Posted by: “Edith Mirante” maje@hevanet.com   emirante
Tue Jan 6, 2009 10:04 am (PST)

January 5, The Nation (Thailand)
Understanding new Thai policy towards Burma – Kavi Chongkittavorn

AFTER EIGHT YEARS, it will not be easy to undo the Thai foreign policy towards Burma initiated by the Thaksin-led government and its nominees. A complete overhaul of the Burma policy is out of the question. However, some major shifts by the current government could be forthcoming that would firm up bilateral ties and strengthen Bangkok’s voice on Burma within Asean. Additional principled guidelines, drawing from the Asean Charter, are imperative aimed at supporting the international community’s effort to promote an open society there.

Gone quickly would be the preponderance of one-man decisions on key policies, especially those dealing with cross-border security, investment and trade cooperation.

In the past few years, Thailand has been rather compromising in its security considerations in exchange for economic benefits, which often went to individuals rather than the country as a whole. In particular,
from 2001 to 2006, the Thai side allowed the Burmese side greater leeway along the 2004-km border such as issues related to Burmese migrant workers, illegal cross-border activities and harassment of minorities and Burmese exiles.

Picking up the pieces of Burmese policy where the Democrat-led government left off in early 2001, this time around the Thai foreign policy will be decided in a transparent way without any hanky panky as in the past. Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said succinctly that from now on, Thailand will deal with Burma in a straightforward manner without any dubious deals or transactions based on “four-eye meetings”, which was the trademark of Thaksin’s personalised diplomacy.

Prior to the return of the Democrat-led government, Thai-Burmese relations were very superficially closed, representing no real national agenda.  Thai leaders were myopic, deluded in thinking that defending the Burmese regime within Asean and the international community would help them win favours from the junta leaders and subsequently secure the country’s future energy and natural resources need. Indeed, the energy dependence on Burma was exaggerated to justify Thailand’s closer ties with Burma, including its passivity.

Throughout the year 1999-2000, before Thaksin came to power, the Burmese people’s struggle for democracy and open society was at its peak with all the support of the international community. Asean was far more united as far as peer pressure on Burma was concerned. Thailand dutifully played the leading role on Burma throughout by bringing in the international community. Former foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan, currently the Asean secretary-general, pushed Asean to engage in enhanced dialogue with Burma as well as emerging transnational issues affecting the region.

However, soon after the arrival of the Thaksin-led government in early 2001, Thai policy towards Burma turned upside down. After a few weeks of border tension and tough talks on Burma’s role on cross-border illegal drugs trade, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra unexpectedly softened his Burmese policy, much to the chagrin of the international community. Since then, Thailand’s credibility on Burma has disappeared.

During the Cambodian conflict, Thailand’s role in Asean as a frontline state was well recognised as it was pursued based on the region’s interest, not tempered with vested personal interests. Asean helped to
internationalise the conflict playing out at the UN continuously for nearly a decade, which gave Asean an international voice, before the Paris peace agreement in 1989. In Burma’s case, it was the opposite. Thailand failed miserably to assert itself in the Asean overall approaches albeit it was the most affected by the Burmese growing oppression. Bangkok’s willingness to play second fiddle to Burma further divided Asean and stymied broader cooperation with international community.

Subsequent revelations by Surakiart Sathiratai, foreign minister in the Thaksin government, showed that investment and commercial deals with Burma at that time were not honest as they were coaxed with conflict of interest.

The scandal over the Export and Import Bank of Thailand’s Bt4-billion loan to the junta was just one example. Like rubbing more salt into the wounds, former prime ministers Samak Sundravej and Somchai Wongsawat made ridiculous remarks defending Burma.

Samak was the most embarrassing as he praised the military junta leaders as peace-loving leaders and boasted about their closed friendship. Under the Surayud Chulanont government (2006-7), Thailand maintained a strict policy of no new contacts or improvement of existing ties.

