EDITORIAL
Interfering neighbours

2009/11/09

THOSE who deplore Asean's founding agreement among members not to "interfere" in each other's internal affairs should be watching the deteriorating situation between Thailand and Cambodia for a lesson in why this principle is important. The peculiar problems between these two closely related sibling nations evoke familiarities of contempt similar to those between Malaysia and Indonesia or Singapore; the citizens of which states might ask themselves how they would feel if any of us decided actively to support the destabilisation of another's domestic politics or internal security by openly supporting one party over another in bitter antagonism.

This is what Cambodian premier Hun Sen has done by appointing ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as his personal adviser and consultant to his country on economic development. On the sidelines of the recent Asean summit in Hua Hin, Thailand, Hun Sen went so far as to liken Thaksin to Myanmar's incarcerated opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, leaving scant room for doubt over what he thinks of Thailand's present administration. Since the two nations exchanged deadly fire in mid-2008 over the disputed Preah Vihear temple, with more than a dozen troops killed, there has been little if any attempt to assuage the deep historical resentments niggling both countries over their respective, and shared, ancestral legacies. The professional exile Hun Sen now offers Thaksin cannot be seen as anything but unwarranted in the present circumstances.

Certainly, both men have been friends and golf buddies a long time; Hun Sen said his wife wept on Thaksin's ouster three years ago. But Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has taken a dim view of this, swiftly recalling the Thai ambassador from Phnom Penh in what Thaksin was quick to decry as an over-reaction. Amid all this, however, former Thai premier Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, a Thaksin sympathiser who now heads the opposition Pheu Thai party, also visited Cambodia last week, ostensibly to repair damage over the temple issue, but returning with a strong message of Hun Sen's support for Thaksin.

Such provocations have already led to the scrapping of bilateral agreements on offshore resource exploration, military alerts in border hot spots and the prospect of border closures, and anxiety rippling across the contiguous borders of Asean's continental members, none of whom wants to see another protracted conflict between neighbours. All of which should conduce to a lively ambience for United States President Barack Obama at the Apec meeting in Singapore this weekend, though not in a good way.

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