Bkk post - Junta will never have ou

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Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Bkk post - Junta will never have our sympathy

Bangkok Post - Oct 8, 1999.
Editorial
Junta will never have our sympathy

It is often more difficult to cope with the aftermath of an event than the
event itself. This is certainly proving the case with last week's siege at
the Burmese Embassy. The subsequent measures announced by the government to
control Burmese students in Thailand have met with criticism from human
rights groups. Rangoon is dissatisfied with them and has threatened that
bilateral relations could be affected.

To drive home the point, Burma has closed its waters to Thai fishing boats.
It also has closed all checkpoints along the 2,100km land border. And while
the Burmese prime minister officially thanked Thailand for helping end the
crisis without loss of life, lower ranking officials and the Burmese state
media have blasted Thailand for nurturing terrorism.

Col Thein Swe, a former military attache in Bangkok, claimed armed terrorist
groups are operating inside 24 "so-called refugee camps" in Thailand, using
them as bases to launch attacks on targets inside and outside Burma. He
warned that relations with Burma risk being damaged unless security
arrangements are improved. And the state-run New Light of Myanmar daily even
charged that the Thai authorities and Western hostages were involved in a
conspiracy with the five dissidents to take over the embassy to embarrass
Rangoon.

The Thai government has denied all these allegations and put in place
measures for stricter controls on Burmese students and dissidents living in
Thailand. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is being asked
to speed up the resettlement of exiled Burmese students to third countries.
However, this must be voluntary and those choosing to stay in Thailand will
be treated as refugees. The local authorities also will immediately impose
stricter rules on dissidents living in Thailand, especially those 800
students housed at the Maneeloy holding camp in Ratchaburi and the 2,000-odd
students and other exiles living in Bangkok under the care of the UNHCR. The
problem is that no third country wants to take the students. That is why
they have been living in Thailand for the past 11 years since they fled the
brutal crackdown on pro-democracy forces in 1988. The dissidents, along with
some 120,000 ethnic minority refugees who fled the fighting inside Burma,
have been accepted by Thailand on humanitarian grounds. The students and
intellectuals, in particular, are not regarded as illegal immigrants and
cannot simply be pushed back across the border. Most would suffer badly at
the hands of those in power at home and Thailand would be denounced for
sending them to their death if we were to simply repatriate them.

The Burmese military junta has the right to demand that Thailand take more
effective measures to safeguard its embassy and officials here. This is the
duty of the Thai government, and it already has admitted to failures in its
intelligence. But the Thai government can only provide the best security it
can. No country can be safeguarded totally against terrorist acts. Even the
superpowers have been unable to prevent desperate men taking desperate
action.

Rangoon is clearly overreacting to the embassy siege. It should be grateful
that Thailand was able to resolve things without any of its embassy staff or
any of the other hostages being hurt in anyway. Instead of sniping at
Thailand, a simple thank you would be welcome.

The problem is that the military junta is upset that instead of coming out
of this the victim and winning the sympathy of the Thai people and the world
community, it is again the villain. It is very rare for the target of a
siege to become the villain, and the junta should think hard why this is so.
The Thai people sympathise with the Burmese dissidents because they too have
fought a long struggle with military dictatorship before winning democracy.
The Burmese leaders would do well to realise that the tide of history is
against them and they would do well to help usher in democracy in their
country or be swept aside.