Last week the highly respected Cluster Munitions Collective announced that they now had sufficient evidence to prove that the Thai Army used cluster munitions against Cambodia during an exchange of fire in February 2011.

The CMC concluded that:

“This is the first use of cluster munitions anywhere in the world since the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions entered into force and became binding international law. Thailand has been a leader in the global ban on antipersonnel mines, and it is unconscionable that it used banned weapons that indiscriminately kill and injure civilians in a similar manner.”

Pic: Stéphane De Greef, Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor.

Since then there have been several arguments, largely put forward by the PM Abhisit-led Thai government and their supporters, discussing the semantics of whether the munitions used could be defined as cluster as not. This can be quite simply dismissed as a deliberate obfuscation.

In the last few days I spoke to an ex-forces explosives expert in Cambodia who has worked for years with the Cambodian mine and cluster munitions clearing organisation, CMAC, and this contact confirmed, unequivocally, that the devices used by the Thai Army were certainly cluster munitions. They also stated that more reports and photographs regarding these munitions will be emerging in the next few days.

And now, with this story circulating through the global press, international pressure is ratcheting up on the Thai regime. Yesterday, hot on the heels of the Norwegian government’s condemnation, the UK government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office released this statement condemning the use of cluster munitions and making it clear concerns have been raised with the Thai government.

“We are aware of the recent allegations of the use of cluster munitions by the Thai army and have raised this with the Thai authorities. That cluster munitions may have been used is of serious concern to the UK. We condemn in the strongest terms the use of cluster munitions that causes unacceptable harm to the civilian population.”

Thankfully, the evidence for this example of the Thai Army’s flagrant disregard for the safety of civilians is now beyond their control. It seems that internationalising of Thailand’s domestic problems could have far-reaching and damaging consequences for both PM Abhisit and the Thai Army.