Thailand’s “neighborly engagement” policy with the Burmese junta seemed fully vindicated last week, after Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej returned from an official visit to Naypyidaw with a basket full of sweet deals.

The Thai premier came away from his trip to Burma not just a richer, but also a wiser man. During his stay in the regime’s remote capital, Samak got the lowdown on the country’s “road map to democracy” straight from the horse’s mouth—Snr-Gen Than Shwe himself.

Not only did Samak learn everything he ever wanted to know about Burma’s political future; he also discovered something he apparently didn’t realize about his hosts.  “Burma’s leaders meditate,” he said upon his return to Bangkok. “They say the country lives in peace.”

In the same week that Burma’s mercurial ruler snubbed UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, he laid out the red carpet for his Thai visitors. This included Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama, who reiterated his government’s position that “Thailand disagrees with sanctions.”

“If Myanmar [Burma] wants assistance [with its referendum] from Thailand, we are ready to offer help as a friendly country,” the former lawyer of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra added.

Noppadon also offered to explain the “road map” to a skeptical international community, but was careful to add that he was not taking on the role of the Burmese junta’s spokesman.

But the visit was not all about exchanging courtesies. The main order of business was the signing of an investment pact, which will enhance Thailand’s status as Burma’s third-largest trading partner. Among other things, Thailand is the largest importer of Burma’s natural gas, and a major investor in a controversial hydropower dam on the Salween River.

The recent visit to Naypidaw is reminiscent of a trip to Burma by then-Thai army chief Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh in 1988.

Gen Chavalit paid several visits to Burma even before the upheaval in 1988, and was known to be a close friend of the regime’s leaders. He called Snr-Gen Saw Maung, a coup maker in 1988, “Akogyi”—“big brother” in Burmese—during one of his dinner receptions in Rangoon.

In return, Saw Maung declared Thailand to be a “true friend” of Burma.

In 1988, Chavalit helped break Burma’s international isolation after the bloody crackdown in September by leading an official delegation to Rangoon. In return, Bangkok received lucrative logging contracts, fishing rights and deals in the hotel business.

Chavalit, who visited Burma on December 14, 1988, agreed to repatriate student activists who fled to Thailand after the crackdown. At the time, the Burmese regime offered a reward of 5,000 baht to anyone who helped to send a fugitive student back to Burma.

Writing in the Far Eastern Economic Review on December 29, 1988, Thai journalist Paisal Sricharatchanya wrote that while Bangkok was quietly critical of Burma’s brutal suppression of a nationwide popular uprising, the Thai leadership had come to accept that it must learn to coexist with the powers that be in Burma.

He wrote, “Chavalit’s trip broke an international boycott mounted against Saw Maung’s government by Japan and Western countries. Foreign reaction, however, was surprisingly muted, perhaps because Western countries appreciate Bangkok’s need to maintain a dialogue with its neighbor.”

This attitude appears to be as true today as it was nearly twenty years ago. Samak’s recent visit and his business deals have received little criticism from Western powers which have imposed sanctions on the regime. Washington, Thailand’s ally and a staunch advocate of harsh sanctions on the regime, has also been quiet.

After Chavalit’s controversial trip in December 1988, Thailand’s then-deputy foreign minister, Prapas Limpabandu, visited Burma in April 1989.

Thai reporter Yindee Lertcharoenchok, who accompanied the Thai delegation, wrote in The Nation, a Bangkok-based English-language daily, on April 13, 1989 that Saw Maung told his visitors that he appreciated Bangkok’s “correct and appropriate attitude” toward Burma.

“Saw Maung added that that’s the reason Thailand is being given preferential treatment in economic and trade cooperation,” Yindee wrote. “During the crisis, we came to know who our true friends are,” Saw Maung was quoted as saying to Prapas.

This was two years before Burma held a free and fair election in 1990. It seemed Saw Maung and other Burmese leaders used Thai channels to convey their message to the world.

Saw Maung reaffirmed, according to Yindee’s report filed from Rangoon, that the election would be held as scheduled and that the regime would turn over power to the post-election government.