Activists target UN conference in Bangkok
BANGKOK, Feb 8 (AFP) -Anti-globalisation activists have vowed their calls for reform will not be silenced by tight security clamped on the first global trade summit since violence scarred major economic talks in Seattle and Davos.
Non-governmental organisations will push for sweeping changes to the global financial system during the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Bangkok from February 12-17.
But security services, already on high alert after a bloody hospital siege by Myanmar rebels last month, have warned they are well prepared if any protests turn violent.
Designated areas for large protests, possibly at a city centre park, are several miles away from the conference centre and all but a handful of nominated protestors will be kept out of sight of delegates.
Thousands of extra police will be on duty, hospitals are at a state of readiness and a massive security operation has been launched to protect VIPs.
Officials are wary of a repeat of violence which marred the World Trade Organisation summit in Seattle and the World Economic Forum in Davos.
But NGO members have vowed to hold protests despite the security operation.
"We will surely have large demonstrations, with 121 organizations working together in a show of solidarity," Prasitporn Kanonsir, advisor to the NGO Assembly of the Poor, told AFP.
With the Seattle debacle in mind, NGOs have been welcomed to the fringes of the conference and will meet Thai leaders and delegates.
Few representatives of Thai-based NGOs expect any trouble.
"Everyone is committed to expressing themselves peacefully. In fact, I hadn't thought about possible violence until now," said Nicola Bullard, deputy director of think-tank Focus on the Global South.
"I'm not worried about it," she said. "It would be so un-Thai."
Advocates of radical economic reform on Monday said the UNCTAD conference should exploit a "crisis of legitimacy" paralysing the WTO and the IMF to benefit the developing world.
The call in a newspaper article by Focus on the Global South came as non-governmental organisations and pressure groups met to prepare a statement to present to the conference.
Bullard told AFP that UNCTAD must broaden the dialogue surrounding global trade and development.
"The whole development paradigm focuses on economic growth and liberalization. We're saying you have to shift your focus to understand all aspects of development, not just economics," she said.
Focus on the Global South and other NGOs meeting in Bangkok were at the WTO summit in Seattle last year when clashes between police and protestors caused over 2.5 million dollars in damage.
Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan has reassured critics that the Thai government will respect the right of free assembly in Bangkok.
Commerce Minister and the next WTO chief Supachai Panitchpakdi has said he hope dialogues between NGO members and the government will head off the threat of violence.
Bullard expects plenty of opportunities for NGOs to state their case.
"Over the course of the conference, there will be a range of formal and informal interactions between NGOs, government officials, and UNCTAD delegates," she said.
"There are several spots on the UNCTAD agenda for NGOs to present issues raised on February 7 and 8 to delegates."
Tuesday, February 8 6:15 PM SGT
Border alert as Thailand arrests six Myanmar soldiers
BANGKOK, Feb 8 (AFP) -
Thai troops were on high alert along the Myanmar border Tuesday after a squad of armed Yangon soldiers was arrested by a Thai patrol.
The six Myanmar troops were detained after intruding into western Thailand at Nam Pieng Din district, Mae Hong Son province, on Thursday, the military said.
Myanmar has sent a letter to Thailand over the issue but details have not been made public. A foreign ministry official said Thailand would reply and make clear the men were arrested on its side of the border.
"Further dicussions will be made at the local level, at the Thailand-Myanmar Border Committee," the official said.
Colonel Phuchong Rattanawan, director of army intelligence, said the six were under interrogation by army officers.
"Myanmar has contacted our deputy military attache in Yangon," he told reporters, adding all six had been identified as Myanmar officers who strayed into Thai territory.
Thai troops along the often tense border were at a heightened state of readiness Tuesday.
"Thai authorities along the border are on a full security alert," Mae Hong Son governor Poj Utana said.
Thai army sources said last month that three Myanmar army battalions had been sent to the border region inside Myanmar to flush out Karen rebels of the God's Army milita group.
