Problems in Parliament hindering bilateral talks and peace on border

Thai PM Abhisit Vejajiva

By The Nation

Sunday, April 3, 2011

The Thai-Cambodian problem, it seems, will hound the Abhisit government until the prime minister dissolves the House of Representatives and beyond. The domestic political hiccups that have prevented the Thai Parliament from approving minutes of a meeting of the Joint Boundary Commission are casting fresh uncertainties on bilateral efforts – or lack thereof – to solve a long-standing border conflict that recently erupted into fierce exchanges of shelling. Thai politicians, however, can hardly blame the Cambodians for these latest developments.

Whether or not the Thai government can go ahead with the planned next JBC meeting with Cambodia in Jakarta next week, following repeated failures to get parliamentary approval of the minutes of the earlier meeting, has become an issue of blown-up importance. The Constitution Court has virtually played down the significance of parliamentary approval, which, moreover, was never the case in the past. But nothing seems able to remove the big curse cast upon this bilateral feud and efforts to end it.

Even if next week’s JBC meeting can take place as planned, only extreme optimists can see light at the end of the tunnel. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is expected to dissolve the lower House and call a snap election within the first week of May, meaning that whatever is agreed, tentatively or not, at the Jakarta meeting could be made vulnerable by Thailand’s domestic political unpredictability during the election campaign and after the poll. The election timing will also complicate another major bilateral meeting on the border issue at the end of May.

The JBC’s role in solving border demarcation problems between Thailand and Cambodia has faced difficulties since the contentious issue of Preah Vihear Temple was given priority a few years ago. Before that, both countries’ negotiators were working under a philosophy that required them to put hard issues aside and tackle easier ones first. Maybe the switch of priorities was inevitable, as it coincided with Cambodia’s acceleration of its World Heritage campaign for Preah Vihear.

With a World Heritage Committee meeting coming up in June to address the explosive question of whether or not Cambodia can unilaterally manage Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site, the Thai-Cambodian stand-off will once again be tied to Bangkok’s domestic politics. The ruling Democrats’ rivals, the Pheu Thai Party, are known to care even less about nationalistic sentiment led by the yellow shirts. Therefore, if the Pheu Thai Party comes to power, the Thai-Cambodian border conflict could be in for more troubled times.

While Pheu Thai’s rise to power could benefit Cambodia, it could make the domestic situation more volatile when border issues are concerned. Phnom Penh’s close ties with Thaksin Shinawatra and alleged support or sympathy for red-shirted leaders are certain to come back and amplify future Thai-Cambodian controversies.

Over the past few months, we have seen bloody border clashes and the arrest of Thai activists and MPs as well as their imprisonment in Cambodia. Nationalism has flared on both sides of the border. Troops have been killed. Villages have been burnt. Two neighbouring nations whose border residents share affection for the same actors and actresses are now looking at each other with mistrust and bilateral diplomacy is becoming more and more impossible.

The General Border Commission, the JBC, their minutes of meetings and all the memorandums of understandings are concrete proof that both neighbours have been trying to address the thorny issue of territorial sovereignty in a peaceful way. Considering that, there must still be hope. The current problems dragging both countries away from this track are testing decades of tolerance and attempts to understand each other even at the most trying times. If we take all those efforts to settle the conflict peacefully into account, we will see that at stake is not a temple or piece of border land, but something far more important.