KAOWAO NEWS NO. 117

 

Newsletter for social justice and freedom in Burma

September 25 - October 9, 2009

 

Readers' Front

Child soldier seeks safe refuge

Sexual abuse to increase with return of Colonel Myo Winn

Australia gives Terrorist training to TerroristsLita Davidson

Burma wants help to keep terrorists at bay - Greg Sheridan

Myanmar says brush with U.N. will have no impact

Yangon-Mawlamyine bus terminal shifted to new site

Mon Community Gives "Thumb's Up" to UNSC's Agenda

UNSC Agenda divided among cease-fire groups

New Mon State Party on the Way to National Convention

Three Pagodas Pass border reopened

 

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Readers' front

 

Dear readers,

 

We invite comments and suggestions on improvements to Kaowao newsletter. With your help, we hope that Kaowao News will continue to grow to serve better the needs of those seeking social justice in Burma. And we hope that it will become an important forum for discussion and debate and help readers to keep abreast of issues and news.  We reserve the right to edit and reject articles without prior notification. You can use a pseudonym but we encourage you to include your full name and address.

 

Regards,

 

Editor

Kaowao News

kaowao@hotmail.com, www.kaowao.org

 

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I understand the NMSP's situation under the pressure by the SPDC and it has no choice but to send an observer team to the government sponsored so called National Convention.   I also appreciate the NMSP for bravely stance against the SPDC to support the United Nation's Security Council to include Burma in their agenda.  On the other hand, the NMSP also should show the desire of the majority population who against the sham Convention.   If the NMSP leadership bravely stands for the Mon by not attending the NC, I am sure; its fading image for public support will be brighter again.   The worldwide Mons who are keen for their national cause will not ignore the NMSP if the Party really stands for them.

 

Anyatara in exile

 

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Child soldier seeks safe refuge

(Kaowao: October 3, 2006)

 

Sangkhalaburi -- A child soldier who recently deserted the Burmese Army arrived on the Thai Burma border town seeking safe refuge.

 
The 16-year-old had been suffering from severe malaria when he decided to flee from the army. He was a soldier with the LIB (Light Infantry Battalion) No. 106 based in Mawkanin of northern Ye Township. After being relocated right in the middle of a war-affected frontline for one month in a military offensive against the KNU, he made a daring break and set off trekking through the jungle without food for days. He was able to get help from a local villager who guided him to the liberated area and is now in a Sangkla border village receiving medical care.

 

Like many youth at his age; Dawna and his friend, Min Chithu were on their way to watch a movie when the local police snatched them up. The army didn't inform the boys families when they were forcibly recruited, but were sent immediately to Rangoon and later transferred to the Yeni military training school in Pegu Division.  

 

"They threatened me that if I didn't join I would wind up behind bars. No one wants to go to jail, that's why my friend and I signed up." When asked about the fate of his friend, he said, "We got separated after our training at the recruitment center.

 

"There were about 200 trainees at the training school and half of us are child soldiers, the worst thing was not getting any rest while feeling sick with nausea on the frontline. I want to finish school then help my parents who are poor, I come from a family of 8 people, I want to work," he said in an interview with a Kaowao reporter.

 

Dawna was 15 years old at the time of his recruitment and was sent to the LIB No. 106 in Mon State after the training.    The boy's salary was 21,000 Kyat (about 15 US $) and 10,000 Kyat, was kept in a bank account by an officer for saving.   When he fell ill with malaria he asked his Commander Nyi Nyi Htwe for leave but instead was scolded and told to put up with it, he finally decided to desert.

 

Mi Khmom Htaw, the coordinator for the Women and Child Rights Project at the border, took over responsibility for him; "He was very weak with malaria and collapsed in the hospital when we brought him in. We hooked him up to IV and had to give him two bottles of blood."  

 

According to a Human Rights Watch fact-finding team, the Burmese Army has doubled in strength since 1988, and with an estimated 350,000 soldiers is now one of the largest armies in Southeast Asia. The human rights watchdog estimate that about 20 percent or more of its active soldiers on duty are children under the age of 18, according to accounts of former soldiers interviewed by Human Rights Watch. HRW has documented widespread abuse against the children, the child soldiers are sent to military training camps where they are routinely beaten, and are brutally punished if they attempt to escape. According to a recent study by the UN, between 8,000 and 10,000 children are killed or maimed each year in warfare and from land mines.

