Reply__ An Open Letter To People of

[TMYINT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: Reply__ An Open Letter To People of Thailand {fwd}

Dear Friends:
	The following article is a reply by a Thai scholar made to "AN OPEN 
LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF THAILAND" by Ko Maung Kyaw (Germany). If you have any
reply upon the following message, please join us in s.c.t and s.c.b. It is an
interesting one too. If there are Burmese historians and scholars reading this
message, please confirm the following historical facts.
	Thanks,
	Tun Myint.
 ...............................................................................
 
>:From: hsoraj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Soraj Hongladarom)
>:Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
>:Subject: Re: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF THAILAND {fwd}
>:Date: 19 Jun 1995 08:46:19 GMT
>:Organization: Chulalongkorn University
>:Lines: 145
 .:Message-ID: <3s3dgr$man@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
>:TMYINT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>: From: TUN MYINT <TMYINT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>: Subject: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF THAILAND {fwd}
> 
 .:  
>: 2. Every nations has its own national characteristic, ways of
>: thinking and doing things that could, in many cases neither be
>: easily explained nor understood by outsiders. For this reason
>: just a few years ago I was thinking of exposing the true
>: colour(undeclared policy) of the Burmese military junta towards
>: Thailand. 
>:  
>:    a. Thailand's so-called "Constructive Engagement policy",
>: which was created with the view of gaining economics benefit was
>: at its peak.   
>:    b. The true colours of the Burmese dictators were more
>: difficult for the outside world to comprehend as their newly re-
>: established power base was not yet strong.
>:  
	Thailand has stuck with this policy for a long time and it has produced 
no results except for the riches of some businessmen and possibly 
government officials.  However, a difficulty would be created for those 
people along the borders who depend on trade with the Burmese and the 
minorities there.  If the border is declared closed, contraband and 
illicit will continue anyway and it is very difficult to eradicate it 
because the border between Thailand and Burma is thousands of kilometers 
long.  IMO, the border trade among villagers of both sides should be 
allowed to continue, but the large scale trading such as teak harvesting 
and gas pipeline must stop, for this benefits only the ruling regime of 
Burma.
 
 
>: 6. In order to bring into light the dirty tactics employed by the
>: SLORC, I would like to expose one of their many tactics as an
>: example:-
>:  
>: In Burma the MIS(Military Intelligence Service) has been
>: publishing a magazine, Myet-Khin-Thit( The New Pasture), which
>: especially widely circulated in the army. It is understood among
>: the people that this magazine publish libellous articles
>: discrediting the Burmese democratic opposition forces as well as
>: the prestige of other democratic countries, including Thailand.
>:  
>: An article titled "The glory of Burma's Ba-Yin Naung" appeared in
>: one of the issues of Myet-Khin-Thit was especially demanding to
>: the Thai Royal family, Instead of writing about the Burmese king
>: Ba-Yin Naung, who invaded Thailand during the feudal past of 
>: Burma, the article outrightly insults the Thai Royal family by
>: using Burmese expression extremely disgraceful to the Royal
>: family.
>>:  
>: Moreover, if one carefully reads the article that appeared in the
>: 1993 December issue, Volume 44 of the Myet-Khin-Thit magazine one
>: can clearly notice the following points.-
>:  
>: a] The article outrightly insults Sondet Phra Maha Chakrapat the
>: King of Thailand . However , the photos and English expressions
>: used in the articles were carefully chosen and written in such a
>: way that a would -be Thai reader who might have come across the
>: article would have an impression that the article is just about
>: the history of the Thai monarchy.
>:  
>: b] Emphasis was made in the article that [ in Burmese] the king
>: of Thailand pledged his allegiance to the Burmese King for
>: generations to come . " It implies that the pledged is still
>: valid up to the present King of Thailand and that Thailand is
>: obliged an implicit obedience towards the Burmese rulers of
>: today.
>:  
>: c] More remarkable is that this emphasis stated above has been
>: unnecessarily repeated again and again . The sentence .........
>: " the King of Thailand pledged his allegiance to the Burmese King
>: for generations to come " was repeated altogether nine times in
>: the article.!
>:  
>: d] A closer study of the article reveals that the first emphasis
>: of the above sentence appeared on page 27 [2+7=9] and the ninth
>: and last one appeared on page 36 [3+6=9]. The compound numbers of
>: the first and last pages are nine and it appeared nine times.
 .:  
>: Such articles and emphasis might be unimportant or rather
>: ridiculous for the non -Burmese but in Burma everybody knows that
>: the superstitious dictator Ne Win believes the number NINE to be
>: his lucky number . He used this number whenever he intends to
>: crush his enemies and thus to ensure victory . Although the
>: Burmese dictators are extremely superstitious and their actions
>: seem to be so ridiculous, the above article and many others that
>: have had appeared in Myet-Khin-Thit vividly expose the true
>: colour and the hidden policy of the power holders in Rangoon
>: towards Thailand.
 
