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Pubdate: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 Source: Wall Street Journal (US) Copyright: 2001 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Contact: http://www.wsj.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487 Author: Barry Wain Note: From The Asian Wall Street Journal UNTANGLING A CROSS-BORDER MESS MAE SAI, Thailand -- When Myanmar and Thailand exchanged artillery fire on successive days in February, they killed and wounded several dozen soldiers and civilians and damaged shops, houses and cars. They also brought the usually bustling Mae Sai, on the Thai side of the border, to a halt. Two months later, the streets are still practically empty, with troops almost outnumbering tourists and traders waiting for the good times to return. Although the atmosphere is fairly relaxed, Thai armored vehicles are parked between buildings along the narrow stream marking the frontier, their machine guns trained on Tachilek, the twin town in Myanmar, a mere 20 meters away. On a nearby disputed hill, the two armies confront each other at close quarters, their national flags fluttering at wooded outposts along a ridge. Over a loudspeaker at dusk, a senior monk assures Thais that they needn't fear another attack. As bored shopkeepers close early, visitors are allowed to walk past the Thai checkpoint across the deserted "friendship bridge" that is normally alive with two-way pedestrian and motorized traffic. But a gate now blocks the other end. "I am open," says a uniformed Thai customs officer. "They are closed." Historical rivals, Thailand and the former Burma continue to be driven by the demons that bedeviled their past. While they feud over any number of contemporary issues, it is what happened centuries ago that infuses every move with suspicion and injects a passion that stuns outsiders. The Thais can't forget that the Burmese captured their old capital, Ayutthaya, in 1767 and reduced it to rubble. "You can never trust the Burmese," says a Thai general. "Millions of events have taught us that." Nor is Myanmar above reaching back to recall Thai atrocities, often while admonishing Bangkok for doing the same. The most sensitive subject is King Naresuen of Ayutthaya's invasion and pillage of the capital of Pegu, now part of Myanmar and called Bago, in 1599. "Myanmar never tried to highlight Thailand's occupation of Mottama and Bago and even played down the incident where the Bago Teak Temple was destroyed and looted by the Thais," noted a government statement last month. The border between the two countries, artificially drawn by British colonial authorities in Myanmar and often relying on rivers that change course, is a source of perpetual friction. Yangon, ruled by the Burman majority, has been unable to reach a power-sharing arrangement with ethnic minorities along Thailand's western boundary since independence in 1948. An estimated one million people from Myanmar are currently in Thailand, as refugees or undocumented workers, most illegally. Independence-minded ethnic insurgents shelter on the Thai side of the unmarked border, backed surreptitiously by the Thais, who were supposed to have abandoned their so-called buffer policy in the 1990s. Some insurgents deal in narcotics to finance their rebellions or simply to make money. Elements of the Myanmar military in frontline posts, as well as some Thai businessmen and individual police and army personnel, are also involved in the drug trade. Thailand has become alarmed by the inflow, as trafficking in heroin largely for export to the West has given way to the demand for methamphetamines for the Southeast Asian market. As many as three million Thais are using the illicit pills, including middle-class and upper levels of society, in contrast with heroin, which has tended to hook manual laborers and the unemployed. Untangling this cross-border mess, which is suffused with official propaganda and hypocrisy, won't be easy. But a start must be made, since the stakes are high and growing for both countries, and their inability to cooperate could underline their stability and further discredit the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. While there is little chance that they will go to war, the tensions will remain unless specific measures are taken to defuse them. The first step should be to separate the two national armies and withdraw them a comfortable distance, leaving an unoccupied zone along the border, in order to avoid incidents and accidents. The arrangement should cover the full 2,400-kilometer frontier, including the places where the ownership of slivers of territory is contested. The long delayed demarcation process could then proceed. Not that demarcation would end movement across the boundary line, which was fixed for diplomatic and political reasons that had their logic long ago but which never made sense to the communities living there. It would help if today's economic dynamics were openly acknowledged. One crucial element is that, in addition to about 116,000 Burmese refugees registered with the United Nations in Thailand, perhaps nine times that number work irregularly in textile and clothing factories, and on fishing trawlers and in processing plants set up specifically to employ them as cheap labor. Narcotics leave a separate trail, with precursor chemicals arriving in Myanmar overland from China, India and Thailand, and drugs made in mobile jungle labs exported along the same routes. The Thais have become almost hysterical, pointing at the United Wa State Army, which has good relations with Myanmar's military government, as the dominant methamphetamine producer, suggesting collusion between them. The reality is Myanmar gives priority to security, happy to have the UWSA end its insurgency and content to leave the group armed and with time to shift out of narcotics. If it wants its claims of fighting drugs and of being a sincere neighbor to be taken seriously, Myanmar must pressure the UWSA to go straight. As it is, the UWSA is in the process of resettling several hundred thousand of its followers from arid, poppy-growing highlands to fertile plains opposite Thailand's Chiang Rai province. Within sight of the border, they are building towns and opening new fruit and livestock farmlands. But they are also producing methamphetamines at an alarming rate, according to Thai and Western intelligence sources, protected by thousands of well-trained, motivated soldiers. For its part, Thailand would have more credibility when it says it is threatened by the UWSA presence, if it didn't allow politically connected businesses in Chiang Mai to profit from the construction boom across the border. They are providing the UWSA with food, fuel, transport, materials, just about everything -- quite legally. No surprise to find they are lobbying to have Yangon reopen the Mae Sai checkpoint, to avoid the inconvenience of going through Laos to deal with the UWSA. Myanmar is correct when it accuses the Thai authorities of supporting the Shan State Army, formed by a former aide to retired drug baron Khun Sa, encamped close to the border and arguably on Thai soil. Although the armed group recently has made a show of combating narcotics, Thai and Western officials confirm it is involved in trafficking in order to buy arms. Some of the recent clashes have occurred because Myanmar government forces have been trying to strike at the Shan State Army. An agreement by Thailand, Myanmar and China to discuss the suppression of narcotics flows is a start. Ultimately, though, a solution rests on a settlement of the political and military conflict in Myanmar. And even when that happens, the burden of history will continue to weigh heavily on the area. - - From The Asian Wall Street Journal - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D