James,
Thank you for the link. I posted earlier that it was 4 Corners which made the investigative documentary, where they revealed the site of the still undiscovered bodies of slaves murdered in custody, but you are correct it was ABC’s 7.30 program with the help of Phuketwan which did the report.
So far the local Thai rags have not reported the “defection” of its ex chief investigator to seak political asylum in Australia. If I know the Thais they will just ignore the whole thing or become totally vindictive and concoct charges against the ex police general and demand Australia repatriate him to Thailand.
There’s a lot more to this story than has been revealed here and it will take either the EU or US to stop it and we’ll still never know the full facts.
‘..their “stock” of illegal slave labour held on islands off Indonesia.’
Without wishing to minimise the allegations of abuse in Thailand, the Indonesian allegations are a big beat up. Any media report that refers to a fishing vessel as a ‘trawler’, when it isn’t, because it doesn’t tow trawl gear, is going to be mistaken about other stuff too. Longliners and Gillnetters are not trawlers.
The ‘Thunder’ was fishing in International waters when attacked by Sea Shepherd, a group accused of marine terrorism. When attacked they left their gillnet and fled, as you do. SS then claimed their net was a danger to the environment. Of course, had SS not attacked them in International [not Australian claimed] waters no net would have been left. The Toothfish boats locked out of the COLTO cartel are Spanish and Chinese. The Aust fishing company that cooperated with SS praised their Toothfish operation and proffered the opinion that it couldn’t be conflated with their ‘other’ alleged criminal activities against Japanese vessels. Of course, they would say that – their company is half owned by Japanese interests. It’s also the successor company to the now defunct Fremantle based KFV and still runs a dozen or so of KFV’s old boats. In the 90s KFV sent a fleet to Burma, bunkering and loading out to Phuket. A decade earlier, the brother of the ‘K’ in KFV built a fleet of boats for the Peoples Pearl and Fishing Co, delivered them to Burma and trained their mariners. Freo Tech even invented a dumbed down Skippers ticket for them, pioneering the dumbed down degrees Aust campuses later designed for overseas students.
Slaves? Thais began fishing mostly Goldband Snapper in the Arafura in the 80s. I knew many of the guys, mostly Thai, some Burmese. Some married local girls around Winata’s processing plant on Tual. Thai and Indon catcher boats loaded out to Chinese, not Thai, motherships. Their biggest base was Port Avona in the BirdsHead of Papua [shut down this year by Susi’s policies putting 2000 out of work], a very large former illegal logging site logged out of Meranti by Jayanti, which proceeded to bring in the Thai and Chinese boats. A decade ago Aust operations in the Arafura detained some of these boats, no crews claimed to be slaves or asked for asylum.
Exploited? Well, yes, of course. And your labour has never been exploited?
The really tragic and avoidable legacy is AIDS. Thai fishermen were the first vector for AIDS in Merauke [and Dobo]. Truckies then took it across the border to PNG. Aust knew and couldn’t care less. The estimable Max Mahuze had told us but AIDAB [then] was more interested in funding deer ranches.
Someone should post a photo and get the protester’s name. Let us check us his claims about his links to the Yale Medical School and file a formal protest with Yale University.
In simple English that should be clear to any Thai, in a red shirt or otherwise, who had been arrested or under investigation, for maliciously repeating or dissiiminating anti-monarchy facts written authoritatively and with impeccable erudition by Chatwadee Rose, “YOU ARE TRULY IN DEEP SHIT” and New Mandala sends you all “Christmas cheers” and “good wishes for a prosperous New Year”.
[…] Indeed, Najib has consolidated his power within the party in the months before the general meeting; Manjit Bhatia at New Mandala estimates that the anti-Najib faction of UMNO members attending the general meeting accounts for less than […]
There are many damning rumours about the Thai monarchy that are probably false, and Rose repeats some of those. The reason why most rumours, both flattering and damning, can’t be refuted is that the monarchy is in many respects a secret organisation with only a propaganda fa├зade. The more open an institution, the less false rumours it attracts. People kept in the dark are more likely to believe the worst. They naturally ask, “What has this mob got to hide?” Combine such extreme lack of candour with the tyrannical lèse majesté law, and the outside world, together with the more worldly, out-of-the-loop Thais, say to themselves, “We are dealing with a bunch of crooks here!”
The last 10 years of political goings-on in Thailand have been a lesson to the world on the dangers of monarchy.
The great advantage of parliamentary government is its openness. Informed people are more likely to trust it. They also see clearly the danger of too much being decided in the secrecy of the cabinet. And when you consider its history, the cabinet is actually a relic of monarchy.
