Thais play down fallout of Myanmar embassy siege

Thais play down fallout of Myanmar embassy siege

BANGKOK (Agencies) Thailand will not change its policy of
sheltering dissidents and refugees despite last week's attack on
Myanmar's embassy in Bangkok by five armed students, Thai
officials said on Tuesday.

They also said the incident was unlikely to affect ties with
neighboring Yangon.

Myanmar called for Bangkok on Tuesday to crack down on exiled
dissidents, who Yangon claims are conducting terrorist activities
from inside refugee camps in Thailand.

The call comes after the five gunmen calling themselves
"Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors" took almost 40 people hostage
at the Myanmar embassy here, before fleeing by helicopter to the
Thai-Myanmar border Saturday.

Col. Thein Swe, a former military attache in Bangkok, said
armed terrorist groups were hiding inside 24 "so-called refugee
camps" in Thailand.

Myanmar accused Thailand on Monday of glorifying the gunmen
after Bangkok called them student pro-democracy activists and
even suggested that some foreigners taken hostage had helped to
stage the attack. The gunmen took the hostages but later freed
them and escaped.

"Yes, there is some sentiment (from Yangon) as the incident is
still fresh, but that feeling will eventually evaporate," Foreign
Minister Surin Pitsuwan told reporters.

"The long-standing and close relations between the two
countries will not be affected by the incident and all aspects of
cooperation will continue as usual," he said.

"Creating confidence is the top priority for the time being,"
Surin said, adding that Thailand had increased the number of
security personnel at the Myanmar embassy.

Myanmar's military government had also agreed to step up
security at the Thai embassy in Yangon, Surin said.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra said: "The
action of a few people will not change the long-standing Thai
humanitarian policy. Thailand is the Buddhist nation where we
provide sheltering for people who run away from suffering and
seek help and refuge. One incident cannot make us change this
policy."

Thailand provides shelter for dissident Myanmar students after
Yangon killed thousands of pro-democracy supporters in late 1988.

Sukhumbhand and another Thai official were taken by the
embassy attackers as guarantors of safe passage in a helicopter.
The attackers released them after making their escape at a town
along the Thai-Myanmar border.

Myanmar on Tuesday urged Thailand to strictly control camps
for Myanmar refugees, which it said harbored anti-Yangon
terrorists including those who stormed the Myanmar embassy in
Bangkok last week.

At a news conference in Yangon, Thein Swe referred to the Thai
refugee camps, which harbor over 100,000 displaced people from
Myanmar, as places where "terrorists received explosives, weapons
and political training."

He said those responsible for the embassy siege had returned
to the Maneeloy holding center in central Ratchaburi province --
where about 1,000 Myanmar asylum-seekers await application for
resettlement in third countries.