With seven days of danger otherwise known as Songkran coming, I would like to offer some advice on how to reduce the death toll during this period which stands at a rate of about 500 people — every year. Most people throw water from the roadside into moving traffic.
This is highly dangerous and it should be banned.
Water throwing should be in designated places and not every day of the holiday. Roadside checkpoints should be manned by the army. I think we all know the police just sit in the tents at the roadside and obstruct traffic with cones that do not help.
Drunk drivers should be dealt with harshly — their vehicles should be confiscated and their driving licences revoked. Let’s try to take back Songkran, so it isn’t just seven days of danger.
Charlie Stampfer
Trust a two-way street
The editorial, “Suthep seeks dictatorship”, on April 11 highlights the lack of trust in the people’s right to a democratic solution.
I can only quote from the late former UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook: “Trust is a two-way process. You cannot secure trust simply by asserting that you are willing to work in a spirit of mutual respect with those whose trust you seek. Politicians who make plain that they do not trust the public to elect the right people to rule over them have no prospect of securing the trust of the same public. Nor do they deserve it.”
Sound advice from a conviction politician with principles.
John Rounce
No Tops, we’re British
The first thing which my eye fell on in yesterday’s Bangkok Post was the Tops advert on the bottom of the front page.
The first item offered as a “Taste of Britain” is French Fries. Next is Chicken Kiev. Kiev is in the news today — it is the capital of Ukraine. Mayonnaise appears third — more French stuff!
It is many years since I have tasted Lancashire cheese, and I would appreciate some genuine Cheshire. Others would have their own preferences to the bland international cheddar. English bacon and sausages would go down well. From Scotland, there are the excellent Baxter soups; their game soup is particularly good, though when I email them to ask for it, they decline to reply. From Wales, there is the succulent Welsh lamb. Can we get it here?
Please, if you are offering a “Taste of Britain”, offer something to be proud of.
Roger Haslock
New blood needed
I have been reading the letters from Burin Kantabutra for several years, and still wonder why he hasn’t set up a party that Thailand really needs. Khun Burin makes more sense than any politicians I have read about.
It’s about time someone like Khun Burin, or Voranai Vanijaka, threw their hats in the ring, and we could see if Thailand could finally become a true democracy.
And by the way, it’s time for Mr Suthep to take a long hike up in tiger country.
Farang Observer
Call time on crackpots
Re: “It is the heat ...” (BP, April 10). It is not the heat, it is the ego. For the past five months the protests and whistling for reforms has driven the city into a frenzy. After weeks of drama in the streets the final episode of “Dark in the Lumpini Park” is ready to fake a climax. Do not blame the players; Mr. Suthep’s script keeps changing. When politicians turn into superheroes you can smell the rats.
As they say “power always corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Dull and dry rhetoric about reforms is now reaching a dead end. It is time to get the nutjobs and crackpots out of Lumpini Park and ask them to first reform themselves. The paid mercenaries and guards should go and find a real job where flags, ribbons and whistles are not allowed.
As long as the fools remain the tools in the hands of powerful and rich, Thai democracy will look like a theatre. The sad part is that ongoing stage performances are gradually losing the grandness of a posh theatre. It is time for the PDRC to draw the curtains and say goodnight. It is time to save the nation from savage theatrics.
Kuldeep Nagi
Losing the Thai magic
News of Privy Council president and respected statesman Gen Prem Tinsulanonda saying even he is not good enough as a mediator — in order to seek middle ground between PM Yingluck and anti-government protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban — is distressing.
It shows there is no magic formula to bring peace to the ongoing conflict — as there had been in Thailand formerly.
During the Black May violence of 1992, the leaders of the opposing forces at that time — prime minister Gen Suchinda Kraprayoon and protest leader Chamlong Srimuang — were summoned by His Majesty the King to put an end to the violence.
The result: The turmoil ended immediately!
Fast forward to now. That magic can no longer be seen as possible. We all know how the situation has become the way it is.
Is this going to be the year of living dangerously for us Thais?
Vint Chavala
Just for the record
I am writing to express concern in relation to the two articles published in the Bangkok Post on April 7 and 9 on child labour issues. The articles, while placing emphasis on an important socio-economic issue, with bold rhetoric, contain some factual inaccuracies which undermine the basis of the argument. Moreover, the articles omitted to consider the concrete measures recommended as critical in Thailand’s fight to end child labour, particularly its worst forms.
