The leaked audio clip between PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen has led the Thai Constitutional Court to suspend PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra from her PM duties on July 1 and potentially, if not likely, ending her stint as PM for good.
If PM Paetongtarn is removed from power for being unethical in conversing with Hun Sen by stating that the Second Region Army Commander, Lt Gen Boonsin Padklang, is among those on the other side of her, if not on the other side of her and Hun Sen (depending on the interpretation of a Thai pronoun used), Paetongtarn would be the first Thai political leader to be removed from power due to Cambodian “political interference”.
Her supporters say she has been scammed by no less than Hun Sen, the paramount leader of Cambodia, or “Scambodia” as they would refer to the country.
The experience must have been traumatic for Paetongtarn, whose PM post and political future are now at grave risk.
However, instead of trying to live up to her position as PM, Paetongtarn chose on Friday, her first day as new Culture Minister after the Cabinet reshuffle, to order a delay in returning ancient Khmer artefacts to Cambodia, citing budget constraints.
It isn’t about budget constraints, but about punishing Cambodia in an attempt to retaliate for the injuries Hun Sen’s leaked audio clip has caused her.
This is regrettable because she is unnecessarily fuelling further the bilateral conflict instead of using this issue to signal friendship and return the items promptly.
It’s very doubtful whether the Prime Minister has qualified advisers. Are there no trusted and experienced insiders who screen and object to these actions before they’re taken?
Doing this solves nothing; it only satisfies ultra-nationalists (and those who blindly support the PM, seeing everything she does as correct, and even some redshirt PM supporters now want more conflict to ‘punish’ Cambodia and Hun Sen, barely different from the ultra-nationalists led by former yellow-shirt co-leader Sondhi Limthongkul).
Foreign countries, not just Cambodia, can see that trying to justify the delay in the return of the artefacts as a budget issue is insincere. How then will Thailand gain international trust?
While the leaked audio clip must have traumatised Paetongtarn, for many Thais, their collective trauma was the loss of Preah Vihear Temple after the International Court of Justice’s ruling in 1962.
On June 28, when Sondhi led tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators at Victory Monument in Bangkok, the topic of the lost Preah Vihear featured prominently. It’s fair to say that for many Thais, the ICJ’s ruling that took away Preah Vihear Temple and awarded it to Cambodia was a collective national trauma.
This explains why most Thais, from the current administration, opposition parties, including even otherwise well-educated and liberal opposition figures like Pita Limjaroenrat, are all against Thailand accepting ICJ’s jurisdiction.
ICJ-Phobia
One month after the clashes at Chong Bok, significant damage occurred in both Thailand and Cambodia. This includes economic losses, with Matichon Weekly reporting 500 million baht in daily border trade damage for both nations alone, not to mention other trade outside the border areas.
Most recently, today, Prachachat, a sister daily of Khaosod English, reports that the Thai Chamber of Commerce is urging the government to negotiate with Cambodia to reopen border checkpoints, saying the closure is “severely impacting people on both sides of the border.”
On the impact on Cambodia, it says Cambodian supermarkets are experiencing shortages of consumer goods as people panic-buy and hoard items, making daily life difficult for Cambodians. On the impact on Thailand, the report says the closure is causing significant problems for multinational automobile assembly plants in Thailand. Their production processes are disrupted because the supply chain of raw materials from Cambodia, which sends parts back for assembly, is broken.
Jirapan Asvatanakul, Vice Chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of the Border Trade and Cross-Border Trade Committee of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, told “Prachachat Business” that the Border Trade and Cross-Border Trade Committee recently met with chambers of commerce from seven provinces bordering Cambodia. They discussed various problems and the needs of entrepreneurs.
“All provinces agreed on one point: they want to urge government agencies from both sides to negotiate. The current situation makes it difficult for people on both sides to conduct business as usual,” the report adds.
Back to politics, the relationship between the people and governments of both countries has deteriorated to its worst in decades.
However, virtually all parties in Thailand keep chanting the same mantra like a parrot: “No to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).” This despite the fact that neither the government nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been able to offer a truly convincing and logical explanation to Thai society or the international community as to why.
The question is: Is Thailand a country without world-class lawyers? Is the chance of winning nil? Has the experience with the Preah Vihear case at the ICJ been so traumatising that we can’t even consider Thailand having a chance to win? Is the fight at the ICJ truly a rigged lottery?
I want Thai society to seriously reconsider this issue, including those highly trained in international law, rather than simply repeating the parrot-like stance.
Otherwise, we should be brave enough to tell the international community that it’s because Thailand was traumatised by the last ICJ case, to the point where “ICJ” has become a taboo word, or simply because we’re afraid of losing face after having already declared we won’t go to the ICJ again.
