The private visit of former Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen to Bangkok to see former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra is not only a testament to their personal friendship, but also has larger implications for bilateral ties between the two countries and domestic political affairs.
Hun Sen, who is now president of Cambodia’s Supreme Privy Council and the head of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), was the first foreign guest to visit Thaksin at his Chan Song La residence after his release on parole two days earlier.
Personal ties between the two former premiers from now on would be a key factor in forging closer bilateral relations between Thailand and Cambodia, longtime Thaksin watcher Professor Ukrist Pathmanand of Chulalongkorn University’s Institute of Asian Studies said.
The maritime border issue
“The key issue both Thaksin and Hun Sen would be involved in at the very outset is the maritime border dispute in the Gulf of Thailand, an area that holds abundant deposits of petroleum reserves, which could benefit both countries,” Ukrist told Thai PBS World in an interview.
“The two strongmen would be able to exercise their charisma, influence and power over their governments, banking on their deep ties, and catering to national interest,” said Ukrist, who co-authored the book, “The Thaksinization of Thailand”, first published in 2004.
Neither Thaksin nor Hun Sen mentioned the maritime dispute during the high-profile visit. However, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Manet, who is also a son of Hun Sen, discussed the matter during an official visit paid by the latter on February 7.
The Thai and Cambodian governments under the leadership of Thaksin and Hun Sen had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in June 2001 to negotiate the delimitation of the territorial sea and the establishment of a joint development scheme in the 26,000-square-kilometer overlapping claimed area.
Different continental shelf claims since the 1970s created an overlapping area that potentially contains up to 11 trillion cubic feet of natural gas as well as 500 million barrels of condensate and oil.
Negotiations over the past two decades made little progress due to the domestic political turmoil in Thailand, which had negative consequences for the relations between the two countries and obstructed the settlement of boundary disputes.
The conservative right accused Thaksin of having a conflict of interest in dealing with Cambodia’s Hun Sen on the overlapping-claims area. They supported a military coup to topple Thaksin’s administration in September 2006 and subsequently blocked attempts made by Thaksin’s proxy governments from negotiating on the issue with Cambodia.
Conflict of interest as usual?
Former senator Rosana Tositrakul, who played a key role in the yellow-shirt protest movement against Thaksin over the past decade, posted on her Facebook on February 24 that the main objective of Hun Sen’s visit to meet Thaksin was to exert their strong influence in making progress in negotiations for the extraction of natural gas in the overlapping-claims area.
“The visit bypassed all diplomatic channels of the government and the Foreign Ministry, which means Hun Sen knows very well who has the real power to make a deal on the gas field,” Rosana’s post said.
The former senator said Thaksin seemed to have cut a deal with Hun Sen based on the 2001 MOU focusing only on joint development to extract natural gas from the area below 11 degrees North latitude.
The MOU stipulates that the two countries accelerate negotiations for a joint development regime in the areas below 11 degrees North latitude and delimitation of the territorial sea in the area above 11 degrees North latitude.
“If the government drops the negotiation on the boundary delimitation, I’m worried Thailand could lose some territorial sea, notably Koh Kood island to Cambodia, similar to the loss of Preah Vihear temple,” Rosana posted.
Prime Minister Srettha has reasoned that the acceleration of negotiations would benefit the people, as Thailand would get cheap energy to cut the price of electricity. Rosana, however, countered that ordinary people would never benefit in that way as the energy sector was dominated by a few multinational corporations.
The Thai government granted concessions to international firms in 1972 to explore and extract petroleum resources from the overlapping-claims area and Cambodia granted them in 1997, she said. The license and concession were still valid, added Rosana who follows the energy sector.
Thailand does not have a real national operator in this sector and the government mostly acts as a broker to disperse the benefit among the international firms, she said.
Nothing personal
Professor Ukrist said the lasting friendship between Thaksin and Hun Sen would help stabilize and secure the regimes that owe allegiance to them in their respective countries. “They would help one another fight their respective enemies,” he said.
Hun Sen launched a series of information operations to discredit the Move Forward Party last year when the party was making efforts to form a government and install its leader Pita Limjaroenrat as the prime minister.
Hun Sen, who was the prime minister at the time, ruffled feathers when he alleged that Pita’s party had a policy to expel Cambodian workers from Thailand if it managed to form the government.
Hun Sen posted and later deleted his social media message that Pita’s setback was a major failure for the Cambodian dissidents in exile to use Thailand as their launching pad against his government.
As a follow-up, Thai police arrested three Cambodian activists including Kun Raiya, a former member of the opposition Candlelight Party, a few days before Hun Manet visited Thailand in early February.
Photo : Hun Sen’s Facebook
Hun Sen likely institutionalized his links with the Shinawatra clan for the sake of bilateral relations between the two regimes.
Upon his return to Phnom Penh, as the chief of the ruling CPP, Hun Sen extended an invitation to Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra who is the leader of the ruling Pheu Thai Party to visit Cambodia on March 18-19.
Paethongtarn’s visit is aimed at exchanging views and pushing closer cooperation between the two neighboring countries to serve the common interest of both the people and parties, according to the CPP statement on February 23.
During the visit, she would meet Hun Sen, whom she calls uncle, the president of the Senate, Say Chhum, the president of the National Assembly, Khoun Sudary, and Prime Minister Hun Manet.
A lasting friendship
Thaksin and Hun Sen got to know one another in 1992 when Thaksin invested in the broadcasting business after Cambodia had just opened the market.
Their relations, however, soured in 1994 when some of Thaksin’s men were allegedly involved in a coup attempt against Hun Sen.
Another bitter episode in their friendship was in 2003. Thaksin was reportedly furious at Hun Sen as the Cambodian ruler failed to control anti-Thai rioters who stormed and looted the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh.
The riots were triggered by an unsubstantiated Cambodian newspaper article that claimed a Thai actress had accused Cambodia of stealing Angkor Wat from Thailand.
The Cambodian government had to compensate for the damage inflicted on Thai state properties as well as of many private Thai companies.
Once the two repaired their relations, they became trusted allies. Hun Sen has called Thaksin his “eternal friend”. Thaksin owes a debt of gratitude to his Cambodian friend over the past decades for standing by him when he was persona non grata in his home country.
Hun Sen sheltered Thaksin, and his sister Yingluck Shinawatra when she fled the country before a court verdict against her, as well as many of their supporters when they sought refuge after military coups in 2006 and 2014.
Both Thaksin and Yingluck were special guests at Hun Sen’s birthday celebrations in August last year, when political activity was at its peak in Bangkok after the May 14 general election.
Hun Sen rejected the extradition request for fugitive Thaksin by the Thai government of Abhisit Vejjajiva in 2009 when the two countries had a bitter conflict on sovereignty over the Hindu temple of Preah Vihear as well the maritime dispute over overlapping claims in the Gulf of Thailand.
By Thai PBS World’s Regional Desk