 

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Sexual abuse to increase with return of Colonel Myo Winn

(Kaowao: September 30, 2006)

 

A State Peace and Development Council colonel with a long history of sexually abusing women in Ye Township has returned to take up his old post to tackle Mon insurgency, sources say from the area. The Mon community fear young women will fall victim to his sexual exploits, said women concerned about his return to Ye township.

 

According to a human right's watchdog group from the area, "we fear that a 'fashion show,' a term coined by locals to refer to a pattern of entrenched sexual abuse by Colonel Myo Winn, will reoccur. The Southeast Command based in the state capital has returned due to an upsurge of activity by local Mon armed groups."

 

The area has been under increased surveillance after several people were detained with supposed links to a Mon armed group shortly after his return one week ago, a source from New Mon State Party said.

 

Colonel Win was the chief offensive commander against a small Mon splinter group under the title of "Aung Moe Gyoe Offensive No (3) from 2003 to 2005. Hundreds of local Mon women at that time were forced to perform sexual acts with him late at night. The local community dubbed the spectacle 'the Fashion Show.'

 

Women living in remote areas are all the more vulnerable to the commander and his soldiers who seek out young women from the local community. The women are forced to provide massage, entertainment and sexual services.

 

According to women who fled to Thailand two years ago, families of young women are "extremely concerned." The local community says that single women are most at risk and want their daughters under 18 years-old to get married as soon as possible to prevent abuse by the SPDC soldiers.

 

Mainly due to fear of being raped, killed, or forced to porter, and other forms of abuse, hundreds of women and men fled from the area to urban areas, to Mon Internally Displaced Person Camps trapped along the border, or across to neighboring Thailand.

 

This sexual abuse shows that the government can do whatever it wants to those who they suspect of sympathizing with local insurgents, and to do so with impunity. The locals point out that Colonel Myo Winn has recently extorted money from the local people to stock up on Black Label whisky for his luxury bedroom suite, a source from Ye said, that suggests he is planning to hold all-night parties soon. He is not only famous as women rights perpetrator but is often cruel and barbaric to the local people.

 

According to the coordinator of the Women and Child Rights Project (southern Burma) Mrs Mi Khamom Htaw, about 50 Mon women between the ages of 14 and 40 were raped a decade ago where the SPDC offensive troops were located. The abuse was subsequently documented and published in a report titled: Catwalk to the barrack last July.  It highlighted the link between Burma's military offensives against the ethnic nationalities and rape used as a weapon of war.  

 

The NMSP said that the situation in the area is getting worst after the return of Colonel Myo Winn who is in charge of four Battalions to crackdown on Mon insurgency.

 

In an environment of lawlessness and abuse, very young Mon women without any other skills, are joining the ranks of a Mon armed group that has been reformed and upgraded with the support of local people. Sources from Ye say that there are over five women among the 25 member armed group. Even though they are small, they can survive due to support from local people, mainly in the form of food, the source explained.

 

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Commentary

 

Giving Terrorist training to Terrorists

(By Lita Davidson)

 

I strongly disagree with Mr. Greg Sheridan's opinion piece on Australia providing counter terrorist training to Burma, which is incomplete and biased; especially with respect to Burmese migrants (Burma wants to keep terrorists at bay, October 5th, 2006, The Australian). The armchair academic explanation of Burmese migrants to highlight cross border crime, he claims warrants justification for terrorist training is unacceptable given the facts. This ridicules assertion that Burmese migrants are mostly criminals and HIV infected carriers (god forbid that people with AIDS are crossing the border!!!) and as he claims, that the Burmese are bringing problems to Thailand couldn't be further from the truth.

 

The Burmese migrants have had a positive impact on the Thai economy for many years and rarely openly attack, threaten, or kill Thai people or threaten Thai society. It's the other way around. There are many reported cases of murder and abuse by the Thai people against the Burmese migrant workers.   Perhaps he's referring to problems brought on by the Burmese demanding justice from Thai employers? Burmese migrant workers have demonstrated how democratic and revolutionary a society can be in a positive way. Recently, Burmese migrant workers on the border demanded justice and fair wages from their rich employers in Mae Sot. Protesting and social unrest during Thailand's rapid rise to industrialization over the past 60 years had been met with violence with the full backing of rich Americans and the American government, in addition to other stake holders including Australia's role in development. Arguing then as they do now that this kind of behavior disrupts 'social harmony.' This had a major impact on the entrenchment and the development of the Thai military, as it did in South Korea and other Asian nations. Cronies and the military were assigned to suppress workers rights' and demobilize union movements with violence.   It's an old story.