Phuchong denied the recent Myanmar reinforcement was merely a change of forces as usual.
God's Army was behind a hospital siege at Ratchaburi in western Thailand last month which ended when 10 rebels were shot dead in a raid by Thai special forces.
Tuesday, February 8 7:47 PM SGT
No probe into slaying of rebel hostage-takers: Thai FM
BANGKOK, Feb 8 (AFP) -
Thailand insisted Tuesday there was no need for an investigation into the killing of 10 Myanmar rebel hostage takers by government troops, a day after European envoys requested one.
Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan said Thailand had already explained its actions last month, despite persistent reports some of the gunmen were shot execution-style after surrendering to Thai commandos.
Thai government and police officials have angrily dismissed reports the men were slain in cold blood after ending their gun-point occupation of a hospital.
"We have explained repeatedly what happened along with presenting all the information," Surin told reporters.
"Most countries understood the necessity of the situation. Mostly people understood that we had to use decisive measures."
Surin said authorities would keep explaining the situation to those who remained sceptical, adding he felt relations with the European Union would not be affected.
"I am confident that this won't have any affect on relations with the European Union."
At least 10 gunmen from the ethnic Karen God's Army and the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors groups crossed into Thailand on January 24 and took over a hospital west of Bangkok for 22 hours, holding hundreds of patients and staff hostage.
The crisis ended when Thai commandos stormed the complex, killing all the gunmen without losing a man.
On Monday, EU officials in Bangkok said Thailand should launch an official probe into the rebels' deaths.
European envoys warned that reports that ethnic Karen gunmen, some in their teens, were executed after giving themselves up were damaging Thailand's image as a democracy.
Witnesses in the hospital reportedly claimed a number of those killed surrendered before being ordered to strip and then shot in the head.
Journalists who viewed the bodies after the siege said the gunmen appeared to have all been shot only in the head. At least one appeared to have his hands tied behind his back.
The hospital siege followed the October seizure of Myanmar's Bangkok embassy by gunmen opposed to the Yangon junta, a crisis which ended when Thai authorities provided the dissidents with an escape helicopter.
Analysts have said the Thai government was under heavy pressure from the Myanmar government to act firmly over the hospital seizure.
EU officials Tuesday declined to add further comment to their earlier interview with AFP.
However Portuguese ambassador Jose Tadeu da Costa Soarez, who represents the EU presidency in Thailand, reiterated Tuesday that an inquiry would help clear up lingering suspicion of foul play.
"Doubts about the legality (of the ending of the siege) are harmful to the good name of Thailand. If they (the Thais) believe that there are the rumours, the rumours should be clarified by an inquiry," he said.
Rights lobbies, including the US-based Human Rights Watch, have repeatedly called for a commission of inquiry into how the siege was ended.
The Thai army, at a press conference Tuesday, said it could not confirm or deny if any of the rebels had surrendered.
"I cannot confirm or deny if they surrendered or not, but the operation was legal and in line with principle," said Major General Bunchon Chavalsilpa of the army's civil affairs department.
Bunchon said authorities tried hard to avoid the use of force to end the crisis on January 25 but all efforts failed.
"All 10 (rebels) were shot in an administrative building as they fought with Thai forces with personal weapons and hand granades," he told a press briefing.
His account contradicted earlier military briefings in which reporters were told one of the gunmen escaped and was shot outside the hospital grounds.
Monday, February 7 9:40 PM SGT
Myanmar Adds Troops At Thai Border After Soldiers Held
MAE HONG SON, Thailand (AP)--Myanmar has sent 300 troops to a border area opposite northern Thailand following Bangkok's refusal to return six Myanmar soldiers detained last week, officials said Monday.
Thai troops and artillery units along the border have also been mobilized, said a Thai army officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, though other officials said the situation on the border was normal.
The Myanmar soldiers were apprehended last Thursday after crossing into the northern Thai province of Mae Hong Son, he said. The men told interrogators they were looking for food, but they were being held for further investigation, said the officer.
