Cambodia and Thailand have agreed to a 13-point plan to manage their ongoing border dispute, including an agreement to allow observers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to monitor the ceasefire that ended a fierce five-day border conflict last month.
The agreement came as the two nations’ General Border Committee (GBC) concluded four days of talks in Kuala Lumpur aimed at thrashing out the terms of a ceasefire brokered by Malaysia on July 28.
According to a joint statement of the GBC, signed by Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Seiha and Thailand’s acting Defense Minister Nattaphon Narkphanit, the two sides agree to a ceasefire involving all types of weapons, including attacks on civilians and civilian objects and military objectives of either side, in all cases and all areas.”
They have agreed to a freeze on border troop movements and patrols, not to reinforce their positions along the border, and “not to undertake provocative actions that may escalate tensions.” Both sides agreed to maintain an open line of communication between the defense chiefs of both countries and the chief of the defense force level.
Most significantly, each country will set up its own interim observer team comprised of defense officials from ASEAN member states and coordinated by the current chair, Malaysia, pending the deployment of a formal ASEAN Observer Team from the Southeast Asian bloc.
The issue was discussed by Tea Seiha and Nattaphon Narkphanit during an earlier meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who said in a Facebook post that the proposed ASEAN observers would help “support monitoring efforts, humanitarian assistance and medical coordination at the border.” He added, “Malaysia will continue to support this process in the belief that lasting peace is only possible through dialogue, mutual respect and genuine friendship.”
The advance of the ceasefire agreement is welcome, given the tensions that still exist between the countries following last month’s conflict, which killed at least 43 people and displaced more than 300,000 on both sides of the border.
Despite agreeing to a ceasefire under Malaysian, Chinese, and (particularly) U.S. pressure on July 28, the two sides have continued to trade invective, each accusing the other of violating the ceasefire. Both sides have also trafficked in false or misleading news about the border conflict, which has eroded trust further.
One area of uncertainty concerns the 18 Cambodian soldiers who were captured by Thai forces in the hours after the ceasefire went into effect. Previously, Bangkok announced that it would hold them as prisoners of war until the formal cessation of hostilities. This was reiterated by the GBC agreement, which stated that “captured soldiers shall be immediately released and repatriated after the cessation of active hostilities in accordance with Article 118 of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 and Rule 128 (A) of the Customary International Humanitarian Law.”
The statement said that the GBC will meet again within a month and said both sides would also “agree to refrain from disseminating false information or fake news in order to de-escalate tensions, mitigate negative public sentiment, and foster an environment conducive to peaceful dialogue.”
Speaking to reporters after the agreement, Tea Seiha said that the steps laid out in the agreement “are life-saving measures and lay groundwork for restoring confidence, trust, and normalcy between our two countries.” Natthaphon added that “in order for our discussions today to result in concrete outcomes, both sides needed to show cooperation and sincerity.”
Despite these comments, it remains to be seen whether both sides are genuinely committed to restoring stability at the border and ending the spiral of mutual mistrust that has brought Thai-Cambodian relations to the lowest point since at least the 2008-2011 Preah Vihear crisis. Domestic political constituencies in both nations have benefited from (and arguably helped encourage) the conflict, and both governments, particularly Thailand’s, will remain under pressure to take a hard line on border issues.
Edgard Kagan, the U.S. ambassador to Malaysia, who attended yesterday’s meeting as an observer, told the press that the agreement was just one step towards lasting peace.
“We have to be honest and say that there is still a very high level of tension, there’s a high level of distrust,” he said, as per the AFP news agency. “We think that it is going to be important for both sides to show strong commitment at the highest levels, and that it is messaged clearly down to the soldiers and policemen who are on the border.”
Even then, a comprehensive resolution of the border dispute, which has its origins in disagreements over Franco-Siamese border treaties signed in 1904 and 1907, remains a remote prospect. Like most border disputes, the Cambodia-Thailand conflict is about much more than territory: it touches on deep questions of national identity for Thais and Cambodians and functions as an important currency of domestic political legitimation in both countries. In this context, any serious attempt to delimit the disputed parts of the border will leave both governments vulnerable to claims that they are failing to defend the national interest. This is something that neither government can countenance if it wants to retain any degree of domestic legitimacy.
In this case, about the best that can be expected in the immediate term is a return to the status quo ante.