 

This type of analysis released in the media about Burmese migrant workers, or any migrant workers, brings only more harm and more discrimination against thousands of innocent women and men, many thousands of which are children. Children and women make up a good portion of the Burmese workforce in Thailand that work in slave like conditions in thousands of Thai factories. This is well documented and I am beside myself why a Southeast Asian expert is unaware of this. Burmese women and children are much sought after from Burma because of their manual dexterity and agility, not to mention their willingness to work in the 5 D's jobs: dangerous, dirty, difficult, distant, and degrading, in handling fish, shrimp, and other menial tasks. They saved Thai businesses during the 1997 economic crises by accepting low wages and continue to do so in the present. In Phuket many thousands of Burmese are rebuilding tsunami-affected areas. They have also built many of the resorts and the roads in Thailand, plus many work in the resorts and in the restaurants frequented by tourists, so their employers can stay competitive in the region. The list goes on.

 

Furthermore, to broaden the phenomenon of Burmese migration and quite contrary to increased terrorist activity and conflict in Burma Mr. Sheridan self-righteously claims, the Thai government has inadvertently reduced warfare in neigbouring Burma. Imagine hundreds of thousands of young Burmese men, of all the ethnic nationalities languishing in the jungles and their home villages if they couldn't cross over to Thailand to find work. It would be another Congo . Giving these people jobs in Thailand has diverted war, terrorist buildup and massive displacement, though many thousands are still trapped in the jungles of Burma, this too is well documented.  

 

While it is true that criminals do cross the border from Burma , it isn't the 'vast majority' as claimed by Mr. Sheridan. In fact, it goes both ways. Thai and Malay authorities are the dominant criminal networks here, they want the bigger slice of the pie in extorting Burmese migrants: they wouldn't tolerate any competition from Burmese criminals. These Thai and Malay mafia networks, many of whom are government employees, are everywhere where the Burmese migrants live in Thailand and Malaysia and are in cahoots with the smaller Burmese gangs that violently kidnap, extort, and murder the innocent, mostly young women and men, with impunity. Recently, a Thai boss looking to get rid of his Burmese employees because he lost money gambling away his profits fatally poisoned 30 Mon fishermen. Cases like these happen each year in which people are rounded up in groups and killed by Thai people working also with Burmese human traffickers.  

 

Fortunately, the Thai government has taken on a more practical and caring solution to Burmese migrants by offering schooling and medical care to Burmese migrants living in Thailand. Hopefully this is the first step in combating negative discrimination against the Burmese people and fully demonstrates, hopefully, in the long term a move away from knee jerk reactions to these kinds of challenges a society faces.

 

Finally, the assumption that Burma is fertile ground for terrorists' activities is laughable. That attacks could be organized from Burma demands further examination and concrete evidence. The Burmese people live in terror themselves under miserable conditions and are concerned with only surviving another day under Burmese repression. The letting off of bombs are isolated incidents without any links to would be terrorists. The Burmese junta suppresses Shan, Karen, Mon, the Moslem and Christian communities by burning down their places of worship and knows to a great extent what's going on with its people. The Australian government by its engagement with the dictatorship franchises the repression that facilitates abuse of the Burmese people. Dissent of any kind is violently repressed. It's not the people, but the Burmese government itself who are the terrorists.

 

(Submitted to The Australian on October 8, 2006)

 

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The Australian: Burma wants help to keep terrorists at bay

(By Greg Sheridan, Fri 6 Oct 2006)


Co-operating with the junta on counter-terrorism strategies poses difficult moral questions, writes foreign editor Greg Sheridan


Australia faces a dilemma over an approach from the ruling military junta in Burma to increase the assistance it gets from us in counter-terrorism.

 

The dilemma is as exquisite as it is simple. The Burmese Government is, by a vast distance, the worst regime in Southeast Asia in terms of gross human rights abuses.

