Thailand's Response to the Cambodian Genocide [excerpt]

by Dr. Puangthong Rungswasdisab, Research Fellow, Cambodian Genocide Program, Yale University.

lfslessonsasia.com

The Thai military still calls the shot in foreign policy, particularly, towards Thailand's neighbours - School of Vice.

ibtimes.com

Roses are Red . . . but the Thai generals are traditionally of Yellow persuasion - School of Vice.

" . . . nationalistic attitudes and ignorance became an obstacle for Thailand to develop a constructive policy towards neighboring countries both during and after the Cold War."

Amidst a stream of public calls for reform of the Thai political system, one aspect has hardly been challenged or questioned by the growing political forces in Thailand. That was the country’s foreign policy towards its neighbouring countries, in particular the Indochinese states. In this area, decision-making has remained heavily dominated by bureaucrats and military. In fact, it is the only aspect of Thai politics, where one can find a consensus among the foreign policy-makers (the foreign ministry, the National Security Council and the army), some academics and the media. We have hardly heard calls for a rethinking or change of the Thai foreign policy direction. Not to mention the Thai government policy of supporting the Khmer Rouge, which has been strongly criticized internationally. In fact, critics of the government’s policy comprised only a small group of academics, and their criticism received little attention from the Thai media. Some appear to have limited their comment to the role and implication of the military in the foreign policy-making process. Their disapproval of the policy on the Cambodian conflict often focused merely on different tactics in negotiations with Vietnam, or the degree to which Thailand should get involved in, and the implications of, this protracted conflict.

Thus, as Suchit Bunbongkorn and Sukhumbhand Paribatra have pointed out, the power of the military in Thai politics has been significantly challenged since 1973. But developments in foreign affairs in the 1980s, dominated by the Cambodia-Vietnam issue, still served to strengthen the Thai bureaucratic polity in general and the power of the military in particular. The Cambodian conflict allowed the Thai armed forces to monopolize all channels of information concerning border problems and to increase the defense budget as well as to expand its manpower. The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, in early 1979, reinforced traditional suspicions and fears of Vietnamese imperialist ambition, and catalyzed security concerns. It effectively enhanced the role of bureaucrats, both civilian and military, in the decision-making process because they were considered "specialists". While foreign affairs has been an area in which extra-bureaucratic actors tend to take less interest, criticisms or suggestions from them were usually dismissed as motivated by ignorance or interference.

Chai-anan Samudavanija has noted that the prolonged Indochina conflict gave the Thai military a justification to exert its role in internal politics by keeping the perceived threat of communism alive in Thai politics, despite its earlier claim of victory over communism. Moreover, the issue of the Indochina conflict and its implications did not receive much attention from political parties. No Thai party included a plank on the Cambodian conflict in its platform, or voiced concern over the government’s policy on the issue. The belief that "specialists" had handled the problem effectively appeared to result in a lack of serious attention among the Thai political parties. They seemed to trust that agencies involved in foreign policy would do their utmost to protect "Thai national interest". Such belief and trust was also shared by the mainstream Thai academics.

Various publications were produced to support the Thai government’s policy towards Vietnam and the Cambodian coalition forces of Pol Pot-Sihanouk-Son Sann on the Thai-Cambodian border, with the Institute of Asian Studies at Chulalongkorn University playing a leading role. The Institute’s view was expressed in an interview with its director, Khien Theeravit, which appears in its publication on The Kampuchean Problem in Thai Perspective: Positions and Viewpoints Held by Foreign Ministry Officials and Thai Academics. His view was similar to the official view, and even stronger than those of some of the officials. In the closed-door discussion between the foreign ministry officials and the invited academics, which comprises the first section of the book, no academic challenged the wisdom of the Thai government in supporting the Khmer Rouge forces.

Thai academic and media circles seem to have agreed with the military’s idea of national security and interest. They did not question the secret nature of the information provided by the concerned government agencies. The Thai public tends to accept that because foreign affairs is highly sensitive and concerned with the national interest the information is to be kept highly confidential among specialists only.

