South East Asia Correspondent in Bangkok
The guns with the Thai-Kambodian border in the forests are now silent for three weeks.
But a fierce war of words is still being teased by the two countries, as they want to win international sympathy and sideline public support at home. And a generally held scene in Thailand is that they are defeating.
“The perception is that Cambodia has appeared more agile, more vocal and more media lover,” Claire Pachimonon said while speaking on the Thai Public Broadcasting System Podcast Media Pulse. “Thailand has always been one step behind.”
The Century Old Border Disputes dramatically grew with a Cambodian rocket barrage in Thailand on the morning of 24 July, followed by Thai airstrikes.
Since then, an army of Cambodian social media warriors, supported by the state-controlled English language media channels, has exposed the allegations and floods of inflammatory reports, many of which turned out to be false.
He reported that a Thai F16 fighter jet was shot, which was posting images of an aircraft falling from the sky – it came out of Ukraine. Another unfounded allegation, that Thailand had dropped poison gas, left pink fire fighting with the image of a water bomb. It was actually from a forest fire in California.
Thailand responded with its own official statements, but often these were just dry presentations of figures, and they came from many sources – military, local government, health ministry, Ministry of External Affairs – who did not always coordinate with each other.
Bangkok failed to fulfill its argument that Cambodia, whose rocket marked the first use of the artillery and killed many Thai citizens, was responsible for the growth.
It is no secret that the elected Thai government, controversial billionaire Thakasin Shinavatra focused on the Fu Thai party, has an uncomfortable relationship with the Thai army.
It was very bad in June when Hun Sen, a former Cambodian leader and an old friend of Thacasin, decided to leaked a private phone conversation, which was with Thacasin’s daughter, Prime Minister Patongtern Shinavatra. He appealed to him to help resolve his differences on the border, and complained that the Thai was opposing the general commanding forces of the army.
The leak caused a political uproar in Thailand, inspiring the constitutional court to suspend it, and weakened the government as a border crisis.
Hun Sen has no such difficulty. Technically, he has handed over power to his son, Hun Manet, but after running the country for nearly 40 years, it is clear that he still takes over the reins.
The army, ruling party and media are strongly under his control. Their objectives of burning their friendship with Shinavatras are not clear, but it seems that he was preparing for a big struggle on the border.
From the very beginning, Han Sen posted continuously on her Facebook page, in Khmer and English, taunting the Thai government, as well as with photographs that showed her in army uniforms or loving on military maps.
In contrast, the most visible figure on the Thai side has been the Mercurial 2N Army Commander Lieutenant General Bonsin Padling. He is the same officer who complained by Petongtern, and his Belikose nationalism has won him a lot of fans in Thailand, but has also reduced the government’s rights.
Hun Sen’s Cambodia author Sebastian Stranger says, “Hun Sen is very smart, the way his leadership has shaped the country.
“He has already used this odd strategy of widening the divisions in Thailand. And the fact that Cambodia is great in playing the role of a victim, has given it another powerful weapon against Thailand in the international field.”
Thai officials admitted that they were struggling to combat the strategy used by the Cambodian side.
“It is completely different as to how information wars have been waged first,” Russell-Menister, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs told the BBC.
“What we are saying should be reliable and be able to prove. It is the only weapon we can use to fight in this war. And we have to stick to it, even if it seems that we are never enough fast.”
Thailand has always stressed that its border dispute with Cambodia should be resolved bilaterally, using a joint border commission in both countries established 25 years ago, without outside intervention.
But the Cambodia wants to internationalize the dispute. This was the first to refer to the increasing struggle in the United Nations Security Council last month. It has also asked the International Court of Justice to rule where the border should be a lie. It has presented Thailand with a dilemma.
Thailand’s official reason to dismiss the ICJ’s participation is that it does not recognize the ICJ jurisdiction like many other countries. But as is important that ICJ has a Thai collective memory of loss and humiliation that cuts the heart of border dispute.
Both Thailand and Cambodia have vested national stories of unjust regional losses.
In the case of Cambodia, this is once the story of the powerful empire, which reduces poverty by war and revolution, and at the mercy of the regional ambitions of its big neighbors.
Thailand is another recent story of being forced to sacrifice states to stop French or British colonial rule in the early 20th century. When Thailand agreed to a new border with French-Quiz Cambodia, he allowed French cartographers to draw the map.
But when Cambodia became an independent state in 1953, Thai forces captured a magnificent Khmer temple, called Priya Vihier, or eating in Thai, Fra Viharan, was located on top of a rock, which was about to mark the border.
This argued that the French cartographers had erased the border to move away from the watershed, with the agreed partition line, putting a temple in Cambodia.
Cambodia took the controversy to the ICJ, and won.
The court ruled that, whatever maps are the flaws, Thailand failed to challenge them in half a century.
The then Thai military ruler was surprised by the result, and wanted to attack Cambodia, but was persuaded by his diplomats to accept the verdict.
At the loss of 1962, Thailand’s sensitivity is now politically impossible to accept the role of ICJ in resolving the remaining border disputes.
It has allowed Hun Sen to portray Thailand, defying international law.
Thailand is now combating the Cambodian story, which is with its own more effective: the use of landmine.
The two countries are signators for the Ottawa Convention that ban the use of anti-parsnell mines, and Cambodia is a painful heritage of being one of the world’s most mining countries in Cambodia, for which it has received a lot of foreign money.
So Thailand alleges that the Cambodian military is laying the border as well as new anti-Personal mines, causing several injuries to the Thai soldiers, which is a strange for the government in Nom Penh.
Initially Cambodia dismissed the allegation, stating that these were the old mines released from the Civil War in the 1980s. The Thai government then took a group of diplomats and journalists to the border to show us what they had found.
A few hundred meters away from the border, a table was placed on a table in the forest, which the Thai demining teams say they were recovered from the east occupied areas by Cambodian soldiers.
We were limited to a small clearing, marked by red and white tape. Beyond him anywhere, he said, was insecure. On the drive with a dirty track we hid Thai soldiers in trees in camouflage bunkers.
The diameter of a sauce was one of the dozens of thick, green plastic discs. These were Russian -built PMN -2 mines, which contain large amounts of explosives – serious organs are difficult to cause damage – and it is difficult to inactive. Something new seemed completely new, and was not kept.
The early images of these rejected Cambodia as the Thai claims as baseless as the arming pin was not removed.
However, we were shown to other mines that were armed and buried, but clearly not recently – not in the 1980s.
The Thailand is calling for action against Cambodia by other signators for the Ottawa Convention, and asking countries that support programs to prevent them from funding in Cambodia.
This argues that Cambodia’s refusal to accept the plans to accept or remove them refuses to resolve the border dispute.
Cambodia has accused Thailand of using cluster monsoon and white phosphorus shells, which are not restricted, but can also pose a threat to non-girls; The Thai army has admitted to using them, but only, it says against military goals.
Cambodia has also published what it says that the World Heritage Site, a World Heritage Site by Thai Shelling, is something that the Thai army has refused.
Volcanoes of the two countries continuously make any progress on their border dispute.
Hun Sen and his son have politically benefited themselves from being able to portray themselves as Cambodian clay defenders, but the conflict has made the political challenges faced by the Thai government worse.
This has shaken rapid enmity between Thai and Cambodian nationalists. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodian migrant workers have left Thailand, who will kill the already struggling Cambodian economy.
“Both sides are described as a sacred partition line between their countries”, Sri Strongo says. “Symbolism is extremely important. It cuts very deep questions of national identity, and it is something that the side can neither take back a step from this time.”