Thailand’s Special Envoy Risks Becoming a Tool of Myanmar Junta

By Bertil Lintner 30 June 2022

At a gathering with safety officers in Singapore final month, US Division of State Counselor Derek Chollet stated what most worldwide observers assume when he said that there’s “no probability” that elections, which Myanmar’s junta has pledged to carry subsequent 12 months, will likely be free and truthful. Quite the opposite, he stated, “it may be an try to simply manipulate the area, the worldwide group.” However a notable exception is Pornpimol “Pauline” Kanchanalak, Thailand’s newly appointed particular envoy to Myanmar. Talking on the similar convention, she stated that the worldwide group should take the junta’s dedication to carry elections “at face worth” and that “condemnations, sanctions, ostracization” of the junta “have reached diminishing returns.”

It’s arduous to say whether or not Pornpimol actually believed what she stated or if it was merely an end result of the notion that being sort to the junta and displaying it some understanding would produce outcomes. However, as final 12 months’s coup clearly reveals, the sort of “constructive engagement” that a number of outsiders, amongst them Western lecturers, diplomats and assist officers, pursued previous to the navy takeover was severely misguided. As historical past has proved repeatedly, Myanmar’s generals don’t hearken to anyone however themselves. Pornpimol may be a sufferer of one other gross misunderstanding that’s widespread amongst Thai coverage makers: that they’ve a optimistic, particular relationship with the Myanmar navy that different outsiders lack. Subsequently, the generals will hearken to their “Thai brothers and sisters”, particularly in the event that they chorus from condemning human-rights abuses perpetrated by the Myanmar navy.

Troubled historical past

However Myanmar’s generals will not be as simple to allure as Pornpimol and different Thai civil and navy officers appear to imagine. Behind the grins and the handshakes typically seen at official features lies an extended and troubled historical past of mutual mistrust between the 2 Southeast Asian neighbors. Properly into trendy instances, Thai schoolchildren realized little extra about Myanmar than that its invading armies destroyed the previous royal capital of Ayutthaya in 1767. Myanmar for its half had each motive to resent the Thais after they, within the early Fifties, grew to become actively concerned in sending provides to renegade Kuomintang (KMT) forces that had retreated into northeastern and northern Myanmar following their defeat by Mao Zedong’s communist forces in 1949. The Myanmar navy needed to struggle these unwelcome intruders whereas the US Central Intelligence Company and its Taiwanese and Thai allies funneled weapons and different requirements throughout the border into the Shan States, the place the KMT had its bases.

Then, in October 1953, conventional atavistic Thai fears of Myanmar have been strengthened when the Myanmar navy was attempting to dam a KMT advance south in the direction of at this time’s Kayah State—and a Myanmar plane strayed throughout the border and by chance bombed a village in Mae Hong Son province, killing two folks and injuring 5. The specter of the destruction of Ayutthaya was raised in sensational reviews within the Thai media and the then Thai prime minister, Plaek Phibunsongkram, publicly threatened to shoot down any Myanmar plane that violated the nation’s airspace. Privately, nonetheless, he invited leaders of the Mon and Karen insurgent armies to Bangkok, the place, for the primary time, secret negotiations have been held between representatives of ethnic armed organizations from Myanmar and senior Thai officers.

In March 1954, they arrived within the Thai capital. The Mon despatched Nai Shwe Kyin, one of many founders of the Mon insurgent motion, and Nai Hong Sa, who had a variety of connections inside Thailand’s ethnic Mon group. Noticed Thra Din, a resistance veteran, represented the Karen Nationwide Union (KNU). That they had a quick assembly with Plaek however negotiations have been dealt with by Siddhi Savetsila, a younger wing commander within the Royal Thai Air Pressure, and Charoentit Charunjamratromran, a distinguished police colonel. Siddhi later grew to become a politician and was Thailand’s international minister from 1980 to 1990 and, from 1991 to his loss of life in 2015, served as a member of the Privy Council of the Thai King.

New coverage

That clandestine go to of the Mon and Karen insurgent leaders in 1954 marked the start of a brand new Thai coverage in the direction of Myanmar—one that may, to the chagrin of Myanmar’s navy commanders, final for many years. For Thailand to police the porous, 2,416-km border with its historic enemy would have been a troublesome and intensely expensive endeavor. The answer was to encourage ethnic armed organizations from Myanmar to function buffers. Whereas the Thai leaders pledged no direct assist, the rebels have been allowed to arrange camps alongside the frontier, their households have been allowed to remain in cities and villages on the Thai aspect, and so they may purchase arms and ammunition from sellers in Thailand.

