Interesting times in Thailand....arsenal theft at army camp!

and no not my Arsenal, just the army arsenal. blah...but in a way its my taxes!

war weapons stolen from army base in South Thailand. Its amazing how the country's supposed security forces cannot secure its own compounds? Especially when this is not the first time its happening. Back in Early 2004 they claimed similar thing....only this time more weapons disappeared :)

the question is how can the security at army facilities be so lax.....if it happened one time ridiculous as it may sound you can come up with some lame excuse of being unprepared, not thinking someone would dare break in to army camp. but when there has already been a precedence?

Im not proposing any theories, cos Thailand being Thailand, it could be any number of things:
someone supporting either side of the political divide decided it might be a good idea to create some headline to discredit the other side
someone decided some group of civilians/insurgents/mob need to be armed
someone needed some cash and decided to distribute the arms to one of the groups in 2 above
the weapons never existed in the first place (I love my last theory - it conforms with my favorite line from the Matric "There is NO spoon!")

by the way, the list is ofcourse not exhaustive, and in no way a scientific analysis of the situation. Just my 2am written in 2minutes take on things.

Politics....Thai style

new elections set for 23rd December 2007. Already some strange characters wanting to have a piece of the pie. Sonthi bunyaratgalin...CNS Chief...leader of the coup makers....is now going to run for elections in Lopburi. Lopburi province has a hugeeeeeeeee army base thats been there since years. So even if not counting the military personnel who are eligible to vote in that province, the other people that live there would easily in some way or the other be under the influence of the army wouldnt you think?

anyhow leaving aside what constituency he decides to run in, the very first question is if its appropriate at all that he runs for political office! The guy overthrew an elected government, put in people as Cabinet to run the country.....appointed the Elections Commission....andnow is gonna contest in the elections. talk about Thaksin abusing power....I wonder what this is called.
maybe they will come up with a new term for this too...like they do for everything else....
coup makers are called Council for Democratic Reform....that would have to be the best of them all.

so much for Thai politics and a new era. Im going to bed. yawwwwn.

Bangkok......a referendum.....

landed back on Monday afternoon...a day after the referendum on the constitution had taken place. I will explain why I didnt make it back for the referendum......much as I wanted to cast my much needed 'no' vote against that constitution!!


more later too

Thailand Update: Constitution

Ive been somewhat remiss with the political updates on the blog,partly yes because of the travelling, but also partly cos Im really getting very tired of the military and its pretend-democratic front.
As you know there will be a referendum to vote on accepting the Constitution being drafted by military-installed people on 19th August. In Thailand there is a large part of the voting population that live outside their constituency,and during elections they will be advised to register to pre-vote or vote outside their constituency...the same applies to voting on the referendum. Except of course for the tiny small little fact that this time the Election Commission seem to have done SUCH a great job of advertising these deadlines thatthe first I heard of it was one day AFTER this registration process had closed!! And guess how many people registered? 50,000! this compared to the already more than 2million Bangkokians who have their house registration outside of Bangkok! This number could be higher....

and now the latest? Taxi drivers have been warned they could get arrested for displaying stickers on their car with a message saying they rejectthis draft Constitution!?!?! huh?? and why would that be a crime?! read more at the Nation article on this here

Politics Thai style

so..I hadnt posted since the judgement day....but as said....result was as I feared....Thai Rak Thai dissolved...and ofcourse Democrat the victorious hero with a clean slate. To make matters worse is that all TRT executives were also banned from politics for 5 years, thats 111 exec members! The problem is this ban is a result of a law that was incorporated into the Interim Constitution by the military junta since September 2006. The crime committed by the TRT took place in March 2006....so the Constitution Tribunal applied the law in retrospect for crimes that was committed before the law existed! Im no expert of the law...but gee....if they can always choose to do that then perhaps 5 years from now if say eating/possessing/buying chocolates suddenly become banned and chocolate considered an abused substance...then applying that law in retrospect....guess Id be going to jail for a really really long time with all the chocolate trade Ive been involved in as of today!!

interesting things about how lawyers will always use their technical jargon to intimidate us layfolks....but wait....I thought this was meant to protect OUR civic rights? hmmm

ofcourse being Thailand...the story doesnt end there does it........already from day 1, and then only a couple of days later....they are talking about Amnesty...by the very same junta leader who had that ridiculous law imposed into the interim constitution in the first place......all in the name of national unity...what a load of <> oh nevermind
but seriously.....how can people, particularly the so-called educated Bangkokians with their mightier-than-thou attitude fall for this. stop letting these junta and people with vested interest manipulate you by using words like national unity, and ofcourse the all time favorite...we do this because we love the King. wake up thai people....oh u are awake???then better open your eyes too!! and ears....and please.....use that alleged wonderful education you claim to have :)

Violence in South Thailand rises in past 6 months

ofcourse just my personal opinion based on what I see around town.......
plus ofcourse stories like the "Official inflame crisis in deep south' that one sees in newspapers would kinda confirm this feeling..... Excerpt from the story: Last Friday, a unit of 12 soldiers investigating arson attacks in Pattani's Ban Bana village shot and killed three unarmed teenagers who were playing tag near the weekly outdoor market. ........... April 9 shooting death of four Muslim youths in Yala's Tambon Kern Banglang in Bannang Sata district. There, a heated exchange of words between a group of village defence volunteers and about 20 Muslim youths returning from a funeral turned bloody when the government-backed outfit responded with gunfire. Four young Muslim men died, and six were injured.

so here are some photos of what Pattani and its surrounding districts look like these days....



checkpoints on the highways



















now a common sighting around town







and heres a look at a police station







So from little known town of then, Pattani has grown from a place that many of my thai friends didnt even know exist, to today a place thats filled with international journalists. I much prefer my old unknown town.......

