News from Thailand – November 6, 2013

Give us more underground bunkers, says the director of the Ban Khok Krachai school in Buri Ram, 10 kilometers from the border with Cambodia. The school currently has six shelters, but they do not provide enough space to house all 220 students should fighting break out at the border following the ruling of the International Court of Justice in the Preah Vihear case.

In 2010, a school building and six houses were damaged when Cambodian soldiers fired grenades into the area. Two people were injured as a result.

Residents of Kanthalarak (Si Sa Ket) were visited yesterday by a team from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They were educated about the Preah Vihear issue. The ministry has urged residents to remain calm.

The Thai ambassador to the Netherlands, Virachai Plachai, considers it unlikely that the Court will rule in favor of Cambodia. Cambodia approached The Hague two years ago with a request to specify the 1962 verdict in which the temple was assigned to Cambodia. Both countries dispute an area of ​​4,6 square kilometers near the temple.

The nationalist Palang Pandin group demonstrates on the Khao Phra Viharn-Kanthalarak road against the Court's interference on Saturday.

The Thai Patriotic Network to Protect the Kingdom and Motherland predicts nationwide protests if the Court rules against Thailand. The network thinks the verdict could lead to the overthrow of the Yingluck government, which is already under heavy fire over the amnesty proposal. The Court will rule on November 11.

Photos: Residents of tambon Tamiang (Surin) are preparing for the worst.

– More than ten thousand students, teachers and staff of the Chulalongkorn University (CU) yesterday expressed a strong protest against the controversial amnesty proposal. In the late afternoon, they marched along Phaya Thai road to the Bangkok Art and Culture Center where CU President Pirom Kamolratanakul read a statement.

“This proposal favors the corrupt. Educational institutions have a responsibility to teach students to be ethical people. This proposal is contrary to the university's principles of morality.'

Pirom said the university had formed a committee that will monitor the course of events and advise what the next step will be. The university also opposes the enactment of the Internal Security Act in three districts of Bangkok.

Other amnesty news:

• Teachers, students and alumni of Kasetsart University held a meeting at the Bang Khen campus yesterday. In a statement, they say the blank amnesty is a serious violation of the rule of law because it overturns court decisions. The law [now bill] encourages a culture of impunity, where those guilty of murder and corruption can avoid justice. Mahidol University also issued a statement.
• A network of 2.580 doctors and other medical personnel also opposes the proposal. It issued a statement yesterday with the names of all opponents.
• Did Minister Chadchart Sittipunt (Transport) join the protest march at Chulalongkorn University yesterday? Plenty of people thought so, but they saw his twin brother, who is an assistant professor at the medical school. 'My brother and I, although we look identical and grew up together, don't agree on everything. But we don't hate each other. We still love each other and do our job to the best of our ability," said the minister.
• 63 judges, who call themselves 'Judges Who Love the Motherland', say in a statement that the amnesty law is contrary to legal rules and that it sets a wrong precedent. The current proposal ignores parties who have suffered damage as a result of the actions and it protects people who have been convicted of corruption and a (official) crime from prosecution.
• The National Anti-Corruption Commission is also opposed. She fears that the cases she has handled will be overturned. According to the NACC, the proposal affects 25.331 corruption cases that the commission has investigated. The NACC says the proposal violates the 2003 UN Convention against Corruption, which Thailand is a signatory to.
• The Internal Security Act will remain in force in three districts of Bangkok and will not be expanded because protests against the amnesty proposal have not yet turned violent, said Paradorn Pattanatabut, secretary general of the National Security Council. The ISA, which applies to Dusit, Phra Nakhon and Pomprap Sattruphai, aims to prevent protesters from marching on Government House and parliament. The demonstrators at the Democracy Monument on Ratchadamnoen Avenue are in the ISA area, the demonstrators in Uruphong are outside.
• Don Mueang Airport has made preparations in case it is occupied. Passengers will then be evacuated.
• Bangkok's public transport company has diverted 14 bus routes to avoid the protests.
• France, Sweden, Britain and Japan have advised travelers to stay away from the protest sites.
• The (private) Anti-Corruption Organization of Thailand (ACT) has collected 545.000 protests against the amnesty proposal in a two-week campaign on change.org. The ACT wants to reach 1 million. Change.org also campaigns against the Mae Wong dam (120.000 signatures) and for buses that are accessible to the disabled (22.000). The Thai version of change.org has been around since last year. See: Thais use Change.org to campaign.

– Bangkok needs to prepare for severe flooding caused by climate change, says Bichit Rattakul, adviser to the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center and former governor of Bangkok. In the past, heavy rainfall and water from the north flooded Bangkok, but storms and rising sea levels pose an even greater threat in the near future.

