Thai prime minister finally receives nod to visit junta

Tuesday, 03 August 2010 23:17 Mizzima News

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burma’s military regime have finally responded to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s requests to visit Burma this week, sources from the prospective host’s foreign ministry said, after Abhisit had told the press in Bangkok.

A source close to the Thai leader’s office said Abhisit had expressed a sincere wish to meet State Peace and Development Council (or SPDC, the Burmese junta) leaders with the goal of improving bilateral relations. The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the visit would start on Friday.

The Democrat Party-led coalition government has recently expressed displeasure with the SPDC’s human rights record and democratic reforms, but an official in the junta’s secluded capital of Naypyidaw downplayed the potential influence Thailand could have over the generals ruling its neighbour to the west.

“The Burmese government is easily playing with the Thai government as a public relations exercise because, for the generals who dare to play with China and the US, the Thai government is nothing,” the official said.

Abhisit may not be expecting much from the regime nor was he expecting to meet junta leader Senior General Than Shwe during this visit, a Thai foreign ministry spokesman said.

He had announced early last month that he would pay his first official visit to Burma this month, ahead of the first elections to be held in military dictatorship since 1990, which Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party won by a landslide.

The Thai foreign ministry said Abhisit had asked SPDC counterpart Thein Sein to meet Suu Kyi in July last year after she was remanded in custody to Insein Prison over charges that she had broken the terms of her house arrest when American John Yettaw, swam uninvited across Inya Lake to visit her.

The junta has kept Suu Kyi in various forms of detention for at least 15 of the past 21 years and the authorities used the invasion to extend her detention. She has been barred from standing in this year’s upcoming polls, which are widely thought to be a sham aimed at putting a democratic face on the generals entrenched power.

Abhisit’s requests were rejected by Thein Sein who said it was an inappropriate time for such a visit. Thai Foreign Affairs Minister Kasit Piromya made numerous additional requests demanding Suu Kyi’s release but the junta ignored the pleas by Thailand, which holds the current Asean chairmanship.

Thai government’s approaches slowed after the US government’s new potential engagement policy was raised.

During the United Nations General Assembly, Kasit abandoned the Thai drive for Suu Kyi’s release from a bizarre legal set-up while Washington floated its engagement policy. During the assembly, a group of Burmese cabinet members including U Thaung, former Burmese ambassador and the current science and technology official overseeing nuclear development in Burma, and Foreign Minister Nyan Win, were allowed to visit the United States’ capital, Washington.

A mid-level regime official and diplomat who had worked on the US desk of the Burmese Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed this was a sign the US was changing priorities concerning help for Suu Kyi.

“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been abandoned by the US lawmakers and government because of its national security concerns amid emerging SPDC nuclear ambitions,” according to the official.

“The regime has wanted to settle previously agreed mega projects … [and] pocket the money before any new government is installed [after the elections],” a Burmese businessman who requested anonymity said. “Now they have 100 per cent control but they may not be sure about the future so they have shown a tendency to want to rush projects through.”

Observers suggest that the SPDC needs the Thai government’s help to convince the Southeast Asian leaders of Asean in the wake of its ministerial meeting in Hanoi that the generals are willing to work with Asean, and say the junta will use the visit to win Thailand over.

Abhisit may also discuss border issues, particularly the junta’s closure of the Mae Sot-Myawaddy border to trade 21 days ago, in protest at Thailand’s Moei riverbank conservation scheme, which it claimed had diverted currents and eroded the Burmese side of the river. The Bangkok Post reported on Sunday that Thailand had lost an estimated 20 billion baht (US$620 million) as a result of the row.