	Phra Maha Chakkrapat apparently declared that statement because he was 
*forced* to do so by the victorious Ba-Yin-Naung.  (The date for those 
ignorant of Thai history is BE 2112, or 1569 AD).  Ba-Yin-Naung seized 
some white elephants from the Siamese at Ayutthaya and the two sides 
announced non belligerence toward each other by the Siamese King 
declaring that Siamese Kings would no longer wage war against Hansawadi.  
Ba-Yin-Naung also took two royal children to guarantee Ayutthaya's 
loyalty.  However, after some fifteen years the Siamese succeeded in 
overthrowing the Burmese suzerainty.  King Naresuan the Great declared 
independence and subsequently cut the Maha Uparaja of Hansawadi in half 
in a classic battle on elephant backs. (I don't 
know exactly how he is related to Ba-Yin-Naung--I'll have to go and look 
it up.)  Later on he repaid the Burmese by taking an army and going up to 
Burmese territory and took Hansawadi, which by then had already been 
deserted and burned to the ground by the fleeing Burmese.  The Burmese 
did not invade Ayutthaya again for centuries after this event.  The 
'treaty' Maha Chakkrapat was forced to sign effectivly ended as soon as 
Naresuan declared Thai independence some fifteen years afterwards.  So it 
does not make any sense for the SLORC to refer to this event as if it is 
still viable.
 
The frequent mentionings of Maha Chakkrapat's 
treaty are but a propaganda for the Burmese to boost up their morale and 
feelings of superiority toward the Thais.  This is understandable in 
light of Thailand's rapid economic development and better standard of 
living than in Burma; the Burmese have always been a very proud people 
and they have to find a way for them to feel so or superior to other 
people.  They used to subjugate Ayutthaya twice--the second time they 
razed the city so completely it died forever as a capital.  And they, the 
ruling SLORC, still think that Thailand is their vassal state.  What a 
pity.  They always continue to live in fantasy.  The Burmese ruling class 
now seems to be no different than when the Burmese court at Mandalay 
refused to listen to the obvious British supremacy in every aspect and 
still clung to the belief that with the might of the Burmese army--the 
center of the cosmos--the British would be blown away easily.  What 
happened was the opposite.  The point is that the Burmese ruling class, 
then and now, love to be wrapped in fantasy and do not accept reality as 
it is.  
 
However, SLORC today is far better and efficient than the Burmese court 
at Mandalay in the 19th C.  They are adept at prapagandizing and were it 
not for the Chinese who supply them arms they would not be in power for 
long.  Thank you for pointing this out to Thai people.  It just shows how 
SLORC is contemptuous toward Thailand and in a way Thailand somehow 
deserves to be so contempted because of its 'constructive engagement' 
policy.  SLORC seems to think that with all their rich resources they can 
buy the direction of Thai policies to be always beneficial for them.
 
Soraj Hongladarom
Department of Philosophy
Faculty of Arts
Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok 10330
THAILAND
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