Samak’s take on the endearing qualities of his hosts during his recent visit to Burma didn’t play very well at home, either. An editorial in the Bangkok-based English-language daily, The Nation, described Samak’s comments as evidence of “Thailand’s naiveté and its leader’s foul mouth.”

While Thais may be queasy about Samak’s fulsome praise of Burma’s ruling generals, Burmese taking refuge in Thailand have the greatest cause for uneasiness. The sweet deals that Samak brought back from Naypyidaw no doubt spell trouble for Burmese exiles and non-governmental organizations working on Burma issues on Thai soil.

Thailand’s relations with Burma since the current regime seized power in 1988 have often cast the Kingdom in an unflattering light. The blood on the streets of Rangoon had hardly had a chance to dry before Bangkok was arranging high-level visits to cement a new relationship based on economic cooperation with the Burmese junta.

From the time of late Prime Minister Chatchai Choonhavan to the current Thai government, Bangkok has pursued a policy of “constructive engagement” with Burma. Only during the two terms of former Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai has Thailand’s Burma policy been guided by principles other than economic self-interest.

In 1993, the Chuan government allowed Nobel Peace Laureates, including Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to visit Thailand to lobby for the release of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and to highlight the need for democracy in Burma. The regime in Rangoon was furious and the relationship was strained.

During his second term from 1997 to 2001, Chuan took an even tougher stance toward the generals in Burma. He declined to pay an official visit to Burma and he put Thailand’s defense in the hands of then-Army Chief Gen Surayud Chulanont and then-Third Army Commander Lt-Gen Watanachai Chaimuenwong-two hawks who looked askance at their neighbors to the west. Gen Surayud was also known to be sympathetic to Burma’s ethnic minorities.

As a result, troops from both sides amassed on the border, leading to serious skirmishes and repeated border closures. Relations were then at their lowest ebb.

All this changed when Thaksin Shinawatra became the Thai prime minister in 2001. The billionaire premier quickly restored a business-based approach to relations with Rangoon. But the “win-win” relationship between Thaksin and the Burmese generals produced many losers. Burmese living along the border and in the Kingdom came under intense pressure. Several NGOs and activist groups were forced to close their offices, either temporarily or permanently.

In March 2005, Human Rights Watch Asia released a statement which noted that “Since Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra took office in 2001, the Thai government has put the improvement of business and political relations with Burma’s State Peace and Development Council at the top of its agenda at the expense of individual rights.”

After Thaksin was deposed by a military coup in October 2006, relations with Burma were put on the back burner. Surayud Chulanont returned to a position of influence, this time as Thailand’s interim leader, and Bangkok kept its distance from Burma. Surayud condemned the regime’s bloody crackdown on Buddhist monks and activists last September. He also called for a concerted international process to deal with Burma, modeled on the six-party talks which successfully persuaded North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

Ironically, Surayud-who came to power through a military takeover-has taken a stronger interest in Burma’s national reconciliation process and transition to democracy than his democratically elected successor, Samak.

While government-to-government relations between Thailand and Burma have tended to seesaw over the past two decades, other relationships have formed between people of these two countries which have only grown stronger over time. Burmese and ethnic people from Burma have made many Thai friends, including government officials, NGOs, civil society groups and opposition parties.

Burmese dissidents also have many powerful friends in other countries, including the United States. These influential connections also have a bearing on Thai-Burmese relations. For example, US Congressman Mitch McConnell and Republican presidential hopeful John McCain have both issued statements urging Thai authorities to stop harassing Burmese groups whenever they faced an imminent crackdown in Thailand.

Thailand also has many friends in Burma, who would welcome an opportunity to enter into a normal relationship with their neighbor. But these friends are not the generals who made such a favorable impression on Samak during his one-day trip to Naypyidaw.

Thailand’s real friends in Burma are the dissidents locked up in prisons, hiding in the jungle or fleeing the latest crackdown. These are the people who can foresee the day when Thailand and Burma will embrace each other as equals, as neighbors who can relate to each other as one democracy to another.