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Thailand's Myanmar 'appeasement'
blasted
By Johanna Son and Chayanit
Poonyarat
BANGKOK - The Thai and Myanmese
governments were at each other's throats just a few
months ago, but these days Thai officials are busy
rounding up and deporting anti-Yangon dissidents working
out of Thailand.
It may look as if Thailand and
Myanmar are friends again - not quite, but that is what
the government of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
wants to achieve by what critics call a blatant
"appeasement" policy with Yangon.
His
government's goal appears to be to patch up ties with
neighboring Myanmar, which have been tense since border
clashes led to the closure of the border on May 22. The
clashes occurred as Myanmar accused Thailand of shelling
its territory to help ethnic-Shan rebels.
But
mending fences is not so simple, rights activists and
critics say. In pursuit of this goal - which the
government considers a pragmatic one - they say,
Thailand is breaching human-rights standards and putting
at risk its tradition of being a humanitarian haven for
those fleeing repression and danger.
"To please
the junta is an important matter and they are willing to
sacrifice our humanitarian policy, which has been there
for a long time," said Sunai Phasuk of the human-rights
group Forum-Asia.
Sunai was referring to the
Thai authorities rounding up last week of 31 Myanmese
nationals in Kanchanaburi province, across from
Myanmar's Mon state, saying they were illegal entrants.
Some of them belonged to the National League of
Democracy of Myanmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi
and other dissident groups and some reportedly had
refugee identification cards issued by the United
Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR).
Two days later, immigration officials forcibly
repatriated the group to Myanmar, although activists say
some have already found their way back to Thai
territory.
Senator Kraisak Choonhavan, chairman
of the Thai Senate foreign relations committee, said
that forcibly sending dissidents back to Yangon is a
blot on Thailand's record. "Thailand would be
perpetuating and aiding the violation of human rights,"
Kraisak said.
Critics say the Thai moves are
aimed at appeasing Yangon ahead of talks next month,
proposed by Myanmar, on reopening the border. The Thai
government agreed to the talks and has since been saying
that the border points - normally bustling areas for
traders and tourists - would soon be opened. But Yangon
has yet to do so.
Thai papers quoted a Myanmese
source as saying Yangon wanted a clearer policy from
Bangkok toward ethnic minorities, in particular the Shan
State Army and the Karen National Union.
In his
visit to Myanmar early this month, Foreign Minister
Surakiart Sathirathai confirmed that Thailand did not
have a policy of supporting any group wishing to use its
territory to fight the Myanmese government, according to
a Foreign Ministry statement. Just before last week's
crackdown, the National Security Council had stressed a
similar policy, the English-language newspaper The
Nation reported on Thursday.
Myanmar has long
asked Thai governments to clamp down on the dissidents
that live in exile in Thailand, but what is different
this time is the response by the Thai government.
"Burma sees these people as enemies. They say
the humanitarian policy of Thailand is a hostile
policy," Sunai said, using the country's former name
before it was changed to Myanmar by the junta. "They
have been saying this for more than 10 years, but past
Thai governments haven't been as seriously pressured by
the demand of [Yangon] that Thailand must stop this
policy."
The Thaksin government, however, has
taken a different stand and took Yangon's bait, critics
say.
This week's arrests have caused concern
among the thousands of Myanmese activists in Thailand,
and news reports say the offices of some Myanmese groups
have been closed temporarily. The clampdown was such
that even Suu Kyi, usually diplomatic because of
Thailand's sheltering of Myanmese exiles and refugees,
spoke out against Thailand's behavior.
"It is
not appropriate to crack down on dissidents and
pro-democracy activists who do not break the law," she
told the Chiang Mai-based magazine The Irrawaddy.
Other analysts say that Yangon appears to be
testing Thailand's policy toward Myanmar under Thaksin -
and looking at what some see as differences between
Bangkok's official policy and its lack of implementation
by those on the ground. "I don't think Burma is willing
to reopen the checkpoints unless there are clearer
actions," said Chayachoke Chulasiriwongs of
Chulalongkorn University.
For the Thaksin
government, its overtures to Myanmar are pragmatic ones
given its desire to ease tensions. Thaksin said this
month: "I don't think the situation will get further out
of hand because it can't get any worse than this."
At the height of the border tensions, Myanmese
writers in the state-controlled press began digging up
past military battles in the countries' history. There
was also boycott of Thai goods.
Addressing
Thai-Myanmar tensions is not as easy as wiping the dust
from one's eye, said Pornpimol Trichote, a Myanmese
analyst at the Institute of Asian Studies. Pornmipol
said that there is no guarantee that Myanmar would not
seal its border again on other issues.
"There
are many other factors beside this ethnic [rebel]
problem," said Pornpimol. "Thai-Burmese relations will
continue to swing up and down in the absence of
democracy and because of trade along the border."
Thaksin's approach may soon lead to a reopening
of the border, but not without a cost to Thailand's
human-rights record. Critics say the appeasement policy
is about short-term interests because it undercuts
Thailand's position when military government ends in
Myanmar.
"Thaksin is trying to please the
dictators in Burma and it has already upset the
democracy leader [Suu Kyi] who will soon be the
democratic leader of that country," argued Sunai.
"Thaksin is making the biggest mistake. He has upset the
current rulers [through the May clashes] as well as
Burma's future rulers."
(Inter Press
Service)
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