War of fierce words keeps the two countries on the brink of the abyss

The guns along the Thai -T -shirt border have been silent for three weeks so far.

But the war of fierce words is still waged by countries, as it seeks to win international sympathy and support public support at home. A common view in Thailand is that they lose.

Speaking of podcast podcast podcasts for podcast podcasts for podcasts, speaking to podcasts, speaking about the podcast podcast system, speaking to the podcast sport system, speaking in the Thai podcast radio system, “the perception is that the Cambodia looked more flexible, more flexible and more A jam of the media. ” “Thailand has always been one step.”

The border conflict, which dates back to a century, has increased greatly with the Cambodi missilebell to Thailand on July 24, followed by Thai air strikes.

Since then, an army of social media warriors Kemboudi, supported by the state -controlled media channels, launched a flood of allegations and inflammatory reports, which turned out to be wrong.

They stated that a Thai F16 fighter plane was shot down, and pictures of a plane were released on the fire that falls from the sky – it turned out to be from Ukraine. Another baseless claim, that Thailand has dropped toxic gas, accompanied by pictures of water fire scabies. This was really a fire in California.

Thailand has responded with its own official data, but these were just dry offers for statistics, and it came from multiple sources – military rule, local government, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Foreign Affairs – which does not always coordinate with each other.

Bangkok failed to obtain its argument that Cambodia, whose missiles were the first artillery use and the killing of many Thai civilians, was responsible for the escalation.

It is not a secret that the elected Thai government, which focused on the Thai Piu Party from the controversial billionaire Thaxin Shinwatra, has an uncomfortable relationship with the Thai army.

It was much worse in June when Hun Sen, the former Cambodian leader and an old friend of Thaksin, decided to leak a special phone conversation with the daughter of Thaxin, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. She appealed to him to help solve their differences on the border, and complained that the Thai army public forces there are opposed.

The leakage caused a political uproar in Thailand, which prompted the Constitutional Court to suspend it, and to weaken the government poorly, as the border crisis escalated.

Hun Sen has no such difficulties. Technically, he handed over power to his son, Hun Manit, but after the country’s management nearly 40 years ago, it is clear that he still holds the reins.

The army, the ruling party, and the media are firmly subject. His motives for burning his friendship with Shinawatras are unclear, but it seems that he was preparing for a greater conflict on the border.

From the beginning, Hun Sen has constantly posted, in Khmer and English, on his Facebook page, mocking the Thai government, along with the photos that showed him in military uniform or adhering to military maps.

On the contrary, the most obvious figure on the Thai side was the commander of the second mercury army, Lieutenant Gen Boonsin Padklang. He is the same officer who was complained by the officer Paetongtarn, and his nationality full of fans in Thailand won, but also undermined the authority of the government.

“Hun Sen is very smart,” says Sebastian Strangio, author of Hun Sen’s Cambodia, a final narration of the way his leadership in the country.

“This asymmetric tactics of expanding the already in Thailand’s divisions. The fact that Cambodia is very good to play the victim gave him another strong weapon against Thailand in the international arena.”

Thai officials admit that they are struggling to counter the tactics used by the Cambodian side.

“This is completely different from how information wars were exposed before,” Ross Gallicandra, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, told BBC.

“What we say should be reliable and able to prove. This is the only weapon that we can use to fight in this war. We must adhere to that even though it seems sometimes that we are not fast enough.”

Thailand has always insisted on resolving its border dispute with Cambodia at the bilateral level, without external interference, using a joint border committee established by the two countries 25 years ago.

But Cambodia wants to internationalize the conflict. He was the first to refer the escalating conflict to the United Nations Security Council last month. It also asked the International Court of Justice to judge the place of the borders. This is a Thailand dilemma.

The official reason for Thailand to reject the participation of the International Court of Justice is that, like many other countries, it does not recognize the jurisdiction. But as important, the Thai collective memory of loss and humiliation in the International Court of Justice that cuts the heart of the border conflict.

