• 
• 

Published on August 21, 2007

Other villagers said that since they had money to spend under Thaksin's government, they would not want to vote for others.

Furthermore, most villagers just followed their village heads in the vote, which makes the manipulation of votes that much easier. It is not then difficult to foresee an even more one-sided general election to come, as their children and siblings living in Bangkok will come back to cast votes in a similar fashion.

The state and political parties should devote more time to conveying proper messages to these people and promoting projects that can actually benefit them. Programmes could be launched to help locals find work overseas without them having to pay over Bt100,000 in entrance fees and being forced to work their entire first year free, as the income would barely pay back the loans they took out.

Most Isaan people are still poor compared to those in other regions, but they are the actual working class that moves the Thai economy forward. It is time that they are treated fairly and not just exploited as electoral tools. Political parties like the Democrat Party have had no presence in this region for a long time. Under the leadership of a younger generation, isn't it time for them to reconsider their strategy?

Yingwai Suchaovanich

Bangkok

Referendum highlighted lack of democratic values

The events leading up to the referendum on the constitution, and the voting results themselves, show how weak our democracy is: even, or perhaps especially, our leaders mistake form for substance. Council for National Security (CNS) chairman General Sonthi Boonyaratglin said: "I don't care about the numbers. The point is that this a victory in the democratic process." With all due respect, I beg to differ.

Charter opponents were not allowed full freedom to express their views peacefully. Yet, the hallmark of a vibrant democracy is freedom of speech. As Justice Louis D Brandeis said: "Those who won our independence believed … that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental of the … government."

This military-enforced lack of free discussion, along with General Sonthi's not revealing what alternative constitution the CNS would use if the draft were rejected, ensured that voters went into the polls without a clear idea of the choices available, or of the pros and cons of each alternative.

Also, sir, numbers do matter. Even with charter opponents muzzled, in the North the charter's winning margin was just 8.38 per cent, while in the Northeast the draft lost by fully 26.36 per cent. Since the draft was widely perceived as an anti-Thaksin instrument, the vote shows the government's utter failure to educate and convince we the people of these areas as to how what Thaksin's alleged to have done was against their personal interests, and why they should prevent a resurgence of his cronies. That bodes ill for the upcoming elections.

There is precious little time before elections. The CNS and the government must strictly abide by the constitution they've worked so hard to have approved, and encourage all sides to peacefully express their views as to what goals they would lead us towards, and convince us that they will act with integrity, transparency and effectiveness.

Burin Kantabutra

Bangkok

Alternatives needed to dangerous pesticides

There are about 50 million to 60 million insect species on earth - we have named only about one million - and there are only about 1,000 pest species. Already over 50 per cent of these thousand pests are already resistant to our volatile, dangerous, synthetic pesticides. We accidentally lose about 25,000 to 100,000 species of insects, plants and animals every year due to "man's footprint".

But, after poisoning the entire world and contaminating every living thing for over 60 years with these pesticides, we have not even controlled much less eliminated even one pest species and every year we use/misuse more and more pesticides to try to "keep up"! Even with all of this expensive pollution - we lose more and more crops and lives to these thousand pests every year.

We are losing the war against these thousand pests mainly because we insist on using only synthetic pesticides and fertilisers. There has been a severe "knowledge drought" - a worldwide decline in agricultural research and development, especially in production research and safe, more effective pest control - since the advent of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers. Today we are like lemmings running to the sea insisting that is the "right way". The greatest challenge facing humanity this century is the necessity for us to double our global food production with less land, less water, less nutrients, less science, frequent droughts, more and more contamination and ever-increasing pest damage.

One study shows that about 70,000 children in the US were involved in common household pesticide-related poisonings or exposures in 2004. It is estimated that 300,000 farm workers suffer acute pesticide poisoning each year in the United States. No one is checking chronic contamination.

There are hundreds of safe and far more effective alternatives to pesticides. There is simply no need to poison yourself or your family or to have any pest problems.

Stephen L Tvedten

Michigan

Couples driven apart by greedy mothers-in-law

Re: "Not all mums are worth 'krieng jai'", Opinion, August 18.

I would like to commend Stephen Cleary on another excellent article last Saturday. I found his points about Thai mothers to be spot on. I speak not just for myself but I know of two others also who have been through relationships with Thai women, which have ended in separation only because of the greed of the mothers-in-law.

Before my former wife and I were married we had our marriage postponed for over a year because of the amount of dowry her mother wanted.

It seems that after getting married, Thai mothers do nothing but sit at home waiting for money to be laid in their hands. As Cleary perfectly put it, a lot of Thai mothers see their daughters as ATM machines. I couldn't agree more.

Brad Jones

Bangkok

Amorous animals behind more than one odd death

Re: "Camel that broke the owner's back", World, August 20.

I refer to the Associated Press item about the death of an Australian lady and the suffocation of a goat following assaults by a pet camel.

Until recently, I was involved with animal welfare in southwest England and have seen similar attacks on sheep by llamas, a cousin of the camel.

Llamas are placed with sheep to protect them from marauding dogs and foxes. The unfortunate downside to this custodial role is the prevalence of fatal injuries and suffocation following their attempts to copulate with the ewes.

Liz

Chiang Mai