@petra #9
no petra, we did NOT make or even share YOUR assumptions!
we assume that ther are about 60 million buddhists in thailand
we assume that at least 90% love and/or respect their king
we assume that there are >one billion christians in the world
we assume that most of them love jesus and don’t like if he is insulted.
we assume that millions died of aids not protecting themselves
because of an old man in rome who has strange sex phantasies.
mainly uneducated people generalise & misquote others.
Stephan, who is this “we” whose egotistical, obsessive and usually misinformed ideas you constantly thrust on us? Have you been appointed the spokesperson of some peculiar sub-group of expat society?
There is certainly need for readers to call upon anthropologists to be less reticent about the Southeast Asian fires and especially to take action in correcting the stereotype of shifting cultivation as the cause . A brief visit to any clear-felled site whether the location is under Indonesian, Malaysian or Thai administration is sufficient to convince any observer that by comparison with the fuming moonscapes which multinational logging companies conventionally leave in their wakes , farmers whose agricultural future depends on reforestation through coppicing and self- seeding of trees after the firing of swiddens can make no more than an infinitessimal annual contribution to the Southeast Asia-wide burn which so concerns Ricky Walsh and to the monstrously international scale of the pollution which results . I refer to cultivators who have their own very good reasons to deter weed growth by not overworking their land but rather to nurture it by way of long fallow cycles which are evident from the landscapes illustrated in my previous post (NM 5 May 2009 : Images 9 & 14)
But no-one can gainsay the responsibility of those same multinational enterprises for the creation of the vast and it seems smoke -belching savannahs near which this well-informed subscriber chokes in outrage at the coal-face of the problem . Southeast Asian governments must give these corporations good reason to know that business prospects can also depend on simplicities such as natural reseeding and coppicing of trees ie on prior commitment to measures to restore the quality of well-worked farmland rather than to just let it lie waste.
I am glad to be corrected about the identity of the grass in the wastelands of my previous post’s images ( NM 5 May,2009: Images 12 &13) and will pass on that professional opinion to those Bangkok Bird Watchers who have advised me differently. Such botanical details are important and so of course are the subscriber’s titillating hints about the potential usefulness of such vegetation for roofing or the making of brooms (one fine sample of which my wife recently bought for me kerbside when by-passing Pitsanolok ).
But any devoted bird watcher in or out of Bangkok will also insist that it is even more important to recognise that in many contexts flourishing grasses like imperata of any variety are simply very hazardous weeds despite the good press they receive from roofers and broomsmakers. Thai defenders of the environment have been protesting courageously (but to deaf media) for decades that whether on or off nature reserves and in or out of wildlife sanctuaries uncontrolled grasslands of whatever variety become a menace to tree growth and thereby to indigenous fauna as well as to sustainable agriculture. But only now do I realise through Ricky Walsh that Southeast Asia’s increasingly extensive areas of savannahs are also highly combustible and according to him , that their burning is the major source of of the pollution which has become such a widespread and enduring danger to human health throughout several countries of the region . ( I became aware of the problem before journalists reported it and when afflicted by the effects in Singapore during 1988. )
The relentless persistence of that threat and the gargantuan dimensions it has assumed to-day demand more than mere repetition of lip-servicing castigation by media of a few traditionally equipped farmers in Borneo and Sumatra for slashing and burning the jungle they clear for the tiny swiddens from which they subsist . The dominant contribution of large-scale commercial clear-felling to the multiplication and expansion of the Southeast Asian grasslands demands front-page confirmation by Anthropology and other scholarship in a call in the name of science for the co-ordinated action by a plurality of governments and of the commensurate massive dimensions necessary to engage with the problem literally at the grassroots of their societies.
We can be grateful to Ricky Ward who fights fire well with the pen as he no doubt does also with other technology . He has provided New Mandala with additiional reasons for its previous warnings of the dangers with which the priorities of the multi-national lumber industry confront Southeast Asian interests. Thank you RW for reminding me that grass also burns.
@Ralph Kramden #8
we know what the word ‘delirious’ means.
we missed a quote which YOU thought to be ‘delirious’.
most critics of thailand & its people & laws
seem to be in a state of frenzied exitement.
just one example: we did NOT determine a lack of sympathy.
quite to the opposite, we blamed suwicha for being ‘thoughtless’,
not showing compassion for his family in braking the law.
YOU agree: “Such a failure of compassion is not a noble trait.”
