The Thai-Cambodian conflict may be a gamble in more senses than one

The lucrative gambling industry is likely to have played a part in fuelling the deadly border clashes.

via Alamy/ RM452W

The news that Thailand and Cambodia had agreed to an unconditional ceasefire, brokered by Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, under background mediation by the United States and China, came as a relief to an international community already beset by conflicts. Whether this truce will hold remains to be seen; the next event in the geopolitical diary of both parties is the scheduled meeting of their General Border Committee, due to be hosted by Cambodia on 4 August.

This brief conflict has already claimed at least 36 lives and uprooted 270,000 displaced persons on both sides of the border. It is the border that is allegedly the main cause of the conflict: there have been longstanding disputes over a frontier originally drawn on colonial maps. In 1907 Cambodia, then a French colony, signed a treaty with Siam (now Thailand), delineating their 500-mile-long border.