The hard war of the words holds two countries on the border

The weapons along the forest-commercial border have been silent for three weeks.

But both countries still have a fierce war as they seek to win international sympathy and attract public support for the home. And the generally accepted look in Thailand is that they lose.

“The imagination is that Cambodia has appeared more agile, more persistent and more intimidating media,” said Claire Patchimanon, speaking on the Podcast Media Pulse public broadcast system. “Thailand has always lagged.”

The centuries -old border dispute dramatically grew from Cambodian missile in Thailand on the morning of July 24, after which Thai’s domestic strikes occurred.

Since then, the Cambodian Army of Social Media, supported by the state-owned English language channels, has unleashed the flood of accusations and inflammatory reports, many of which were false.

They reported that the Thai fighter aircraft F16 was beaten by placing the images of the aircraft falling from the sky – it turned out to be from Ukraine. Another unreasonable statement that Thailand threw poisonous gas was accompanied by an image of a water bomber that dropped the pink fire. It really was from a fire in California.

Thailand responded to their own official statements, but often it was just dry presentations of statistics, and they came from several sources – military, local authorities, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – which seem to not always coordinate each other.

Bangkok could not overcome his argument that Cambodia, whose missiles noted the first use of artillery and killed several Thai civilians, was responsible for escalation.

It is no secret that the Thai government, the billionaire billionaire, is a difficult relationship with the Thai military.

It was much worse in June, when Hong Saint, former Cambodia leader and old friend Takin, decided to trace a private telephone conversation he had spent with his daughter toxin, Prime Minister -Petongor Hinovitra. She turned to him to help solve their differences over the border, and complained that the total forces of the Thai army there opposed her.

The leak caused a political upheaval in Thailand, which forced the Constitutional Court to suspend it and greatly weaken the government as the border crisis grew.

Hay hay has no such difficulties. He technically handed over his son Hun Monet, but after almost 40 years ruled the country, it was clear that he was still holding the reins.

The army, the ruling party and the media are firmly controlled. His motives for burning friendship from Sinanutras are incomprehensible, but he seems to be preparing for a greater conflict over the border.

From the very beginning, Hong Saint is constantly posted in Khmer and English on his Facebook page, mocked with the Thai government, as well as photos that showed it in army form or overcame military cards.

On the contrary, the most prominent figure on the Thai side was the commander -in -chief of the Lieutenant -Lieutenant Boonsin Padklang. He was the same poet’s officer complained, and his militant nationalism won a lot of supporters in Thailand, but also undermined power.

“Hong Saint is very intelligent,” says Sebastian Stornegi, Cambodia author Hun Sena, final accounting how his leadership formed the country.

“He used this asymmetrical tactics of expanding divisions that already exist in Thailand. And the fact that Cambodia is so good in playing the sacrifice gave him another powerful weapon against Thailand in the international arena.”

Thai officials acknowledge that they are fighting for countering the tactics used by Cambodian side.

“This is completely different from how information wars are previously undergoing,” said the BBC Russia Jalichandra, the Deputy Foreign Minister.

“What we say must be trusted and able to prove. This is the only weapon we can use to fight in this war. And we must follow this, although sometimes we don’t seem to be fast enough.”

Thailand has always insisted that his border dispute with Cambodia should be solved bilaterally, without external intervention, using a joint border commission, two countries created 25 years ago.

But Cambodia wants to internationalize the dispute. This was the first to send an escalation conflict to the UN Security Council last month. He also asked the International Court to manage where the border should lie. This was presented by Thailand dilemma.

The official reason that Thailand gives the deviation of the ICD’s participation is that, like many other countries, it does not recognize the Jurisdation of the CU. But just as important – Thai collective memory of loss and humiliation in the CU, which, depending on the heart of the border dispute.

Both Thailand and Cambodia have secured national stories about unjust territorial losses.

In the case of Cambodia, this story is once a powerful empire that came down to the poverty of war and the revolution, as well as the freedom of the territorial ambitions of its great neighbors.

Thailand is the last story of being forced to donate the territories in the early 20th century to get rid of French or British colonial government. When Thailand agreed to a new border with a French Cambodia, it allowed French cartographers to draw a map.

But when Cambodia became an independent state in 1953, the Thai troops occupied the entertaining temple called Preah Vihear, or Hao Fra Viharn in Thai, which was sitting on the top of the rock, which was to mark the border.

The Thai claimed that the French cartographers were mistaken, moving the border from the watershed, a coordinated dividing line, putting the temple in Cambodia.

Cambodia took the dispute in the CU and won.

The court ruled that, regardless of the deficiencies, Thailand could not dispute them for the previous half a century.

The then military leader was shocked by the result and wanted to attack Cambodia, but he was persuaded by diplomats with a brutal sentence.

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

This allowed Huna Sen to reflect Thailand as against international law.

Currently, Thailand counteracts the Cambodin story more effective: the use of mines.

Both countries have signed an Ottawa Convention, which prohibits the use of anti -communic mines, and Cambodia has a traumatic heritage when it becomes one of the most obtained countries in the world, for which it has received a lot of foreign financial resources.

Thus, the accusation of Thailand is that the Cambodian soldiers are spreading new mines against a person along the border, which led to many Thai soldiers’ injuries, is uncomfortable for the government in a pnome.

Initially, Cambodia dismissed the allegations, saying it was the old mines left over from the 1980s. The Thai government then accepted a group of diplomats and journalists to show us what they had found.

Loked on the table in the jungle, just a few hundred meters from the border, there was a collection of ammunition, which Thai teams that say they were healed from areas that were previously occupied by Cambodian troops.

We were timed to a small clearing marked with red and white ribbon. Anywhere, according to them, it was dangerous. At the muddy track, we saw Thai soldiers in disguised bins hidden in the trees.

Among the ammunition were dozens of thick green plastic disks near the diameter of the plate. These were Russian PMN -2 mines that contain a large amount of explosives – enough to cause serious limb damage – and it is difficult to turn off. Some seemed completely new and were not laid.

The initial images of these pushed Cambodia to abandon Thai claims as unjustified because the armed pins were not removed.

However, we were shown by other mines that were armed and buried, but clearly recently – not in the 1980s.

Thailand calls for actions against Cambodia by other signatories to the Ottawa Convention and asks the countries that support Cambodia programs to stop their financing.

He claims that Cambodia’s refusal to recognize the MIND or agree on the plan of their removal, demonstrates the lack of conscientiousness in resolving the border dispute.

Cambodia fired back, accusing Thailand of using cluster ammunition and white phosphorus shells that are not prohibited but may also pose a threat to the poor; The Thai troops recognized them, but only, they say, against military purposes.

Cambodia also posted photos that, he said, it was damage to the Preah Vihear temple, the world heritage, the Thai firing that the Thai troops denied.

Non -standard volleys of accusations of both countries are making no progress in their border dispute.

Hong Saint and his son politically took the opportunity to reflect themselves as the defenders of Cambodian soil, but the conflict has made political problems that the Thai government faced even worse.

He shocked the intense hostility between Thai and Cambodian nationalists. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodian migrant workers left Thailand, who was already fighting the Cambodian economy.

“Both sides describe the border as a sacred dividing border between its countries,” says Mr. “Symbolism is extremely important. It reduces very deep issues of national identity, and this is that no side can afford to take a step back at the moment.”