Indonesia to send observers in border dispute

Wednesday, 23 February 2011

The Jakarta Post

ASEAN chairman and Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa announced Tuesday that teams of up to 20 civilians and “unarmed” military officers would be posted at each side of the border.

“In the informal ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting today it was agreed that Cambodia and Thailand should settle their problem peacefully and invite Indonesia as an observer and engage it in talks,” he said after the meeting in Jakarta. “It’s quite a unique situation as Indonesian observers will be on both the Thai side as well as the Cambodian side if the border.”

He said Indonesia would be the first country in ASEAN to send observers at the request of two conflicting parties. “This will be the first for a country to be invited to become an observer by two conflicting parties and will not be stationed in a buffer zone but in Cambodia as well as in Thailand. This shows the trust of the two parties and ASEAN in Indonesia.”

The teams, he said, would observe and report its findings accurately and impartially.

Thailand and Cambodia have exchanged gunfire over a disputed border area, with each side accusing the other of shooting first.

Three Thais and eight Cambodians have been killed and dozens wounded in the Feb. 4-7 skirmishes.

Sporadic clashes have broken out since then, Reuters reported.

While full details remain to be hammered out, Marty said the observer teams would start working within days, if not weeks, but would not enforce the cease-fire.

“Our team is not a peace enforcement body but an observer that reports on what happens to the ASEAN chair and the two parties,” he said.

Marty said he had informed the Indonesian defense minister and the chief of the Indonesian Military (TNI) about the plans, adding that officers would be ready to be assigned as observers along with officials from the Foreign Ministry.

“However, we need to know the situation on the ground and therefore an advance team will be sent to decide on the number [of observers] to be deployed and other factors,” he said.

Marty added that Indonesia would also engage in future bilateral talks between Cambodia and Thailand, with the extent of its engagement still to be defined.

Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said he welcomed Indonesian observers, saying they were needed to make sure accusations would not be baseless. “I think if there are no third parties, we get to a situation where you could say I shot first, or you shot first, and so on,” he told The Jakarta Post in an interview after the meeting.

“If we could solve this at a bilateral level without involving Indonesia, we would do so. But we are need the presence of Indonesia as a facilitator, so why not [engage observers]?”

Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo said in a press statement that Singapore welcomed and supported the ASEAN chair’s efforts in facilitating a conducive environment for the resumption of negotiations between Cambodia and Thailand in the broader interest of ASEAN.