URGENT PETITION FOR INTERVENTION TO HALT ATROCITIES AND RESTORE PEACE IN THE CAMBODIA-THAILAND CONFLICT

 H.E. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, H.E. Anwar Ibrahim, Prime Minister of Malaysia, and Chair of ASEAN, and The Permanent Representatives of the UN Security Council

SUBJECT: URGENT PETITION FOR INTERVENTION TO HALT ATROCITIES AND RESTORE PEACE IN THE CAMBODIA-THAILAND CONFLICT

 

Excellencies,

 

I write to you not as a politician, but as an ordinary citizen, a victim, and a witness to a century of sorrow. I am a Cambodian refugee elder who has survived more than sixty years of relentless warfare. I have lived through the Samlot War (1967), the U.S. carpet bombings (1965-1973), the Civil War (1970–1975), the Khmer Rouge genocide (1975–1979), the Vietnamese invasion and occupation (1979–1989), the coup in Phnom Penh in 1997, the end of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1998, the border conflicts with Thailand (2008–2011), the border clash with Vietnam in 2015, the border dispute with Laos in 2017, and now the major border dispute and re-escalation armed clashes between Thailand and Cambodia in 2025.

 

I have seen the soil of my homeland turn red too many times. Today, at the end of 2025, it is happening again. As I watch the sky over Poipet (Banteay Meanchey Province) and Banan District (Battambang Province) in the news, filled with the smoke of airstrikes and the fears of the civilians and children running, I am forced to ask: Has the world learned nothing from the two million lives lost in the Killing Fields?

 

The Humanitarian Emergency Impacts

 

The collapse of the July ceasefire has led to a "blowout conflict" characterized by disproportionate force against a smaller, weaker nation. As of December 22, the statistics of our suffering are undeniable (Press Release by the Ministry of Interior on the Impact on Civilian Areas and Cambodian Civilians Resulting from Acts of Aggression by the Thai Government and Military Against Cambodia’s Sovereign Territory from December 7 to December 22, 2025):

• 544,703 Cambodians displaced, including 285,544 women and 174,006 children who are now homeless and living in terror. At present, they are suffering severe hardship and difficulties due to forced displacement from their homes and schools to escape artillery shells, rockets, and aerial bombardments carried out by Thailand’s F-16 aircraft, which have repeatedly destroyed their homes and communities. These figures may rise if armed warfare and cruelty are prolonged.
• The targeted destruction of civilian infrastructure, bridges, and sacred temples—sites that are the soul of our identity.
• A systemic international silence that favors the militarily and diplomatically stronger power, leaving the poor and the marginalized to face F-16 airstrikes alone and heavy and modern weaponry shelling for more than 17   

 

The Failure of "Restraint"

 

The calls for "maximum restraint" issued from your offices have failed. The December 22 special meeting in Kuala Lumpur ended in a stalemate because the international community continues to treat this as a "bilateral dispute" rather than a humanitarian catastrophe.

 

When you remain silent in the face of such a power imbalance, you are not being neutral; you are emboldening the aggressor. For Cambodia, international law has historically been a ghost—invoked only when it suits the interests of the great powers. This cycle of power politics must end.

 

Formal Demands for Intervention

 

In the name of the millions who perished in our past wars, and for the sake of the children and innocent civilians currently hiding in displaced centers and bunkers, I formally petition the United Nations and ASEAN to:

1. Deploy High Level Independent Observers: Immediate deployment of UN or ASEAN monitors to the border provinces to verify a ceasefire and document violations of International Humanitarian Law.
2. Enforce the Kuala Lumpur Peace Accords: Move beyond rhetoric and impose diplomatic consequences for the continued use of heavy weaponry and airstrikes in populated areas.
3. Reject Conditional Peace: Denounce the "inflexible conditions" that demand the weaker party accept the label of aggressor as a prerequisite for a ceasefire.

 

Closing

 

My generation was told that the world would "Never Again" turn a blind eye to the suffering of the Cambodian people. Yet, the current silence is a haunting echo of 1975. I beg you to act before the current count of 21 dead civilians becomes 21,000.

 

Do not let my grandchildren’s destiny be written in the same blood that stained my youth.

 

Respectfully,

 

Sovachana Pou

A Survivor and Elder of the Cambodian People