The Bangkok Post reported Monday that unidentified Thai security officials believed the men were on a mission to abduct leaders of Myanmar's ethnic Karen minority from the nearby Ban Nai Soi refugee camp.
The camp, on Thai territory, houses 13,000 refugees from fighting between ethnic insurgent groups and Myanmar troops. The Karen are the only major ethnic rebel group which has refused to reach a cease fire agreement with Myanmar's military government.
Thai Army spokesman Col. Somkaum Saengpatanetr denied that there was tension between the two nations' forces at the border, although he confirmed that the six Myanmar troops had been captured on Thai soil with two guns and some ammunition.
"Negotiations between Thai and Myanmar officials are going on about how to send them back. The situation along the Thai-Myanmar joint border in Mae Hong Son is normal," he said.
The withdrawal was meant to avoid unnecessary confrontation and misunderstanding that might erupt between the security forces of the two sides.
The deployment of extra Burmese soldiers, estimated to number around 100, has not helped to ease tensions in the area as the move is being seen as an effort to exert pressure on the Thai side for the immediate release of the six captured Burmese soldiers.
On Sunday night, Burmese soldiers reportedly crossed the border and encircled the forward outpost of the seven Thai paramilitary rangers who were responsible for the apprehension of six Burmese soldiers following their intrusion on Thai soil.
Col Charnchai Nakprasert, commander of the army's 7th regiment, had ordered reinforcements for Thai forces after being told of the Burmese troop build-up.
The six intruders are being detained at the 7th infantry regiment base in Mae Sarieng district.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Karen who fled the fighting in Burma to seek refuge in Suan Phung district of Ratchaburi, will be moved to a temporary refugee shelter being set up there.
An army source from the Surasi Task Force said all 1,067 Karen refugees housed at the Tanaosri monastery in Ban Huay Khok Moo will be transferred to a shelter in Ban Ton Yang, Suan Phung district, and put under the care of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The UNHCR was considering sending another 300 Karen who had fled an attack by Burmese troops on the Kamaplaw base of the God's Army guerrillas in Burma to Huay Suud Pass, to the same shelter, the source said.
The source said Thai security forces have been ordered to temporarily stop patrolling the border in Suan Phung district to avoid the danger of landmines.
Four Thai soldiers were killed recently after stepping on landmines.
Thai soldiers from a special task force, to ensure security, have befriended Burmese troops following their seizure of the Kamaplaw base of the God's Army rebels along the border.
Burma's Terror
Twins
By Ron Moreau
Newsweek International, February 7, 2000
Boxed in and mercilessly outgunned, the remnants of "God's Army" battled to the end for their impossible cause. The Christian fundamentalist guerrillas' mystical leaders—the cheroot-chomping preteen twin brothers Johnny and Luther Htoo—had vanished. Kamaplaw, their base on a jungle hillock at the Thai-Burmese border, was crumbling under a furious assault by the armed forces of both countries' governments. The shelling only intensified after 10 desperate guerrillas broke away from the fight on Monday, seized a hospital in Thailand and took more than 100 patients and staff members as hostages. A day later Thai security forces stormed the hospital and dumped the fighters' 10 corpses on the front steps. Through it all, many of the twins' disciples claimed to be unshakably certain that Johnny and his less talkative brother, Luther, had supernatural powers. But late last week God's Army seemed beyond help, even from miracles.
The Htoo twins' saga is at once tragic and scarcely plausible. Can these two waifs really command an adult guerrilla army? Old Burma hands insist it's no hoax. Little is known about the boys' family except the rudimentary fact that they are members of Burma's fiercely independent Karen ethnic minority—a people with ancient traditions of heaven-sent mystical heroes. In this credulous climate, the brothers built and led their own fighting force by a combination of superstitious awe, old-style military discipline and pop-star flamboyance—teen-idol hair and all. Before their recent setbacks, the boys employed a dwarf as their gatekeeper. When unwanted visitors approached, the little man reportedly shouted a warning: "Don't come any farther or you'll die!" If they faced a battlefield emergency, Johnny claimed, he could summon 5,000 spirit warriors from their lookout on a holy mountain—and somehow he made it sound true. The group's flesh-and-blood soldiers, most of them older than the twins, were convinced that the Htoo brothers could make themselves invisible, read minds and smell enemies from miles away.
