Stop the Massacre: Thai Airstrikes Using Foreign Warplanes are Slaughtering Cambodian Civilians

A Thai air force Gripen fighter jet. People panic as an airstrike targets Battambang province’s Banan district on December 24. Supplied

#Opinion

Every single day, Cambodian civilians are being murdered by US-made F-16s, Swedish-made Gripens and South Korean-made T-50 fighter jets flown by the Thai air force. These are not accidents. These are deliberate, systematic and indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations—acts that constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law.

The use of advanced foreign-made warplanes to bomb civilian areas exposes the brutality, inhumanity and utter disregard for human life of the Thai military. Homes, villages and innocent families have been turned into targets. Blood is being spilled not only by the hands that pull the trigger, but also by those who supply, authorise and tolerate the weapons used in these atrocities.

The Cambodian people fiercely condemn these crimes and demand immediate action. We call on the governments of the US, Sweden and South Korea to stop enabling mass killing, suspend all military support and arms transfers to Thailand, and publicly denounce the use of their weapons against civilians. Continued silence is not neutrality — it is complicity.

The world must not look away. The international community, human rights organisations and global civil society must name these crimes for what they are, demand an immediate halt to Thai aggression, and pursue full accountability for those responsible. Justice for the victims cannot be postponed.

Enough blood has been shed. Stop the killing. Stop the war crimes. Hold the perpetrators — and their enablers — accountable now.

Kin Phea is the head of the International Relations Institute at the Royal Academy of Cambodia. The views and opinions expressed are his own.

-The Phnom Penh Post-