Ambassador's letter impetuous and offensive

Re: "Editorial coverage of Hun Sen is unfair", Letters, November 3.

Firstly I must thank you for printing Her Excellency Madame Aye's letter. It was truly an amazing missive; clearly you touched sensitive spots to warrant this outburst.

When I wrote on October 23 that "Hun Sen openly abuses our courts" I speculated that a retort might be forthcoming from Her Excellency. I was in no way prepared for the stream of invective and abuse directed at you.

When engorged with rage, we all tend to forget our p's and q's, and for ordinary citizens this is tolerable. But in the rarefied and disciplined diplomatic corps, such behaviour would be unthinkable within the hushed and hallowed cloisters of the diplomatic circuit, let alone plastered across a national newspaper for all to see.

So, I was aghast to read "your newspaper has become a junky and vulgar newspaper. It has completely lost its value as a newspaper of a civilised country". Whilst reeling from this linguistic stiletto, the following loomed out of the print: "It is a gangster-like statement." Surely this was to be the sum of the invective; but no. The put-down, "Even an idiot knows this fact", was swiftly followed by the grammatically grotesque, "here is another dead wrong or manipulated fact of this cheap newspaper editorial".

But as in all good reads, the best was saved for last. Having slugged her way through rather boring points, made interesting only by the unrelenting rage, we enter a truly Alice in Wonderland phase which eclipses all before: "His Excellency Thaksin" pops up like a mad march hare. Where has Madame Ambassador been for the last eon. He is now "His Evasiveness Thaksin" - a convicted felon on the run from justice and about to be stripped of this police rank and his royal decorations.

Truly wonderful, wonderful stuff. Indeed, so perverse was this closing paragraph that I wondered if all the previous whinging had in fact been a splendid joke, taking us all for the proverbial ride.

Rather than successfully correct some gross injustice to her beloved leader, I suspect that Her Excellency Madame Aye's intemperate diatribe has not only made her the laughing stock of those that read the English-language press, but more importantly has most probably devalued her diplomatic stock irrevocably and left Bangkok diplomatic circles utterly stunned.

JOHN PATTERSON

BANGKOK

Use Rakesh to root out fraudsters and scammers

Re: "Rakesh a political bargaining chip", November 2.

Thanong Khanthong implied that the Democrats may use Rakesh to quell their political foes. He mentioned names that Rakesh may implicate: The Group of 16 along with Banharn Silapa-archa, then prime minister, Surakiart Sathirathai, then finance minister, and Vijit Supinit, then Bank of Thailand governor. But I think the Democrats are not interested in those guys, not now anyway.

The Democrats know their priority. I bet they'll use Rakesh to invoke the ghost of the 1997 meltdown, which led to the baht devaluation and financial melee. Then they'll zero-in on Gen Chavalit, who was prime minister at the time, and use him to get to Thaksin for supposedly raking in billions of baht from the currency devaluation.

In the meantime, for Rakesh, with his financial wizardry, the authorities can use him to spot market irregularities, fraud and scam artists, the same way the FBI uses Frank Abagnale Jr.

SOMSAK POLA

SAMUT-PRAKARN

A useless opposition that won't last the course

It is clear that the opposition party, Pheu Thai, continues to bask in the glory of the defunct Thai Rak Thai Party. It is a party with no ideology, which has little to offer in terms of moving the country forward. They think opposition is only about criticising and reciting a catalogue of complaints. By never practising what is expected of an opposition party, Pheu Thai has become irrelevant to the development of democracy in Thailand.

The role of the opposition is to propose alternatives to what the government does, so the public gets the benefit of political debate. If the opposition criticises in a positive and constructive way, it can cause the government to adopt positive proposals. However, their only objective seems to be defend Thaksin and protect themselves.

I suppose the proposal, made by a Pheu Thai MP to allow MPs to carry guns (and buy them at a discount) should be taken as a sign that opposition MPs still have their sanity: They do realise that they have failed, and continue to fail on a daily basis, the people who elected them - and are starting to be afraid of the consequences. They shouldn't worry though. Thailand is a democracy and, at the first opportunity, Thai citizens will use their voting rights to sanction them.

CANDIDE

BANGKOK