 

Several Southeast Asian countries are not democracies, but Burma's breaches of human rights have been notable and consistent. It has a record of seeking unconventional weapons. It has a record of ethnic-based murder and forced servitude. It has comprehensively ignored the results of the one democratic election it conducted in recent decades. And it allows a substantial opium trade to flourish within its borders. It allows no freedom of expression and very little in the way of outside reporting. It has recently come on to the UN Security Council agenda.

 

As a result of all this, the US and the European Union have adopted policies of effective isolation towards Burma. Asian countries have adopted the opposite approach. China has become Burma 's strategic patron and guarantor, and its chief source of diplomatic contact and military co-operation. India , witnessing China's strategic dominance in Burma , has also stepped up its own diplomatic engagement with Rangoon .

 

Most of the nations of Southeast Asia , although acutely embarrassed by the bad name Burma brings to ASEAN, have nonetheless not tried at all to isolate Burma. This is because they must engage Burma in order to have any hope of affecting the way it affects them. Thailand is the prime example, with its huge, porous border with Burma.

 

Every day hundreds of Burmese illegal immigrants, many of them HIV-positive, cross the border, often carrying drugs, or with an intention to participate in crime in Thailand, or just seeking a better life, but inevitably bringing with them vast problems for the Thai state.

 

Canberra has a policy of limited engagement with Burma, which sits somewhere between the US and European policies on the one hand, and the Asian policies on the other.

 

The war on terror adds an acute new dimension to the dilemma. If terrorists use Burma as a base to conduct an operation in, say, Bangkok, which kills hundreds of Australians, there will be nobody saying to the Australian Government, well at least you kept the purity of your policy intact. Instead, they will damn Canberra for ignoring a glaring hole in the regional counter-terrorist effort.

 

But, sensibly, Australia has not been ignoring that gaping hole altogether. Canberra has provided a lot of counter-terrorist training to Burma already, though this has never been mentioned publicly. A range of Australian agencies has been involved in training Burmese counter-terrorist agencies. The Immigration Department, for example, has helped with immigration intelligence training. The Australian Nuclear Science Technology Organisation has helped on monitoring radioactive sources.

 

Burmese law enforcement officers have been involved in Australian courses on major investigation management, post-blast incident management, and the international management of serious crime. AUSTRACK has provided training on tracking international terrorist finances. And perhaps most significant of all, Burmese law enforcement officers have attended courses at the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Co-operation in Semarang. JCLEC is run jointly by the Australian Federal Police and the Indonesian national police.

 

All this training has so far been carried out in an ASEAN context. It has not been bilateral Australia-to-Burma-only assistance.

 

However, it is still Australian assistance to Burma and therefore still poses a moral dilemma. Could any of the Burmese institutions involved in learning from Australians misuse that knowledge in domestic repression?

 

It's pretty hard to see how the skills involved in managing a bomb site could be used to suppress dissidents. On the other hand, if you can track terrorist finances perhaps you can track dissident finances a bit better as well; if you can track terrorists more effectively you can probably track the movements of political refugees more effectively.

 

In the real world there is no getting away from these moral dilemmas. As one official puts it, one question has to be whether providing such training is likely to help protect Australian lives. The answer is undoubtedly yes.

 

There are many reasons why Australia provides so much counter-terrorist training to Southeast Asia. The main reason is, to improve, directly by training, the capacity of counter-terrorist agencies in the region. A related reason is to increase the degree to which Southeast Asian agencies from different countries talk to each other.

 

Terrorists flow effortlessly across borders and if the Malaysians didn't speak to the Thais, for example, or the Filipinos didn't speak to the Indonesians, this would be disastrous for effective counter-terrorism.

 

A further reason, and one that needs to be expressed with a certain delicacy, is that providing such training provides Australian agencies with invaluable knowledge and contacts. These are useful always, but they are critical if an incident happens that involves Australians.

 

The Burmese state, apart from being brutal, is also ramshackle. We don't want it to persecute its citizens but we do want it to stop its territory, or its citizens, being used for terrorist purposes. It would be extremely foolish just to ignore Burma.

 

The broad balance of the counter-terrorist story in the region is quite positive. The southern Philippines is becoming a much less secure haven for the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiah. We are halfway through the traditional terrorist bombing season and JI has not perpetrated a new attack in Indonesia. Operationally, JI is under a lot of pressure.