The Thai elite’s perceptions of the impact of the Cambodian conflict on national security issues was also a reason why the policy received strong public support. In a 1985 survey of the Thai elite’s perceptions, almost all respondents (over 98 percent) saw Vietnam as a threat to Thailand’s national security. Vietnam also ranked high in many forms of threat, including direct military invasion, political subversion, undermining of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’s regional solidarity, and support of military aggression by other countries. The majority of respondents (almost 60%) also felt that the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia produced a grave impact on Thailand’s security, while 38% saw the impact in a lesser light. Most agreed that the impacts came in various forms, including armed tension along the Thai-Cambodian border, transformation of Kampuchea into a base for threatening Thailand’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, aggravation of regional tension and intensification of superpower rivalry in Southeast Asia. In addition, 98% of the respondents rejected the notion of acquiescence to the Vietnamese military occupation in Cambodia as an acceptable outcome. Most of the Thai elite also considered Vietnam’s patron, the Soviet Union, a threat to Thailand’s security. The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia had exacerbated a historical agony between the Thai and the Vietnamese. Both of them had tried to dominate Cambodia and Laos since the eighteenth century.

The attitude of the population of one country towards another is also an important basis for its foreign policy. The standard text books on Thai history, at both school and university levels, usually begin with the migration of the Thai race from the North to the Chaophraya River basin, where the Khom, or Khmer, had earlier settled. Then the Thais, under capable leaders, were soon able to drive off the Khmer from the river basin. The rapid expansion of the Thai kingdom finally brought down Cambodia’s Angkorean Empire, forcing the Cambodians to move their capitals southward, from Angkor to Lovek, Udong, and Phnom Penh respectively.

A new interpretation by a Western scholar arguing that the southward movement of the Cambodian capitals tended to be influenced by the changing economic environment- as the maritime trade in the region became increasingly important to the post-Angkorean statecraft,- has not been welcomed by Thai scholars. Perhaps, such interpretations do not go well with the notion of the greatest Thai kingdom, successfully bringing down the Angkorean empire.

Moreover, Thai popular history books by amateur historians describe Cambodia as a subordinate, untrustworthy neighbor, often shifting its loyalty between the Thai and the Vietnamese courts. Cambodia sought to attack Siam whenever the Thai kingdom was facing trouble. The classic case with which the Thais have been familiar was the execution of Cambodian King Lovek, known as Phraya Lavek in Thai, by the Ayudhyan King Narasuen. The Thai chronicles tell of King Lovek, who had raided and evacuated villagers in the Siamese eastern border while King Narasuen was occupied by war with Burma. King Narasuen decided to take revenge on Cambodia. The Thai chronicles depicted a dramatic execution of Phraya Lovek. The Thai king mercilessly beheaded the Cambodian king and washed his feet with the latter’s blood. It was considered the act of contempt for the enemy. In fact, however, evidence from Western missionaries reveals that the execution never happened. The Cambodian king was able to take refuge in southern Laos. However, this Thai version of the King Lovek story still dominates the general understanding of Thai-Cambodian relations among average Thais. The wars and chaos in Cambodia have always been described as the fault of untrustworthy and factional Cambodia rulers, while the Thai invasions were interpreted as based on rights to control their tributary state and/or to prevent Cambodia from Vietnamization.

Such historiography has enhanced a nationalistic feeling of a great nation with a great history in comparison to its neighboring countries. On the other hand, it has depicted Cambodia, and of course Laos, as inferior nations. This leads to the question of the situation of Indochinese studies in general, and Cambodian studies in particular in Thailand. Perhaps, the perception of Indochinese countries, as poor, inferior countries with little business potential, has dictated the direction of area studies in Thailand. In contrast to American, European and Japanese studies, which dominated international studies in Thailand for three decades, Indochina is much less attractive to Thai academics as a field of study. Thus, the situation of Indochinese studies in Thailand now is not much different from what Charnvit Kasetsiri described in 1991, when he asserted that Thai academic institutions so far have not yet paid enough attention to Southeast Asia as a study area. He wrote that "despite the fact that Thailand belongs to the area, there is no serious attempt to pursue such study. The Thai government, elite and academic specialists, know very little of the economies, politics, society and culture of its neighbors, without mentioning further away Southeast Asian countries." Charnvit further noted that in Thailand only Silpakorn University offered an M.A. Program in the field of Southeast Asian History, while the Institute of Asian Studies at Chulalongkorn and the East Asian Studies Institute at Thammasat University, which have concentrated on China and Japan, are primarily research institutions.

Thus, nationalistic attitudes and ignorance became an obstacle for Thailand to develop a constructive policy towards neighboring countries both during and after the Cold War. With national interest, politically and economically, as the most important priority, Thailand’s foreign policy towards the Khmer Rouge simply bypassed Cambodia’s human cost and tragedy.

Source: Yale University