The news article and the opinion piece base their criticisms on the assertion that Thailand has just ratified the ILO Child Labour Convention No.182. In fact Thailand ratified this Convention in 2001. This was an important statement of political will and without such standards to provide a legal framework there cannot be direct grass-roots action. So this commitment is important. But, as I said in my speech of April 3 it requires continued, genuine and visible action not only by government but by business and civil society too. It is true that we have observed some incremental advancement over the last decade or so but Thailand needs stronger leadership and bolder action in a wide range of policy and enforcement areas to demonstrate its resolve.
In my speech I did not use the phrase “progress has been made” which is quoted in both the article and the editorial. Rather I called for “more robust national policies to protect children from abusive forms of work” in my speech and for “accelerated action against the worst forms of child labour” in one of my tweets of April 8.
There is evidence of child labour in Thailand but much of it is anecdotal. Therefore, there is a need for a comprehensive national survey to determine the nature and extent of child labour across all Thai provinces and industries, not only in specific hotspots. This is critical because effective intervention can only be taken on the basis of timely and statistically sound data.
The report referred to in the op-ed on working conditions in the Thai fishing sector is one of the most comprehensive and detailed research efforts investigating an economic sector in which the treatment of workers is a growing concern. The report was a joint publication by the ILO and a leading Thai academic institution. The key findings presented underscored “the way in which fishers are recruited, their condition of work and the existence of patterns of exploitation and abuse”. I would in this case not characterise the report as “offensively deferential”. The alarming findings presented in the report, including the evidence of child and forced labour, have been widely quoted across the region by international human rights groups, research institutions and media worldwide.
Please note that the full text of my speeches and the relevant reports can be found on the ILO website.
Maurizio Bussi
Officer-in-charge, ILO Country Office for Thailand, Cambodia and Lao PDR
Planting an idea
I’ve just finished reading Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Caldwell Esselstyn Jr who claims via his own research that it should be possible to abolish the No.1 killer in Western civilisation through consumption of a totally plant-based diet. Towards the end, mention is made of the “brachial artery tourniquet test” (referred to as the “BART test”). The author dreams of BART-positive meals in schools, BART-negative warnings in restaurants and BART-status food labelling and packaging. “Although my BART-fantasy may never come true” he writes, “the basic point is that the place to start is definitely by enlightening the public.”
John Shepherd
Bus overhaul needed
Re “BMTA to choose one bus per route” (BP, April 9).
In the first place, I have been wondering why the bus system has traditionally had a mixture of direct and so many small contracted operators. This has been the cause of chronic ills of the BMTA’s buses, such as poor service, unsafe and illegal operations, financial viability, and so on. What we need is a complete overhaul and reorganisation of both administration and operation for its buses. It should be done as a pure corporation or one large private professional contractor, if the BMTA admits its its inability to run a bus business.
RH Suga
Lamphun
Coke Lite goes awol
What is going on with your product supply? There has not been any Coke Lite on store shelves for weeks now.
Did you think that the hordes of us who are still addicted to this beverage wouldn’t notice? Did you think that we would meekly adapt to Coke Zero?
I have read the propaganda that says that the Thai male would rather drink Coke Zero. So be it. However, there are (really thirsty) people who have drank Coke Lite for ages and would rather drink water than that vile Zero concoction.
Please, if you are discontinuing Coke Lite, show some respect to your loyal customers, and tell us.
If it isn’t being discontinued, release a press statement, and let us know why it isn’t available, and when it will be. As it is, your communications department should be absolutely ashamed of themselves!
And, please, remember the lesson that your company learned from the New Coke debacle.
Bubbles
Let’s have democracy
The key sentence in the editorial, “Suthep seeks dictatorship”, is, “But in a democracy, a change of power must be carried out through an election.” That is absolutely correct, but that applies in a democracy. It is therefore important to establish democracy prior to holding elections.
A form of government which is supported by armed violence, which is supported by a partisan police force, which thieves money from the rice farms, which ignores the very constitution of the country and responds with violence to legal adjudication, whose supporters have murdered innocents on the streets, which is led remotely by a convicted criminal, which appoints ministers who incited arson, is not democratic.
In fact such a system of government is the antitheses of democracy and should be eradicated in the interests of democracy and the country.
The democratic vote is awarded to people within a democratic system of government. It therefore follows that a democratic system where the law is respected must precede a democratic vote. History shows that achieving such a system is always painful and this current conflict in Thailand is no different.
JC WilcoxCONTACT: BANGKOK POST BUILDING
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