seeing these divisions in Thailand and seeing the opportunity to take advantage of this particular dispute where Cambodia lacks in military strength is much less powerful than Thailand but has been able to attract a large international amount of attention to this. The Cambodians managed to go to the United Nations and get the Security Council to discuss it this time, which brings it to a higher level of attention. The United States has commented on it. Of course United States is conducting its major annual military exercises with Thailand at the moment so it's a little bit uneasy about the fact that the Thai military is involved with the conflict at the same time. And ASEAN the Association for Southeast Asian Nations has really dived in on this one. Even though ASEAN has dealt with the Thai Cambodian tensions before it really hasn't tried to be proactive. But the point is that you see multiple international actors starting to get involved in this dispute which really used to just be between Thailand and Cambodia.
The main thing to watch going forward is to see how well Thailand and Cambodia can contain the issue as they been able to do in the past, which means also containing domestic nationalism but at the same time we know that Cambodia has reasons to really take advantage of the fact that Thailand is embroiled in an ongoing internal political crisis. We certainly can't rule out the prospect of more fighting, although it tends to flare up based on the results of political calculations on both sides rather than just, you know, unmitigated conflict.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• hun sen
• cambodia
• thailand
• military
• border dispute
• Matt Gertken
• territorial conflict
• politics
• phnom penh
• bangkok
• asia pacific
• southeast international
• mediators risk
• thai political
• soldiers
• tanks

[Soksabai79]

@ihateThaiSHitsuck - Thailand is a piece of shit of Cambodia Khmer leftovers 500 years but Thai shit baboon still not able develop their own Thai shit culture but to show Thai princess boobs naked video around the world the true color of Thai shit baboon ignorant retard Thai shit naked culture Hahahaha

[Soksabai79]

@ihateThaiSHitsuck - Thai shit land is the car bombs, the floods, the drugs, the debt, the boobs using Khmer BIG DIG ANGKOR WAT in Thai shit baboon royal palace to promote tourists because Thai shit baboon princess boobs naked video is hungry for Khmer BIG DIG more Hahahahaha Never seen any country ignorant retard like Thai shit land full of Thai shit baboon ignorant retard walked to jail themselves in Cambodia,Thai shit baboon soldiers looks hungry for Khmer BIG DIG in jail in Cambodia Hahahaha

[MaxVolumeShow]

and, although I am Buddhist (trained in Judo, karate, kendo, bojitsu,and zazen by Japanese o-bo-san/monks), I don't feel there is anything special about Angor Wat, so just let it go to Cambodia ... no need to fight, and, (2) idiots like the Khmer idiots need to shut the f-up and understand their own bloody history, with or without CIA intervention (note: I did work for NSA, sister agency of CIA).

[MaxVolumeShow]

This is quite a joke .... Khmer descendants of one of the most evil leaders in recent history, with maybe only the exception of Hitler calling rather ignorant, yet arrogant Thais .... ummm,... "Thai shit baboon princess boobs naked video" .... let's see, I speak 7 languages, and that means NOTHING to me inn any language .... both countries need to grow up and understand, (1) every major world body has given Cambodia the right to manage that small amount of land,

[KingCarlosn]

i US and Cambodia call us for help O.o '='

[Inphonetasin]

ไอทักสินมันเหี้ย คนขี้โกง สั่งฆ่าปะชาชน เเล้วใส่ร้ายคนอื่น เเล้วเอาเรื่องชาวบ้านมานินทา

นี่น่าเรียกว่าอะไร ล่ะไอหน้าตัวเมีย ไอเลวทักสิน ชินอยู่กับวัด หมาอยู่วัด ทักสินต้องอยู่วัด

สมุนเเดงก็เลว รับตางทักสิน ตั้งเยอะ

เหล่าict ทำอะไรอยู่หรื เอาสงสัยเป็นคนทำคลิปรับใช้ทักค­วายหมาสิน

[ihateCambodiasuck]

@Shyavampire no no, all the people in the world knew that Cambullshit country is the FUCKING POOREST country in south east asia and there is a lot of corruption. STUPID CAMBULLSHIT son of my bitch !!

[Shyavampire]

@ihateCambodiasuck . what r u trying to fight with cambodia for ? what a point of that ? u fucken serious like wtf man , other country around the world know thai is fucken stupid now who is the winner??? get ur fucking face right man , u can't just jump up with the gun n think u r the man !! that's just stupid u fucken dumb fuck asian shit (thai)

[vichuda18]

thai should concentrate on the South,the Easth, the North, and the West.

[Soksabai79]

@kenjetshiro - You a re a piece of shit, you can't even protect your Thai monks, teacher, civilians, polices, soldiers have been killing by the car bombs everyday so don't even think of taking our capital in 1 hour. Thai shit baboons are still in jail starving in Cambodia and no one can take them out of jail even your new Thai PM Yingluck came licking Hun Sen ass Hahahaha go digging those foreign graves in Thai shit land and ask why they are occupying Thai shit land everyday Hahahaha

[racenemo]

Thai and Khmer only show off, they will not easy really fight.

No real war