The Jakarta Post
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa was quick off the mark in trying to mediate the conflict that erupted between Cambodia and Thailand this weekend. As chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesia is required under the ASEAN Charter to offer its good offices to member countries that are in conflict. After Marty met with his counterparts in Phnom Penh on Monday and Bangkok on Tuesday, the question now is whether the two sides are willing to turn to the ASEAN Charter to resolve their dispute, or will turn to mechanisms beyond ASEAN mediation.
The two countries clashed along a disputed border, leaving casualties on both sides and damaging the Preah Vihar Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site. But, early signals from both capitals indicated they were reluctant to accept ASEAN mediation. The Cambodian news agency AKP reported that Prime Minister Hun Sen asked the UN to intervene to arrange a buffer zone in the disputed area. Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was quoted by the AFP as saying that ASEAN’s intervention was “unnecessary”.
With such attitudes, Marty had his job cut out for him even before leaving Jakarta on his peace mission. Still, we sincerely hope that the foreign minister managed to convince Thailand and Cambodia’s leaders to give the ASEAN dispute settlement mechanism a chance before they turn to outside mediators.
The least the Thais and Cambodians can do is show their confidence in the ASEAN Charter, the foundation of a community that comprises the 10 nations in the region. They should also trust Indonesia to be an honest broker. Indonesia boasts a fairly good track record as the region’s peacemaker, playing the lead role in Cambodian peace talks in the 1980s and in mediating peace between the Philippine government and Moro rebels in the south in the 1990s. As the largest country in Southeast Asia, Indonesia has some clout and influence in the region.
Given that such clashes between the two countries are now becoming more frequent, Thailand and Cambodia should seriously consider resolving the conflict once and for all to prevent further bloodshed. After all, didn’t they sign the ASEAN Charter with the commitment to build an ASEAN community? And, Marty should push a little harder to bring them to the negotiating table.
3 comments:
When the fucken Cambodia-Thailand conflict was small and manageable and the ASEAN leaders take a back seat and sit on their hand and allowed the conflict to grow beyond the ASEAN ability to handle!
Now Thailand even use Cluster Bombs on Khmer-Hindu temple, Cambodian soldiers, and Cambodian people and what does these ASEAN leaders have to say? If the ASEAN leaders can’t even condemned Thailand for using illegal weapon and what is the fucken point for Cambodia to come to the table to negotiate with Thailand! Cambodia will not be victimized twice by Thailand and the ASEAN leaders!
Fucking Thai and some countries were established for people in ASEAN living with prosperity, security and economic development because among these countries were invaded from other countries as colonies. They all united nation to combat other countries for invade. Now internal issue cannot be solved in ASEAN because of why? because ASEAN no machanism to sort out the issue. Thus, khmer cannot prolong this issue because khmer no time to development temple and country. if let this issue ASEAN what ASEAN provide expected result to be solved? if Bully more and more increase troop wanna war. Khmer now it not live alone international community Fucking Thai cannot do what u want? US have to slap Thai to stop crazy action against if US want khmer to participate in world cooperation? US have to build khmer a trust as well.
we'll have to see how effective asean is as an international organization here!
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