Boon- Rather than wasting your time to ascertain if Rose wrote the article or not, why don’t you tell us if the contents contained therein were inaccurate or untruthful and why. I wouldn’t be surprised that you might be one of the partners who benefits from the Thai monarchy’s so-called “promotional budget” that Thai taxpayers allot some 18,000M Thai bahts each year to promote the king of Thailand. Sadly, such money should have been better used for the poor children of Thailand. And you know what, you are no much to Rose’s simple and passionate article which cost nothing!
The NLD has its work cut out. Demilitarisation of the civil administration or any root and branch reform in order to fight corruption and nepotism will be well nigh impossible especially when the ministry remains in the hands of a military appointee. When it comes to ethnic homelands and borderlands, any deviation from capitulation and collaboration will be treated as seditious.
[…] Indeed, Najib has consolidated his power within the party in the months before the general meeting; Manjit Bhatia at New Mandala estimates that the anti-Najib faction of UMNO members attending the general meeting accounts for less than […]
I can’t help but think that the article itself, as well as the subsequent commentary are comparable to a discussion amongst dinners on the Titanic. By which I mean, the ultra-development of places like Thailand, makes historically based, Eurocentric analysis a tad trite, and not a little academic. Today I now live and work in suburban Bangkok, a place only remotely akin to the place I first visited a decade ago.
The immediate issues facing the people of this country are not at first glance overtly political, mass obesity being one obvious example, but this country like many others is basically an enormous experiment. I fear that it will become post-modern before it has time to fully appreciate the benefits (and learn from the downsides) of modernity. The matter of health care is instructive here, ones natural instinct is to applaud Thaksin and his HC reforms, but as we have so painfully seen in north America and now in Europe, without targeted junk food taxes, one is reduced to trowing good money after bad, as the population becomes fat and chronically ill.
Unemployment amongst lower middle/working class graduates is endemic – I know, I (try to) teach enough of them English. Another canary in the mine from Europe, that capitalism as practiced since WW2 is reaching the end of the line.
Housing developments around me mushroom, as do the banks that fuel this credit led orgy of consumption. The end game is utterly predicable, a re-run on an infinitely larger scale of the crash of ’97.
If one was of an optimistic bent, you could argue that the sheer uniqueness of the place will be it’s salvation, but I fear that the complete failure by the Left in Europe in particular to create alternative models of post-capitalist development means that for once Thailand might genuinely be a outlier for all our world’s to come.
No one at New Mandala had ever been able to engage Rose in any exchange, intellectually or otherwise. Rose posts her rants, New Mandala gleefully prints and any ‘challenge’ to her honesty or credibility are ignored. Somebody challenged to read her to read her own posters and post a video thereof as proof that she could properly pronounce in English what she wrote with exceptional oratorical flourish – ignored, response zilch. Somebody questioned the veracity of her 350 tons of gold she claims the Thai monarchy had amassed along with missing Saudi jewels and the Marcos loot – response nada.
And Rose continues on with her PhD class articulation of her venom directed at the Thai monarchy because a ‘republic’ Thailand had been denied and is why she emigrated to UK and prefers to give her love and devotion to the UK monarchy instead.
David,
Excellent investigative documentary into the slave labour, beating and murder by the Thai fishing industry and the reason it hasn’t stopped.
The identification of a known murderer as well as the owner of the company involved, would, in any other country cause massive protests and calls for charges to be lade, boats siezed and slaves released….but This is Thailand and everyone knows about it but are too scared to say anything for fear of the military, police or public servants controlled by the amart paying a visit to your house in the middle of the night.
This is the way Thailand has been for years and I see no change unless either the EU or US blacklist the companies involved and refuse to sell their produce.
I can’t see any change happening in the near future and each time the military take control Thailand stays in/on Groundhog Day.
Thank you for posting the video, perhaps Dr. Racheal Rudolph would like to pass comment or even the Policy Forum?
For further perspective on this systemic issue, and the situation at just one provincial fishing harbour in Trang, the Environmental Justice Foundation have recently released a short film and accompanying report:
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Turning the tide on Thailand’s human trafficking
James,
Thank you for the link. I posted earlier that it was 4 Corners which made the investigative documentary, where they revealed the site of the still undiscovered bodies of slaves murdered in custody, but you are correct it was ABC’s 7.30 program with the help of Phuketwan which did the report.
So far the local Thai rags have not reported the “defection” of its ex chief investigator to seak political asylum in Australia. If I know the Thais they will just ignore the whole thing or become totally vindictive and concoct charges against the ex police general and demand Australia repatriate him to Thailand.
There’s a lot more to this story than has been revealed here and it will take either the EU or US to stop it and we’ll still never know the full facts.
Turning the tide on Thailand’s human trafficking
‘..their “stock” of illegal slave labour held on islands off Indonesia.’