I believe the cost of this parrot-like stance, rooted in a traumatic past experience, is unnecessarily holding Thailand back, and the price for ICJ-phobia is very steep.
It seems a mindless AI like Gemini could better explain things when I asked it why the Thai government is reluctant to bring the border dispute with Cambodia to the ICJ.
Here’s the answer from the AI, which is more direct than what the Thai Foreign Ministry would be willing to admit.
* Lessons from the Preah Vihear Case: Thailand had a negative experience with the ICJ in the Preah Vihear temple case in 1962 and the interpretation of the judgment in 2013. The rulings were unfavourable to Thailand, leading to a perception that the ICJ did not genuinely deliver justice and resulting in a feeling of distrust in the ICJ mechanism.
* Non-Acceptance of Compulsory Jurisdiction: In principle, taking a case to the ICJ requires the consent of both parties. Thailand declared its non-acceptance of the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction back in 1960 (after the Preah Vihear case). Therefore, if Thailand does not consent, the ICJ has no power to compel Thailand to appear in new dispute cases.
* Resolution Through Bilateral Mechanisms: Thailand believes that border disputes should be resolved through existing bilateral mechanisms, such as the Joint Boundary Commission (JBC). This is seen as a more flexible approach that can maintain good relations between the two countries. Referring the case to a third party might not be beneficial for friendly relations.
* Concerns about Sovereignty and Broader Impacts: Taking a case to the ICJ is a sensitive matter involving sovereignty and territorial integrity. ICJ rulings could have complex repercussions and lead to other issues, such as fostering animosity between nations or opening up disputes in other unclear areas, like those in the Gulf of Thailand.
* Viewing the Problem as Legal and Technical, Not Political: The Thai government views the border issue as a legal and technical matter that requires experts to manage, rather than a political issue that would lead to tension.
* Preventing Escalation to an International Level: Cambodia’s submission of the issue to the ICJ might be seen as “creating content” in international politics to pressure Thailand. Thailand’s non-acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction is aimed at preventing the issue from escalating and becoming a more complex international problem.
In summary, the Thai government has a clear stance on avoiding taking border disputes with Cambodia to the ICJ, emphasising resolution through bilateral mechanisms and the non-acceptance of the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction to preserve its sovereignty and good relations with its neighbouring country.
Prisoners of Nationalistic History
If you think the Preah Vihear case was traumatic enough, Cambodian histories offer many more reasons for them to be even much more traumatised by their relations with Thais, and dealing with Thailand.
Here are two historical incidents that Cambodians could never be proud of, despite the fact that at one time, a very, very long long time ago, the Angkor Empire was mighty and its influence and power covered much of modern-day central, north-east, east, and upper south of modern-day Thailand.
Towards the end of the empire, historical records point to the Siamese (Thais) as the culprits who attacked Angkor Thom, which led the city to be abandoned only to be ‘rediscovered’ in the 19th century by a French man, however.
“The deliberate destruction of reservoirs and other hydraulic works by the Siamese between 1350 and 1431 AD made the Angkor Thom area almost uninhabitable…” wrote British historian D.G.E. Hall in his seminal and classic book “A History of South East Asia.”
There were periods when what became modern-day Cambodia was a semi-vassal state of Siam until the French made her its protectorate for nearly a century in 1863 until 1953.
On Chapter 25 of the same book, entitled “THE RAPE OF CAMBODIA”, Hall narrates how both Vietnam and Siam, the stronger neighbours, were taking turn taking advantage of Cambodia.
“The remainder of this grim story up to the establishment of the French protectorate over Cambodia in the eighteen-sixties is told in the chapters devoted to Vietnamese and Siamese history. Our knowledge of it comes basically from the Cambodian Chronicle together with the Vietnamese Annals and T’ai chronicles. They are concerned solely with dynastic events: the people are out of the pture. On either side of the beleaguered kingdom were two harpies, Vietnam and Siam, snatching away its territories, and each vying with the other in seeking to dominate what was left….
The Vietnamese were militarily the stronger, but were hated by the Cambodians, who, with no love for the Siamese either, yet co-operated with them against the common enemy. By 1845 it was a drawn fight, and under an agreement placing Cambodia under the joint protection of both competitors, she escaped absorption by either. France perhaps saved the situation for the Khmers by making Cambodia a protected kingdom…”
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We can’t change the past but we can learn from it and hopefully use it to ensure a more peaceful and equal coexistence as neighbours. How can there be genuine peace if we cannot even trust our next-door neighbour?
Thais (and perhaps Cambodians) have become a prisoner of their own nationalist history. The time to turn a new leaf in Thai-Cambodia relations is long over due but we cannot succeeded as long as we voluntarily imprisoned ourselves by the chains of our respective nationalist history narrative.
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