Published on July 16, 2005

There is absolutely nothing more that security forces can do unless they are empowered with martial law to tackle the mass that remains defiant of the rights of the people to live peacefully in the southernmost provinces.

The army must patrol the southern provinces once after sunset and the police confined to stationary guard posts. The army must be empowered to stop, question and detain anyone behaving suspiciously or roaming aimlessly after dark. Please let the army have the full power to execute its duties.

The army must not confine those it detains at local police stations, for this will attract influence local figures to demand their release etc. Those detained must be brought to secret army interrogation centres away from where the suspects were originally arrested. Tourists should not be made to feel frightened by the army’s presence, instead they should be made to feel more secure at the sight of the army patrolling the night.

Mike Wee

Malaysia

----------------------------------

Proposed security measures fly in the face of logic

If the education minister is so sure that the latest security measures to protect teachers in the South will prevent any more deaths, why weren’t these measures put in place to start with?

Furthermore, when another teacher is inevitably killed and the minister proved wrong, will he be forced to resign due to incompetence? Not incompetence in security, which admittedly is not his responsibility, but incompetence for making public statements which any intelligent person knows to be wrong. The education minister should know full well the average Thai would never accept without question . . . Oh, never mind.

Sibeymai

Bangkok

----------------------------------

Put idle military personnel to work guarding teachers

Teachers in the deep South can be bussed to their homes and picked up daily for work and delivered home after work in buses protected by military vehicles. Also sting operations can be done with military personnel made to look like teachers riding on motorcycles or in cars. You have military personnel sitting at bases around Thailand – put them to work. This is your country, not the terrorists’, take control of the situation. They are many ways you can set up stings to catch the terrorists and many experts out there to advise on the situation if you take the time to listen to them.

I was talking to a terrorism expert the other day and he told me how the Thai government had turned down advice from people who do this for a living.

Andrew Greenlay

Bangkok

----------------------------------

Punish corporate mischief for the good of the country

Ex-WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers, age 63, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for masterminding the biggest accounting fraud in US history. Three chai yos for the US district court for showing that even the high and the mighty must follow the law, and that the public interest must be protected. Seeing justice done greatly strengthens investor confidence in the integrity and credibility of the capital market, and thus sustains the overall economy.

Here, we have two ex-executives of Picnic Plc, charged by our SEC with alleged wrongdoings that ripped off their shareholders. For example, they allegedly approved a loan to a company. but the money was siphoned into the personal account of one of the executives who approved the disbursement.

Our SEC and court system must deal with the accused with the same firmness shown by its US counterparts, and show the world that even siblings of a government minister must follow rule of law. If guilty, they, too, should be imprisoned for long periods. To let them off with less than jail would be to prove, yet again, that we had double standards and had, again, turned a deaf ear to our beloved King’s sage advice to have one law for all.

Burin Kantabutra

Bangkok

----------------------------------

Orang-utans may resent being likened to humans

Re: “Kingdom is certainly no stranger to animal cruelty”, Letters, July 14.

Eric Bahrt suggests that many scientists believe that orang-utans are part of the human race.

As official spokesperson for the species, I vigorously refute this slur.

Where, among my fellow orang-utans, can you find the greed and desire to rush out and destroy the environment and other species that is a hallmark of Homo Sapiens?

John Orangus

Chon Buri

----------------------------------

London attacks a response to US, UK atrocities in Iraq

The murderous attacks on innocents in London on 7/7 are the direct consequence of Tony Blair’s aggressive war in Iraq.

Actions have consequences. The idea that Bush and Blair could invade and occupy another nation and remain unharmed themselves is ridiculous. Well of course Tony Blair is himself remains unharmed, as does George W Bush. It is the innocent people of London who pay for their aggressive war in Iraq, just as it was innocent Americans in New York who paid for America enabling Israel’s three decades of occupation and expropriation in Palestine.

The vast majority of people murdered in every war are innocent. It is the guilty, the war criminals like Tony Blair and George W Bush, who escape the immediate, brutal consequences of their deeds. Yet they will have their day in the docket.

Khamel Tow (“Violence is the only language terrorists understand, Letters, July 9”) now laments that some world he considers civilised – the world that has already killed between 22,787 on the low end and 100,000 innocent men, women and children in Iraq on the high-end – is “too worried about killing ‘innocent’ civilians”.

This same world that has destroyed entire cities in Iraq, that has destroyed the very infrastructure of the country, that has bombed hospitals, that has tortured and killed civilians picked up at random and imprisoned for indefinite periods, that has stood by as Iraq’s very history was looted and robbed, that is now trying to kill an entire nation . . . This world has been too “civilised”? This world seems not to have lost a moment’s sleep over its crimes.

The human capacity for self-delusion is truly unrestrained.

John Francis Lee

Chiang Rai

----------------------------------

China’s coal mines show the effects of corruption

The disaster-prone coal mining industry in China (Scores dead in mine disasters, World, July 12) provides good anecdotal evidence of the way corruption degrades the competitiveness of nations (“Corruption impeding progress”, News, July 12). Of 28,000 coal mines in China, 24,000 are small mines that have been “privatised” Chinese style into the hands of local Party cadres at the township level. These mines produce 35 per cent of the coal but 75 per cent of the mining fatalities in China. What’s different about these mines is that their owners are able to skirt mine safety regulations by corrupt means that include bribery, nepotism, cronyism, and a conflict of interest in certain positions of authority.

China’s coal mining safety record of 4 deaths per million tons mined is the worst in the world even though the other 4,000 mines that are not subject to corruption actually meet international safety standards. It should be noted, however, that Chinese coal mines are inherently more dangerous than coal mines elsewhere because China’s coal formations are thin, deep, and gaseous.

Cha-am Jamal

Phetchaburi

----------------------------------

What grudge did the Americans have in Hawaii

Re: “Remember who the true WWII aggressors were”, Letters, July 15. In his letter, US vet says, “Americans hold no grudges against the Japanese. If we did, they’d all be speaking English and be the 51st state of the US”. Perhaps US vet could explain just what the poor Hawaiians did wrong to deserve their present fate?

Sam Wilkinson

Phuket

----------------------------------

Than Shwe not likely to hand over chairmanship

Datuk Zaid Ibrahim’s “Time for ASEAN to stop dithering” (Opinion, July 13) suggests that due to Asean’s failed policy of appeasement, Than Shwe is now a clear and present danger to the ASEAN organisation. The Asean myth is that Than Shwe will not act in a selfish manner and will consider the interests of other Asean countries. The hard reality is that Than Shwe will not voluntarily surrender the Asean chairmanship in 2006.

Than Shwe will “lose face” if he surrenders the ASEAN chairmanship. If he “loses face”, he could lose power and lose his head.

Asean has badly mismanaged the chairmanship issue. The tail is now wagging the dog. Than Shwe will now destroy Asean.

Myint Thein

Senior Adviser to the Burmese Resistance

Dallas, Texas

Post your comment to this story here