According to Bichit, Bangkok's infrastructure cannot withstand severe flooding, storms and rising sea levels. Better cooperation between the central government and the municipality is needed to be prepared for future natural disasters.

Bichit raised the emergency flag on the eve of the two-day conference 'Challenges in flood risk management in urban areas of river deltas in South and Southeast Asia', which starts today in Bangkok. The experiences with water management in the deltas of the Mekong, Chao Praya, Irrawaddy (Myanmar) and the Ganges-Brahmaputra deltas in India and Bangladesh, and in Nepal and Bhutan are discussed.

– During a firefight with smugglers of rosewood, a forest ranger was killed. Seven forest rangers encountered thirty smugglers yesterday in Phu Pha Thoep National Park (Mukdahan). Further details are missing. The report does report that ten forest rangers have already been killed this year in gun battles with smugglers.

– Prime Minister Yingluck yesterday visited the Bali Hi pier in Pattaya, where the capsized ferry should have moored. Five hundred red shirts came to the pier to support their heroine.

– The tire of a Thai Airways International aircraft collapsed on landing at Mae Fu Luang Airport in Chiang Rai yesterday. The device was already on the taxiway to the terminal when it got a flat tire. No one was hurt.

– The Anti-Money Laundering Office (Amlo) has only been able to confiscate 200.000 baht of the 500 million baht that must have been withdrawn from the coffers of the Rattapracha Union Cooperative. Seeing the storm coming, the chairman and a former secretary of state for finance almost certainly took the money from the bank and deposited it in a safe place. Both men must come to Amlo on Monday. Amlo has been able to seize property worth 2 billion baht. An estimated 12 billion baht has been embezzled.

– The Ministry of Health has lowered its target for the number of road fatalities by 7 percent. Earlier, the ministry committed itself to halving the number of road deaths in 10 years, but that will not work. In 2011, 14.033 people died in traffic, in 2012 14.059. How many 'may' fall this year is not stated in the message.

Comments

– An important hearing will take place today. Are two dams being built in the Yom, the only river in Thailand that is not interrupted by a dam: that's what it's all about. If the reports are correct, politicians have mobilized thousands of supporters so that opponents have no chance to make their voices heard in Maejo University Phrae. If so, there is no question of a 'public hearing' and therefore does not meet the legal requirement.

The Yom is an important river, writes Bangkok Post in its editorial on Tuesday. The river is part of a complex of five rivers (Yom, Ping, Wang, Nan and Pasak) that flow from the North to the Central Region to converge and become the Chao Praya, the "Mother of All Rivers". '. That is why careful study is needed, because a change in one river changes the course of another. So the first question is: Does the change of the Yom cause damage to other river basins in the North and Central Region?

The newspaper calls on officials and ministers to make today's hearing credible and legal. If that does not happen, and if it is no more than travesty, then they should bear the responsibility. No judge will consider a meeting with only proponents as a hearing. (Source: Bangkok Post, 5 November 2013)

Economic news

– Both the retail trade, the tourist sector and project developers are concerned about the political developments. The Ratchaprasong Square Trade Association fears that peak season sales will suffer a major blow when it comes to violence, as in 2010.

The fourth quarter always attracts many foreign tourists, from which hotels and small shops benefit. But if the demonstrations remain peaceful, then there is no problem, says Chai Strivikorn, president of the RSTA. Ratchaprasong has a magnetic attraction for tourists. Foreigners account for 35 to 50 percent of turnover.

Yutthachai Charanachitt, president of the Italthai Group, owner of the Onyx hospitality chain, says the political crisis mainly affects high-end tourists, as they are most sensitive to it, but the effect will be short-lived. Bookings have not been canceled yet.

The Association of Thai Travel Agents thinks that the political unrest is mainly deterring Chinese and Japanese.

Issara Boonyoung, honorary president of the Housing Business Association, expects home sales to slow this month as potential buyers delay their purchase decisions. The House & Condo Fair will be held from November 14 to 17. The number of visitors will probably be 20 to 30 percent less than usual.

– Krungthai Bank (KTB) is going to slow down a bit with microcredit, because the number of NPLs is rising. Currently, the percentage of NPLs is 4 percent of the total of 1,5 billion baht that the bank has outstanding. KTB attributes this to its own slack collection practice and a lack of financial discipline on the part of borrowers.

In January, the collection will be improved and will probably be transferred to Krungthai Card or KTB Leasing. The bank has split the debt collection and sales department, which was previously combined, into two separate departments. KTB wants to bring the percentage of NPLs down to 2 percent.

www.dickvanderlugt.nl – Source: Bangkok Post

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