By Pinn Siraprapasiri
Special to The Nation
“The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than about what others are saying, and we never listen when we are eager to speak.” Francois La Rochefoucauld.
This is probably why it is so difficult in a quarrel for people to realise there is usually common ground upon which they all can agree. The protracted border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia is in part because of the eagerness of both sides to win this seemingly zero-sum game. The exchanges last week, unfortunately not in well-intended form between the governments of Thailand and Cambodia, were fatal and resulted in casualties and losses. France offered to help mediate. But our prime minister brushed off the offer.
The UN and Asean, under their charters, are required to offer good offices to member countries in conflict. A third-party intervention – either as facilitator, mediator or manipulator, depending on their interests, resources and relationship with the parties to conflict – is often sought when a dispute is protracted and complex, when the parties’ own attempts have reached deadlock, when neither party seeks the use of force, and when both are ready to cooperate to break the stalemate.
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