The primary navy coup in Myanmar in March 1962, and the following introduction of a disastrous coverage referred to as “the Burmese Solution to Socialism” made it potential for the ethnic rebels to strengthen their respective armed forces. “Socialism” in a Myanmar context, as articulated by the brand new dictator, Normal Ne Win, meant that every part in sight was nationalized and handed over to about 20 military-run state companies. However these have been so badly managed that Myanmar’s personal manufacturing of client items collapsed. Official imports additionally got here to a standstill, as no international merchants knew the right way to cope with the navy companies and the officers who headed them had very restricted enterprise expertise.

Enterprising black marketeers and smugglers, nonetheless, quickly made up for the shortcomings. Many of the items have been introduced in from Thailand—and the KNU and different ethnic rebels arrange a sequence of “toll gates” alongside the Thai border the place the contraband was taxed. Hyperlinks have been established with Thai retailers and navy commanders, whose pursuits typically have been intertwined. Client items, textiles, equipment, transistor radios and tape recorders, equipment, spare components for autos and drugs went from Thailand to Myanmar whereas teak, different forest merchandise, minerals, jade, valuable stones, antiques and opium flowed in the wrong way.

The full worth of these unofficial transactions has by no means been completely researched, however it’s truthful to imagine that Thailand owes a lot of its fast financial development and growth within the Nineteen Sixties, ’70s and ’80s to the thriving black-market commerce with Myanmar. The Myanmar authorities needed to flip a blind eye to those smuggling actions alongside the Thai border, given a selection between contraband or no items in any respect, which may lead to political and social unrest. And, as an inadvertent results of Gen. Ne Win’s financial insurance policies, the ethnic rebels have been in a position to purchase extra, and extra refined, weapons and preserve management over many of the Thai-Myanmar border.

It was not till after the 1988 pro-democracy rebellion in Myanmar that the Thais started to re-evaluate their border-buffer coverage. The protesters didn’t handle to dislodge the navy from energy, however the Burmese Solution to Socialism was deserted and free enterprise was allowed—albeit below the strict supervision of the then junta, the State Regulation and Order Restoration Council. Within the wake of the rebellion, 1000’s of dissidents flocked to the Thai border, the place they and their actions have been tolerated—however then an unprecedented and really controversial deal was struck between Myanmar’s navy authorities and the Thai military commander on the time, Normal Chavalit Yongchaiyudh. In December 1988, he went to Yangon and broke the worldwide isolation that had been imposed on Myanmar after 1000’s of pro-democracy demonstrators had been massacred within the streets of the capital and different cities and cities. In return, Thai firms acquired profitable logging contracts, fishing rights and offers within the resort enterprise. Chavalit additionally agreed to repatriate pupil activists who had fled to Thailand after the massacres, and that was not all the time finished voluntarily.

Direct hyperlinks

With direct enterprise hyperlinks being established between Thai and Myanmar pursuits, the previous border buffer idea was changing into out of date. It grew to become tougher, however not unattainable, for the dissidents, and the ethnic armed organizations, to function alongside the border. Many ethnic teams from Myanmar, amongst them the Karen, the Kachin and the Pa-O, nonetheless have contacts with Thai navy officers and native authorities officers, which makes it troublesome for the authorities in Bangkok to totally implement the brand new insurance policies. After which there are teams just like the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), which is armed by the Thais and continues to be functioning as a border buffer, however extra to stop the China-allied United Wa State Military from establishing a stronghold on the Thai border than to maintain the Myanmar navy at bay. However there are additionally occasional skirmishes between the RCSS and Myanmar junta forces. And a few weapons, hand grenades and explosives are even now reaching Karen guerrillas in addition to the city dissidents with whom they’re allied.

One shouldn’t be stunned to study that the Myanmar navy sees the Thais as duplicitous. Personal discussions with former Myanmar military officers additionally reveal the disdain with which they see their Thai counterparts, who they are saying are weak and lack fight expertise. And, to not be forgotten, the Myanmar navy has an extended reminiscence and can’t ignore many years of Thai border politics—which have been completely in favor of Myanmar’s ethnic armed organizations—or that the Thais, on the similar time, took benefit of Myanmar’s financial predicaments. That the Thais can be utilized, however not trusted, seems to be the consensus amongst Myanmar officers. Pornpimol could also be right in assuming that the Myanmar navy has a really “particular relationship” with the Thais. However it isn’t in the best way she thinks, and it’ll not produce the outcomes she expects to get in return for “being good” to the generals in Naypyitaw.

Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist, creator and strategic advisor who has been writing about Asia for practically 4 many years.