Thailand Again Accuses Cambodia of Laying Fresh Landmines Along Disputed Border
Thailand has again accused the Cambodian military of laying fresh landmines along the two countries' shared border, drawing another angry denial from Phnom Penh.
The Royal Thai Army (RTA) claimed that three Thai soldiers were injured by a landmine while patrolling an area between Thailand's Sisaket province and Cambodia's Preah Vihear province on Saturday. One soldier lost a foot and the other two were injured in the explosion. RTA spokesperson Maj. Gen. Winthai Suwaree claimed that the area had previously been cleared by the Thai humanitarian mine action unit, accusing Cambodia of deliberately laying the mines, adding that the act was 'dishonorable, lacks the dignity of a soldier, and constitutes a deliberate violation of the Ottawa Convention.'
In a statement, the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority denied the Thai army's accusation.
'Cambodia's position is unequivocal: We have not, and will not, plant new landmines,' it stated. 'Cambodia is a proud State Party to the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention [the Ottawa Convention], which it ratified in 1999, and has an internationally recognized record of removing, not deploying, these indiscriminate weapons.' A similar denial was also issued by the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The blast came just two days after the two nations' General Border Committee agreed to a 13-point plan to maintain the ceasefire that was declared on July 28, after five days of fierce clashes along the border, which killed at least 43 people and displaced more than 300,000 on both sides of the border. This involved a mutual pledge to freeze border troop movements and patrols, not to reinforce their positions along the border, and 'not to undertake provocative actions that may escalate tensions.'
The blast followed two similar landmine explosions reported by the Thai military, which contributed to the outbreak of hostilities last month. The first took place on July 16 in the eastern sector of the border, when three Thai soldiers were wounded after one stepped on a landmine and lost a foot, after which the Thai army said that it had found that 10 freshly laid Russian-made PMN-2 anti-personnel mines in areas along the border, the same time that the Thai army alleges was involved in Saturday's explosion.
A second blast on July 23, which injured five soldiers, one of whom lost his right leg, prompted Thailand to downgrade its diplomatic relations with Cambodia, a move that precipitated the outbreak of fighting on July 24. On both occasions, Cambodia denied laying fresh mines, arguing that the Thai soldiers had strayed from previously agreed patrol routes and stumbled across landmines that were laid during the country's long civil war in the 1980s and 1990s.
The exchange of angry statements hints at the level of mistrust and tension that persists between the two sides, despite last week's ceasefire agreement. Politicians and military officials on both sides continue to engage in tit-for-tat statements and accusations that continue to raise the prospect of a resumption of fighting.
In comments to the press yesterday, Lt. Gen. Boonsin Padklang, the head of Thailand's Second Army Region, vowed to recapture Prasat Ta Kwai (Prasat Ta Krabei in Khmer), one of three temples that are at the center of the current dispute. He added that the Thai army had now closed Ta Moan Thom, another of these temples, 'and are considering whether to permanently close it or close it only for certain periods.' He also made the unverified claim that Cambodia had suffered 3,000 casualties in the recent border clashes.
Cambodian Defense Ministry spokesperson Maly Socheata wasted no time in denouncing the Thai declaration as 'irrefutable evidence of provocation and a deliberate and premeditated attempt to invade Cambodian territory.' She said that Boonsin's comments violated the July 28 ceasefire and 'undermined the spirit of the Cambodia–Thailand General Border Committee's extraordinary meeting in Malaysia on August 7.'
Exactly which side is most responsible for the continued tensions is hard to determine. Nonetheless, it is clear that political dynamics on both sides of the border continue to militate against a peaceful solution, and that the nationalist passions stoked by the recent conflict make it hard for either nation to be perceived as 'giving in' to the other, or allowing a perceived slight to go unanswered.
On the Thai side, tensions persist between the weak Pheu Thai-led government, which signed the ceasefire agreements on July 28 and August 7, and the Thai military, which has long viewed itself as the ultimate guardian of Thai sovereignty. As Paul Chambers noted in a recent article for Fulcrum, the lead-up to last month's conflict saw the military repeatedly undermine the authority of the Pheu Thai government, which the army and the conservative Thai political establishment, more generally, have long mistrusted. The resulting disjuncture has introduced an unpredictability and volatility into Thai decision-making on the border dispute that has increased the chances of a fresh outbreak of fighting.
Unlike its counterpart in Bangkok, Prime Minister Hun Manet's government continues to benefit politically from the border conflict, which has unified the nation around his leadership. Given its control of the military and the press, it has also been able to establish more messaging discipline than the Thai side. This suggests that the government's acrimonious claims about Thai behavior, which have included a number of outlandish false claims, are a conscious strategy to play on Thai internal divisions.
Whether or not the Cambodian government actively wishes to stoke the conflict, the sense of le patrie en danger clearly comes with ancillary benefits, creating a distraction from more pressing social and economic challenges. As with the Thai side, it currently has more to gain from confrontation than from a lasting peace.
