After the Ceasefire
After the Ceasefire
Our brave soldiers, the nearly 169,000 people who fled the combat zones and are living in precarious conditions, the entire Cambodian people in solidarity with those most exposed in this conflict, all welcome the implementation of what Prime Minister Hun Manet has been calling for since day one: an unconditional end to the fighting.
The Cambodian people, driven by genuine patriotism – not to be confused with nationalism, which leads to hatred of others – have shown generous solidarity with the innocent victims of this conflict, which Cambodia never wanted.
And now? This is the question everyone on the banks of the Mekong and Tonle Sap is asking, as well as all true friends of the Khmer people around the world.
This Monday, August 4, there will be a meeting of the “General Border Committee.” Meetings of this kind have been held since 2000, after the two countries signed a document with the status of a treaty called a Memorandum of Understanding. This document stipulated that the border would be demarcated on the basis of the Franco-Siamese agreements of 1904 and 1907 and the resulting maps, which Thailand accepted for 50 years. That is, for as long as Cambodia was protected by France.
Twenty-five years later, these bilateral negotiations have yielded nothing. This is why Prime Minister Hun Manet has expressed his intention to resort to arbitration at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Thailand refuses this at any cost.
Cambodia relies on the only legal maps, the importance of which was emphasized by the ICJ in 1962 and again in 2013. Thailand presents maps of its own design, which are to its advantage, but which are merely unilateral documents rejected by the ICJ in 1962 and 2013.
Given these two approaches, what compromise is possible?
This is, in fact, the impasse we’ve been in since 2000. Cambodia only demands respect for what it inherited from history, having achieved independence, and in doing so, it respects international law, which proclaims the inviolability of colonial borders. And Cambodia needs a lot of courage, because colonization took away territories that belonged to it, in favor of French Cochinchina. One only has to go to Phnom Bokor to see, opposite Kampot, the largest island in the Gulf of Thailand, which now belongs to Vietnam following a decision by the governor of Indochina in 1939. But Cambodia abides by international law. Thailand does not.
Thailand, which over the centuries has absorbed two-thirds of what was once the immense Khmer empire, has not yet had enough. Its army, which maintains an irredentist nationalism, continues to have claims on Cambodian territories. Hence the unilaterally proposed maps, without legal value, which it intends to have accepted by Cambodia.
The extent of the impasse is clear. Common sense would dictate that both parties defer to the wisdom of an International Court of Justice, whose judgments faithfully adhere to the impartiality of international law. But Thailand categorically rejects this recourse, and there is ample reason to believe that its current aggressiveness stems from the fear that the Court will take up this case, despite Bangkok’s refusal.
Everyone must be aware that the current ceasefire does not mean the end of the crisis between the two countries. And that the love of peace is not necessarily the most widely shared sentiment.
Khmer Times.