Both Thailand and Cambodia have allocated national stories about the unfair regional losses.

In the case of Cambodia, the story of a strong empire one day has diminished poverty by the war and the revolution, and the mercy of the regional ambitions of its greatest neighbors.

Thailand is a recent story about being forced to sacrifice lands in the early twentieth century to avoid French or British colonial rule. When Thailand agreed to new borders with the French Cambodia occupied by French, it allowed the French animation to draw the map.

But when Cambodia became an independent country in 1953, the Thai forces occupied the amazing Khmer Temple called Preah Vihear, or KHAO Phra Viharn in Thailand, which floats at the top of a cliff that was supposed to place a mark on the border.

Thailands argued that French maps paintings made a mistake in transporting the border away from the water gatherings, which is the agreed line, and the temple was placed in Cambodia.

Cambodia took the dispute over the International Court of Justice and won.

The court ruled that no matter the faults of the map, Thailand failed to challenge it in the previous half of the century.

The military ruler at the time was shocked by the result, and he wanted to attack Cambodia, but he was persuaded by his diplomats to reluctantly accept the ruling.

Thailand’s sensitivity due to its 1962 loss makes it politically impossible to accept the role of ICJ in resolving the remaining border disputes.

This allowed Hun Sen to photograph Thailand as challenging international law.

Thailand now depends on the Cambodian narration with one more effective on its own: the use of ground mines.

Both countries are signed by the Ottawa Convention, which prohibits the use of jarb control mines, and Cambodia has a painful legacy because it is one of the most lower countries in the world, which has received a lot of funding abroad.

So the accusation of Thailand that the Cambodian soldiers were putting new mines to combat the border along the border, causing multiple injuries to Thai soldiers, was embarrassing the government in Bennah.

Initially, Cambodia rejected this claim, saying that these were ancient mines of the civil war in the eighties. Then the Thai government took a group of diplomats and journalists to the border to show us what they found.

It was placed on a table in the woods, a few hundred meters away from the border, which was a group of ammunition that the Thai teams say they have recovered from the areas that were previously operated by the Cambodian forces.

We were confined to the small clearing, characterized by a red and white tape. Anywhere after that, they said, it was unsafe. On the road along a muddy path we saw Thai soldiers in the camouflaged warehouses hidden in the trees.

Among the munitions are dozens of thick green plastic tablets around the diameter of the dish. These were Russian PMN -2 mines that contain a large amount of explosives – enough to cause severe damage to the limbs – and it is difficult to abolish them. Some seem to be completely new, and it has not been developed.

The initial photos of these Cambodia pushed to reject the Thai claims that they are unfounded because the armament pins were not removed.

However, other mines have been armed and buried, but clearly clearly – not in the 1980s.

Thailand calls for action against Cambodia by other signatories in the Ottawa Convention, and asks countries that support programs to remove programs in Cambodia to stop financing.

He argues that Cambodia’s refusal to recognize mines or agree on a plan to remove it clarifies a lack of goodwill in resolving the border conflict.

Cambodia was launched by accusing Thailand of using cluster munitions and white phosphorous shells, which are not blocked but can also pose a threat to non -fighters; The Thai army admitted its use, but only, he says, against military targets.

Cambodia has also published pictures of what you say is the damage of Preha Vihear Temple, a World Heritage site, through Thai shelling, something that the Thai army denied.

It is unlikely that the continuous urine of accusations from both countries is made of progress in their border dispute.

Hun Sen and his son benefited politically that they were able to portray themselves as defenders of the Cambodian lands, but the conflict made the political challenges facing the Thai government worse.

The intense hostility between Thai nationalists and Kambodians has sparked. Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers have left Cambodi Thailand, which will reach a Cambodian economy that is already struggling.

“Both sides describe the borders as a sacred division line between their countries,” said Strangio. “The symbolism is very important. This reduces very deep questions about the national identity, which is something that no parties can back down at the present time.”