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Thailand accused of dancing to Myanmar's
tune
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK -
Thailand's Thaksin administration has distanced itself
from previous Thai governments' harsh rhetoric against
Myanmar's generals and launched efforts to patch up
relations with its neighbor through trade and
cooperation. Bangkok's emphasis is to develop warmer
ties between the two countries, with trade and business
as the cement.
As a result, Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra's policy on Myanmar is coming under
increasing fire from critics who say Bangkok is bowing
to Yangon's wishes by avoiding references to its
human-rights abuses during bilateral talks this week.
This attitude, they assert, continues to erode
Thailand's reputation as one of the few countries in
Southeast Asia that uphold human rights.
Myanmar has been under military rule since a
1962 coup put the generals in government. In the
intervening 40 years, the military has violated
human rights, including killing and imprisoning
political opponents, forcing members of ethnic
communities into slave labor and suppressing free
expression.
Thailand is a leading
foreign investor in Myanmar, to the tune of US$25.75
million in 2001. Official bilateral trade between the
two totaled about 28 billion baht ($646 million) in the
first six months of this year. And that figure only
takes legitimate trade into account; the "black
economy", especially narcotics exported into Thailand
from Myanmar, is booming. Timber imports, both legal and
otherwise, are also important to Thailand, as is a
pipeline that brings natural gas from Myanmar into the
kingdom.
But despite the policy of engagement
toward Myanmar by Thailand and its Association of
Southeast Asian Nations partners - notably Malaysia,
whose Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has urged the
world to "be patient" as Myanmar's four-decade-old
military government takes halting steps toward democracy
- little progress is apparent on the issue of human
rights and the brutal oppression of ethnic minorities.
"The impression created is that Thailand is
willing to protect the war criminals in Burma," charged
Sunai Phasuk of Forum Asia, a Bangkok-based regional
human-rights watchdog. (Burma was Myanmar's name before
the country was officially rechristened by the military
government; the capital, Rangoon, was also renamed
Yangon.) "While the Burmese government is being
condemned internationally for human rights abuses,
including rape, the Thai government is not raising its
voice," Sunai said.
According to a sarcastic
barb doing the rounds here among Myanmese living in
exile on this side of the border, when it comes to
Myanmar, "Thai foreign policy is made in Yangon, not in
Bangkok."
"There are increasing signs that
Rangoon is dictating terms and the Thai government is
willing to follow," said one Myanmese activist who spoke
on condition of anonymity. "It is disturbing, this
policy of appeasement."
These reactions come in
the wake of formal talks here on Wednesday between Thai
Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai and his Myanmese
counterpart, Win Aung.
Human-rights groups,
including Forum Asia, were hoping that Surakiart would
use his meeting with Win Aung to discuss rights issues
in addition to the topics the Thaksin administration is
more warm to, such as trade and business opportunities.
But that outcome was not to be. "The meeting was
a good opportunity for Thailand to display its
human-rights commitments but, as we saw, the Thaksin
government has focused more on economic issues and human
rights has become of less importance," said Srirak
Plipat of the Thai office of Amnesty International, the
global human-rights lobby.
Surakiart was quoted
in the Thai press on Thursday as saying the discussions
had focused on drug trafficking, illegal immigration,
consular services and cross-border trade.
In
sharp contrast to the Thai government's position on
Myanmar's human-rights record was the message coming
from the International Burma Summit, held on September
22-23 in Copenhagen.
"The International Burma
Summit has been organized to focus attention not only on
the truth of what is happening today in Burma but what
we, as an international community, must do in response,"
declared a statement released by a high-profile panel at
the summit.
The panel included Mairead Maguire,
a Nobel Peace Prize winner from Northern Ireland, Helle
Degn, the human rights commissioner for the Baltic
states and former Danish minister for development aid,
and Asda Jayanama, a former Thai ambassador to the
United Nations.
They were unequivocal in their
condemnation of Myanmar for gross human-rights
violations. Particularly troubling to the panel was
"compelling evidence of brutal and systematic sexual
violence against women by the military throughout
Burma".
In May, the two bodies monitoring rights
abuses among the Shan, one of Myanmar's many ethnic
groups, released a chilling report about the scale of
sexual violence women in the Shan areas have been
subjected to. Up to 625 girls and women in the Shan
areas have been raped by the Myanmese military between
1996 and 2001, the report "License to Rape" said. Under
international law, such violations are deemed a war
crime.
The authors of the report, the Shan Human
Rights Foundation and the Shan Women's Action Network,
accuse the Myanmese army of officially condoning rape as
part of their anti-insurgency activities.
Also
troubling, according to participants at the Copenhagen
meeting, is the 1,400 political prisoners currently
languishing in Myanmese detention centers, many of whom
had been incarcerated for their work as democracy and
human-rights activists. The prisoners range from
students, monks and activists from political parties
opposed to the junta to those belonging to ethnic groups
and elected members of parliament.
"Political
prisoners have been subjected to severe beatings,
suffocation, the denial of decent food, water and rest,
and other forms of torture and mistreatment," said the
statement issued after the meeting.
In early
May, Myanmar's military rulers came in for some praise
after freeing opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from 19
months of house arrest. The United Nations-brokered deal
also resulted in the Nobel Peace laureate being allowed
the freedom to travel across the country for her
political work. The junta has also earned praise for
releasing some of its political prisoners - some 400 to
date.
Weeks ago, Bangkok displayed how far it
would go to retain its alliance with its northern
neighbor, when it ordered police crackdowns on activists
and victims of rights abuses from Myanmar who had sought
refuge in Thailand.
"Burmese dissidents feel
upset and are worried by the Thai government's
policies," said Min Zin, an associate editor at The
Irrawaddy, a Thai-based monthly journal that focuses on
Myanmese and Southeast Asian issues.
(Inter
Press Service)
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