Patch-up signal from Burma

Published on Jun 30, 2002

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday said that the Burmese government had signalled willingness to restore soured Thai-Burmese relations by agreeing to stop its media from publishing articles that offend Thailand's monarchy.

The message was conveyed by General Maung Aye, deputy chairman of the National Peace and Development Council, who made it clear that the military junta had never had any intention to defame the Thai monarchy, the prime minister said.

He said Maung Aye had also expressed gratitude to Their Majesties the King and Queen for granting him an audience when he visited Thailand in April.

"It's a good sign . . . General Maung Aye also reaffirmed that his government still respected all bilateral agreements on economic and other international collaboration it had signed with us," Thaksin told reporters at Parliament House.

The Burmese ambassador to Thailand also met Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai to receive the Thai government's letter of protest against the newspaper articles.

Thaksin said that the government had also informed the ambassador that Thailand suspected that Burmese troops had encroached onto Thai soil.

The ambassador promised that his government would look into the matter and in future correct such mistakes within 24 hours of being informed, Thaksin said.

Surakiart said the Burmese junta had ordered its media to stop publishing articles deemed insulting to Thailand's past monarchs after the Foreign Ministry made its written protest.

The Burmese foreign minister also pledged to blacklist media agencies that published such articles and take action against them, Surakiart said.

Surakiart said the Foreign Ministry had not asked the Burmese government to apologise. "We just wanted them to stop," he said.

Articles criticising Siamese kings, written by columnist Dr Ma Tin Win, had been recently published in the New Light of Myanmar, a Burmese state-run English-language newspaper.

Surakiart said that as far as he knew the New Light of Myanmar was not a popular newspaper in Burma. The Thai Ambassador to Burma, Oum Maolanon, said that the New Light of Myanmar had stopped publishing articles derogatory of Thailand.

He said the articles in question were about King Naresuan the Great and King Narai the Great.

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