Tuesday, September 29, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
POLITICS: Transparency Questioned in Opening of Thai-Burma Border
Marwaan Macan-Markar
- This week’s opening of the Thai-Burma border after a five-month dispute is a key step in normalising ties between the neighbours, but the lack of transparency in the negotiations that led to the opening has caused concern in some quarters.
”The opening is a clear sign that both governments want normalcy, and that is good,” says Somchai Homlaor, secretary general of Forum-Asia, a Bangkok-based regional human rights watchdog.
”The economic, social and political benefits that will arise from this opening cannot be minimised,” adds Chayachoke Chulasiriwongs, head of the international relations department at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.
However, rights activists and other Burma watchers say the lack of openness in the negotiations that resulted in Tuesday’s opening of the checkpoints along the 2,400-kilometre border means there is no assurance that border tensions will not happen again.
According to Somchai, the need for transparency on the deal to open the checkpoints four cross-border points in the Thai provinces of Chiang Rai, Talk, Ranong and Kanchanaburi is important for two reasons.
First, he says, there is a need to know what terms prompted Rangoon to change its mind and open the border after the five-month stand-off that saw several failed attempts to settle the problem.
Second, he adds, more information on the latest border tensions would help figure out how such border closings could be avoided in the future.
”We are not aware about the terms that both governments agreed on to open the border, and that can be troubling” adds So Aug, external affairs director at the Network for Democracy and Development, a Thai-based group made up of Burmese living here in exile.
In fact, the senior Thai diplomat involved in the negotiations provided little information to the media about what had convinced Rangoon’s military government to open the many checkpoints along the border.
Signs of a thaw in the dispute were evident in recent weeks, particularly earlier this month when Burmese Foreign Minister Win Aug visited Bangkok and met with his counterpart, Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai. The talks came after Surakiart visited Rangoon last month on a fence-mending exercise.
Rangoon closed its border with Thailand in late May after accusing the Thai army of giving support to Shan ethnic rebels. Rangoon said this assistance included the Thai forces’ firing of shells as the rebel troops advanced on the Burmese army along the Thai-Burma border.
But Bangkok denied the charge, saying its troops only fired warning shots to prevent the conflict from spreading into Thai territory.
Burma’s arbitrary closure of the border not only soured relations between the two South-east Asian countries, but was seen by Thais as a breach of an agreement the two countries had earlier arrived at on how to avoid sudden closures.
The last time Burma’s military rulers behaved in such a unilateral manner and ordered the border’s closure was two years ago, after Burmese dissidents took control of the Burmese embassy in the Thai capital.
According to Burma watchers, the two countries had come to an agreement in recent years to work out any border problems through special committees that would avoid unilateral closures that harm commerce at cross-border points.
Burmese and Thai officials were to be part of these committees, including one for the military and another for civilians.
The lack of evidence that such an agreement was discussed prior to this week’s border opening may come back to haunt Thailand in the future, says Somchai. ”It may mean they ignored talking about the available mechanisms to prevent sudden border closings.”
That, according to Somchai, could result in the Burmese junta closing the border again, ”since there were no guarantees made this time to find mutually agreeable solutions.”
Already, security alerts have been raised along different border points between Thailand and Burma, after six bombs were found planted in and around the Burmese town of Myawaddy, opposite Mae Sot district in western Thailand
The first bomb exploded on Tuesday, and second and third went off Wednesday. The rest were disarmed.
Traders on both sides of the border felt the economic impact of its closure in the last few months, especially Thai traders who move a high volume of goods.
The customs chief at Mae Sot border district said the border closure cost Thai traders the opportunities to export 1.8 billion baht (42.8 million U.S. dollars) and Burma, more than 300 million baht (7.1 million dollars) in revenues, according to the English-language daily ‘Bangkok Post’ on Wednesday.
According to some estimates, the value of border trade can often exceed 140 million baht (3.21 million dollars) per day. The border tourism trade is estimated at 400 million baht (9.17 million dollars) per day.
But a drop in another thriving trade across the border – illicit drugs – would not have troubled Bangkok, since it has been trying to curb the flow of millions of methamphetamine pills that regularly go into Thailand from Burma.
”During the closure, the amount of amphetamines entering Thailand dropped drastically, but now with the opening, the drug flow will increase,” says Soe Aung, the Burmese exile.
For Somchai however, there is another larger concern: the Thai government is trying to restore normalcy with Burma at the expense of ignoring Rangoon’s notorious human rights record.
”It is not getting any better, although the international community thinks that the situation is changing,” says Noung, spokeswoman for the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN), a rights watchdog.
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POLITICS: Transparency Questioned in Opening of Thai-Burma Border
Marwaan Macan-Markar
- This week’s opening of the Thai-Burma border after a five-month dispute is a key step in normalising ties between the neighbours, but the lack of transparency in the negotiations that led to the opening has caused concern in some quarters.
(more…)
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