Cambodia, nationalism, borders, and international peacebuilding
ASEAN says they support human rights, but they don’t. We can make better institutions that do.
Cambodia, nationalism, borders, and international peacebuilding
ASEAN says they support human rights, but they don’t. We can make better institutions that do.
‘The Khmer Times’ recently published an article about the increasing border tensions between Cambodia and Thailand arguing that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should step in to arbitrate the dispute to prevent warfare (https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501711493/not-another-flashpoint-in-southeast-asia/).
Yes, they should, and they should take a more active role in human rights protection and peacebuilding in the region more generally. And if they don’t, they should close up shop and get out of the way. As should the Chinese and US governments. We don’t need more colonialism.
The Cambodian government has been taking a dangerous turn against ethnic minorities and immigrants just as they’ve received an increase in investment from Chinese banks and have started integrating their military with the Chinese military, and the Cambodian government has been buying advanced weapons from China.
A couple of months ago, the Cambodian government started rounding up and deporting ethnic Vietnamese to Vietnam. They also got these people to pose for photos and boasted of their action in the media. This shows that they are trying to target minorities in order to appeal to nationalist sentiments.
Some of these ethnic Vietnamese are likely not citizens of Vietnam (https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2022/06/14/the-perpetual-foreigner-statelessness-among-the-vietnamese-minority-in-cambodia/). The Cambodian government has not, since the Khmer Rouge, really grappled with its ethnic complexity in a productive way. Ethnic minorities have been largely ignored, excluded from political discussion, and as their new foreign investors move in, the risk of the government trying to quietly remove these people from land that could have valuable resources is on the rise.
This shift in focus toward rounding up ethnic minorities is coinciding with a broader centralization of political power in Cambodia. Cambodia in theory has a multi-party democratic kingdom, but one party has increasingly dominated, and one person, Hun Sen, has effectively been running the country for decades.
And then, about a month ago, someone assassinated a Cambodian soldier around the Thai border. The border is disputed, has been for decades, and the assassination was likely intentional by someone in the Thai government to emphasize their border claim. These border disputes have flared up several times in the past, and brought about nationalist fervor on both sides. Violence has been somewhat minimal.
People are getting fired up about nationalism all over the world, though. And many people of Cambodia (https://www.beyondintractability.org/reflection/soeung-personal) and Thailand (https://prachataienglish.com/node/11251) are embracing a surge in nationalism. This is dangerous stuff.
And, so, ASEAN has an opportunity to host some kind of peace talks. The Chinese government has been going around wanting to show themselves as peace-negotiators, but while they are investing in and arming the Cambodian government so much, such efforts from them would almost surely make things worse. The US government is not an arbiter of peace either, and if they tried to get involved, it would likely make things worse.
The UN could get involved; perhaps the International Court of Justice could take up the border dispute. This might take a decade to resolve, but it’s worth getting started.
Meanwhile, someone should step in and let both sides feel like they are being heard.
Both Thailand and Cambodia tried closing the border and denying access to citizens from the other country. Thailand also has ethnic tensions in the northern border with Myanmar, and people from a variety of ethnic groups in Laos are living and working in both countries. All these ethnic minorities in both countries are at risk.
Nationalism is sentimental. People like to pretend that it’s rational and natural, but it’s imaginary and emotional. This does not make it unreal. It is very real and very dangerous. And sometimes when people get all wrapped up in nationalism, the best way to help them calm down is to give them a healthy venue to express themselves where they feel like they are being respectfully heard.
So, ASEAN could step in and let both sides feel like they are being heard, listen to evidence for disputes over the border and also listen to growing ethnic tensions more generally in the region.
ASEAN keeps dropping the ball, though. They have not been able to do anything about Myanmar or the Rohingya refugee crisis (https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/rohingya-resettlement-where-is-asean/).
They sit idly by while Filipino fishermen are attacked by the Chinese navy, and while the Chinese government builds military bases between Vietnam and the Philippines. They have nothing to say about Indonesia joining BRICS and attacking free speech. They have nothing to say about the Cambodian government targeting ethnic minorities while moving toward a one-party police state under the aegis of the Chinese military.
So, ok, they have nothing to say. So, let’s get a new organization together that does have something to say. Maybe it can start with this border dispute. An Institution Indo-Pacific Peacebuilding (IIPP) or something like that. We can hire some international lawyers to go over and listen to the complaints of the two sides, and… well, I don’t have that kind of money… so, well…
Something like that, though. Hopefully this present surge in nationalism does not turn violent in Southeast Asia. I mean, beyond what’s already going on in Myanmar, which will hopefully get better soon.
We should build more international legal institutions that can address this type of problem. I don’’t know if regional is the best way. Economic institutions such as BRICS that have no humanitarian agenda might be the next wave, and I’m all for downsizing the US hegemony, but the thing about institutions such as ASEAN is that they claimed they would stand for human rights. And, they’re not. So, are they better than BRICS or the US? Not from where I’m sitting.
I don’t know. Maybe they will be, and they are simply working out some of the kinks. Maybe there are institutions at work on the sort of thing I’m suggesting that I don’t know about.
Also, how about graduate school programs in several Southeast Asian countries that train people in international law. Cambodia and Thailand can be two of those countries. Then they can sue each other for a hundred years.
Economics can not be separated from nationalist sentiments. Those ethnic Vietnamese who were rounded up, photographed, and deported by the Cambodian government did not look like millionaires, and in a country with such rampant poverty, vulnerable to foreign investment, and bitter over ethnic economic rivalries, it’s an economic problem as much as anything else. Economic freedom is a basic human right.
Anyway, thank you for reading. I really appreciate your time and attention. I hope you are living in peaceful relations with your neighbors, and that both you and they have plenty of clean drinking water. Please take care.
Power to the People.
Freedom of the Soul.