God's Army was born of the Karens' desperation. Three years ago the once proud rebels of the Karen National Union were on the run, and Rangoon's troops were ravaging their villages with impunity. Then Johnny, until that point an ordinary Karen child, began hearing voices. The message he received had first been brought to the region by American Baptist missionaries in the 19th century: "Repent!" The Karens were paying for their sins. Their only hope was to quit their lying, cursing, drinking, stealing and fornicating. Local elders, most of them born and raised in the Baptist faith, listened to the precocious boy's sermon in amazement. At the edge of annihilation, many Karens were ready to try anything, even prayer. Within a few weeks Johnny delivered another message. He and Luther would lead five KNU volunteers in a raid on a Burmese Army base.
The attack became a legend among the Karen people. The two little boys and five guerrillas triumphantly brought home a splendid haul of captured weapons and ammunition. Even in the most heroic retellings, the target was only a small outpost. But the boys proved Karens could win. As word spread of the startling victory and the boys' apparent magical powers, KNU soldiers began flocking to join the twins. Emboldened by faith that Johnny and Luther could protect their followers from bullets, God's Army began scoring a succession of modest battlefield wins and building a larger-than-life reputation.
The success of the twins' 200 or so fighters has helped keep Burma's resistance alive. If God's Army falls, Burma's military rulers will be a step closer to unchallenged power over their destitute police state. Back when the Htoo boys were born, about 12 years ago, Rangoon was at war with nearly two dozen separatist ethnic groups. Now only one remains: the Karen National Union, with about 5,000 demoralized troops and some 100,000 civilians in dirt-poor refugee camps along the border. The KNU's chief allies are two ragtag bands of exiled dissidents who scarcely count as soldiers at all, the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors (VBSW) and the All Burma Student Democratic Front.
The boys preached a weird asceticism, part hard-shell Baptist and part something quite different. Karens generally agreed that the soldiers of God's Army were the most disciplined and courageous fighters their people had ever produced. The recruits forsook not only sex and alcohol but eggs and pork. They knelt and prayed before every fight. The mere presence of women was forbidden before going into combat. They liked to sing hymns as they headed into battle. Religion has always been a powerful force among the Karen. Sunday church services can sometimes continue all day, even in the KNU's guerrilla camps. Choruses of "Rock of Ages" resound through the surrounding forests.
The boys had a small army in practically no time. It was as if the Karen people had been waiting for someone like the Htoo brothers to come along. In fact, that's not far from the truth. Long before the Western missionaries arrived, the Karens had their own traditions of saviors appearing during times of trouble. Their ancient legends actually may have helped prime them for wholesale conversion to Christianity. The minority Karens have always been at odds with their more numerous neighbors, the ethnic Burmese. Many social scientists theorize that embattled minorities like the Karen have a natural tendency to develop messianic ideals. And those visions tend to come true. According to a Western missionary who has spent years working among the Karen people on the Thai-Burmese border, their history is studded with messianic leaders who emerged in times of crisis.
Most Karens retain some of their ancient beliefs even after many generations of Christianity. "We Karen believe the twins are the reincarnations of former Karen military heroes," says Saw Ka Nyaw, an exiled dissident living at Maneeloy, a U.N.-sponsored refugee camp for Burmese students. Some Karens are also giving obeisance to another child prophet named Thue Play, also known as The Black-Tongue King. Karens say a dark-colored tongue is a sign of special powers. The magically marked 13-year-old boy has gathered his own personal army, allied with the divinely bestowed powers of God's Army. "Karens believe that the twins are God-sent and that they can protect themselves and others from harm," says Porpimon Trichot, a Burma specialist at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. "Their soldiers always come back from battle."
