Myanmar & Thailand : Politics & Fishing

In the early hours of November 30th, Myanmar’s navy fired on 15 Thai fishing vessels in the Andaman Sea off the coast of southern Thailand.  The altercation saw one Thai national die by drowning, while four Thai crew members and 27 Myanmar nationals were detained, and a Thai fishing vessel was seized by Myanmar’s maritime authorities.

Since then Thailand authorities have been in negotiation with Myanmar over a release date for the remaining Thais. In the meantime, a Myanmar military court has sentenced the four fishermen to four to six years in prison.

“The SAC is playing hardball here, to gain legitimacy, and Thailand is playing along,” Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst in Bangkok said.

“The fisherman case dragging on is not surprising, the SAC is going to drag it on and milk it. [Thailand] engaging the SAC is very problematic because they are losing the civil war, and the future of Myanmar is not in favor of the SAC,” he added.

Thai fishing boats at Sri Racha, on the Gulf of Thailand / image wikimedia

Myanmar’s waters are attractive to Thai fisherman due to abundant fish stocks,and it is a reasonably common occurence for Thai fleets to encroach into Myanmar waters. For decades both countries have been in maritime disputes, but incidents are rarely escalated or reported.  

“There have been no reports of similar incidences since at least 2015. The nature of the incident, coupled with the detention of the fishing vessels and crew is unprecedented,” said Dominic Thomson, regional director of Southeast Asia for the Environmental Justice Foundation.

Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has downplayed concerns, insisting the four fishermen will be released on January 4, and that the prison terms were a usual process in Myanmar.

In broader terms, the incident isn’t a major issue that would cause a substantial rift between the two countries, but it has put the spotlight the bilateral relations. It also poses questions as to why Myanmar is dragging out the process of returning the fisherman to Thai shores, and what the military regime may be bargaining for with Thailand’s government.

The maritime quarrel came just weeks before Myanmar officials arrived in Bangkok for high-level talks. Thailand is in the middle of hosting two meetings this week with representatives from Myanmar, Bangladesh, China, India, Laos and Malaysia over border security, transnational crime, ASEAN and Myanmar’s conflict.

The meetings have so far developed a "road map" for dealing with proposed elections in Myanmar in 2025.

Observers and experts have so far dismissed Myanmar's proposal for elections next year, saying widespread, nationwide polls would be impossible due to the on-going civil conflict. Accessibility for Myanmar’s 54 million population to vote would be limited, and a free and fair election process could be compromised in certain military-held territories.  

 Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, say any elections should be decided by the people of Myanmar, and that the pro-democracy stakeholders in the country should be involved.

“Efforts toward dialogue and peace building in Myanmar should be based on the voices of the people, not a junta responsible for atrocities and human rights violations,” he said.

“Yet Thailand continues to shower the junta with legitimacy. The Bangkok meetings provide an opportunity for the SAC to regain its footing to engage with the international community.  Meanwhile, there are no reports of representatives of the opposition National Unity Government receiving an invitation. The international community should not be fooled by the election promise recently pitched at the Bangkok meetings without any credible commitment for improvement of the situation,” he added.

Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington focusing on Southeast Asia politics, says the meetings this week have already given an endorsement to elections in Myanmar in 205.

“Thailand continues to do an end run around the ASEAN process, bringing together Myanmar’s neighbours, all of whom have an interest in the junta maintaining a seat at the table,” Abuza said.

“The meeting endorsed elections as a pathway forward to ending the conflict. Each wants the military to have some degree of representation in a post-coup government,” he added.

The Three Pagodas Pass on the Thai-Myanmar border is closed periodically, and only open to foot traffic between Myanmar's Karen State and the Thai province of Kanchanaburi / Image Wikimedia

Myanmar’s civil war has seen at least 6,000 people killed by military forces, tens of thousands arrested and millions displaced. The brutal war was sparked by a military coup nearly four years ago in February 2021.

The coup came about after the Myanmar military’s unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud in the November 2020 elections, that saw a landslide victory for the National League for Democracy party against military-backed parties.

David Scott Mathieson, an independent analyst on Myanmar, says the junta is the central cause of Myanmar’s problems, and any promise of new elections should not be trusted.

“Unless the Myanmar military is serious about peace, these talks will be extremely limited. You can’t approach any diplomacy on Myanmar without a clear understanding that the military is the root cause of all the problems,” he said.

“No one should be taking these claims seriously, but this is a trap of diplomacy. If any interlocutor takes election preparations seriously, they have doomed the country to prolonged conflict,” he added.

But it appears Thailand is determined to take a lead in deflating the Myanmar conflict, and for many observers, they are best placed to do so.

Thailand and Myanmar are neighbours in Southeast Asia, sharing land borders of over 1,500 miles and maritime boundary of 142 nautical miles in the Andaman Sea.  Tens of thousands of fleeing Myanmar refugees have ended up over in Thailand’s borders even though Thailand is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has no specific domestic legal framework for protection of urban refugees and asylum-seekers.

It also remains to be seen how much of a positive impact ASEAN will play in resolving the Myanmar crisis. The 10-member nation organization has so far failed to put a stop to the violence, and its special envoys have left without any specific solutions.

ASEAN's so-called “Five Point Consensus" peace plan for Myanmar, adopted by the ASEAN leaders in April 2021, has largely been ignored by the junta.

The Salween River forms part of the border between Myanmar and Thailand / image Wikimedia

Malaysia will take over from Lao in chairing ASEAN for 2025. The Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has close relations with Thailand, and has just recently appointed Thaksin Shinawtra, the former Thai premier, as an advisor.

The new Thai government’s position is in stark contrast to that taken by military-backed government of previous Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who largely ignored the situation over the border.

This weeks meetings are unlikely to provide any sort of coherent breakthrough regarding a ceasefire in Myanmar, but as we approach the fourth anniversary of the coup it keeps the channels open and allows the Thai government to stay involved in anticipation of more meaningful negotiations in future. .

• Asia Media Centre