Updated News On Preah Vihear Conflict Sunday 22 August 2010

This post is one of the series posts of Updated News On Preah Vihear Conflict. We will look in details of the position of Cambodia, Thailand, Asean and UN on the Preah Vihear conflict.

Cambodia

We have waited for such long time since Thailand has sent troops to Preah Vihear temple area on July 2008. Cambodian government complained about Thailand not to take action after each meeting. Followed the letter sent by PM Hun Sen to the UN, FM Hor Namhong appealed to the 10-member Asean for help, in order to avoid any large scale armed conflict.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday he wants U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to help solve a prolonged border row between Cambodia and Thailand when the U.N. chief visits the region later this year.
Cambodian government didn’t see any result after meeting with Thailand. The best way to end this conflict is to ask UN and Asean to get involved and force Thailand to decide what is “YES” and what is “NO”, on which map we should start to work on, absolutely not the map that Thailand draw on their own.

Thailand

There’s no stable position or sources to clarify the position of Thailand government to end the conflict. So far, we have 3 meetings of Joint Boundary Committee (JBC), those results never have been approved by the Thai Parliament. What will be the reason we continue the meeting if those previous three meetings never been taken seriously by Thailand government?
What we have seen clearly is that Thailand doesn’t want Asean or UN to interfere into Preah Vihear conflict. They still want to use Preah Vihear as a political reason to maintain political crisis in Thailand.

Asean

So far, we didn’t see any good reply from Asean yet. Surin Pitsuwan, the secretary-general of ASEAN, has metPM Hun Sen on 16 Auguest 2010. Surin said it’s possible that there’s meeting between PM Abhisit Vejjajiva and PM Hun Sen in Brussels in October this year. But to my own opinion as long as the result from previous meetings didn’t get approval from Thai Parliament, it’s useless to have meeting.
But it’s good to see ASEAN members are holding talks on a request from Cambodia for help in resolving a deadly border dispute with Thailand, the bloc’s chairman said on Tuesday 17 August 201.
“As ASEAN chair, Vietnam is actively consulting other ASEAN countries about the proposal that ASEAN mediates over the Preah Vihear dispute,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga said in a statement.

UN

Reply to the call by Cambodian PM Hun Sen, FARHAN HAQ, ACTING DEPUTY SPOKESPERSON FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL has issued a statement on Friday, August 20, 2010 mentioned that SECRETARY-GENERAL HOPES CAMBODIA AND THAILAND WILL RESOLVE BORDER DISPUTE THROUGH DIALOGUE: In response to a question, the Spokesperson said that the Secretary-General hopes that Cambodia and Thailand will resolve the dispute along their border amicably through dialogue. He stands ready to help the parties.

Conclusion

As we could see that there’s no result after talking with Thailand, a call to ASEAN and UN is the right thing to do. ASEAN and UN need to force Thailand to table and show them which one is the right map to work on and finish this conflict peacefully. Otherwise the game of words will continue, the charging position from left to right, upside down will be used by the Thai government.