The guns that won't fall silent——枪声不停

Source: Economist.com http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/04/thailand_and_cambodia_clash

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Thailand and Cambodia clash

泰柬冲突

The guns that won’t fall silent

枪声不停

AS MANY others enjoyed a quiet Easter break, the Thais and Cambodians were back to trading gunfire and diplomatic insults over disputed temples along their shared border.

当许多人享受安逸的复活节假日时，泰国与柬埔寨再度因其边境上的数坐争议庙宇，而发生交火与外交谴责。

Eleven soldiers were killed on the two sides of the border in the three days of artillery shelling, while scores were wounded. It was the second time in only a few months that the land along the border has become the scene of such bloodshed: in February a very similar flare-up left ten soldiers dead. Then the fighting focused on the disputed Preah Vihear temple: this time the two armies were skirmishing around two other disputed temples, Ta Moan and Ta Krabey, about 90 miles from Preah Vihear. Hundreds of civilians from nearby villages were forced to flee their homes.

为时三天的炮轰当中，双方共有七名阵亡，多人受伤。仅仅数月，该边境地区再次出现这类流血的景象：二月的一场极为相似的冲突中，造成十名士兵死亡。其后的冲突主要集中在有争议的Preah Vihear佛庙；而这次，双方军队则在另外两座争议庙宇——Ta Moan跟Ta Krabey周边发生遭遇战；这两座庙宇距离Preah Vihear庙约90英里。大批附近的民众被迫逃离家园。

The firing seemed to stop during the daylight hours of April 25th, only to flare up again in the evening. By the morning of Tuesday the 26th it was plainly back into full swing. Diplomatic attempts to resolve the conflict have been disappointing. Under the terms of a deal to stop the fighting in February, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), to which both Thailand and Cambodia belong, had arranged to send Indonesian observers to the border in order to monitor the situation—what was to have been a ceasefire. However the deal was never finalised. In a further setback for the credibility of ASEAN, Indonesia’s foreign minister, Marty Natalegawa, had been due to fly in to chair talks between the two sides on April 25th, only for the trip to be cancelled at late notice. The Thais, apparently, were unhappy at his terms of reference for the talks. But the UN did little better. From New York the secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, appealed for a ceasefire on April 23rd, only to be ignored as well.

交火于四月二十五日日间出现缓和，然而在晚间再度爆发。二十六日周二早间，当地回到全面的战争状态。目的在解决冲突的外交尝试令人失望。基于某份旨在二月份促成停战的协议的条款，东南亚国家联盟（东盟），即泰国与柬埔寨双方皆隶属旗下的组织，安排了来自印尼的观察员前往其边境监视状况——目的是促成停火。然而该协议始终未能达成共识。由于东盟介入并促成停火的可信性下降，印尼外交部长Marty Natalegawa当时准备前往该地区，并于四月二十五日主持双方的会谈，但稍后取消了行程；很明显，泰国方面对此会谈的权责范围感到不满。而联合国的努力也不见得有更大的贡献。在纽约，联合国秘书长潘基文于四月二十三日呼吁双方停火，但也遭到忽视。

Probably the only thing that will stop the two ASEAN countries scrapping like this will be a change in the internal political dynamics of either or both countries. Some elements on the Thai side, in particular, have every interest in rallying nationalist sentiment with a good border dispute in an election year.

或许唯一能让这两个东盟国家停止“互殴”的办法，是在双方或在某一方的内部政治力量中出现的改变。尤其在泰国方面，其国内的某些群体颇为热衷于在选举年利用边境冲突作为题材，鼓动国家主义的情绪。

The conservative yellow-shirt movement has made a lot of political capital out of demanding a firm stand against Cambodian “aggression”; they hope to force the government of Abhisit Vejjajiva to sway in their direction. There is even speculation in Bangkok that the whole border fighting is being whipped up by the army in order to precipitate a sense of crisis in the country, in order to have the election cancelled altogether. What the army fears most is a victory at the polls for the red-shirted supporters of the deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

保守派的黄衫运动，因其要求对柬埔寨的“侵略”行径持坚定的反对立场，而获得了大量政治资本；他们希望Abhisit Vejjajiva政府能倒向他们的一方。在曼谷甚至有人猜想认为，边境上的整场战事完全是军队指使的，目的在于通过在国内制造危机感，而使得选举被取消。使军方最为忧心的，是在民意调查中获胜的，前总统他信的红杉支持者。

What is not in doubt is that this won’t be the last time that Thailand and Cambodia lob shells at each other over the border. They have been tussling over this land for many years, and politicians know better than to be reasonable and generous in a situation like this. 

毋庸置疑，这绝非泰柬双方最后一次在边境上炮击对方。他们在这片土地上“打斗”多年，而与理性和宽容相比，在这类情况下，政治家们知道的更多。