Thai

Thai-Burmese talks slammed as window dressing

A Thai columnist has disparaged the meeting between foreign ministers, Surakiart Sathirathai and Win Aung, in Brunei on 30 July, as a Phakchee Ruay-na (coriander dusting), a Thai expression equivalent to window dressing. 

"They shook hands for the benefit of the photographers, said they were still good friends and would meet in the near future to discuss ways and means to bring the border areas back to normal," wrote Pichian Khurathong in Matichon daily, 1 August. "But reopening the border checkpoint is something above U Win Aung's power." 

For Burma, he argued, normal relations meant to close or open the border on its whims and authorizing Dr. Ma Tin Win to write anti-Thai propaganda in the New Light of Myanmar, dubbed The New Lies of Myanmar by him. 

The column also criticized Burmese authorities for demanding an "under-the-table" payment of 60 million baht to end the border closure. 

"Rangoon has realized it is gaining bargaining power by responding to Thailand's commerce-driven strategy," commented Sunait Chutiranond of Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok Post, 22 July).