BANGKOK – Thailand and Cambodia signed an extended 13-point peace agreement on Thursday (August 7) to end their five-day border war, while the stench from uncollected corpses and fear of their shadowy ghosts are haunting troops and residents along their disputed frontier.
“Both sides agree to a ceasefire involving all types of weapons, including attacks on civilians and civilian objects and military objectives of either side, in all cases and all areas,” the document signed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, stated.
“There shall be no troop movements, including patrols, towards the other side’s position.
“Both sides agree not to increase forces along the entire Cambodia-Thailand border,” which curves 500 miles long and has been disputed for the past 100 years because of squabbling over vague and imprecise French colonial maps.
The new ceasefire agreement also “includes military activities to enter the other side’s airspace and territory, or positions.”
During their July 24-28 cross-border battles, which both sides blamed the other for fomenting, Thailand bombed Cambodia with US-built F-16 warplanes and Swedish Gripen jets, spurring Bangkok’s interest in purchasing more Gripen fighter planes to augment the Royal Thai Air Force.
Thailand’s Deputy Defense Minister General Nattaphon Narkphanit and Cambodia’s Defense Minister General Tea Seiha signed the document on Thursday at a Thailand-Cambodia General Border Committee meeting. Officials from the US, China and Malaysia appeared as observers.
“There will be an observation team of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) military attaches based in Thailand and Cambodia, led by Malaysia,” Nattaphon told reporters, describing how they will routinely inspect the zone from each side but not cross the frontier.
The agreement did not include historic territorial disputes along the Thai-Cambodian border, which remain to be discussed.
Expressions of shrill nationalism and militaristic jingoism have increased among the public and government throughout the fighting, empowering the heavily politicized armed forces in both countries and hyping the conflict.
On July 26, US President Donald Trump demanded that the two Buddhist-majority nations agree to a ceasefire, threatening to impose 36% tariffs on Thai goods and 49% on Cambodian shipments if they did not come to an agreement. Both countries were handed 19% tariffs after the hostilities stopped.
The two countries met on July 27 and signed a peace deal, which the August 7 document extends with additional details and promises.
At least 43 people, military and civilian, perished during the battles, which caused more than 300,000 residents on both sides to escape to safer zones or cower in quickly dug, makeshift bomb shelters.
Unofficial reports suggest Cambodia may have suffered dozens of more deaths from the Thai assaults, which included tank and artillery fire against the out-gunned Cambodians who mostly relied on dangerously unguided Soviet-era artillery and mortar rockets.
Thailand holds 18 Cambodians as “prisoners of war” and allowed the International Red Cross to visit them on August 5 at a Thai army detention center.
Thai troops, residents, and Buddhist monks are meanwhile voicing concern about uncollected corpses – most purportedly Cambodian villagers and soldiers – hidden among the dense jungle, resulting in an acrid stench near homes and where soldiers patrol.
“We see the condition of these [dead] Cambodian soldiers lying in front of us every day during patrols,” Nattaphon said. “So I repeat my serious request to the Cambodian defense minister for their quick retrieval.”
The dead are also heightening fear among Thai troops and residents of ghosts and spirits along the muddy, monsoon-soaked frontier.
According to widespread Thai superstitions, the ghosts of people killed in warfare can be especially powerful and possibly vengeful because they died violent deaths.
“Even in conflict, we uphold the Geneva Conventions. We have offered to facilitate the return of bodies and remain ready to assist,” Thailand’s army spokesman Major General Winthai Suvaree said.
To quell panic and bestow confidence among Thai soldiers, senior officers staged a solemn ceremony and gave them thin cotton vests to wear over their camouflage uniforms.
The vests were printed with black ink on orange cloth, displaying traditional mystical animist and metaphysical symbols, illustrations and prayers to provide spiritual protection. The cloth’s orange color is intentionally the same as Thai Buddhist monks’ robes.
During gunbattles, Thai troops were seen holding their Buddhist and animist necklace amulets in their mouths while fighting, hoping to ensure the amulets’ spirits will make them bulletproof or at least guide them through reincarnation.
Bangkok residents and others far from the battlefield have been giving troops big boxes of medical facemasks and thousands of small bottles of traditional Thailand-made “ya dum” inhalers filled with eucalyptus oil.
The troops are wearing the facemasks and sniffing the inhalers to overcome the sour smell of rotting corpses while trudging on trails along a no-man’s zone separating the two countries.
“In a symbolic gesture of grassroots support, residents in Udon Thai donated truckloads of slingshots and glass marbles to border troops after learning that soldiers had requested them as non-lethal tolls to respond to provocations,” the Bangkok Post reported.
Individuals, corporations and others also donated more than US$3 million in Thai currency to support stricken residents along the bomb-scarred frontier who need medical care, food, housing and other necessities.
Hours before Thursday’s agreement was signed, both sides probed the disputed, unmarked border to gain the upper hand, unrolling fresh spools of barbed wire and advancing toward high-ground positions near a handful of ancient Hindu stone temple ruins and jagged cliffs.
Bangkok is currently considering whether or not to ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Netherlands, to put Cambodia’s de facto leader Senate President Hun Sen on trial for crimes against humanity and other allegations which Phnom Penh has denied.
The ICC prosecutes individuals for alleged genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.
Phnom Penh, meanwhile, is asking for an international investigation into Thailand’s alleged aerial bombardments of civilians near the frontier and its use of landmines, which Bangkok has denied.
“The Royal Thai Air Force deployed F-16 and Gripen fighter aircraft to conduct precision air strikes on hostile military targets that posed threats to Thailand’s national security,” the Royal Thai Air Force said on July 29.
“The operations focused on neutralizing weapons depots and military active command centers. Missions were conducted both during day and night, and battle damages were assessed using integrated intelligence and modern surveillance technologies.
“Particular deployment of air power was carried out in full compliance with international law, based on the nation’s inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations charter,” the air force said. “The Royal Thai Air Force strictly adhered to the principles of proportionality, necessity, and clear distinction between military and civilian targets,” it said.
Richard S. Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based American foreign correspondent reporting from Asia since 1978, and winner of Columbia University’s Foreign Correspondents’ Award. Excerpts from his two new nonfiction books, “Rituals. Killers. Wars. & Sex. — Tibet, India, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka & New York” and “Apocalyptic Tribes, Smugglers & Freaks” are available here.
