Two Thai telecom towers face west across the Moei River near Myawaddy toward one of some 16 Chinese-funded scam centers that have sprung up just inside Myanmar in recent years.
BANGKOK — Moves by Thailand and Japan to engage with Myanmar’s resistance indicate a shift in policies that previously favored Naypyitaw’s military regime and excluded key resistance organizations such as the parallel National Unity Government.
These include a growing crackdown on Thai involvement in supplying and supporting scam centers run by Chinese and local criminal groups inside Myanmar’s Karen state, near the Thai-Myanmar border.
Separately, Thai government officials have stepped up engagement with Myanmar’s resistance groups, including the NUG and key ethnic resistance groups, including the Karen National Union and various groups to the north in Karenni state.
Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission last week ordered Thai internet service providers and telecommunications companies to cut off internet services and telephone lines to Shwe Kokko, the oldest and largest of the notorious scam centers run by Chinese crime syndicates in Karen state.
The order was “very significant” and came after an active lobbying campaign by opposition politicians and an intense debate between key ministries, said one Thai official connected with the government’s multi-agency task force on Myanmar.
Shwe Kokko is just one of more than a dozen criminal enclaves that have sprung up along the Thai-Myanmar border. “Effectively, the whole Moei has become a river of criminality,” Jason Tower of the United States Institute of Peace told Nikkei Asia.“There were earlier attempts to warn ISPs to curb internet services, and it happened for a while, but it came right back. This was a decision that came from the top,” the official told Nikkei Asia.
The U.S. and other Western governments have also been lobbying the Thai government to act against the network of scam centers inside Myanmar amid growing evidence that nationals from more than 30 countries have been duped into scamming, many in almost slave-like conditions, to swindle people over the internet.
While these are among the latest most visible moves, the new signs of interest from countries like Thailand and Japan in establishing better channels to the resistance comes amid a more concerted push by Western countries, particularly the U.S., to step up support and engagement with the resistance.
Last December, the U.S. approved funds for “non-lethal assistance” to ethnic armed groups and People’s Defense Forces, the armed wing of the NUG.
But complicating matters in Thailand is former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, founder of the ruling Pheu Thai party. Thaksin has engaged in personal talks with resistance groups and assembled a group of senior regional “statesmen” to help negotiate with Myanmar military regime leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.
Resistance groups have signaled wariness of Thaksin’s agenda due to his well-known ties with Min Aung Hlaing. Thaksin boasted of his friendship with Myanmar’s armed forces chief in 2012 and 2013. Min Aung Hlaing, who led the 2021 takeover, even posted on Facebook photos of the pair celebrating Burmese and Thai new year together in Pyin Oo Lwin, the British hill station formerly known as Maymyo where the prestigious Defense Services Academy is located.
Japan, meanwhile, has taken the unprecedented step of allowing a mission of key ethnic resistance groups made up of the NUG and five ethnic armed groups, including the Karen National Union, the Chin National Front and the Karenni National Progressive Party, to visit Tokyo for one week from May 10.
The Japanese government has been careful to avoid endorsing the mission, which is being hosted by local non-government organizations. But sources close to participants confirmed that there have been discreet contacts with Japanese officials — who have raised the prospect of supporting possible dialogue between all parties including the regime.
The group is also meeting representatives of the Nippon Foundation, the philanthropic group headed by Japan’s special envoy for Myanmar, Yohei Sasakawa. Sasakawa has met with eight ethnic armed organizations in Bangkok on Saturday and Sunday.
Thailand’s shift reflects its growing dilemma with the Myanmar regime, which seized power and arrested democratically elected leaders in February 2021. Of great concern to the Thai government are signs that the regime is steadily losing territory to resistance forces — particularly along the Thai-Myanmar border.
Conflict over the key border gateway of Myawaddy in April sent thousands of refugees fleeing across the border into Thailand and disrupted Thailand’s lucrative border trade with Myanmar, worth $1.3 billion in two-way trade in 2023.
Adding to pressure on the government of Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin are the resignations of Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-nukara and Vice Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow, who led the Myanmar task force and engaged in low-key diplomacy with Myanmar’s conflicting parties.
The new foreign minister, Maris Sangiampongsa, a former ambassador, is known to be a close associate of Thaksin’s.
source : asia.nikkei