News from Thailand – February 11, 2013

Now that Prime Minister Yingluck also supports a curfew in the South, it seems likely that it will come. The proposal, made last week by Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung, will be discussed with security services on Friday.

It would be a limited curfew for the most high-risk districts. Chalerm launched the idea on Wednesday following the assassinations in Yaring (Pattani) of farmers from Sing Buri and in Krong Pinang (Yala) of four fruit sellers from Rayong. Religious leaders and residents don't think it's a good idea because it's ineffective and disrupts daily life too much.

Yingluck's statement follows a bomb and assassination attempt yesterday morning in Raman (Yala) district that killed five soldiers and wounded one. They were on their way to Ban Upoh to collect farmers for protection. On the way, the road was blocked by a pickup truck in which a bomb was hidden. After it exploded, six insurgents arrived in a pickup truck and shot the soldiers dead.

A group of eight rangers were victims of a roadside bomb yesterday afternoon in Rangae (Narathiwat). Four rangers were injured.

In Pattani, two people were shot dead and four people, including three children, were injured in separate attacks. In Yaring district, a man was shot in the head in front of his house, in Sai Buri, police found a tablet PC vendor murdered behind the wheel of a sedan, and in Nong Chi district, insurgents attacked some houses. The injured fell.

– The 20-year-old design for the Kasetsart expressway is no longer usable, because it would cut through existing buildings and the campus of Kasetsart University. It is better to build a light rail on this route, thinks Minister Chadchat Sittipunt (Transport), who was prompted to do so by Pongsapat Pongcharoen, the Pheu Thai candidate for the post of governor of Bangkok.

The light rail system should have a transfer option on three metro lines: the Purple Line, Red Line and Green Line. According to the minister, the residents of Bangkok benefit more from it than from a highway. He has instructed the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning (OTTPP) to study the matter. The director of the OTTPP says that the project is not urgent and that it needs some time for such a study.

The office is now designing a monorail, a 30,4 km long connection between Lat Phrao and Samrong in Samut Prakan province (the so-called Yellow Line). The cabinet will take a decision in eight months, after which the tendering procedure could take place in March next year. Construction will take three years.

[Speaking of efficiency. In a moment, Bangkok has five different public transport systems with five different payment systems: the overground metro, underground metro, Airport Rail Link, light rail and monorail. Plus number 6: the high-speed line.]

– What the previous government failed to do, the Yingluck government succeeded: the release of Ratree Pipattanapaiboon from prison in Phnom Penh. Responding to her statement that the Democrats failed to secure her release and that of fellow prisoner Veera Somkomenkid (who is still imprisoned), former foreign minister Kasit Piromya says the Democrats did their best at the time. Kasit points out that the then government arranged for two lawyers and helped with family visits to the prisoners.

Ratree was released on February 1 after being pardoned. Ratree and Veera, along with five others, were apprehended near the Cambodian border in December 2010. Those five were released after a month with a suspended prison sentence, Veera and Ratree were given 8 and 6 years in prison respectively as they were also charged with espionage.

– In a fire in a three-storey building on the Klong Toey market, the 58-year-old owner of the building died in the flames. It took the fire brigade an hour to get the fire under control; fire trucks could not reach it because of the narrow streets. Firefighters managed to save the wife and two children. Items that are offered during the Chinese New Year, such as gold-colored paper, were sold in the building.

– That rice does not come from the government stock. That is what the Ministry of Commerce says in response to a small demonstration by Democratic MP Warong Dejkitvikrom in parliament last week. He cut open a rice bag and showed brown and rotten rice, which he said came from a government warehouse in Surin.

The ministry says there is nothing wrong with the quality of the stored rice, which is checked by hired surveyors. Committees have also been formed to monitor quality and storage.

As a result of the demonstration, Deputy Minister Nattawut Saikuar (not coincidentally also the red shirt leader) has instructed the Public Warehouse Organization to report theft against Warong. According to Nattawut, the rice (purchased by the government) has been checked in the relevant warehouse in Surin and is of good quality.

[I would say: if the rice does not come from a government warehouse, as the ministry says, there is little point in reporting.]

– Pongsapat Pongchairoen, Pheu Thai candidate for the post of governor of Bangkok, says allegations [by the Democrats] to implicate him in the police station scandal are defamatory and aim only to undermine his chances for the coveted post.