THAT’s what WE call ‘delirious’.
@dantampa #9
sorry sir, but it was YOU who made
‘incredibly arrogant and religiously hateful’ remarks
about 60 million thais and their religious believes.
we just reminded you that more than a billion christians
are threatened with eternal ‘hell’
if they don’t listen to their chosen authorities.
just look at the sheer numbers!
thais are not afraid of death,
they KNOW they will be reborn to a better life.
‘religulous’ fanatics who only accept their own believes
and don’t care about others will never understand this.
and it sems to be YOU who is
‘totally out of touch with the modern world’,
YOU say: ‘the futility of imprisoning people for disrespecting dogma’
don’t YOU know, how many people in africa alone still have to DIE
for ‘respecting dogma’? they are ‘imprisoned’ in dogma.
do you deny that catholic dogma’s are KILLERS?
look up: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3748
we do NOT defend ‘lese majeste’,
but we defend the rights of thai people
we supply so many arguments supported by serious reasonable sources,
bu YOU chose to neglect them, resorting to pseudo-‘arguments’ like:
“Better to say nothing than something that foolish.”
you really could/should have said something better, or not?
Aren’t you all getting bored with this topic yet? so boring now… Same Board admin posted the same story, from different columnists because they believe in the same conspiracy. And then same observers and some new blog readers split into two groups, argued the same old topic over again and again..
so boringgggggggggg…………..!
Can you ask the board admin for once? Why have you NEVER posted the other side of this Thai monarchy stories? Story about The King and his family have done something good for his people. Or something about Thaksin’s conspiracy where he wanted to be the first Thailand’s president? or something else, more diversify, more academic, more to be like university style, NOT for your own personal agenda. “Oh yeah yeah right, wow, I found another columnist agreed with me that The King is behind this whole problems. yeahh wow.. I have to post it in my board. woo hoo.. more people agreed with me. SEE!! I told you all there is one more person agreed with me. The king is behind the whole thing ha ha ha. I don’t care about the other columnists that have different opinions. I’m gonna post only the one that agreed with me.”
Well… i went back and checked what you have posted in this board. And it’s true.. No other side of the story. Why?
re. skeletons in containers, Bangkok Post has 2 contradictory reports about searches last Friday:
“No containers of bones on seabed
By: BangkokPost.com
Published: 15/05/2009 at 02:31 PM
A search by divers has failed to find any sign of shipping containers reputed to contain human skeletons on the seabed in Chon Buri province, the head of Silpakorn University’s Division of Underwater Archaeology said on Friday
Imprem Watcharangura said the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) asked his division to organise a search of the ocean floor off Sattahip for the containers reported to have been seen by other divers.
He could confirm there were no containers there, Mr Imprem said.
Mr Imprem said fishermen have told the team that they would surely know if there were dead bodies hidden there, because fish would have flocked to the area to feed and the news would have spread.
He said people had been filing complaints based on the rumoured containers for the past 20 years. Diving teams had searched the area and found no evidnce of the containers.
On Friday morning, a team of navy divers began searching a location there for the containers.
Scuba divers claim to have come across a large number of skulls on the seabed during a coral reef adventure dive. They reported the find to the media.
The DSI said it would have another look at the site.” http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/143351/no-containers-in-sattahip-sea
“MARINE MYSTERY
Porntip seeks quick move on container
Published on May 17, 2009
Forensics director offers two alternatives to check contents
Central Institute of Forensic Science director Porntip Rojanasunan yesterday urged a quick decision from the government to ensure that the truth about a mysterious shipping container on the Chon Buri seabed, rumoured to contain human skeletons, would be known this month.
Leading a team to inspect Samae San Bay in Chon Buri’s Sattahip district, Porntip said two methods of inspection were on the table.
One was to cut open the container, believed from the coral growth to have been lying there for 20 years, and use a camera to survey it. The other was to lift the container out of the water and then open it.
The latter method would cost at least Bt10 million and might destroy fertile corals covering the container, she said.
Porntip said they had not cut it open on Friday as they feared the container might have explosives in it and they would first use a GT 200 bomb-detecter to check it.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said he had assigned officials to assess the possibility of cutting open the container and using cameras to survey as it seemed on the face of it the more practicable way.
Regarding reports that many more containers were under the sea, Porntip said she could not confirm that.
Villagers have confirmed the existence of this container.
