Ms Suu Kyi, who holds several positions in Myanmar’s government including foreign minister, is visiting military-ruled Thailand in her capacity as state counselor, a post created to get around a constitutional ban on her becoming president.
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When Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi last visited Thailand four years ago, it was as head of her country’s opposition party to offer moral support to the huge numbers of her countrymen who work here as migrant laborers in menial jobs, often in exploitative conditions. Ms Suu Kyi had visited the same area in 2012 as her nation’s opposition leader and promised to return once her party won elections, which it did past year.
It is Ms Suu Kyi’s first official visit to Thailand since her party swept historic elections past year, after decades struggling for democracy.
She is expected to sign accords on labour and border crossings during her three-day visit to Thailand, Myanmar’s largest trading partner after China with total trade previous year valued at US$8.1 billion and home to millions of Myanmar migrants.
Many in the country’s Buddhist majority say the Rohingya are mostly illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and not a native ethnic group, although many have lived in Myanmar for generations.
Aung San Suu Kyi left Yangon Thursday on a three-day official visit to Thailand at the invitation of Thai Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, sources with the Foreign Ministry said. It will mark the first meeting between the democracy icon and members of the Thai military government that seized power in a bloodless May 2014 coup.
Tens of thousands of others work illegally, with some estimates putting the total number of Myanmar nationals in Thailand at three million.
Their low status also sees them treated with scorn and mistrust by many Thais.
Mynamar citizens working in Mahachai packed Talad Talay Thai in Samut Sakhon’s Muang district hours before the state counsellor and foreign minister came from Bangkok to meet them.
“They all want to go home, but they are just waiting for the economic situation [in Myanmar] to improve significantly”, explained Andy Hall, a migrant rights activist with an office in the port town.
No reason for the abrupt cancellation of Suu Kyi’s planned visit to the refugee camp was cited.
Her plan to visit the Tham Hin refugee camp in Suan Pheung district in Ratchaburi before wrapping up the visit on Saturday has been cancelled.
It is one of almost a dozen camps that line the two nations’ border and hold more than 100,000 refugees who have fled conflict in Myanmar.
Many are ethnic Karen displaced by war with Myanmar’s army.
Suu Kyi is also not scheduled to visit any of the Thai centres holding hundreds of Rohingya boat migrants, a Muslim group who have fled poverty and persecution in western Myanmar.
Many Rohingya have attempted to escape oppression in Burma and made their way to Thailand, where there is now an unknown number of Rohingya refugees in detention centers.
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Rights activists have criticized Suu Kyi for failing to ensure justice for the Rohingya, many of whom live in poor conditions in internal displacement camps after communal violence forced them from their homes.