Burma could have made a transition to democracy if the Thai governments in question had not indulged in personalising, nationalising and making the Burmese problem bilateral. The leader’s personal and group interests linked to Burma weakened not only Thai credibility, it also belittled Bangkok’s voice within Asean. That helps explain why in the absence of a Thai role, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have become more pro-active in shaping the grouping’s views and positions on Burma.

Coming to power at this juncture poses serious challenges to both Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Foreign Minister Kasit on Burmese policy. They have to revitalise and synergise the role of Thailand, Asean and the international community to move the situation in Burma forward.

At present, the Asean Charter, imperfect as it is, will serve as a useful tool to encourage reluctant Asean countries to get more involved on issues of human rights and democracy. The rumblings over the charter’s ratification in Indonesia and Philippines were indicative of the strong desire for such endeavour.

As the Asean chair, Thai leaders will adopt a comprehensive strategy on Burma that put together various parts and needs from within region. Furthermore, this strategy must also work in tandem with the current
international efforts, especially through the offices of the United Nations and related agencies and its special envoy.

After all, the Burmese quagmire is not the problem of any particular country or regional community. It must be kept at the multilateral level so that all stakeholders can work together to end the current impasse and sufferings.

 

How oil companies support the Generals in Burma

Our economic system– the global economic system — is founded upon the assumption that cheap, easily accessible oil and natural gas (the creme de la creme of fossil fuels) will always be available. But the fact is that these resources, like all natural resources, are finite. They can be used up. Experts say that the world has passed the peak of available petroleum stored on our planet. At the same time, new U.S. style economies are coming online; India and China are two examples. These and other expanding economies are demanding their share of available supplies.

Third world countries like Burma have always been victims when bigger economies, until recently these were Western economies, seek to obtain the natural resources they have needed. Oil (energy) companies have always cooperated with despotic leaders to gain access to the oil riches of “undeveloped” countries. The situation is Burma is no different. Despite the pro-democracy rhetoric of leaders in Western nations, virtually nothing has been done by these nations to require Western multi-national corporations to observe this priority in their dealings with the governments of resource rich but income poor nations.

In fact, these corporations have turned their eyes away from human rights violations in these countries. In some cases they actually benefit from the practices of oppressive governments. Oil is why the U.S. is in Iraq. As the scramble to secure energy resources proceeds in a situation where global supplies are dwindling, one wonders how this will effect the human rights of people in Burma and throughout the world.

The following video is the first of many posted on YouTube under the title Burma’s Secret War. It was posted to YouTube on November 21, 2006, almost a year before the monks’ non-violent protest and the its violent suppression by Burma’s military government.

 

China’s game plan for Burma

Posted by: “Edith Mirante” maje@hevanet.com emirante on Burmaoil@yahoogroups.com.

Fri Jan 4, 2008 10:32 am (PST)
China’s Game Plan for Burma
By William Boot/Bangkok
January 3, 2008
The irrawaddy

China’s ability to elbow out other contenders for the Shwe gas—from
Thailand, Japan and South Korea, as well as India—underlines Beijing’s
rising influence within the Burmese regime

There was always going to be a buyer for the huge stock of gas in the
Shwe field off Burma’s west coast, but the fact that China won out
against higher and earlier bidders has sent a shiver down the
international natural gas industry’s spine.

A section of the Yadana gas pipline from Burma to Thailand
[Photo: The Irrawaddy]

South Korea’s Daewoo International and India’s two state energy
companies, who are developing the field, are clearly rattled that the
Burmese regime rode roughshod over them to award the gas to the Chinese.

The question now is: Will Beijing stalk Thailand’s development of
another large gas discovery off the east coast and eventually use its
influence to grab that too?

The M-9 field in the Gulf of Martaban, being developed by Bangkok’s
state-controlled oil and gas explorer PTTEP, is intended to have a
significant role in stoking Thailand’s power plants after 2011—if the
gas doesn’t get diverted to China’s Yunnan Province, like the Shwe
reserve.