Since this is not a normal sea-lane, it is impossible to assume that an accident led to the sinking of the container, she said.
It is more likely that it was intentionally dumped, possibly for disposal of a dangerous substance, she added.
Regarding discovery of skulls, she said it was her personal view that they could be the remains of immigrant workers.
The previous suspicion that they might be from the May 1992 incident is not totally ruled out yet, she |added.
Porntip said that if the government made a quick decision, the truth should be known this month. As for the search for other containers, which the Navy minesweeper boats were asked to do, when to start should be known on Monday, she added.
Meanwhile, local residents who asked not to be named said seven containers had been detected by the radar of trawlers and urged the investigation to proceed without pleading budget restraints.
“If the government does not act, and soon, we the people will open the containers ourselves,” they said.
They suspect that the container Porntip is working on contains dangerous substances or chemicals, as rumour has it that toxins from Rayong were regularly dumped. But the other six containers remain a mystery because fat has reportedly leaked out of them and come to the surface, they said.” http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/05/17/national/national_30102835.php
“we believe that critics could not be taken seriously
from people who worship an ‘infallible’ pope
who is responsible for millions of dead and suppressed humans”
What an incredibly arrogant and religiously hateful response to make. This athiest worships no man, no matter the shape of his crown. Your attempt to defend the inviolability of the Buddhist King of Thailand by attacking the infallibility of the Christian Pope of Rome is utterly pathetic.
Has it occurred to you that perhaps both monarchs and their followers may be totally out of touch with the modern world ?
Indeed, I reckon that it’s been over 500 years since the last Pope and his church learned the futility of imprisoning people for disrespecting dogma. The Thai King and his court seem not to have learned that lesson yet, in the 77 years since 1932.
Frankly, if that’s your best defense of lese majeste, you ought not bother. Better to say nothing than something that foolish.
Stephan: Delirious is a state of being in frenzied excitement. Apt description, I think, for a respondent who fails to understand a reasonable question because of an overly excited attempt to pounce on one word. Of course it is a personal attack on the same respondent who allows a particular ideological view to determine a lack of sympathy for a wife and children. Such a failure of compassion is not a noble trait.
And, any fool can see by the words I used and the invitation to knowledgeable readers to respond that I was, in part, speculating. But at least I tried to respond to a reasonable question with some consideration for the correspondent. I wasn’t engaging in mechanistic ideological ranting. As your response to dantampa shows, speculation is not missing from your own responses.
I work on reforestation in Chiang Mai where our No. 1 problem is fire. Huge areas of Imperata grasslands exist in S.E. Asia because frequent burning destroys tree seedlings and advantages grass. The waste land of the pictures most likely results from frequent fire post logging.
Considering annual fires, which the Forest Department records show as never having a confirmed natural cause, bring with them pollution levels up to 6 times the European standard for particulates and an epidemic of respiratory illness and a tourist boycott, I am surprised the anthropologist readers have not mentioned this.
The army certainly has many crimes to answer for. Today one could ask is it pulling its weight on fire prevention?
The photo labelled Imperata appears to be of a different species. Imperata grass is used for making roofs, the one shown for brooms if I am not mistaken.
@Ralph Kramden #6
you’re speculating.
why do you again resort to personal attack by using words
like “Stephan’s delirious response”. WHAT is ‘delirious’?
@dantampa #5
most what you say sounds reasonable
but would clearly fall under ‘lese majesty’ in thailand.
we don’t like ‘grovelers’ and ‘kowtows’,
but can you not discuss these things without
insulting the vast majority of thai people
who obviously think different?
this law would have gone long ago
without clear support of a majority here.
we believe that critics could not be taken seriously
from people who worship an ‘infallible’ pope
who is responsible for millions of dead and suppressed humans
through his strange personal believes about sexuality
and who preaches until today that men are superior to women.
you should be rather busy to clean your own mess,
or do you want buddhists & muslims to do that for you?
that’s exactly what you do here in thailand, none of your business!
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye
and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
matthew 7.3
Dickie asks a question that can be answered. So let me have a go. If you go to the Political Prisoners in Thailand (PPT) website, and look under Convicted, you get as much information as is currently available. I am not entirely sure, but it seems to me that he posted pictures of a royal that had been touched up in some way, perhaps making them look silly. It may be that Suwicha didn’t do anything more than re-posting them. But it seems that we really don’t know the whole story.