 

In the southern Philippines the critical outside actor is the US. Australia is about to embark on greater training with the armed forces of The Philippines but it is the Americans, especially the CIA and the US Navy SEALS, who are providing the most active assistance to the Filipinos in their war against the terrorists, especially the murderous Abu Sayyaf gang.

 

Under The Philippines constitution the Americans cannot take combat action themselves on Philippines soil, but they equip and train the Filipinos, locate the enemy and lead the Filipinos to the brink of action. It is a universal assessment that the Filipinos are much more effective when they've got the Americans helping them.

 

This underlines the importance of the story, first broken in The Australian last year and confirmed in The Washington Post's Bob Woodward's book, State of Denial, this week, that Australia now has unprecedented access to US intelligence, including an exemption from the no-foreign-eyes rule for US intelligence concerning the war on terror. Although Australia possesses great expertise on Southeast Asia , the Americans certainly have expertise, and intelligence, on the southern Philippines, a central battleground in the Southeast Asian war on terror, that we do not.

 

Now the Burmese would like more assistance in their counter-terrorist efforts. Frankly, we'd be ill-advised to decline.

 

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Myanmar says brush with U.N. will have no impact on plans for drafting constitution

(AP: October 8, 2006)

 

YANGON, Myanmar  - Myanmar's military junta said Sunday that the U.N. Security Council's decision to put the country on its agenda will have no impact on the government's plan to reopen a long stalled convention later this week for drafting a constitution.


The National Convention is due to begin Tuesday, after an eight-month hiatus.
Myanmar has been without a constitution since 1988, when the existing 1974 charter was suspended after the military violently suppressed mass pro-democracy protests.


The country's military rulers have reacted angrily to U.S.-led efforts to put
Myanmar on the U.N. Security Council's agenda - a historic decision that would let the council more closely scrutinize Myanmar's military government and the plight of its people by asking for briefings by U.N. officials and adopting resolutions.


But officials said at a briefing Sunday ahead of the convention's opening that the two issues were not related.


"
Myanmar being put on the U.N. Security Council (agenda) will not have any impact on the ongoing National Convention, nor will it delay the process," said Brig. Gen. Kyaw Hsan, the information minister and secretary of the convention's convening commission.


Critics consider the proceedings a sham because the delegates were hand-picked by the military, and detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party are not taking part.


The 1,000-plus delegate convention, billed by the ruling military junta as the first step in a seven-stage "road map" toward democracy, is supposed to lead to free elections, though no timetable has been set to complete the task.


Kyaw Hsan, when asked about the timetable, said they hoped to finish as "as quickly as possible."


"Instead of focusing on a timeframe, we put our emphasis on the emergence of a ... stable constitution," he said.


Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory in a 1990 general election but the military refused to hand over power, claiming it had to first write a new constitution.

 

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Yangon-Mawlamyine bus terminal shifted to new site

(Kaowao: September 28, 2006)

 

The shifting of the Yangon-Mawlamyine bus terminal in the capital city of Mon State to a new site has left both passengers and vehicle owners unhappy.

 

The SPDC authorities have moved the old bus terminal located in Zay Gyo to a new site in Myeni Gone Railway Station. And the Vehicle Association has had to buy a new office for selling tickets, according to local sources.

 

"The authorities have ordered the shifting of only the Yangon-Mawlamyine bus terminal but others will remain in Zay Gyo.  It is very inconvenient for passengers who have to continue the journey further because we have to travel one and-a-half kilometers to the old terminal to catch a bus," said a traveler from Ye.

 

Nai Hla Tin, a businessman from Moulmein said the plan to move the terminal had been announced three months ago and the price of real estate in Zay Gyo went down since then but the Vehicle Association had to purchase a new place for Kyat 12 million.

 

In 2003, over 1,400 houses including a Buddhist monastery and a mosque in Myene Gone and Hlaing Wards had been demolished for the Yangon Mawlamyine Railroad. The railway passes through six city wards in Moulmein and the Salween Bridge.

 

Mawlamyine, formerly known as Moulmein , is the third largest city in Burma after Rangoon and Mandalay. The Salween (Thanlwin) Bridge, the longest road and rail bridge in Burma stretches 11,000 feet over the Thanlwin river connecting the country's south eastern region with Yangon.

