The More the Aggression, the More Evidence It Leaves Behind: Thailand Must Return to the Law, Not Use Military Force to Alter the Border
The Cambodia–Thailand border dispute cannot be resolved through the use of military force, the placement of shipping containers, the erection of barbed-wire barriers to block roads and seal off civilian villages, the digging of military trenches, the construction of roads, the raising of national flags, the demolition of structures and homes belonging to displaced people, or the unilateral creation of new facts on the ground—a fait accompli.
None of these actions can redraw an international boundary, transfer sovereignty from one state to another, or transform control achieved through force into lawful title over territory.
The more a fait accompli is created, the more sovereignty is not created. On the contrary, such actions leave behind more evidence, increase the burden of explanation, and impose greater costs on Thailand’s reputation and credibility before the international community.
It is time for the Thai military to stop using force to create “facts on the ground” and return instead to the “law on the ground”—the legal framework that both countries have recognized.
Cambodia and Thailand are not without legal foundations or mechanisms for resolving their border issues. These include the Franco-Siamese Convention of 1904, the Franco-Siamese Treaty of 1907, relevant maps and documents, the 2000 Memorandum of Understanding, and the Cambodia–Thailand Joint Boundary Commission (JBC), which provides the bilateral mechanism for the survey and demarcation of the land boundary.
The question Thailand must therefore answer is straightforward: If treaties, maps, the MOU and the JBC already exist, why resort to military force instead of established legal mechanisms and professional boundary experts?
A Ceasefire Is Not a License to Create a Fait Accompli
A ceasefire means ending confrontation and preserving the existing situation. It does not mean exploiting the silence of the guns to create new facts on the ground. The continued placement of shipping containers and barbed wire, construction of infrastructure, demolition of structures, or consolidation of physical control cannot be justified by invoking a ceasefire.
When the guns fall silent, the creation of a fait accompli must also stop. A ceasefire should freeze the situation, not provide an opportunity to alter it.
Above all, civilians must not become victims of territorial strategies. Preventing displaced people from returning to their homes, farmland and communities creates serious humanitarian consequences. Villages emptied because of conflict must not become opportunities for either side to consolidate territorial control.
More fundamentally, control by force is not sovereignty. The presence of troops, the installation of barriers or the raising of a national flag may create a physical fact on the ground, but none of these acts, by themselves, can establish lawful title to territory.
Facts created through force cannot become a source of sovereignty.
The More Thailand Does, the More Evidence It Leaves Behind
In an era of satellite imagery, drones, digital photography, geospatial data, international observers and global media, actions on the ground do not simply disappear without a trace.
Changes to terrain, new construction, barriers and restrictions preventing civilians from returning can be documented, verified and incorporated into the factual record.
Every additional unilateral action does not add even a single centimetre to Thailand’s lawful territorial entitlement. Instead, it may add another page to the evidentiary record that Thailand could eventually be called upon to explain.
This brings us to the central question: If Thailand is confident that its legal position is strong, why not rely on that position through the JBC, treaties, agreements, maps and international law? Why use military force to manufacture an answer on the ground?
The More the Aggression, the Higher the Reputational
Cost
Continued unilateral actions do more than increase tensions along the border. They risk imposing growing costs on Thailand’s reputation, credibility and international standing.
A country cannot, on the one hand, speak of peace and respect for international law while, on the other, using military force to create new facts on the ground without facing legitimate questions about the consistency of those positions.
The more force is used, the harder it becomes to convince the world that peace is genuinely being pursued.
The more faits accomplis are created, the harder it becomes to claim respect for existing agreements.
The further a state moves away from the law, the more difficult its position becomes to defend internationally.
Nevertheless, this is not a conflict between the Cambodian and Thai peoples. The peoples of both neighbouring countries need peace, stability and harmonious coexistence. What must end is the substitution of force for law and the substitution of fait accompli for agreed mechanisms of border settlement.
Thailand Must Choose: Law or Force
Returning to the JBC, treaties, agreements, peaceful negotiations and international law is not an act of surrender. It is the conduct of a state confident in its legal position and conscious of its responsibility for regional peace.
Cambodia does not need to answer fait accompli with fait accompli. Cambodia must hold firmly to the maps, treaties, agreements, evidence and law.
Ultimately, a boundary dispute is not decided by which side can erect more barbed wire or deploy shipping containers faster. It must be resolved on the basis of legal foundations capable of withstanding objective scrutiny.
Shipping containers can block a road, but they cannot draw an international boundary. Barbed wire can stop people from crossing, but it cannot create sovereignty. Military force can create temporary facts on the ground, but it cannot transform those facts into lawful territorial title.
It is time for the Thai military to cease actions that violate Cambodia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, stop creating faits accomplis, and return to the agreements, treaties, the JBC and international law.
Creating more faits accomplis does not create more sovereignty—it creates more evidence.
The choice before Thailand is therefore clear: continue relying on force and continue paying the price in diminished credibility, or return to the law and help build a peace that can endure.
A state that truly believes the law is on its side has no reason to fear the law.

 

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