And this is where it gets interesting and touches on Stephan’s delirious response to the use of the word “accused”. At one point, it seems that Suwicha was holding out against all the pressure to plead guilty. However, like Nicolaides, he eventually pleaded guilty in the hope that he would be treated better. Recall that Nicolaides was released soon after pleading guilty. There are differences with cases and profiles, but it seems that the strategy used in the cases of Nicolaides, Suwicha and Da Torpedo seems to be to keep them in jail until they agree to plead guilty. This avoids a trial and an airing of the details of a case. Only Da Torpedo seems to have held out, and she is due in court soon (perhaps).
I’d be interested to hear other takes on this from NM readers who actually know more about the cases involved.
You may have seen the news that the Thai prosecutor in the Suwicha case has asked that the time for an appeal be extended, effectively preventing a quick request for a royal pardon. Just what there is for the prosecutor to appeal in a guilty plea case with a ten-year sentence is unclear.
This act of prosecutorial pique demonstrates that the use of lese majeste in Thailand has become a well-staged witch hunt, whose aim is to instill fear into a population which show signs of questioning the cult of royal divinity that has been so propagandized here for three generations.
One of the great myths perpetuated by the constant
stream of brain washing that one sees daily on government-controlled TV is the notion that there is a unique bond between the monarch and the Thai people that cannot be found in other societies. The King loves all his people and they love him.
But all one has to do is watch the stiff formal rituals of obeisance which accompany royal family members wherever they go with armed escorts and one is instantly disabused of any notion of close personal ties to the common man.
Seeing prime ministers and old men grovel before the royal personnage in the kowtow position reinstated by this King after being banned as inappropriate in the modern world, reflects abject submission, not mutual love or respect. The same goes for spending obscene fortunes on royal funeral pyres, or celebrating royal anniversaries surrounded by blue-blooded farangs, not Thais.
Indeed, if such a exceptionally close bond really exits between a righteous father and his subjects, one has to wonder what has caused this society to tolerate its systemic corruption at all levels ?
Perhaps one really does have to be Thai to understand lese majeste, having succumbed to fifty years of cult worship so carefully orchestrated in an unsmiling kingdom of perpetual adoplescents.
Still, even sixth grade Thais must wonder sometimes, when they read stories about Suwicha Thakor going to prison for ten years, how their loving father could ever allow any son to rot in jail for speaking his heart and conscience.
A city in Belgium, (is it Ghent?), has recently mandated to go Vegetarian, the whole city, for one day a week.
In Manila, I recall an old friend telling me, that dogs had disappeared decades ago. Dogs and stray dogs particularly, it became apparent, were the favorite staple of the Filipino poor.
Yeah, I do remember the famous Harry Nicolaides. And do remember his picture, being chained up arms and legs. Didn’t it look medieval in your eyes? The fact is, anyone being prosecuted for serious crime ( of course, lesse majeste is a SERIOUS crime in Thailand ) will be chained up ONLY when being transfered out of the prison, but not chained up all the time ( a tiny bit of humanitarianism remains ).
Don’t get me wrong, the idea of jailing one 15 years for insulting someone. never endears me. Just want to share an exact picture of what Thai prison looks like. ( but not from my own experience for sure )
@Dickie Simpkins #3
he is not just ‘accused’
he has confessed, pleaded guilty and was sentenced.
in a democracy, if you don’t like a law, you’ll get a majority
of lawmakers and change it. no other way.
the convict could apply for a royal pardon,
but obviously hasn’t done so yet. why not?
@ralf kamden #2
thank you for another perfect example of thoughtlessness.
Can anyone tell me exactly what he is accused of doing? I’ve searched, and apparently he ‘allegedly’ manipulated pictures of HMK on the net, what type of manipulations exactly?
Either way, the LM law needs to be scrapped or at least modified…
this is too bad, and allows too many elite sentiments of society to hide behind this unjust law.
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Political reform in Thailand: Structural and ideological issues
A very good read.
Thanks for sharing.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
@petra #9
no petra, we did NOT make or even share YOUR assumptions!
we assume that ther are about 60 million buddhists in thailand
we assume that at least 90% love and/or respect their king
we assume that there are >one billion christians in the world
we assume that most of them love jesus and don’t like if he is insulted.
we assume that millions died of aids not protecting themselves
because of an old man in rome who has strange sex phantasies.
mainly uneducated people generalise & misquote others.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
Stephan, who is this “we” whose egotistical, obsessive and usually misinformed ideas you constantly thrust on us? Have you been appointed the spokesperson of some peculiar sub-group of expat society?
