Thailand’s army is now building a narrative wall, a defense not of land but of image. This morning’s statement from The Nation Thailand, quoting Lt Gen Boonsin Padklang, is not about the border; it is about control of perception. Boonsin stepped forward to shield Lt Gen Weerayut Raksilp, the new Second Army Region Commander, from growing criticism over his silence during the Cambodian border escalation. His admission was striking: “The new commander isn’t much of a talker, he knows that himself.” When an army begins to explain its silence, it is already on the defensive.

What Thailand has launched here is containment by personality. Instead of answering questions about bulldozers dismantling Khmer homes at Prey Chan and Chork Chey, or clarifying its position on Joint Boundary Commission procedures, it redirects public focus toward the personal habits of a general. The purpose is not to clarify but to blur, to make the story about temperament, not trespass. “He needs time,” Boonsin said. Yet time is not the issue. The issue is why Thai troops were on ground that remains disputed under the 2000 MOU, and why those actions coincided with selective silence from their command.

This pattern is familiar. Every time Bangkok’s behavior on the border invites scrutiny, its institutions reach for substitution, replacing evidence with tone, facts with faces. The photo attached to the statement shows a soldier looking down, solemn and quiet, while the text asks readers to understand him. It is a performance of humility meant to humanize the command while depoliticizing the act. Boonsin’s own words, “some issues require guidance from higher levels,” quietly confess that the orders are no longer local. In Thai military vocabulary, that phrase signals that decisions have traveled upward, beyond Korat, beyond the army’s line of command, into the civilian cabinet itself.

The timing of this communication is not random. It arrived just after an excavator was pulled back from the contested strip, a gesture Thailand calls de-escalation but which was, in truth, an optical retreat. Bangkok wants ASEAN and observers to see compliance, not accountability. Hence, this interview appears to project stability: the mentor defending the protégé, the army appearing orderly. But for those watching closely, the performance exposes pressure. A confident command does not explain itself through sentiment. A confident border does not need a spokesman to remind others that the commander “understands the situation fully.”

Cambodia must treat this as a psychological stage, not a military one. Thailand’s current phase is stabilization by narrative, cooling optics before international inquiry deepens. Our answer must remain procedural and visible. Every Cambodian statement so far from the Ministry of Information, from local governors, from the documented footage of dismantled homes has stayed within law and truth. That is the power line we must not break. When Thailand hides behind hierarchy, Cambodia must show documentation. When they substitute character for conduct, we must substitute silence with evidence.

For ASEAN and international partners observing this moment, the distinction is visible. Cambodia answers with process; Thailand answers with personality. One side opens the file; the other guards the microphone. Cambodia’s transparency is not provocation, it is discipline. Their silence is not dignity it is damage control.

The homes at Prey Chan and Chork Chey still stand half-collapsed, their bamboo frames visible against the dry soil. They are the quiet rebuttal to the Thai Army’s controlled tone. This is not a question of who speaks more softly, but of who speaks truth. In the silence between their excuses and our evidence lies the real border drawn not on maps, but in moral clarity.

Midnight