That reputation would be their undoing. Last October five VBSW members painfully embarrassed Thailand's generals. The students, who had been living on Thai soil, seized the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok, taking about 90 people hostage. Caught hopelessly flatfooted, the Thai security forces had no choice but to cut a deal giving the students safe passage in exchange for the hostages' lives. The students fled across the Burmese border, taking refuge among God's Army at Kamaplaw. Furious, the Thai military sealed the border and began shelling the rebel base, determined to drive the fugitives out. Meanwhile Burmese artillery and ground forces attacked the camp from the other side. Dead and wounded guerrillas piled up while medicine and surgical dressings ran out—along with the rebels' confidence in their own invincibility.
At dawn on Monday, 10 panicky rebels made a break for it. Masked and carrying M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles, they hijacked a crowded Thai commuter bus near the border at dawn. They squabbled among themselves about where the driver should take them. Finally they made up their minds. At 7:30 a.m. they rolled into the 2.4-acre hospital complex at Ratchaburi, firing their weapons in the air. The gunmen demanded that the Thais open the border so Karen civilians could escape the fighting. They demanded immediate medical assistance for their wounded comrades at Kamaplaw. And they demanded safe passage back to the base for themselves.
Thailand's hostage negotiators had no intention of letting the hostage-takers walk away free. While they haggled over details, a team of commandos infiltrated the hospital complex, disguised as patients and medical personnel. The troops unobtrusively took up positions near the gunmen. At 5:30 the next morning, the hostage-takers were startled by several loud explosions in front of the hospital. That was the signal for some 200 black-clad police commandos and special Army troops to storm the complex, some on foot and others in pickup trucks. For the next half hour a fusillade of automatic weapons fire filled the air, finally tapering off to sporadic shooting. Then a series of single shots. Finally silence.
The siege was over. Within minutes the hostages began to walk out of the building, some with tears in their eyes. The only casualties among them during the entire episode had been four patients who died in the absence of proper care. A 10-year-old boy was undergoing brain surgery when the guerrillas attacked. He came through in fine shape. His doctors calmly locked the operating-room doors and kept on with the operation. "They were polite," one operating-room assistant said of the gunmen. "I was not afraid." Soon after the hostages had all emerged from the hospital, the rescuers began parading out. Hundreds of bystanders cheered them wildly.
Ugly questions soon arose. Several hostages told Thai journalists that some of the guerrillas, having surrendered with their hands up, were then disarmed, stripped to their underwear and killed with a bullet through the head. A Thai paper ran a photo showing one dead gunman dressed only in shorts, electrical wire binding his wrists. The hospital's second floor, where eight of the guerrillas were reportedly found dead, hardly seemed like the scene of a pitched battle—just a few bullet holes in the plywood walls and some broken windows. The Thai press even quoted one Special Forces officer as admitting that some of the guerrillas were shot in the head after they put their hands up. "If we didn't shoot," he was quoted as saying, "they would have shot us."
Thai government officials and military officers angrily denied that any of the gunmen had been summarily executed. The prime minister, Chuan Leekpai, emphatically defended his men. "It was either them or us," he said. Most Thais didn't seem too worried about the gunmen's rights. They had been outraged by TV images of masked guerrillas holding frightened patients at gunpoint. They agreed with the words of Chuan's top security adviser, Prasong Soonsiri: "Nobody takes hospitals hostage." A local truck driver added: "They deserved to die."
The hostage-taking stirred up the Thais' widespread resentment against the Karen refugees encamped on their soil. Many people, in and out of government, began calling for a re-evaluation of their policy granting temporary asylum to Burmese fleeing war or political oppression. Government hard-liners have long urged the closing of the camps and the repatriation of the refugees who live there. More than one senior general spoke of shutting down such dissident camps as Maneeloy. "Look at what we've got in return for our hospitality," grumbles General Mngkol Amporpisit, commander of Thailand's armed forces. In fact, the dead gunmen included two of the rebels who had taken the embassy in October. KNU and student-exile leaders denounced what they themselves described as "the terrorist act of seizing a hospital."
