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A Benevolent Message to the Thai People, Tourism Stakeholders, and the International Community

For more than fifteen days, an unjustifiable war has been waged against Cambodia.
A war without valid reason.
A war born of the thirst for power of one or several individuals incapable of managing their own country’s internal problems — as is, unfortunately, often the case.

Thailand, once known as the Land of Smiles, can no longer bear this name when people are killed without reason — and God knows how much I love Thailand and the Thai people —
when soldiers are captured and detained without justification,
when villages and civilian infrastructure are destroyed,
when unarmed civilians are shot,
when blind bombardments take place.

At this end of the year, which should be a time of celebration and family reunions, thousands of people on both sides of the border have been forced from their homes.
Today, they survive in rudimentary refugee camps, living in fear and uncertainty.

I went to a refugee camp.
I saw, in the eyes of displaced people, sadness, distress, and incomprehension.
I saw children crying, not understanding why they had to leave their homes and their schools.
I saw food distributions taking place far from their homes, under precarious conditions.
And amid this suffering, I also saw that their only comfort was the chain of solidarity that formed around them.

Schools in border areas, up to 50 kilometers on both sides, have fallen silent.
This silence is deafening.
It represents children forced to flee fighting — children who do not know, who do not understand why their lives have been turned upside down.

Fortunately, civilians are showing remarkable solidarity, providing help, food, and support to the victims.
But solidarity, as essential as it is, cannot replace peace.
These families simply want to return home, resume their lives, cultivate their fields, tend their animals, and find their way back home.

So, together, let us become responsible.
Our collective responsibility — especially that of those working in the tourism sector — is not to allow war to be diverted for personal and political purposes, without any justification.

Tourism is a vehicle for peace, encounters, and mutual respect between peoples.
It cannot be complicit in silence in the face of unjustified violence, whether in Thailand or in any other country at war.

Thailand, the Land of Smiles, sees its international image tarnished day after day.
No communication campaign will ever erase the images of destroyed villages, displaced children, and civilians taken as targets.

I call on all those planning to travel to Thailand:
cancel or postpone your trip.
This peaceful action is a legitimate lever of pressure to encourage the government to return to reason, to sit at the negotiating table, or to order the immediate and unconditional return of military forces to their barracks.

Peace is not built with weapons.
It is built with political courage, dialogue, and respect for human life.