Burmese Media Again Challenge Thailand’s Burma Policy

By WAI MOE
The Irrawaddy News

Burma’s state-run media has resumed its war of words with the government of neighboring Thailand over Bangkok’s Burma policy.

The Myanma Alin newspaper reported on Wednesday that former Thai Foreign Minister Noppadol Pattama had charged that Thailand’s relationships with neighboring countries had worsened under the administration of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya.

Noppadol served briefly as Thailand’s foreign minister in the short-lived government led by the People’s Power Party, which took office in 2008. Noppadol, a lawyer, was a close associate of fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose government had nurtured close ties with Burma.

Wednesday’s Myanma Alin report quoted remarks by Noppadol that appeared in the Thai daily Matichon: “Now Thailand is the chairman of Asean [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations] and the credibility of the Asean chairman is down because Thailand’s relationships with Asean members, Burma and Cambodia, are not good.”

Thailand, as chairman of Asean, issued a statement on May 19 condemning the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi and calling for the release of her and all other political prisoners. Myanma Alin quoted Noppadol as saying the statement was interference in Burma’s internal affairs.

The Burmese newspaper also reported that Noppadol had called on Kasit to resign.

In a report on Burmese-Thai relations on Tuesday, Myanma Alin quoted Gen Sonthi Boonyaratglin, a leader of the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin, as saying that “if Thailand has a conflict with Burma, it will face defeat.”

Another Burmese language daily, The Mirror, has also carried reports questioning the Thai government’s Burma policy, although the state-run English language daily, The New Light of Myanmar, has been silent on the issue.