Quotes of the Day

The Thai army platoon fanning out around the village of Wiang Haeng in northern Chiang Mai province was expecting a routine patrol. That overcast afternoon in late March, the soldiers were securing the area for a special visit by Thailand's Queen Sirikit. But along the Thai-Burmese border—where insurgents, smugglers and drug dealers hold sway—little can be taken for granted. Suddenly, the Thai troops were under fire. The enemy: a unit of the United Wa State Army, a tribal force from Burma. Allied with the government in Rangoon and notorious for its dominance of the narcotics trade, the tribal army frequently sends its drug caravans slithering through Thai territory. When the four-hour firefight was over, the Wa had retreated, but not before leaving one Thai soldier dead. Queen Sirikit was advised to remain in her palace near Chiang Mai.

The confrontation with the Wa was more than just another border skirmish. To the Thais, Queen Sirikit's inability to travel freely in her own kingdom was an affront to their national dignity. Already seething over the Wa's drug trafficking, the Thai army deployed troops and heavy artillery near the border. Burmese soldiers, meanwhile, massed in support of the Wa and for an offensive against other ethnic rebels—fighting that threatened to spill into Thailand. As Bangkok and Rangoon traded accusations, soldiers traded mortar fire. Villagers were evacuated as stray rounds rained down on Thai soil. No civilians were harmed—until last week. Farther south in Ratchaburi province, three gunmen in military fatigues fired automatic weapons at a pickup truck full of schoolchildren. Three students were killed and 12 wounded. "It was like something out of the West Bank," says Panitan Wattanayagorn, a defense analyst at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.

The world's spotlight remains on the face-off at the India-Pakistan border. But the 2,100-kilometer Thai-Burmese frontier is almost as tense—even without the shadow of a nuclear war. The clashes have plunged relations between Bangkok and Rangoon to their lowest point in years. Burma's junta has banned visits by Thai officials, expelled Thai workers and closed border crossings, while Thai army officers have accused Rangoon of warmongering.

This is one of Asia's most combustible areas. The Thai-Burmese border is home to dozens of tribal groups whose conflicts, hatreds and alliances are so complex and layered as to be nearly unfathomable. Some want an independent state, others merely the independence to fund their wars against Rangoon or each other by trafficking heroin, opium and amphetamines. Both the Burmese and the Thais use these rebels as proxy warriors against each other. But army border units from the two sides are also known to cooperate to make money from illegal logging and mining. With so many vested interests and rival agendas, it's hard to determine, say, the motive behind the attack on the school bus; it's been blamed on everyone from ethnic rebels to radical Burmese students to Burmese soldiers.

The individual taking most of the heat is Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. After vowing to get tough with the Burmese and drugs, lately he's lately been preaching a more tolerant line. When Burma protested over Thai army exercises near the border last month, Thaksin's government halted them, and told soldiers to counter incursions by firing blanks. Tensions between the Thai government and its military are so palpable that, according to local press reports, Thaksin endured a chewing-out last week by Chief Privy Councillor Prem Tinsulanonda. Thaksin's intentions have been called into question because his company, Shin Corporation, has signed an agreement to provide Burma with satellite services. "We're trapped in a vicious cycle," says Chulalongkorn's Panitan. "Things will get more tense before they get better."

Yet economics may, in fact, prove the most effective peacemaker. Thailand is still recovering from the 1997 Asian financial crash, and the Burmese economy is near collapse. "If they fight, both sides will end up as losers," says exiled Burmese journalist Aung Zaw. "Neither can afford a war." But neither can afford to back down.

• ROBERT HORN Bangkok
• Thai/Burmese tensions lead to frontier faceoff