The violent suppression of opium cultivation
Comment from Doug Miles:
There is certainly need for readers to call upon anthropologists to be less reticent about the Southeast Asian fires and especially to take action in correcting the stereotype of shifting cultivation as the cause . A brief visit to any clear-felled site whether the location is under Indonesian, Malaysian or Thai administration is sufficient to convince any observer that by comparison with the fuming moonscapes which multinational logging companies conventionally leave in their wakes , farmers whose agricultural future depends on reforestation through coppicing and self- seeding of trees after the firing of swiddens can make no more than an infinitessimal annual contribution to the Southeast Asia-wide burn which so concerns Ricky Walsh and to the monstrously international scale of the pollution which results . I refer to cultivators who have their own very good reasons to deter weed growth by not overworking their land but rather to nurture it by way of long fallow cycles which are evident from the landscapes illustrated in my previous post (NM 5 May 2009 : Images 9 & 14)
But no-one can gainsay the responsibility of those same multinational enterprises for the creation of the vast and it seems smoke -belching savannahs near which this well-informed subscriber chokes in outrage at the coal-face of the problem . Southeast Asian governments must give these corporations good reason to know that business prospects can also depend on simplicities such as natural reseeding and coppicing of trees ie on prior commitment to measures to restore the quality of well-worked farmland rather than to just let it lie waste.
I am glad to be corrected about the identity of the grass in the wastelands of my previous post’s images ( NM 5 May,2009: Images 12 &13) and will pass on that professional opinion to those Bangkok Bird Watchers who have advised me differently. Such botanical details are important and so of course are the subscriber’s titillating hints about the potential usefulness of such vegetation for roofing or the making of brooms (one fine sample of which my wife recently bought for me kerbside when by-passing Pitsanolok ).
But any devoted bird watcher in or out of Bangkok will also insist that it is even more important to recognise that in many contexts flourishing grasses like imperata of any variety are simply very hazardous weeds despite the good press they receive from roofers and broomsmakers. Thai defenders of the environment have been protesting courageously (but to deaf media) for decades that whether on or off nature reserves and in or out of wildlife sanctuaries uncontrolled grasslands of whatever variety become a menace to tree growth and thereby to indigenous fauna as well as to sustainable agriculture. But only now do I realise through Ricky Walsh that Southeast Asia’s increasingly extensive areas of savannahs are also highly combustible and according to him , that their burning is the major source of of the pollution which has become such a widespread and enduring danger to human health throughout several countries of the region . ( I became aware of the problem before journalists reported it and when afflicted by the effects in Singapore during 1988. )
The relentless persistence of that threat and the gargantuan dimensions it has assumed to-day demand more than mere repetition of lip-servicing castigation by media of a few traditionally equipped farmers in Borneo and Sumatra for slashing and burning the jungle they clear for the tiny swiddens from which they subsist . The dominant contribution of large-scale commercial clear-felling to the multiplication and expansion of the Southeast Asian grasslands demands front-page confirmation by Anthropology and other scholarship in a call in the name of science for the co-ordinated action by a plurality of governments and of the commensurate massive dimensions necessary to engage with the problem literally at the grassroots of their societies.
We can be grateful to Ricky Ward who fights fire well with the pen as he no doubt does also with other technology . He has provided New Mandala with additiional reasons for its previous warnings of the dangers with which the priorities of the multi-national lumber industry confront Southeast Asian interests. Thank you RW for reminding me that grass also burns.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
@Ralph Kramden #8
we know what the word ‘delirious’ means.
we missed a quote which YOU thought to be ‘delirious’.
most critics of thailand & its people & laws
seem to be in a state of frenzied exitement.
just one example: we did NOT determine a lack of sympathy.
quite to the opposite, we blamed suwicha for being ‘thoughtless’,
not showing compassion for his family in braking the law.
YOU agree: “Such a failure of compassion is not a noble trait.”
THAT’s what WE call ‘delirious’.
@dantampa #9
sorry sir, but it was YOU who made
‘incredibly arrogant and religiously hateful’ remarks
about 60 million thais and their religious believes.
we just reminded you that more than a billion christians
are threatened with eternal ‘hell’
if they don’t listen to their chosen authorities.
just look at the sheer numbers!
thais are not afraid of death,
they KNOW they will be reborn to a better life.
