Nothing 'bilateral' about border negotiations

23/02/2011
Piyaporn Wongruang
Bangkok Post

If security analyst Surachart Bamrungsuk is correct, bilateral talks between Thailand and Cambodia to resolve the border dispute are already over.

The game has changed gradually since Cambodia nominated Preah Vihear Temple on the disputed Thai-Cambodian border in the Dangrek Range as a World Heritage site in 2008. Cambodia won approval from the World Heritage Committee, but it did not manage to take the adjacent area of 4.6 square kilometres as part of the World Heritage site, following strong opposition from Thailand.

Cambodia has since developed the management plan for completing conservation work on Preah Vihear, despite Thailand's fear that the Khmer plans include the overlapping area under dispute. Tensions regarding the border issue have simmered and occasionally spilled over into actual clashes.

Instead of getting back on the bilateral platform they have under the Memorandum of Understanding on the Survey and Demarcation of Land Boundary, signed in 2000, Cambodia has chosen to get a third party involved.

Phnom Penh first approached the United Nations Security Council in the matter following military clashes shortly after the temple's listing. And that was the first time that parties outside the bilateral framework got involved in the border dispute. Although that event failed to get the Security Council to intervene in the matter, it has marked the beginning of third-party involvement.

Cambodia has not stopped bringing the case to a third party up until now. Phnom Penh wrote to the UNSC for the second time early this month, and there has been some progress in the UNSC's involvement. Although it did not come up with a formal resolution, it did release a statement expressing grave concern over the latest military clashes and appreciation of efforts of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to help resolve the problem. This has paved the way for another third party, Asean, to get involved in the case - via a meeting in Jakarta yesterday.

According to Mr Surachart, head of the Security Studies Project supported by the state-run Thailand Research Fund, the "bilateral" talks that Thailand has insisted on, more or less, will have a third party, particularly Asean, involved following the UNSC's latest statement. This means there will be a certain extent of commitment that Thailand will have in the future, he said.

"The Thai government wants to have bilateral negotiations. But if we look at the UNSC's statement, we will see that there is a very slim chance of bilateral negotiation," said Mr Surachart, who also is a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University "Or like I said, it's over. It's not a reality any more. It's not the future that we are heading to."

Mr Surachart urged the government to take this seriously as it concerns the country's commitments in the future. He said the country needs to review and re-address its stance regarding border issues, including that near Preah Vihear.

Despite the fact that the two countries have been trying to solve the border dispute through whatever means, the dispute will never be easily resolved. During the last 100 years or so, there has hardly been any changes to the borders among countries.

The current dispute has something to do with the political relations between the two capitals. If Thailand had good relations with Cambodia, it would not have faced such a fierce confrontation as this. To defuse the crisis, ties between two countries should be revived and that would be the first step to find a way out of the land border dispute and benefit people living along both sides of the border, including the tourism industry which could link Preah Vihear with other heritage sites in Cambodia and southern Laos.

In the next four years, Asean countries are to become a single economic bloc, with the idea that borders will become less significant. Thus there is no point in waging a war, according to Mr Surachart. The borderline has sovereignty implications but "whether it would really matter to people's lives especially when countries will become one Asean community?" Mr Surachart wondered.

Thongchai Winijakul, author of Siam Mapped, agrees with Mr Surachart that the border dispute stems from Thailand's relations with Cambodia in the modern era, when the borderline is used to separate one country from another.

The creation of borderlines in the modern day contributes to the problem and these lines do not fit in with the relations of people and ancient states that are based on their cultures. For instance, many people in this region live by the river and both sides of the river are the same community. However, the modern boundary line drawn by Western countries uses the middle of the river and thus cuts through the community.

The conflict is also fuelled by the pride of Thais who still feel that Thailand once was a dominant state in the region, whose land was colonised and taken away by the British and French in the old days. According to Mr Thongchai, that is a false perception which arouses sentiments of nationalism. Once the country's status is threatened, as in the case of this dispute with Cambodia, the Thai people feel that their pride has been challenged, Mr Thongchai said.

"The sense of loss of our land has played a major role in building up Thailand. But it is a false sense which is not based on historical facts," said Mr Thongchai, who is a research fellow at the National University of Singapore.

"The border conflict is a problem of modern times, but we tend to apply our sense of the past to this modern problem. If we think like this, we will have a problem around Thailand. And if we want to fight, we will have to fight everywhere. But if we don't want to fight, then let the facts prevail and allow good relations to take their course," he added.

Piyaporn Wongruang reports for Bangkok Post Sunday.