By R.C. | SINGAPORE
The Economist
AS MANY others enjoyed a quiet Easter break, the Thais and Cambodians were back to trading gunfire and diplomatic insults over disputed temples along their shared border.
Eleven soldiers were killed on the two sides of the border in the three days of artillery shelling, while scores were wounded. It was the second time in only a few months that the land along the border has become the scene of such bloodshed: in February a very similar flare-up left ten soldiers dead. Then the fighting focused on the disputed Preah Vihear temple: this time the two armies were skirmishing around two other disputed temples, Ta Moan and Ta Krabey, about 90 miles from Preah Vihear. Hundreds of civilians from nearby villagers were forced to flee their homes.
The firing seemed to stop during the daylight hours of April 25th, only to flare up again in the evening. By the morning of Tuesday the 26th it was plainly back into full swing. Diplomatic attempts to resolve the conflict have been disappointing. Under the terms of a deal to stop the fighting in February, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), to which both Thailand and Cambodia belong, had arranged to send Indonesian observers to the border in order to monitor the situation—what was to have been a ceasefire. However the deal was never finalised. In a further setback for the credibility of ASEAN, Indonesia’s foreign minister, Marty Natalegawa, had been due to fly in to chair talks between the two sides on April 25th, only for the trip to be cancelled at late notice. The Thais, apparently, were unhappy at his terms of reference for the talks. But the UN did little better. From New York the secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, appealed for a ceasefire on April 23rd, only to be ignored as well.
Probably the only thing that will stop the two ASEAN countries scrapping like this will be a change in the internal political dynamics of either or both countries. Some elements on the Thai side, in particular, have every interest in rallying nationalist sentiment with a good border dispute in an election year.
The conservative yellow-shirt movement has made a lot of political capital out of demanding a firm stand against Cambodian “aggression”; they hope to force the government of Abhisit Vejjajiva to sway in their direction. There is even speculation in Bangkok that the whole border fighting is being whipped up by the army in order to precipitate a sense of crisis in the country, in order to have the election cancelled altogether. What the army fears most is a victory at the polls for the red-shirted supporters of the deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
What is not in doubt is that this won’t be the last time that Thailand and Cambodia lob shells at each other over the border. They have been tussling over this land for many years, and politicians know better than to be reasonable and generous in a situation like this.
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