Another bomb goes off in Pattani

Some of you may know...since I spoke to some .....that I was in Malaysia today. Anyhow coming back I was thinking an update of this blog might be due...with perhaps some pics of my latest chocolate buys. So we get home, have a nice relaxing meal at home, drop off my Mom's friend back at her place, and slowly make our way back home.

Suddenly we hear sirens and honking behind us, giving way we see police cars, ambulances and rescue cars rushing past. Suddenly it occurs to us that these cars arent going all that far, and stops less than a 100 metres away.

Getting quite curious to find out, as the scene is so close to our place which is basically the city centre, we decide to follow to check out whats going on. Getting there a police tells me that a bomb had just gone off, injuring one person. They had the area blocked off, obviously worrying that another bomb might have been implanted. We drive back home, only to see a bomb squad heading to the scene. was the first time I had seen one of these vans, look pretty scary.
when we got back there for more photos, some journalist...a guy from Associated Press who was staying at the hotel almost next door, had arrived and was taking photos. He hadnt heard anything further either.....I guess there'll be more in the news later on.

It could be a business sabotage ploy? since the bomb went off at a busy restaurant....but then again it could be the result of unhappiness that the incident on Friday where teenagers were accidentally shot at by police didnt receive a lot of coverage in the news. obviously another tragic incident..........

Thailand's websites fiasco

in recent months since the military has been in charge there has been lots of censoring of websites. The most controversial is ofcourse the infamous google video, resulting in google being blocked completely.
As with many other things that goes wrong in the country lately, again this is being linked with the pro-Thaksin group. But just to show how far fetched things can be...this is how a blogger Kittinun on www.oknation.net tries to establish the link (which you will see really doesnt make sense!)
As per the news reported on Khom Chud Luek newspaper, the blogger accsued the pro-Thaksin faction run website www.hi-thaksin.net of having ties to the person who uploaded inappropriate video clips of Thailand's King, simply by the fact that both websites (of the video uploader and of hi-thaksin.net) are registered through the domain provider www.godaddy.com a site that has close to 20Million client sites registered through them. Interestingly...the website I previously worked on for the Naumann Foundation Malaysia is also registered through GoDaddy. Does this also make us the culprit by association? not to mention the 19Million other sites. what a joke!!

Speaking of Thailand's Human Rights Commission

heres a piece I wrote a few months ago about the set up and functioning of Thailand's National Human Rights Commission. It has some pretty positive things about it.

Some highlights:
* the setting up and working of the NHRC has been a participatory process
* public hearings were conducted
* set up of the Commission is mandated in the Constitution, as well as a specific NHRC Act
for this reason the Commission can continue to function under the NHRC Act, eventhough the Constitution has been revoked. (but ofcourse if the new Constitution being drafted propose that the Commission be combined with the Ombudsmen office, then this will change things entirely)
* The Commission extends its service to all people living in Thailand--this includes foreigners living in the country without legal status.
and the one that I think is quite progressive
* Thai NHRC can take the initiative to start an investigation on issues without receiving complaints.

ofcourse there are drawbacks too.....
you can read the full article on Thailand's National Human Rights Commission here.

Thailand's Constitution Drafting Committee

For months I tried to refrain myself from making comments on the political situation in Thailand, but within these same few months, I have watched the military junta together with the body that they installed as government slowly but steadily foul up the democratic strength of Thailand!!!! So today I decided I can no longer sit quietly.

As you know the first thing the coup makers did after they took over powers was to throw out the 1997 Constitution (the one that is widely accepted as the People's Constitution...as it had the maximum people involvement). Anyhow over the months various contentious issues have been toyed with..including things such as an appointed Prime Minister! an appointed Senate body (upper house of parliament), or making Buddhism the religion of the country (dont know the technical term for it, but this will mean Thailand will no longer be a secular state if this were to happen. How do they see that will sit with other religious minoritites in the country...not to mention the very same Muslim population in South Thailand where the situation is already at boiling point?!?!0 anyhow today I will only talk about the below issue that got me really mad!!

The members of Consitutional drafting committee has proposed to dissolve the NHRC (National Human Rights Commission) or combine it with Ombudsman. Presently the Commission is an independent body that was established in line with the Paris Principles (internationally accepted guideline for establishing a truly INDEPENDENT human rights commission).

Thailand's NHRC is one amongst 4 that exist in ASEAN countries, and in the past Thailand together with the Philippines has been in the forefront to work on establishing an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism. Other countries such an independent commission exist include: Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. Cambodia has recently agreed to establish its national commission, while also voicing support for the ASEAN wide body. True that in the political world such support will take years before it turns into substantive actions, but if the thailand body is to be dissolved, this would not be only a huge step back for thailand, but also for the entire region! The efforts has taken atleast 10 years of hard work before we reached this point.

without going into other contentious issues that this Constitution Drafting Committee are playing around with, the issue of the National Human Rights Commission in itself is already a huge blow and certainly a jump backward for thailand's democracy!!

I cant describe how mad this makes me!!!!!!