Burma's army chief General Maung Aye arrives in Thailand, today and his old pal General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh is tickled pink at the opportunity to play him at a game of golf. For the two friends, this will be a good opportunity to discuss a number of problems affecting their two countries - border insurgencies, drug trafficking, overlapping claims and overall military and diplomatic ties.
Maung Aye, number two in the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, is making a four-day visit to the Kingdom as a guest of the government. His trip has been billed as part of what the two governments call "improving bilateral ties", which reached their lowest ebb in decades when a year ago the two countries' armies engaged in daylong cross-border shelling from disputed territories. But a closer look shows things are not as rosy as Chavalit and the government might assume. The fade of cordial relations and the spirit of brotherhood with Rangoon are misleading.
Though Maung Aye's visit is an indication that things may be moving in the right direction, our leaders should not fool themselves that bilateral dealings with the junta are smooth. For one thing, the Burmese generals don't forgive and forget easily.
Just recently, top intelligence officer Maj-General Kyaw Win displayed to the public three rebels who had allegedly defected from the Shan State Army. With the help of Kyaw Win, the three men told a Rangoon-based envoy that on April 1 a combined force of 60 Thai government soldiers and troops from the Shan State Army had crossed into Burmese territory and attacked a unit of the United Wa State Army, a pro-Rangoon drug army. There was no mention of the death of a Thai soldier, nor of the fact that HM the Queen had had to cancel her planned visit to a hilltribe village in Chiang Rai's Wieng Haeng district.
What irked a number of people was not whether the allegations were true or false - because these types of allegations have been rejected in the past - but that they came at a time when both sides had agreed to stop mud-slinging. Indeed, mud-slinging is nothing new. Top brass on both sides of the border often engage in a war of words, accusing the other of taking kickbacks from drug dealers and so on. That supposedly ended just weeks before Thaksin's fence-mending visit to Rangoon last year.
For years, since his visit to Burma shortly after Burmese troops gunned down thousands of students and innocent people in 1988 - a visit which helped to legitimise the regime - Chavalit has unabashedly boasted about his friendship with the generals. What he doesn't say is that while they are his "friends" none seems to trust him. His so-called defence diplomacy has done little to change the fundamental problems that continue to bog down bilateral ties.
Thai officials sympathetic to the Burmese generals have consistently cited our long common border, as well as Burma's internal problems, suggesting it's inevitable that violent incidents will spill over to the Thai side. Such excuses are unacceptable. The country's sovereignty must be respected, and the government must speak out. It's time to go beyond high-profile photo-op visits and get straight to the root cause of the bilateral problems.