The deployment of Asean observers along the Cambodia-Thailand border can help ensure peace, but deep mistrust between both sides may limit the regional bloc’s role as gatekeeper amid a shaky truce.
Cambodia and Thailand have agreed to allow observers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to be stationed on either side of the divide and help monitor a tenuous ceasefire after a deadly five-day border conflict last month.
The August 7 agreement was forged under a General Border Committee established between both countries. Security chiefs, including Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Seiha and Thailand’s acting defence minister Nattaphon Narkphanit, agreed to a 13-point plan after four days of truce talks led by Asean chair Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.
The countries hashed out the terms of their ceasefire, including a joint pledge to continue a freeze on border troop movements and civilian attacks, as well as the use of all types of weapons. The conflict has claimed the lives of at least 43 people and displaced more than 300,000 on either side.
Abdul Rahman Yaacob, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia programme, told This Week in Asia that Asean faced a tall hurdle in keeping the peace “because of the deep mistrust between Cambodia and Thailand, and the fact they have different preferences when it comes to how best to resolve the border disputes”.
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