Recent international media attention related to Thailand has been (quite reasonably) focused on the tragic story of Ampon Tangnoppakul, also known as “Ar Kong,” an elderly grandfather who had been sentenced to twenty years in prison for allegedly sending four text messages defaming the monarchy. This despite the fact that he had no previous political experience, and the state could not even prove he had actually sent the messages, but instead simply applied the standard that he could not disprove he sent them — obviously not a reasonable standard of proof in a democracy. Sick with cancer and other ailments, and separated from his entire family, Ampon died in jail earlier this week. Read more »

Today Asia Times has an excellent overview of the political fallout from this past weekend’s large protest in Kuala Lumpur, which focused on reforming election laws. The turnout, as Asia Times noted, was far higher than the government expected (though figures of size were of course debated). What’s more, the fact that it was largely peaceful, and then resulted at the end of the protest in the use of excessive force by police against demonstrators, will cut into the image of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak as a reformer, an image he has worked hard to cultivate in the past two years, and which is critical to his election prospects as the prime minister is far more popular personally than his party is. Read more »

Thus far, Ban Ki-moon’s trip to Myanmar has proven surprisingly productive, and the UN chief has been far more vocal than on previous visits, when he deferred too readily to the then-military regime, and at times even seemed unprepared for the complexities of dealing with Burmese politics, including the tricky ethnic issues. Of course, a lot is changing in Myanmar, opening up room for the UN to play a larger role, and the apparent retirement of former senior general Than Shwe, who appeared to have a visceral disdain for international institutions and outside interlocutors, also plays a role. But Ban seems better briefed, more comfortable, and clearer in his view on Myanmar’s progress. Read more »

The UN secretary general is shortly headed to Myanmar to observe the country’s reforms, and ahead of his visit his special advisor on Myanmar, Vijay Nambiar, told the press that the country had the potential to be the next Asian tiger, as it emerges from its hibernation and begins to attract significant investment. But Ban, who in the past has taken a relatively meek approach to the Myanmar government and military, should be coming in this time more empowered, able to go where he wants, and able to try and answer some of the big questions about the reform process. Read more »

Pretty soon everyone you know will have been to Myanmar, so you better get there fast. The UN Secretary General is headed there, Canada just suspended sanctions (following the EU earlier this week), and Japan is gearing up for sizable investments in the country, as are many European businesses. In the new issue of Prospect, I explore Myanmar’s looming gold rush. Read more »

Over at New Mandala, there is a detailed report by longtime correspondent Nick Nostitz of Thaksin Shinawatra’s visit to Cambodia during the Thai New Year. For followers of Thailand and Indochinese politics, it is well worth a read.

As with Nostitz’s prior reports and books, this one is full of on-the-ground details, but what struck me the most was the intense feeling poured out by some of the Thais who traveled to meet Thaksin, the kind of emotion I previously associated in Thailand with Thais’ meetings with, er, a man whose title ends with “Nine.” Read more »

Over at New Mandala, there have been a series of excellent posts on the continuing conflict between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Myanmar military. Several have suggested that, as the Kachin area is increasingly covered in the state press in Yangon, it suggests that the government may no longer be trying to downplay the conflict, and may instead be trying to wins hearts and minds both in the Kachin area and among the majority Burman population for its handling of the fighting, in order to isolate Kachin regions from the broader reform effort and possibly split them from sympathy in the National League for Democracy (NLD). Read more »

A spate of articles over the past week has highlighted the growing possibility that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra will soon return to Thailand from exile. During a recent visit to Laos, just across the border from the Thai Northeast, Thaksin told supporters that he is going to return to Thailand within the next three or four months, in time for his birthday. As The Economist noted last week, his recent visit to Laos had all the trappings of a state visit, with high security, crowds of supporters, and the highest-level audiences with the Lao government. Thaksin has also increasingly dropped the façade that he is “retired” from politics, though he continues to insist that he is not interested in returning to the premiership. Read more »

Press reports today and yesterday confirm that British prime minister David Cameron will visit Myanmar on Friday, as part of a tour through Asia. This will make Cameron the first major Western leader to visit Myanmar in at least two decades, since the 1990 elections, whose results were never recognized internationally. Cameron is supposedly bringing with him a business delegation, as companies are now rushing to get into Myanmar.

In some ways, the United Kingdom is well positioned to be the European country that breaks the ice, leading the end of the European sanctions. Read more »

Over on Bangkok Pundit, BP has an excellent overview of trends in the insurgency in southern Thailand. Using statistics from Deep South Watch, which chronicles the violence in the Thai south, he shows that March 2012 had the most number of injuries — 547 —from the violence in the south of any month in years. In fact, that figure for injuries is around five times the average monthly figure for injuries from the insurgency and violence. This month may be an aberration — as BP notes, the violence, including injuries and deaths, can go up and down quite substantially — but it does potentially portend a worsening of the already disastrous conflict. Read more »