Luther and Johnny did not participate in the Ratchaburi raid. By the weekend, the twins were nowhere to be found. Their mother is said to be in a Karen refugee camp in Thailand. No one says a word about their father's whereabouts. If the boys are alive, one thing is certain: they are praying as hard as they can.
Bangkok Post - Feb 8, 2000
Borderline row feared once Rangoon ends Karen war
National boundaries still
posing problems
Bhanravee Tansubhapol
The
ill-defined borderline between Thailand and Burma could become a sticking point
once Rangoon ends its fight with Karen armed groups, the Defence Ministry
spokesman said yesterday.
Lt-Gen Sanan Kajornklam told a seminar the boundary problem could blow up into a confrontation between the two countries.
Thailand shares a 2,401km border with Burma but only 58km has been demarcated.
Thai and Burmese forces are facing each other at Doi Lang and Huay Ha in Chiang Mai. Both countries claim sovereignty over the two areas.
Burma is reinforcing its forces along the border with Thailand to suppress Karen insurgents. Lt-Gen Sanan said Burma planned to increase its border troops from 300,000 to 500,000.
Besides the boundary problem, he said, other issues which could jeopardise Thai-Burmese ties in the future were ethnic minority groups, especially the Wa that is believed to be the main amphetamine producer, illegal migrant labour, and poorly-regulated fishing and timber businesses.
An ongoing effort to combat illegal drugs produced by the Wa was among the National Security Council's attempts to tackle these sensitive issues, he said.
The Thai military also planned to beef up forces on the western border after Burmese rebels seized the Burmese embassy in Bangkok in October last year and a hospital in Ratchaburi last month.
Sunait Chutintaranond, deputy director of Chulalongkorn University's Asian Studies Institute, urged the government to deal wih security problems at their roots and pay more attention to issues other than trade.
The government should make more effort to tackle social and health issues at the border, Mr Sunait said.
The Nation Feb 8, 2000
Where do we all go from here?
Thailand has, for a long time, taken advantage of the resources of Burma
without consideration for the welfare of the people suffering at the border and
this has to stop, writes Josef Silverstein.
The outpouring of feelings by the peoples of Thailand in the columns of the
newspapers following the tragic event in Ratchaburi may have been cathartic, but
statements by the government give no clue as to where Thai-Burma relations are
going now and what long-term goals the policy makers hope to achieve.
This we know:
1. The Thai border is porous. Burmese military units and their allies have
been able to cross, almost at will, carrying their fight against indigenous
Burmese enemies across the border into Thailand. Units from the Thai military,
stationed along the border, have co-operated with the Burmese army, becoming
involved in the inter
nal affairs of its neighbour, whether they admit it or not.
2. The internal wars in Burma are not over and the military rulers have not
won. There may be cease-fires with many individual indigenous minority groups,
there are others who continue to fight. And, so long as those wars keep going,
civilian refugees from Burma will continue fleeing across the border to escape
the wrath of the Burmese army, avoiding captivity and forced labour.
3. Narcotics from Burma flow across the border and damage the lives and
health of Thais who consume them; they also move across Thailand to
international markets of Asia and the West where their poison spreads to all,
regardless of ethnicity, citizenship or religion. The narcotics business is a
major financial support for the
Burmese military rulers who are in collusion with the drug dealers and
distributors, both in Burma and beyond.
There is little evidence that Thailand is having much influence upon Burma to
end the drug trade and arrest and punish known dealers.
4. Greed is motivating Thai businessmen and investors to exploit the
resources of Burma, whether through the extraction of timber, minerals and fish
or the exploitation of men, women and children seeking any kind of job at any
kind of wages in order to sur
vive in a new and strange country. They also exploit women in the sex
trade and other forms of dehumanising labour.
