WAI MOE Thursday, February 7, 2008
Does the appointment of Thaksin Shinawatra’s former lawyer, Noppadon Pattama, as the new foreign minister of Thailand mean a new foreign policy that favors the generals in Naypyidaw?
Before he joined the Thai Rak Thai Party, Nappadon, a member of the Democrat Party, served as secretary to former Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan from 1997 to 2001.
He later joined the Thai Rak Thai Party and served as an assistant minister in the ministry of natural resources and environment for 89 days before the coup that toppled Thaksin in September 2006.
Noppadon told reporters on Thursday that democracy in Burma was “an internal affair.”
“We are not a headmaster who can tell Myanmar [Burma] what they should do. We have to respect their sovereignty,” he said, according to Agence France-Presse.
Kavi Chongkittavorn, an editor with The Nation newspaper in Bangkok, wrote in a commentary article on February 4: “For Noppadon, his top priority is very clear. He must show in sustained and tangible ways that he is the spokesman of Thai foreign policy, not Thaksin’s personal policy.”
A spokesperson for Burma’s opposition party, the National League for Democracy, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday the NLD hopes Thailand’s newly elected government will work jointly with the international community to strengthen Burma’s democracy movement.
“The establishment of an elected government is important in democratization,” said Nyan Win.
Nyo Ohn Myint, the NLD (Liberated Area) head of foreign affairs in exile, said a new Thai foreign policy should follow the international community’s position on Burma, particularly the UN.
He said the new government may follow Thaksin’s so-called “business-based diplomacy” and other people-based internal policies, but Thailand’s Burma policy should not be the same as before, because of the Burmese government’s lack of democracy and its abuse of human rights.
“Based on what I hear from the diplomatic community, the Thai new foreign ministry will not be proactive in relations with the Burmese junta,” he said.
After the 2006 coup, Noppadon was well-known as the Shinawatra family’s legal adviser who defended Thaksin and his family against corruption charges.
Shortly his appointment as foreign minister, Noppadon said Thaksin’s diplomatic passport should be returned. The passport was cancelled last year after a Thai court charged Thaksin with misusing the power of his office.
“Due to the rule of law and as long as other former prime ministers can keep their diplomatic passports, Khun Thaksin should get back his diplomatic passport,” Noppadon said on Thursday.
Columnist Kavi Chongkittavorn wrote that a new Thai foreign policy team is crucial to restoring the country’s international standing and any attempt to revive Thaksin’s “bruising diplomatic style of leadership,” especially towards Asean and Burma, could spell disaster from the beginning.
“While the international community has welcomed the newly elected government, it is also closely monitoring Thailand’s policy towards Burma,” he wrote. “If Bangkok chooses to follow the same shameful Burmese policy of the Thaksin years, Thailand’s recovery from the long years of condemnation and despair will be fruitless.”
Thailand’s new Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said during the election campaign in December that Thailand should host an international summit to try to resolve the Burma crisis. He suggested a conference modeled after the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear crisis.
“Let’s talk,” Samak said. “Let them [the Burmese junta] know that they can’t live like that in the world.”
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