EDITORIAL

Sweep it under the carpet and no one will notice

The Nation

There is no political will to bring an end to the southern insurgency because our leaders see it as localised and manageable, despite daily deaths

BANGKOK: -- For a man who seems reluctant to go to the deep South, Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung always succeeds in getting himself associated with developments in the restive region. Chalerm shoots himself in the foot with some off-the-wall statements about how the conflict could be resolved and how others have got it all wrong.

Often, while trying to calm the media and the public in his capacity as the government's security boss, Chalerm seems to be unaware of certain security matters, nationally and internationally. The fact that he is one of Thailand's top security chiefs makes this a point of concern.

Chalerm has a response to everything, even on how the conflict in the Malay-speaking South should be reported. In fact, if he had it his way, it wouldn't be reported at all - at least not accurately, anyway.

With regard to the conflict in the Muslim-majority deep South, Chalerm last month said something along the lines that if the media stopped presenting news about the insurgent violence, the situation would improve.

While it may be true that conflict and insurgency are "communicative actions" and that insurgents may rely on the media to propagate "information warfare", the trouble in Thailand's deep South is nowhere near that point. The theatre of violence remains in the three southernmost provinces, and much of the violence appears to be tit-for-tat between the security forces and the insurgents.

And because the conflict remains localised, Thai policy-makers and national leaders remain half-hearted about formulating a bold and meaningful policy to change the situation for fear that it will cost them political capital.

One can also say that the Malay-Muslim insurgents have failed to demonstrate to the Thai state that its national security is at stake. This explains why policy-makers continue to treat it as a regional matter.

But let's not bark up the wrong tree. We should look at the problem for what it is.

Just recently Chalerm announced that he would be visiting Malaysia and Indonesia to seek their assistance in resolving the conflict in the South. Let's hope he doesn't come up with promises that he or the country cannot keep.

Chalerm has also picked on a recently released report by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) that ranked Thailand eighth in a global peace index of 158 countries affected by terrorism.

Chalerm immediately assumed that the IEP didn't know the difference between ongoing political protests and the conflict in the Malay-speaking South, and that the report may have combined the two problems to come up with an exaggerated figure and global ranking.

With regard to reports in the Western media quoting Western intelligence agencies linking a stockpile of chemicals discovered in Thailand in January 2012 to Hezbollah, Chalerm dismissed any suggestion that Thailand might be a hub for terrorists, or even just a place visited by members of international terrorist organisations. He spoke as if the country is not part of this world, geographically anyway. His explanation was that Thailand is a Buddhist country and we don't take sides because we're friends with everybody.

Remember how the Thaksin Shinawatra government said the same thing over and over in 2003, and then all of a sudden Riduan Issamudin - also known as "Hambali", the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombing - was arrested in Ayutthaya? It was also revealed later that Hambali and his associates made their way to Bangkok, where they cooked up the plan for the Bali attack.

Chalerm doesn't have to look too far back to learn from the past to understand what happened.

Sadly, what is lacking from him and others is the political will and courage to call a spade a spade. And so they think they can get away with insulting the intelligence of the general public - the very people who put their trust in them to look after our national security.

-- The Nation 2013-01-09

Let's hope he doesn't come up with promises that he or the country cannot keep.

Thats what this man is best at.

Chalerm shoots himself in the foot with some off-the-wall statements

He is an expert in this as well.

Edited January 9, 201313 yr by dcutman

I was going to suggest dealing with the terror and violence in the south was above Chalerms ability.willingness and paygrade.Which of these three would you agree is so?

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Let's hope he doesn't come up with promises that he or the country cannot keep.

Thats what this man is best at.

Chalerm shoots himself in the foot with some off-the-wall statements

He is an expert in this as well.

Maybe Duang can teach him to aim better.

Thais are great at "sweeping it under the carpet." Look at the way that they sweep blatant sex trade tourism and monetizing of sex under the carpet. Thais act as if the sex trade doesn't exist and that it's not a part of their culture. They believe what they'd like to believe rather than what is really the case.

Thais think the whole world doesn't know that they "sweep everything under" Look at the way they flaunt the law with impunity, the rich elite, privileged ones. Look at the way that the police sweep things under the carpet as long as they are compensated properly.

Thais are great at "sweeping it under the carpet." Look at the way that they sweep blatant sex trade tourism and monetizing of sex under the carpet. Thais act as if the sex trade doesn't exist and that it's not a part of their culture. They believe what they'd like to believe rather than what is really the case.

Thais think the whole world doesn't know that they "sweep everything under" Look at the way they flaunt the law with impunity, the rich elite, privileged ones. Look at the way that the police sweep things under the carpet as long as they are compensated properly.

Sweeping things under the carpet is indeed part of Thai culture, from what I observe, no one learns from the mistakes, they just keep making the same one over and over again.

The conflict down south is little known around the globe IMHO, if it were tourism would be badly hit. No one in authority wants to recognize the situation for what it is let alone try and deal with it. Whilst I recognize its not an easy issue to deal with, governments are elected to run the country and someone need to address this one before it comes further up country, if it gets to Phuket the genie will be out of the bottle.

They'll need a bloody big carpet.

I'd say we covered this subject yesterday, now we are like the politicians going around in circles, I think we established that this was no easy fix and probably will never be sorted out while a Thai politicians are sticking their noses in , to do any good they need to speak to the people concerned, at grass roots level, that ain't going to happen, as i said yesterday , while they seem to be doing something when really doing nothing at all.

I was going to suggest dealing with the terror and violence in the south was above Chalerms ability.willingness and paygrade.Which of these three would you agree is so?

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Ability..... everything else about him is about money...

Thais are great at "sweeping it under the carpet." Look at the way that they sweep blatant sex trade tourism and monetizing of sex under the carpet. Thais act as if the sex trade doesn't exist and that it's not a part of their culture. They believe what they'd like to believe rather than what is really the case.

Thais think the whole world doesn't know that they "sweep everything under" Look at the way they flaunt the law with impunity, the rich elite, privileged ones. Look at the way that the police sweep things under the carpet as long as they are compensated properly.

And all of the mysterious tourists deaths...!! And the deaths of locals as well ran over by rich kids out on a night of fun...! Anybody hear anything more about Red Bull? No of course not ... also swept under the carpet ///

They'll need a bloody big carpet.

They can always use the hangars at Don Muang, at least the ones not being used to store all the rice that has been bought and can't be sold