Without wishing to minimise the allegations of abuse in Thailand, the Indonesian allegations are a big beat up. Any media report that refers to a fishing vessel as a ‘trawler’, when it isn’t, because it doesn’t tow trawl gear, is going to be mistaken about other stuff too. Longliners and Gillnetters are not trawlers.
The ‘Thunder’ was fishing in International waters when attacked by Sea Shepherd, a group accused of marine terrorism. When attacked they left their gillnet and fled, as you do. SS then claimed their net was a danger to the environment. Of course, had SS not attacked them in International [not Australian claimed] waters no net would have been left. The Toothfish boats locked out of the COLTO cartel are Spanish and Chinese. The Aust fishing company that cooperated with SS praised their Toothfish operation and proffered the opinion that it couldn’t be conflated with their ‘other’ alleged criminal activities against Japanese vessels. Of course, they would say that – their company is half owned by Japanese interests. It’s also the successor company to the now defunct Fremantle based KFV and still runs a dozen or so of KFV’s old boats. In the 90s KFV sent a fleet to Burma, bunkering and loading out to Phuket. A decade earlier, the brother of the ‘K’ in KFV built a fleet of boats for the Peoples Pearl and Fishing Co, delivered them to Burma and trained their mariners. Freo Tech even invented a dumbed down Skippers ticket for them, pioneering the dumbed down degrees Aust campuses later designed for overseas students.
Slaves? Thais began fishing mostly Goldband Snapper in the Arafura in the 80s. I knew many of the guys, mostly Thai, some Burmese. Some married local girls around Winata’s processing plant on Tual. Thai and Indon catcher boats loaded out to Chinese, not Thai, motherships. Their biggest base was Port Avona in the BirdsHead of Papua [shut down this year by Susi’s policies putting 2000 out of work], a very large former illegal logging site logged out of Meranti by Jayanti, which proceeded to bring in the Thai and Chinese boats. A decade ago Aust operations in the Arafura detained some of these boats, no crews claimed to be slaves or asked for asylum.
Exploited? Well, yes, of course. And your labour has never been exploited?
The really tragic and avoidable legacy is AIDS. Thai fishermen were the first vector for AIDS in Merauke [and Dobo]. Truckies then took it across the border to PNG. Aust knew and couldn’t care less. The estimable Max Mahuze had told us but AIDAB [then] was more interested in funding deer ranches.
What is “Islamism”?
Pearshaped,
It is:
Castigat mores risum. And I am indeed.
On this one, I am afraid, old boy, the wagon fell off you. Remember about glass houses and if the shoe fits.
Public lectures and protecting the King
Someone should post a photo and get the protester’s name. Let us check us his claims about his links to the Yale Medical School and file a formal protest with Yale University.
What is “Islamism”?
Islam is a serious issue so Charlie Hebdo et al must not lampoon the Prophet
Islam is a serious issue so one must not lampoon the writings of C.Kessler.
Castigat ridendo mores.
Public lectures and protecting the King
Very revealing transcript of Thailand Ultra-Royalist Taliban-like fanaticism and hatred….and near total intolerance…
The last king of Thailand?
In simple English that should be clear to any Thai, in a red shirt or otherwise, who had been arrested or under investigation, for maliciously repeating or dissiiminating anti-monarchy facts written authoritatively and with impeccable erudition by Chatwadee Rose, “YOU ARE TRULY IN DEEP SHIT” and New Mandala sends you all “Christmas cheers” and “good wishes for a prosperous New Year”.
Spectre of the past
it’s just like the the Prime Noble peace Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo said…we can forgive but we cant forget….all the pain is still exist till today…..
Turning the tide on Thailand’s human trafficking
Hi Bernie and others
Please see a link to a report on ABC’s ‘7.30’ program that may be of interest:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4370088.htm
Malaysia’s slide into the UMNO abyss
[…] Indeed, Najib has consolidated his power within the party in the months before the general meeting; Manjit Bhatia at New Mandala estimates that the anti-Najib faction of UMNO members attending the general meeting accounts for less than […]
Public lectures and protecting the King
Yale needs to review their representatives….
Presumably an educated man, just the kind that Thailand does not need. Unfortunately the country has too many already.
The last king of Thailand?
There are many damning rumours about the Thai monarchy that are probably false, and Rose repeats some of those. The reason why most rumours, both flattering and damning, can’t be refuted is that the monarchy is in many respects a secret organisation with only a propaganda fa├зade. The more open an institution, the less false rumours it attracts. People kept in the dark are more likely to believe the worst. They naturally ask, “What has this mob got to hide?” Combine such extreme lack of candour with the tyrannical lèse majesté law, and the outside world, together with the more worldly, out-of-the-loop Thais, say to themselves, “We are dealing with a bunch of crooks here!”
The last 10 years of political goings-on in Thailand have been a lesson to the world on the dangers of monarchy.