‘religulous’ fanatics who only accept their own believes
and don’t care about others will never understand this.
and it sems to be YOU who is
‘totally out of touch with the modern world’,
YOU say: ‘the futility of imprisoning people for disrespecting dogma’
don’t YOU know, how many people in africa alone still have to DIE
for ‘respecting dogma’? they are ‘imprisoned’ in dogma.
do you deny that catholic dogma’s are KILLERS?
look up: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3748
we do NOT defend ‘lese majeste’,
but we defend the rights of thai people
we supply so many arguments supported by serious reasonable sources,
bu YOU chose to neglect them, resorting to pseudo-‘arguments’ like:
“Better to say nothing than something that foolish.”
you really could/should have said something better, or not?
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
stephan makes the assumption that I’ve found to be common amongst Thais, albeit mainly uneducated ones, that all farang are christians.
of course that is far from the truth.
some people also assume that all thais love hmk.
“The decision to send the army … came from the royal palace”
Aren’t you all getting bored with this topic yet? so boring now… Same Board admin posted the same story, from different columnists because they believe in the same conspiracy. And then same observers and some new blog readers split into two groups, argued the same old topic over again and again..
so boringgggggggggg…………..!
Can you ask the board admin for once? Why have you NEVER posted the other side of this Thai monarchy stories? Story about The King and his family have done something good for his people. Or something about Thaksin’s conspiracy where he wanted to be the first Thailand’s president? or something else, more diversify, more academic, more to be like university style, NOT for your own personal agenda. “Oh yeah yeah right, wow, I found another columnist agreed with me that The King is behind this whole problems. yeahh wow.. I have to post it in my board. woo hoo.. more people agreed with me. SEE!! I told you all there is one more person agreed with me. The king is behind the whole thing ha ha ha. I don’t care about the other columnists that have different opinions. I’m gonna post only the one that agreed with me.”
Well… i went back and checked what you have posted in this board. And it’s true.. No other side of the story. Why?
Red faces: Unconvincing psych-ops
re. skeletons in containers, Bangkok Post has 2 contradictory reports about searches last Friday:
“No containers of bones on seabed
By: BangkokPost.com
Published: 15/05/2009 at 02:31 PM
A search by divers has failed to find any sign of shipping containers reputed to contain human skeletons on the seabed in Chon Buri province, the head of Silpakorn University’s Division of Underwater Archaeology said on Friday
Imprem Watcharangura said the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) asked his division to organise a search of the ocean floor off Sattahip for the containers reported to have been seen by other divers.
He could confirm there were no containers there, Mr Imprem said.
Mr Imprem said fishermen have told the team that they would surely know if there were dead bodies hidden there, because fish would have flocked to the area to feed and the news would have spread.
He said people had been filing complaints based on the rumoured containers for the past 20 years. Diving teams had searched the area and found no evidnce of the containers.
On Friday morning, a team of navy divers began searching a location there for the containers.
Scuba divers claim to have come across a large number of skulls on the seabed during a coral reef adventure dive. They reported the find to the media.
The DSI said it would have another look at the site.”
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/143351/no-containers-in-sattahip-sea
also: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/16762/container-but-no-bones-discovered
and Nation has 1 report:
“MARINE MYSTERY
Porntip seeks quick move on container
Published on May 17, 2009
Forensics director offers two alternatives to check contents
Central Institute of Forensic Science director Porntip Rojanasunan yesterday urged a quick decision from the government to ensure that the truth about a mysterious shipping container on the Chon Buri seabed, rumoured to contain human skeletons, would be known this month.
Leading a team to inspect Samae San Bay in Chon Buri’s Sattahip district, Porntip said two methods of inspection were on the table.
One was to cut open the container, believed from the coral growth to have been lying there for 20 years, and use a camera to survey it. The other was to lift the container out of the water and then open it.
The latter method would cost at least Bt10 million and might destroy fertile corals covering the container, she said.
Porntip said they had not cut it open on Friday as they feared the container might have explosives in it and they would first use a GT 200 bomb-detecter to check it.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said he had assigned officials to assess the possibility of cutting open the container and using cameras to survey as it seemed on the face of it the more practicable way.
Regarding reports that many more containers were under the sea, Porntip said she could not confirm that.
Villagers have confirmed the existence of this container.
