07.12.11 Menas Borders ASEAN should be more active in Thai-Cambodia border dispute, says report

International Crisis Group, the influential global think-tank, has called on the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to actively mediate in the festering border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia.

The dispute, centered on the Preah Vihear temple complex which straddles the boundary, has been rumbling on for years, and grew more serious when Cambodia secured the temple's acceptance as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2006. The situation grew tenser amid political upheaval in Thailand, and border demarcation work stopped as the frontier became increasingly militarised. Open conflict erupted this year.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a ruling in July 2011, ordering a demilitarised zone around the temple, and proposing that ASEAN deploy observers. ASEAN has encouraged restraint but has not managed to settle the conflict, nor has it deployed observers. Until this year it sat on the sidelines, unwilling to intervene in what it called a domestic affair.

Led by Indonesia, ASEAN has since taken a more active role in proceedings. It pushed for the deployment of Indonesian observers under an ASEAN mandate, which both sides initially agreed but which Thailand later backed down on. The bloc has managed to broker a ceasefire, although there is no formal or binding agreement on demilitarising.

The ICG report praises Indonesian leadership in what has – until now – been more or less a talking shop for south-east Asia. It also urges ASEAN to provide more active leadership and “should be prepared to take more pre-emptive and urgent action to prevent open hostilities between member states”, and develop a blueprint to prevent such border disputes from flaring up.

With tension rising between China and a number of its ASEAN neighbours, this will be vital if the bloc is to remain relevant.

Sources: ICG, BBC