My perspective and recommendations about the Thai Aggression against Cambodia

One wonders how much of all this Thai aggression has been planned and predetermined by what Thai people and school children have been indoctrinated by the Thai elite's falsified and concocted accounts of history. Even today despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary most Thais still believe it is Cambodia who encroached on Thai territory; Cambodians fired first, Cambodia planted the landmines that Thai soldiers stepped on, Cambodians used ancient sacred temples as "military bunkers" thus are legitimates targets of Thai attack and destruction, Cambodians "copy" traditional Thai dress ... In fact a public survey recently revealed most Thais - around 60% or more - want Thailand to sever all ties with their Cambodian neighbours. 

As a human being I don't want to see anyone or any people harmed just because they belong to a certain nationality or geography, but equally I strongly detest how the strong bully the weak or disadvantaged. Some Thai xenophobes and politicians label the Khmers as "crocodiles" or ungrateful, pointing to the refuge provided by Thailand to many of them in the 1980s having created the second Killing Field by forcing thousands of Cambodian refugees off the steep cliffs of the Dang Rek mountain and under pressure from the international community to shelter these unfortunate civilians. Most of these refugees were in fact camped just inside Cambodian territory along the border where they risked real harm from armed groups and bandits from all sides at the time such as rape, beating, extortion or human trafficking. 

These were the people who had been deeply traumatised by what they had experienced under the Pol Pot regime earlier. Other refugee camps that were inside Thai territory also situated just across the border in close proximity to the ones over the border under control of Cambodian resistance factions, including the KR whom Thailand tacitly backed as a buffer against Vietnam's presence along Thailand's provinces. Many Thai towns along with communities along this border such as Aranyaprathet experienced economic boom virtually overnight as a result of the presence of the UN supervised refugee camps whom the Thai government refused to recognise as war refugees, preferring instead to designate them as "displaced people" as this designation meant less pressure on the Thais to comply with international laws and conventions on refugees. The Thai would have also seen the presence of these Cambodians scattered along the border effectively serving as human shields each time the Vietnamese army launched their attack against the Cambodian resistance groups. 

The presence of unexploded anti-personnel mines had been laid there during this war by mostly the China backed KR who was functioning as Thailand’s ally. It is along this stretch of land inside Cambodian territory that the Thais are now brutally evicting Cambodian villagers in the hundreds of thousands, most of who are still squatting in make-shift tents in squalid conditions with barely adequate amenities or essentials needed for human survival. 

If the term 'crocodile' applies to any people or group in the region it is perhaps the Thais/Siamese nation itself who had historically been the one to have been sheltered and fed by the Khmers and their kings as this sub-Sino group drifted into the territory of the Khmer empire. Once the T'ai or Siamese grew in strength and numbers they turned against their benefactors - the Khmers - taking over territories and population that we still see today. 

The modern day Thais are in fact standing entirely on former Khmer territory so without Cambodia to begin with all of what we call 'Thailand' would not have existed. The villages and territories along the border that Thailand have seized since the start of the recent armed invasion by its military and where shipping containers and barbed wires are being placed to stake Thai claims are the latest additions to Thailand's incessant, continued historical annexation of Cambodia's rightful existential space and home in the most literal sense.

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