Latest estimates on exploratory drillings in M-9 put the minimum
quantity of gas there at 1.8 trillion cubic feet (50 billion cubic
meters), and PTTEP said in November it had so far probed only one-third
of the site.

However, just two blocks of the Shwe field contain about 6 trillion
cubic feet (200 billion cubic meters) of recoverable gas.

There have already been reports in Bangkok that China’s state energy
conglomerate PetroChina—the beneficiary of the Shwe gas—is seeking
talks with PTTEP’s parent company PTT.

At the end of the day—whoever secures the gas deal—the Burmese military
regime is the winner.

Two independent reports on Burma’s economy underline the fact that gas
is propping up the regime financially. The International Monetary Fund
says gas sales abroad have allowed the regime to build up its foreign
exchange reserves to US $2 billion at a time when inward investment is
generally dropping.

Foreign investment in Burma is being hit by Western sanctions and a
lack of confidence due to political instability, except where energy is
concerned.

“Even if every Western company pulled out there would be other takers.
Asia is hungry for energy, and it will get hungrier,” said energy
commodities consultant Jeff Mead in Hong Kong.

The IMF’s December report said that apart from gas sales the Burmese
junta had pursued disastrously inept economic policies with inflation
now running at 35 percent a year.

This is a view shared by a new report on Burma by the British Economist
Intelligence Unit, part of The Economist business news magazine.

“The junta’s management of the economy remains poor, and major changes
in policy continue to contribute to economic instability,” says the EIU
report for 2008. “Gas exports will keep the current account in surplus
in 2008-09, but the import bill will rise, partly driven by the rising
cost of imports of petroleum products.”

China’s ability to elbow out other contenders for the Shwe gas—from
Thailand, Japan and South Korea, as well as India—underlines Beijing’s
rising influence within the Burmese regime, say analysts.

“The Chinese government doesn’t just want some stability on its
southwest border and a bonus gas source; it needs to use Burma as a
conduit, as part of its wider global strategy for energy security,”
said an economic analyst with a Western embassy in Bangkok, who spoke
to The Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity. “Much of China’s foreign
policy now is geared to energy security. The country’s growth requires
more and more oil and, increasingly, gas.”

China will build a gas pipeline through Burma and into bordering Yunnan
Province, which is desperate for energy, especially after the central
government ordered a cutback in the number of hydro dam developments on
some of the region’s most sensitive rivers.

The Chinese will also use Burma as a conduit to transfer Middle Eastern
and North African crude oil via another pipeline into Yunnan, where
some of it will be processed at a new refinery and the rest piped on
farther north as far as the large industrial center of Chongqing in
Sichuan Province, according to the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.

These gas and oil pipelines will cost China several billion dollars,
but these days that’s cheap for Beijing. After stock market
listings—including investments by thousands of Chinese in so-called
chao gu (“stir-fry stocks”)—PetroChina is the world’s first company
valued at more than $1 trillion.

The Naypyidaw regime will earn several hundred million dollars in
transshipment “fees”—a bonus for selling the gas cheaply. Human rights
observers fear many Burmese face land confiscation, displacement and
possibly coercion to build the pipelines.

The movement of oil through Burma will be large, possibly more than 20
million metric tons a year—that’s about 400,000 barrels a day—according
to sources close to PetroChina.

Some reports suggest China will transship the oil through the existing
dilapidated western port of Sittwe, which will also be used for moving
the Shwe gas.

This would be a big blow for India, which has just signed an agreement
with the Burmese junta to invest $100 million redeveloping Sittwe as a
trade window for its landlocked northeastern states, via the Kaladan
River.

But the Chinese are also working on a new port at Kyauk Phyu on Ramree
Island to the east of Sittwe. This port will be capable of handling the
world’s largest container ships. It’s likely the two ports will be
linked by a new road.

Either way, China’s procurement of the Shwe gas is part of a wider
strategic game being played by Beijing, which also guarantees comfort
and support for Than Shwe and his fellow generals.