Since this is not a normal sea-lane, it is impossible to assume that an accident led to the sinking of the container, she said.
It is more likely that it was intentionally dumped, possibly for disposal of a dangerous substance, she added.
Regarding discovery of skulls, she said it was her personal view that they could be the remains of immigrant workers.
The previous suspicion that they might be from the May 1992 incident is not totally ruled out yet, she |added.
Porntip said that if the government made a quick decision, the truth should be known this month. As for the search for other containers, which the Navy minesweeper boats were asked to do, when to start should be known on Monday, she added.
Meanwhile, local residents who asked not to be named said seven containers had been detected by the radar of trawlers and urged the investigation to proceed without pleading budget restraints.
“If the government does not act, and soon, we the people will open the containers ourselves,” they said.
They suspect that the container Porntip is working on contains dangerous substances or chemicals, as rumour has it that toxins from Rayong were regularly dumped. But the other six containers remain a mystery because fat has reportedly leaked out of them and come to the surface, they said.”
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/05/17/national/national_30102835.php
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
“we believe that critics could not be taken seriously
from people who worship an ‘infallible’ pope
who is responsible for millions of dead and suppressed humans”
What an incredibly arrogant and religiously hateful response to make. This athiest worships no man, no matter the shape of his crown. Your attempt to defend the inviolability of the Buddhist King of Thailand by attacking the infallibility of the Christian Pope of Rome is utterly pathetic.
Has it occurred to you that perhaps both monarchs and their followers may be totally out of touch with the modern world ?
Indeed, I reckon that it’s been over 500 years since the last Pope and his church learned the futility of imprisoning people for disrespecting dogma. The Thai King and his court seem not to have learned that lesson yet, in the 77 years since 1932.
Frankly, if that’s your best defense of lese majeste, you ought not bother. Better to say nothing than something that foolish.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
Stephan: Delirious is a state of being in frenzied excitement. Apt description, I think, for a respondent who fails to understand a reasonable question because of an overly excited attempt to pounce on one word. Of course it is a personal attack on the same respondent who allows a particular ideological view to determine a lack of sympathy for a wife and children. Such a failure of compassion is not a noble trait.
And, any fool can see by the words I used and the invitation to knowledgeable readers to respond that I was, in part, speculating. But at least I tried to respond to a reasonable question with some consideration for the correspondent. I wasn’t engaging in mechanistic ideological ranting. As your response to dantampa shows, speculation is not missing from your own responses.
The violent suppression of opium cultivation
I work on reforestation in Chiang Mai where our No. 1 problem is fire. Huge areas of Imperata grasslands exist in S.E. Asia because frequent burning destroys tree seedlings and advantages grass. The waste land of the pictures most likely results from frequent fire post logging.
Considering annual fires, which the Forest Department records show as never having a confirmed natural cause, bring with them pollution levels up to 6 times the European standard for particulates and an epidemic of respiratory illness and a tourist boycott, I am surprised the anthropologist readers have not mentioned this.
The army certainly has many crimes to answer for. Today one could ask is it pulling its weight on fire prevention?
The photo labelled Imperata appears to be of a different species. Imperata grass is used for making roofs, the one shown for brooms if I am not mistaken.
Perfect political storm on University Avenue
Wanted: Surin Pitsuwan
http://www.irrawaddy.org/opinion_story.php?art_id=15656
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
@Ralph Kramden #6
you’re speculating.
why do you again resort to personal attack by using words
like “Stephan’s delirious response”. WHAT is ‘delirious’?
@dantampa #5
most what you say sounds reasonable
but would clearly fall under ‘lese majesty’ in thailand.
we don’t like ‘grovelers’ and ‘kowtows’,
but can you not discuss these things without
insulting the vast majority of thai people
who obviously think different?
this law would have gone long ago
without clear support of a majority here.
we believe that critics could not be taken seriously
from people who worship an ‘infallible’ pope
who is responsible for millions of dead and suppressed humans
through his strange personal believes about sexuality
and who preaches until today that men are superior to women.
you should be rather busy to clean your own mess,
or do you want buddhists & muslims to do that for you?
that’s exactly what you do here in thailand, none of your business!
