Thaksin needs to drop "CEO" approach for troubled south: Surin

SINGAPORE: The Thai government must abandon its "CEO approach" to domestic affairs in order to ease rising tensions in the country's south, former Thai foreign affairs minister Surin Pitsuwan says.

Speaking at a panel discussion here on the conflicts in Thailand, Surin said the current system of top-down policy implementation was alienating the south, home to most of the country's minority Muslim community.

"The CEO knows everything, the CEO knows best, the CEO doesn't need anybody to help," Surin, now an opposition MP, said in reference to Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

With "conceived-in-Bangkok policies implemented the way Bangkok sees fit, (no) opportunities for channels of communication, of checks, of balance, of contribution, you have a problem on the ground."

Insensitive remarks by Thaksin and brash policies that ignore Islamic concerns have also given rise to anxiety and a sense of displacement among Thai Muslims, he said.

"You see a clash of values, you see a clash of culture, or I even venture to say a cosmological clash, because the vision is different."

The vice-chairman of the non-violence committee of Thailand's National Security Council, Mark Tamthai, also expressed concern over government policy, saying there needed to be a "complete rethinking" of national security.

"What we need to do is move away from seeing national security as a purely military and police matter and understand the various other dimensions of what it means to bring security to people," he said.

"Thailand has to accept the reality that Thailand is a multinational state, and prepare all the political accommodations that go with such a state."

Tamthai and Surin agreed the US-led global war on terror had helped fuel the conflict in Thailand's south.

Tamthai said the war on terror gave "a home to people who use violence", while Surin said the escalating tensions in Thailand arose from the minority's sense of solidarity with the victims of war.

"Footage on TV, images from Afghanistan, from Pakistan, from Iraq... has made the war on terrorism more complicated in Southeast Asia because people in the south of Thailand have felt the injustice," Surin said.

"And these people have very little education, very little prospect for betterment in life and living in this way, feeling strong solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the Muslim world, they share the pain, they share the anxiety."

Thailand's south has endured decades of separatist violence, but after a period of relative peace, trouble flared at the start of this year with bombings and murders targeting officials, security forces and Buddhist monks.

The violence reached a peak on April 28, when 108 suspected Muslim rebels were killed when they launched raids on police posts and checkpoints.

Thaksin, a self-made billionaire who founded a telecommunications empire before entering politics, swept to office on an electoral landslide in 2001 promising to use his CEO style of management to reform Thai politics.

-- AFP 2004-06-08

mmm, at least somebody has a brain in the thai governement ?

mmm, at least somebody has a brain in the thai governement ?

Sorry - he's in Parliament, but he's in Opposition.

Thaksin needs to drop "CEO" approach for troubled south: Surin

I'd suggest restating this headline when one is seriously interested in progress.

Thailand needs to drop Thaksin...

"You see a clash of values, you see a clash of culture, or I even venture to say a cosmological clash, because the vision is different."

Is this not the quote of the week?

Thailand needs to drop Thaksin...

Correct....

Big Jiew and the "little man" were embarressing enough for Thailand but that was before Thaksin arrived on the scene.

He is seen as a joke both in Thailand and in the rest of the thinking world.

BUT when you have serious money as he has anything is possible.

He will win the next election (albiet with a lesser number of seats) but he will be around to haunt everyone for a while yet.