For years, the leader of the Myanmar Army, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has been treated as a pariah on the world stage.
General Min Aung Hlaing has made a few trips abroad, except for Russia and China, as he seized power in a coup in 2021. The issue of Western sanctions has been banned by attending the meetings of the Southeast Asian Nations Union, Civil War of the country. An arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court last November accusing him of crimes against humanity had to isolate him further.
But on Thursday, General Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Bangkok for a regional summit of a group of seven countries around the Bay of Bengal, which also includes India and Thailand. His visit comes less than a week after an earthquake in Myanmar on Friday, killed at least 3,085 people and even when his army has been criticized for continuing air raids on the ongoing civil war in the days after the disaster.
For the general, his visit – his first to a nation of Southeast Asia since April 2021 – will give his regime the international attention he has long wanted. For the Thai government, which is already protecting tens of thousands of refugees from Myanmar in camps along the border, stable relations with the military government could aim to manage the flow of new arrivals.
But critics say the visit is the last indication that Bangkok considers human rights irrelevant to foreign policy.
“They don’t care,” said Kasit Piromya, a former Thai foreign minister.
“It is an ASEAN offensive-this is the issue,” he said, referring to the Southeast Asian regional team from the acronym. “It is the fear of the army of Burma, of greed, and because everyone is not democratic.”
Thailand said little about Gen’s visit. Min aung hlaing beyond the confirmation that happened.
Justice for Myanmar, an observer and 318 other organizations called on Thailand to weaken the general, saying that he had no legality to represent the people of Myanmar. When foreign governments and international organizations deal with the military junta, the organizations said in a statement, “causes significant damage to the people of Myanmar” by legitimizing the junta and helping him in his war against his people.
“Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is generous with Asian leaders in Bangkok after a devastating earthquake because he is not interested in Myanmar people,” said Elaine Pearson, Asian director of human rights. “What he cares is to gather some legitimacy through high -level visits, because by the February 2021 coup, he has rightly been ostracized by most of the international community.”
General Min Aung Hlaing, a deeply popular leader, became even more frustrated after overthrowing a democratically elected government, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize in the coup.
Since then, the country has been in war, with groups of armed demonstrators and powerful ethnic armies fighting in the junta. In response, the army launched a burning-earth campaign against its own citizens with multiple air raids, killing thousands of people. At least three million shifts. Myanmar’s economy has been destroyed after the coup, with millions of people thrown into extreme poverty, and crime, such as centers of fraud in the country, have worsened.
Myanmar’s army said General Min Aung Hlaing, who will begin his meetings on Friday, is going to hold talks with various leaders about the earthquake and discuss ways in which other countries can help relief. In addition to Thailand and Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Boutan and Nepal will attend the summit.
On Wednesday, Myanmar’s army called for a 21 -day rest to support relief and reconstruction efforts, the day after launching a Chinese escort of the Red Cross trying to deliver food and medicine to desperate survivors. It remains unclear whether the ceasefire will be honored-Armed revolutionary groups reported that the army had started many air raids from its 7.7-magnitude Friday earthquake.