In 2009, as Deputy Chief of the National Police, Pongsapat signed the Schedule of Requirements for the construction of 396 police stations, which has been stalled for a long time. Pongsapat yesterday visited the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), which is investigating the case, to plead his innocence. He explained that the Program of Requirements signed by him at the time was later replaced by another program in which the regional tender was changed to a central tender. He had nothing to do with that program.

DSI head Tarit Pengdith says the allegations against Pongsapat are hurting him. Information has been distorted, according to Tarit, to create the misunderstanding that he [Pongsapat] had drafted the program requirements for construction.

[This message does not mention the police flats. As far as I can follow the coverage, that is still being built.]

– Calm has not yet returned to Assumption College, whose teaching staff went on strike last month to protest the proposed merger of primary and secondary schools and to reinforce their salary demands. The replacement of the director has not restored peace. The teachers have continued to wear mourning bands in protest against the lack of salary increases and cuts in allowances.

The staff suspects that the higher rewards are not forthcoming because the school spent 2,5 billion baht on the construction of a new campus for its English language program on Rama II Road. The merger has met with resistance as staff fear that some teachers will lose their jobs. The merger has been canceled for the time being because the school did not submit the necessary documents to the Office of the Private Education Commission in time. This should have happened by January 31 at the latest.

– The Office of the Basic Education Commission is holding an electronic auction next month to purchase 1,8 million tablet PCs. In May, these will go to students of Prathom 1 (first class primary school) and Mathayom 1 (first class secondary school). It is the second year that students will receive the tablets promised by the government party Pheu Thai during its election campaign.

– A 54-year-old farmer in tambon Bowalu (Chanthaburi) was trampled to death by an elephant in his plantation. In the past two years, two people in the village have already died in the same way.

– Environmental groups, celebrities, students, top chefs and companies yesterday launched the 'Fin Free' campaign against the sale and consumption of shark fins. There are also protests against this elsewhere in the world.

Each year, 73 million sharks die so their fins can end up in "the soup bowls of the rich and well-to-do," as campaign ambassador Cindy Burbridge Bishop puts it. "What a waste, what a tragic loss." On Change.org, people can support a petition.

– A student (24) was killed by a stray bullet when two youth gangs got into a fight on Saturday evening in a pub in tambon Suanyai (Nonthaburi). Three persons were injured.

– Keep your trawler clear of Irrawaddy dolphins, fishermen in Trat province have been told by the Fisheries Department. Last week, six dead specimens (according to a local network as many as seventeen) were found apparently entangled in fishing nets. The authorities and conservationists have set up a surveillance center. When they see a school of dolphins, the trawlers are alerted.

In the Kapoe Bay (Ranong), residents have two schools of the extremely rare Pacific humpback seen dolphins. Also be dugongs spotted in a place where recently a seagrass bed was discovered. [Sorry for the untranslated words.]

Political news

– Governments that try to change the constitution always end up in trouble and the current government is no exception, said Worachet Pakeerut yesterday at a seminar of the Institute of Democratization Studies. The leader of Nitirat, a group of lawyers from Thammasat University, said the government is getting nervous in trying to change the [2007] constitution. It seems that the government is willing to compromise to ensure it stays in power.

Nitirat advocates continuing along the same path, or continuing with the parliamentary consideration of Article 291 of the Constitution, so that a citizens' assembly can be formed, whose task it will be to draft the 2007 Constitution [developed under a regime led by the military coup leaders. aided government]. The consideration of that proposal was halted by the Constitutional Court last year.

If it is not possible to get the article changed, the prime minister should dissolve the House and call new elections, Worachet argued. The proposed amendment must be an election promise, which the voters can decide on.

– The secret meeting last week between a yellow shirt and red shirt leader has not resulted in his party becoming politically isolated, says opposition leader Abhisit. According to him, the Democrats are still in the race because his party has never opposed an amnesty, provided that it only applies to demonstrators who demonstrated peacefully at the time and violated the emergency ordinance. “Our position is no different from that of the PAD [Yellowshirts],” said Abhisit.

The yellow and red shirt leader reached agreement on two proposals: amnesty for demonstrators who violated the emergency ordinance and the formation of a committee that will assess whether others [read: protest leaders] will also receive amnesty. But Abhisit is not in favor of that. "A bill to consider amnesty for some rally leaders will only lead to more conflict."

www.dickvanderlugt.nl – Source: Bangkok Post