The great advantage of parliamentary government is its openness. Informed people are more likely to trust it. They also see clearly the danger of too much being decided in the secrecy of the cabinet. And when you consider its history, the cabinet is actually a relic of monarchy.
The last king of Thailand?
Boon- Rather than wasting your time to ascertain if Rose wrote the article or not, why don’t you tell us if the contents contained therein were inaccurate or untruthful and why. I wouldn’t be surprised that you might be one of the partners who benefits from the Thai monarchy’s so-called “promotional budget” that Thai taxpayers allot some 18,000M Thai bahts each year to promote the king of Thailand. Sadly, such money should have been better used for the poor children of Thailand. And you know what, you are no much to Rose’s simple and passionate article which cost nothing!
Dealing with militarisation in Myanmar
The NLD has its work cut out. Demilitarisation of the civil administration or any root and branch reform in order to fight corruption and nepotism will be well nigh impossible especially when the ministry remains in the hands of a military appointee. When it comes to ethnic homelands and borderlands, any deviation from capitulation and collaboration will be treated as seditious.
Malaysia’s slide into the UMNO abyss
[…] Indeed, Najib has consolidated his power within the party in the months before the general meeting; Manjit Bhatia at New Mandala estimates that the anti-Najib faction of UMNO members attending the general meeting accounts for less than […]
Still better than Thaksin?
I can’t help but think that the article itself, as well as the subsequent commentary are comparable to a discussion amongst dinners on the Titanic. By which I mean, the ultra-development of places like Thailand, makes historically based, Eurocentric analysis a tad trite, and not a little academic. Today I now live and work in suburban Bangkok, a place only remotely akin to the place I first visited a decade ago.
The immediate issues facing the people of this country are not at first glance overtly political, mass obesity being one obvious example, but this country like many others is basically an enormous experiment. I fear that it will become post-modern before it has time to fully appreciate the benefits (and learn from the downsides) of modernity. The matter of health care is instructive here, ones natural instinct is to applaud Thaksin and his HC reforms, but as we have so painfully seen in north America and now in Europe, without targeted junk food taxes, one is reduced to trowing good money after bad, as the population becomes fat and chronically ill.
Unemployment amongst lower middle/working class graduates is endemic – I know, I (try to) teach enough of them English. Another canary in the mine from Europe, that capitalism as practiced since WW2 is reaching the end of the line.
Housing developments around me mushroom, as do the banks that fuel this credit led orgy of consumption. The end game is utterly predicable, a re-run on an infinitely larger scale of the crash of ’97.
If one was of an optimistic bent, you could argue that the sheer uniqueness of the place will be it’s salvation, but I fear that the complete failure by the Left in Europe in particular to create alternative models of post-capitalist development means that for once Thailand might genuinely be a outlier for all our world’s to come.
The last king of Thailand?
No one at New Mandala had ever been able to engage Rose in any exchange, intellectually or otherwise. Rose posts her rants, New Mandala gleefully prints and any ‘challenge’ to her honesty or credibility are ignored. Somebody challenged to read her to read her own posters and post a video thereof as proof that she could properly pronounce in English what she wrote with exceptional oratorical flourish – ignored, response zilch. Somebody questioned the veracity of her 350 tons of gold she claims the Thai monarchy had amassed along with missing Saudi jewels and the Marcos loot – response nada.
And Rose continues on with her PhD class articulation of her venom directed at the Thai monarchy because a ‘republic’ Thailand had been denied and is why she emigrated to UK and prefers to give her love and devotion to the UK monarchy instead.
Right R.N.England?
Turning the tide on Thailand’s human trafficking
David,
Excellent investigative documentary into the slave labour, beating and murder by the Thai fishing industry and the reason it hasn’t stopped.
The identification of a known murderer as well as the owner of the company involved, would, in any other country cause massive protests and calls for charges to be lade, boats siezed and slaves released….but This is Thailand and everyone knows about it but are too scared to say anything for fear of the military, police or public servants controlled by the amart paying a visit to your house in the middle of the night.
This is the way Thailand has been for years and I see no change unless either the EU or US blacklist the companies involved and refuse to sell their produce.
I can’t see any change happening in the near future and each time the military take control Thailand stays in/on Groundhog Day.
Thank you for posting the video, perhaps Dr. Racheal Rudolph would like to pass comment or even the Policy Forum?
Turning the tide on Thailand’s human trafficking
So, Emjay, why the rather childish (petulant?)little comment: “As I’m sure most NM readers…”
Turning the tide on Thailand’s human trafficking
For further perspective on this systemic issue, and the situation at just one provincial fishing harbour in Trang, the Environmental Justice Foundation have recently released a short film and accompanying report:
http://ejfoundation.org/video/thailands-seafood-slaves