 

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Mon Community Gives "Thumb's Up" to UNSC's Agenda

(Kaowao: September 28, 2006)

 

The Mon political community in Monland gave a thumb's up when it heard the news broadcast from exile radio announcing that Burma issues had reached the UN Security Council (UNSC) agenda, a source from the capital of Mon state said.

 

"Top leaders of the party (Mon National Democratic Front) thumbed up their hand as success when heard news of September 15 (the day Burma issue agreed to put on UNSC's agenda)," a young Mon politician from the capital Moulmein said. He requested not to be named.

 

Not only do Mon politicians support the agenda, but also the Mon community, including monks, since hearing the news broadcast from BBC's Burmese section twice a day.

 

A young Mon politician who recently arrived in the border area for political reasons said that Mon politicians in Burma strongly support the UNSC's agenda to discuss issues in Burma. "We are hundred percent support UNSC, we are tired of SPDC." The Mon community believes that top SPDC leaders routinely discriminate against ethnic nationalities, he said.

 

Two reports written by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland, No Land to Farm and Catwalk to the Barracks, proved that the SPDC are to be blamed for the latest condition of the Mon people through the practice of discrimination, the Mon monk community said.

 

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UNSC Agenda divided among cease-fire groups

(Kaowao: September 27, 2006)

 

The Ad-hoc meeting of New Mon State Party welcomes United Nations Security Council's decision to include Burma on its permanent agenda.

 

Meanwhile, Democratic Karen Buddhist Army or DKBA has denounced the UNSC's decision to include Burma in the agenda, according to government newspaper, Kyae Mon.

 

The source from the Moulmein reported other cease-fire groups were given pressure to denounce the UNSC's move. 

 

"The SPDC is now reacting seriously.  International pressure, somehow, works and they are forcing its member organizations USDA and cease-fire groups to against it," said a Mon politician who asked not to be named.

 

The NMSP meeting, comprised of 27 Central Committee members, was held at the Party's General Headquarters and debated whether the NMSP should attend the government sponsored National Convention.  The agenda also included the Party's stance on the international pressure towards Burma and the present situation of Mon people.

 

The NMSP decided to attend the National Convention (NC) next month.  The NMSP delegation will be headed by its Central Committee member Nai Tin Hla.

 

The SPDC announced that the government would reopen the convention to draft the country's new constitution on October 10.   Delegates to the National Convention have to be at the meeting site at Nyaunghnapin by October 7. 

 

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New Mon State Party on the Way to National Convention

(Kaowao: September 27, 2006)

 

The New Mon State Party (NMSP) will attend the SPDC-sponsored National Convention (NC) next month as in previous years, said party spokesman Nai Aye Mon. After a four-day meeting at its headquarters over the weekend, the NMSP Central Committee decided it will attend the event with observer status.

 

A source close to the party said that the meeting is highly controversial; not only do some members want to stop attending the NC, but withdraw from the ceasefire agreement reached in 1995 as well.

 

After the NMSP sent delegates as observers to the NC last year, it received a lot of criticism from the SPDC regarding its downgraded approach politically.

 

Party members have divided into two groups, pro-NC and anti-NC, also known as pro-ceasefire and anti-ceasefire.

 

Some Central Committee members say that the ceasefire will not benefit the Mon people, pointing out that senior Buddhist monks strongly oppose it. "Thousands of acres of land have been confiscated in Ye township and NMSP can do nothing preventing this process," a member of the Central Committee quoted a senior Mon Buddhist monk as saying.

 

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Three Pagodas Pass border reopened

(Kaowao: September 25, 2006)

 

The Three Pagoda Pass border reopened today and villagers were seen crossing the check-points as usual, according to local sources.

 

"It is nice that we (local civilians) can cross the border starting this morning and businessmen are back to their daily activities," said Nai Soe, a town resident.

 

Thailand's military leaders who seized power last week closed Mea Sot, Three Pagodas Pass, Mae Hongsorn and Ranoug border gates in order to prevent key members of the ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government from fleeing across the border.

 

In Bangkok, the military leaders announced they would unveil a temporary constitution within days, name a new prime minister by next week and would soon approve a long-delayed government budget. The new Thai leader led by Army Commander General Sondhi Boonyaratkalin has also said they would not call elections for a minimum of 12 months.

 

The border closure had affected trade between the two countries and both authorities occasionally close the border.

 

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