Gen Prayuth Chan-Ocha, the Thai junta leader and Prime Minister, tried to please Burmese citizen over Koh Tao murder case by urging the media not to call them Burmese, but to call them merely migrant workers.

On Wednesday, one day before the official visit to Myanmar, Prayuth told the press the following:  

“Today, I would like to say that they are just migrant workers, do not specifically mention the nationality because we also have to be careful not to cause damage to Myanmar. If we say that’s they’re Burmese, it’ll affect their reputation, so we can’t mention this and I would like to ask the press not to as well” said Prayuth.

He told the Thai media that if they criticise people from other nation too much they will hate us. Therefore, we have to fix our own problems and cooperate with them on how to register working permits of migrant workers.

There are many of ethnicities in Myanmar and the Thai media might not know, added Prayuth.

Prayuth’s sudden attempt to be culturally sensitive came after a lawyer from Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok confirmed that the two migrant workers from Arakan, Myanmar suspected of murdering two British backpacker tourists, Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24, on 15 September were tortured by the Thai police to confess.