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The order claimed, 'Some of the means by which this literature has contributed to the radicalization of youth in J&K include distortion of historical facts, glorification of terrorists, vilification of security forces, religious radicalization, promotion of alienation, pathway to violence and terrorism.' This recent ban is not the first. In January, a similar ban was placed on certain Islamic books in Kashmir. The local police raided dozens of bookstores and seized more than 650 books as part of crackdowns on dissent in the Indian-administered region. Most of these books were penned by Abul Ala Maududi, a prominent 20th-century Islamic scholar who founded Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic organization banned in Kashmir. The co-author of the now banned book, 'Human Rights Violations in Kashmir,' Piotr Balcerowicz believes that the state is seeking complete control of news and information in India. 'Full control of the circulation of books, by eliminating some of them from the market by banning them, has a clear aim: to achieve absolute control of the information,' Balcerowicz told The Diplomat. He said the state was pursuing 'the monolith of propaganda.' 'This is precisely that kind of dystopia which George Orwell described in 'Nineteen Eighty-Four,' Balcerowicz continued. 'The ban is a clear step in this direction, toward an authoritarian state. It does not serve the interests of India at all.' For Anuradha Bhasin, author of the now banned 'A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370,' the ban was born out of the state's paranoia. 'They want to control, they want to manipulate everything, and they do not want any dissenting voices. All their actions in the region stem from the fear of being countered. There has been an attempt to silence anything and everything that questions their narrative,' Bhasin said. 'First, they came for journalism, now its books.' Bhasin also remarked that if extremist, Hindu supremacist books were allowed to be freely read and sold in India, books by well-established authors should not be banned. Bhasin sees the ban as 'whimsical, bizarre, and absurd' at best. 'Kashmiris already live with a deep sense of fear and surveillance; this ban is going to deepen that. This is bound to discourage people from reading, writing and working on books,' Bhasin said. The Jammu and Kashmir Police have raided several locations across Kashmir to seize the banned books. Farhan, a student at University of Kashmir is scared; he is in possession of at least four of the now incriminating books. Many of the authors interviewed for this story believe that fear is the point. 'Criminalizing History and Lived Realities' The Kashmir conflict is one of the oldest living conflicts in the world, circling back to 1947, when the British left the Indian subcontinent; the ensuing Partition created two forever antagonist nations – India and Pakistan. Ever since, Kashmir has been pulled between India's quest for territorial control and Pakistan's pursuit to broaden religious affinity. Today, both states claim the region in its entirety; in practice, it is divided into Indian-administered and Pakistan-administered parts. Hafsa Kanjwal's now banned book 'Colonizing Kashmir: State Building Under Indian Occupation' explores the genesis of the conflict. Kanjwal delved into Kashmir's post-Partition history, by examining how everyday life, cultural tools, and economic dependency were harnessed to solidify control over the region. Her book questions how states are formed – not simply coerced – and how sovereignty can be manufactured rather than agreed upon. Speaking to The Diplomat, Kanjwal said that the censoring of knowledge has only escalated since 2019, with the clampdown within Kashmir. 'There is a desire to quash any form of independent thinking or any narrative that does not align with the Indian government's narrative of normalcy or Kashmir being an 'integral' part of India,' she said. Pointing out that the government has already gone after human rights defenders, journalists, civil society activists and many others, Kanjwal views the book ban as a continuation of other policies that seek to restrict the flow of information on and within Kashmir in order to cultivate state propaganda. 'The state officials think that by the ban, Kashmiris will miraculously forget that they have a history and a freedom struggle. While the government may succeed in creating a state of panic, confusion, and fear within Kashmir, it will not succeed in erasing this history,' she told The Diplomat. Another author who now finds her book banned in the region is Ather Zia. Her work 'Resisting Disappearance' is an ethnographic study that emerged from Zia's decade-long engagement with the Association of the Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) in Kashmir. The book follows mothers and 'half-widows' – women whose husbands have disappeared – highlighting their activism as they search for missing loved ones and challenge the government's enforced disappearances. Zia perceives the ban as an attempt to erase the narratives, testimonies, and experiences of Kashmiris. 'What is being criminalized here is history, memory, lived realities, and truth-telling. This move reflects a larger pattern that has been unfolding in Kashmir, where knowledge that challenges and unsettles the statist narrative is deemed dangerous,' Zia explained. Zia believes that the Indian state has a hunger for control, which is not satiated just through militarization and surveillance, but also in the symbolic and discursive realm. 'By banning books that emerge from a Critical Kashmir Studies perspective – [books] that document enforced disappearances, gendered resistance, mass graves, and the architecture of military occupation – the state seeks to sever Kashmiris from their histories and the world from understanding those histories,' Zia told The Diplomat. Fear and Façade Kashmiri academics feel that the banning of books is anything out of the ordinary. A Kashmiri historian and academic said, 'There's a binary at play. On the one hand, the government inaugurates the Chinar Book Festival, claiming to facilitate a culture of reading among Kashmiris, while on the other hand it proscribes scholarship and critical thinking.' The scholar added that state-backed celebrations of Kashmiri culture were all a façade, calling out the center for facilitating Sufi narratives that suited its politics and policies. 'Those scholars and historians who have questioned this have faced severe consequences,' he concluded. 'The banning of the books is therefore nothing surprising but an extension of measures that are very familiar and well known.' Right after the order was received by the police, uniformed men began raiding bookstores across several parts of Kashmir to seize these books, the possession of which now breaks several sections of the Indian Penal Code: acts endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India; the offense of promoting enmity between different groups; and actions that are prejudicial to national integration – as per the order. Kashmir's former education minister, Naeem Akhtar argued that such a ban would criminalize genuine scholarship, implying that the ban would push people to consume 'third-rate propaganda' as a window to view Kashmir. 'A. G. Noorani is the most authentic scholar and exponent of Kashmir's post-independence history. The amount of scholarship he's produced should be a source of pride for any country,' Akhtar said, commenting on the ban. 'By denying access to him, our youth are led up the wrong path where legal argument and civilized debate is at a discount.' He also believes the ban cannot succeed in erasing a history now viewed as inconvenient by the state: 'In any case Kashmir is all about collective memory of a centuries-long struggle for identity and dignity. Even if all the books were burned that memory still survives.'