5. Greed also motivates their schemes to dam the Salween, flood the lands in
the Shan State and divert a large portion of the water to Thailand, all at the
expense of the peoples of Burma.
6. Finally, greed also motivates the Burmese military rulers, who desperately
seek cash to fund their bloated army and schemes for development which they have
drawn up and plan to execute without the involvement and agreement of the
peoples who will be directly effected.
With the above in mind, consider the fact that Thailand's epresentatives will
meet their counterparts from Burma at the forthcoming United Nations Trade and
Development (Unctad) meeting in Bangkok. With the Thai capital's streets likely
to be swept clean of demonstrators and protesters, there is little likelihood of
any rep
etition of the large demonstrations in Seattle or the tiny one in Davos.
What will Thailand and Burma say to each other and the rest of the delegates
at the meeting where greater efforts for internationalism and trade will be
explored and cheered? Will they discuss labour exploitation as a necessary cost?
Will they discuss the rights and protections of "guest labourers"? Will they
discuss the economic
benefits of employing frightened men, women and children who have been driven
by desperation to leave their homeland and seek protection and employment in
their neighbour state, accept substandard wages and accommodation, harassment by
soldiers and police and threats from employers to turn them over to immigration
if they protest or demonstate against exploitation?
What will Thailand and Burma say to the Unctad delegates about using economic
weapons, such as closing one's border to trade and waters to fishing, whenever a
state such as Burma drives its citizens to desperate and irrational acts in
order to publicise the inhumanity and violence of their own government?
Will Unctad see Burma's actions in recent months as consistent with the new
principles of internationalism and open trade and say so? And, will any delegate
argue that, thus far, internationalism and open trade has improved the lives of
the peoples of Burma? What will the Thai spokesman say?
And in July, when the Asean Ministerial Meeting and the Asean Regional Forum
take place in Bangkok, how will the nine brethren treat Burma? Will they
continue to drape the tattered shroud of "constructive engagement" around the
pariah member and, like the fabled three monkeys, "see no evil, hear no evil and
speak no evil"?
How long will Asean pretend that what is happening inside of Burma is no
concern of theirs, even though then Thailand's Foreign Minister, Prachuab
Chaiyasarn, said in July 1997, ust prior to the Asean Ministers Meeting, that
the organisation could no longer
employ "constructive engagement" in its relations with Burma and he
proposed to the other Asean foreign ministers a "more comprehensive pol
icy".
Today, European states have set aside the principle of non-interference in
internal affairs of other states" as they protest and take political and
diplomatic action against Austria for the inclusion of a racist, Nazi-like party
in the governing coalition. Even
though the party won a sizeable vote in a free and fair election, foreign
states are speaking out and acting because they see such a party as a threat,
not only to Austria, but to Europe as well.
"We the people", the opening words in the UN Charter, challenge the
governments of states to act in the united interest of people, whether in Asia
or Europe. Burma's problems are Asean's, Unctad's and the United Nation's
problems. Southeast Asia nations need leadership. It is time for Thailand to
step forward, fill the void and lead their neighbour states in regional and
international organisations toward making Southeast Asia a better place for all
its people.
---------------------------
Josef Silverstein is professor emeritus of Rutgers University. He is a Burma
specialist. Letters We must engage in dialogue with
Burma
The Chuan administration's policy over the Thai-Burmese border is reactionary
and putting our national security at risk. Regardless of the policy of using
hill tribes as a buffer zone or not, it needs to be proactive.
It cannot condone the current slaughtering of the minorities by Burmese
troops at the border as an internal affair. The two incidents of hostage in
Thailand by Burmese rebels could be considered a cry for help.
The displacement and flooding of refugees into Thailand this year will likely
cause economic strains and public health problems, much more than any time in
our history. The Chuan administration should get into a dialogue with Rangoon
and engage Asean or UN to try to stop Burmese offensives. Historically, a united
Burma posts a security threat to Thailand.
Aroon Suansilppongse