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye
and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
matthew 7.3
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
Dickie asks a question that can be answered. So let me have a go. If you go to the Political Prisoners in Thailand (PPT) website, and look under Convicted, you get as much information as is currently available. I am not entirely sure, but it seems to me that he posted pictures of a royal that had been touched up in some way, perhaps making them look silly. It may be that Suwicha didn’t do anything more than re-posting them. But it seems that we really don’t know the whole story.
And this is where it gets interesting and touches on Stephan’s delirious response to the use of the word “accused”. At one point, it seems that Suwicha was holding out against all the pressure to plead guilty. However, like Nicolaides, he eventually pleaded guilty in the hope that he would be treated better. Recall that Nicolaides was released soon after pleading guilty. There are differences with cases and profiles, but it seems that the strategy used in the cases of Nicolaides, Suwicha and Da Torpedo seems to be to keep them in jail until they agree to plead guilty. This avoids a trial and an airing of the details of a case. Only Da Torpedo seems to have held out, and she is due in court soon (perhaps).
I’d be interested to hear other takes on this from NM readers who actually know more about the cases involved.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
You may have seen the news that the Thai prosecutor in the Suwicha case has asked that the time for an appeal be extended, effectively preventing a quick request for a royal pardon. Just what there is for the prosecutor to appeal in a guilty plea case with a ten-year sentence is unclear.
This act of prosecutorial pique demonstrates that the use of lese majeste in Thailand has become a well-staged witch hunt, whose aim is to instill fear into a population which show signs of questioning the cult of royal divinity that has been so propagandized here for three generations.
One of the great myths perpetuated by the constant
stream of brain washing that one sees daily on government-controlled TV is the notion that there is a unique bond between the monarch and the Thai people that cannot be found in other societies. The King loves all his people and they love him.
But all one has to do is watch the stiff formal rituals of obeisance which accompany royal family members wherever they go with armed escorts and one is instantly disabused of any notion of close personal ties to the common man.
Seeing prime ministers and old men grovel before the royal personnage in the kowtow position reinstated by this King after being banned as inappropriate in the modern world, reflects abject submission, not mutual love or respect. The same goes for spending obscene fortunes on royal funeral pyres, or celebrating royal anniversaries surrounded by blue-blooded farangs, not Thais.
Indeed, if such a exceptionally close bond really exits between a righteous father and his subjects, one has to wonder what has caused this society to tolerate its systemic corruption at all levels ?
Perhaps one really does have to be Thai to understand lese majeste, having succumbed to fifty years of cult worship so carefully orchestrated in an unsmiling kingdom of perpetual adoplescents.
Still, even sixth grade Thais must wonder sometimes, when they read stories about Suwicha Thakor going to prison for ten years, how their loving father could ever allow any son to rot in jail for speaking his heart and conscience.
Lunch?
A city in Belgium, (is it Ghent?), has recently mandated to go Vegetarian, the whole city, for one day a week.
In Manila, I recall an old friend telling me, that dogs had disappeared decades ago. Dogs and stray dogs particularly, it became apparent, were the favorite staple of the Filipino poor.
“The decision to send the army … came from the royal palace”
henry Huang
Yeah, I do remember the famous Harry Nicolaides. And do remember his picture, being chained up arms and legs. Didn’t it look medieval in your eyes? The fact is, anyone being prosecuted for serious crime ( of course, lesse majeste is a SERIOUS crime in Thailand ) will be chained up ONLY when being transfered out of the prison, but not chained up all the time ( a tiny bit of humanitarianism remains ).
Don’t get me wrong, the idea of jailing one 15 years for insulting someone. never endears me. Just want to share an exact picture of what Thai prison looks like. ( but not from my own experience for sure )
Doing No Harm, Doing Good or Doing Better? Humanitarian legitimacy in Burma
Thanks, well constructed analysis.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
@Dickie Simpkins #3
he is not just ‘accused’
he has confessed, pleaded guilty and was sentenced.
in a democracy, if you don’t like a law, you’ll get a majority
of lawmakers and change it. no other way.
the convict could apply for a royal pardon,
but obviously hasn’t done so yet. why not?
@ralf kamden #2
thank you for another perfect example of thoughtlessness.
Suwicha Thakor on his life in prison
I feel sad for Suwicha….
Can anyone tell me exactly what he is accused of doing? I’ve searched, and apparently he ‘allegedly’ manipulated pictures of HMK on the net, what type of manipulations exactly?
Either way, the LM law needs to be scrapped or at least modified…
this is too bad, and allows too many elite sentiments of society to hide behind this unjust law.