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Lindsay Murdoch, May 29, 2012 ...
Aung San Suu Kyi ... will visit refugees in Thailand. Photo: Reuters
BANGKOK: The reformist President of Burma, Thein Sein, has cancelled a trip to Bangkok this week, apparently not wanting to be upstaged by the democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on her first overseas trip in 24 years.
There is a buzz of excitement in Bangkok about the expected arrival today of Ms Suu Kyi, who is scheduled to speak at an economic forum and visit an ethnic Burmese refugee camp.
Mr Thein Sein had been scheduled to speak at a World Economic Forum meeting on East Asia at Bangkok's riverside Shangri-La Hotel later this week. But at the last minute Ms Suu Kyi also accepted an invitation to speak on the same stage on Thursday.
''The President [Thein Sein] has no plans to go to Bangkok,'' said a government official in Burma who asked not to be named.
For 24 years, Ms Suu Kyi's steely determination to defy the then ruling junta kept her in Burma, knowing that if she left the country she would not be allowed to return.
She was denied the opportunity to be with her husband, Michael Aris, an Oxford scholar, when he died of cancer in England in 1999.
But after historic elections on April 1 when she won a seat in parliament and a year of dramatic change in south-east Asia's poorest nation, Ms Suu Kyi has been given a passport and permission to travel abroad.
Her decision to make Bangkok her first destination signals the importance she places on Burma's relations with Thailand, where as many as 2 million Burmese work and there are hundreds of thousands of Burmese living in border refugee camps.
From mid-June, Ms Suu Kyi is scheduled to journey to Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Britain and France. In Oslo, Ms Suu Kyi will pick up the Nobel peace prize she won in 1991 when she was under house arrest.
She will attend the International Labour Organisation's annual congress in Geneva and there is speculation she is going to Ireland to meet the pop star Bono and attend a U2 concert organised by Amnesty International.
For years Bono has been a strong supporter of Ms Suu Kyi and dedicated many of his concerts to the campaign to free her.
❏ The Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has become the first Indian leader to visit Burma in a quarter of a century. He held talks with Mr Thein Sein in the capital Naypyidaw.
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