Thai sea police claim 'self defence' after deadly Vietnam fishermen clash

[webfact]

Thai sea police claim 'self defence' after deadly Vietnam fishermen clash
BY MAI NGUYEN AND PANARAT THEPGUMPANAT

HANOI/BANGKOK: -- Thai marine police said they opened fire on a Vietnamese fishing boat while trying to intercept another vessel in waters near Malaysia last week, a clash Vietnamese state media said killed a fisherman and wounded two others.

Officials from the two countries were quoted on Wednesday giving starkly different accounts of the incident and Vietnamese Communist Party media said it could eventually be addressed at a diplomatic level.

Vietnamese fishing boats, which number an estimated 128,000, have repeatedly clashed with Chinese vessels in the disputed South China Sea, but incidents involving Thai boats are infrequent.

Thai maritime police chief, Major General Grittapol Yeesakhorn, said he was unaware of casualties and police were protecting themselves when their boat was surrounded by hostile Vietnamese vessels trying to ram their boat on Friday.

Full story: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/09/16/uk-vietnam-thailand-clash-idUKKCN0RG21P20150916


-- Reuters 2015-09-17

[NextStationBangkok]

Police should prove this with video!

[a99az]

Police should prove this with video!

And where would they find such a boat to use in the film?

[Prbkk]

More proof those submarines are an urgent need.

[NCC1701A]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

[carbine1125]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

Possibly they would do better than the yanks did when they last went.

[Misterwhisper]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

Yup, they could finally put that rusting aircraft carrier to effective use, scuttling and sinking it in the Chao Phraya estuary to prevent Vietnamese PT boats from reaching Bangkok.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Misterwhisper

[kuiburi]

Most fishermen that go out to sea are armed with AK47 or M16 , rough world out there .

[oldsailor35]

More proof those submarines are an urgent need.

Yes , and a couple of aircraft carriers.

[pedro01]

Submarines would fix this....

[gandalf12]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

Vietnam 5 - Thailand 0

[Muirton]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

Likewise, yes?, with Cambodia over the temple. Let's see what happens.

[Briggsy]

The Vietnamese have a long history of brutal treatment at the hand of the Thais in the Gulf of Thailand, both at the hands of state officials and state-condoned rape and murder.

http://www.vietka.com/Vietnamese_Boat_People/HorribleStatistics.htm

We could be seeing the start of a bizarre switch of the previous Indochinese military conflict in which Thailand and Vietnam face off as proxy foes for the U.S. and China but now on different sides. (Cambodia and Laos get battered whatever side they are on)

[trainman34014]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

Possibly they would do better than the yanks did when they last went.

Doubtful; as the Thai Army was there last time too !

[Muirton]

The Vietnamese have a long history of brutal treatment at the hand of the Thais in the Gulf of Thailand, both at the hands of state officials and state-condoned rape and murder.

http://www.vietka.com/Vietnamese_Boat_People/HorribleStatistics.htm

We could be seeing the start of a bizarre switch of the previous Indochinese military conflict in which Thailand and Vietnam face off as proxy foes for the U.S. and China but now on different sides. (Cambodia and Laos get battered whatever side they are on)

Thailand siding with the ChiComms? With friends like these, who needs enemas?

[EnglishJohn]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

Possibly they would do better than the yanks did when they last went.

They lost because the North did not have to listen to public opinion.

Same reason they are losing against ISIS.

[manarak]

the article in the OP is full of inconsistencies

how could Thai police "steal a gun" in Thai waters?

how could Thai police be "in breach of Vietnamese Law" in Thai waters ?

40Km off Narathiwat, that's 200 seamiles (=350 Km) from Vietnam's closest shore, so that means these waters are clearly Thai or Malaysian. The Viets had nothing to lose there.

[ggt]

The Vietnamese are very aggressive and assertive...there are no border fences extending out into the sea...patrolling a country's seas is a daunting task at best...more clashes to come...

[erobando]

The Vietnamese have a long history of brutal treatment at the hand of the Thais in the Gulf of Thailand, both at the hands of state officials and state-condoned rape and murder.

http://www.vietka.com/Vietnamese_Boat_People/HorribleStatistics.htm

We could be seeing the start of a bizarre switch of the previous Indochinese military conflict in which Thailand and Vietnam face off as proxy foes for the U.S. and China but now on different sides. (Cambodia and Laos get battered whatever side they are on)

Except not that much of a switch.

After the 1960's Sino-Soviet split, Vietnam was alligned primarily with the Soviet Union and Thailand (backed by the West) had always been alligned with China in the regional power struggle (e.g., the Civil War in Cambodia).

I doubt that this will result in violence between Thailand and Vietnam... they both are more interested in mutual economic interests.

But stronger US allignment/cooperation with Vietnam will continue given Vietnam's centuries-old mistrust of China and the US's view of strong SE Asian nations as a counterbalance to China.

[gandalf12]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

Possibly they would do better than the yanks did when they last went.

Was the USA at war with Vietnam? They shot more Americans that Vietnamese. I thought it was a Civil War of the US

[arrowsdawdle]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

Well, Vietnam has defeated incursions by Japan, France, and the USA, while Thailand has gunned down its own citizens in free fire zones. Smart money is on VN.

[speedtripler]

Police should prove this with video!

And where would they find such a boat to use in the film?

any boat equipped with machine guns could easily be equipped with cameras .........but then we wouldnt know

if the thai police were lying ................or not

[PaPiPuPePo]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

Possibly they would do better than the yanks did when they last went.

Oh most definitely, any other country in the world would have prevailed in Vietnam. Yep, no doubt. If you're indeed an Aussie or Brit and since you're obviously an expert on military matters, do you want to explain roughly how the Aus or Brit military would have defeated the NVA/VC on their own soil? Warn me at the top so I put my coffee down before reading your post!

[PaPiPuPePo]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

Possibly they would do better than the yanks did when they last went.

Was the USA at war with Vietnam? They shot more Americans that Vietnamese. I thought it was a Civil War of the US

VZF are you talking about? 58,000 Americans died in that war, 2.5-3 million Vietnamese.

[Thai at Heart]

Thailand, go to war with Vietnam. Lets see what happens.

Possibly they would do better than the yanks did when they last went.

I doubt it.

[webfact]

Police chief insists shooting of Vietnamese fishing crews in the high sea an act of self-defence



BANGKOK: -- The national police chief has defended a recent high-sea shooting incident in which one Vietnamese fishing crew was killed and two others injured by Thai marine police as an act of self defence.

Pol Gen Somyot Poompanmoung said the tragic incident took place in the high sea in the Thai territorial waters on September 11 when a Thai marine police intercepted a Vietnamese fishing boat illegally fishing in the Thai waters.

According to the police chief, the Thai marine police then went aboard the Vietnamese fishing boat to make arrests but some of the Vietnamese crews radioed the other Vietnamese fishing boats in the area to come to their rescue.

The arriving fishing crews tried to assault the Thai police in order to free their men prompting the police to shoot at the group.

Pol Gen Somyot insisted that the marine police had no intention to kill or injure the Vietnamese fishing crews but merely wanted to defend themselves. However, he promised that the case would be investigated for the fairness of all concerned.

An informed marine police said similar incident occurred about two years ago and one marine policeman went missing and has not been located since then.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/police-chief-insists-shooting-of-vietnamese-fishing-crews-in-the-high-sea-an-act-of-self-defence


-- Thai PBS 2015-09-18

[speedtripler]

fairness.......lol

[Briggsy]

If Somyot insists it is true, then it mustn't be.

[simosiam]

the article in the OP is full of inconsistencies

how could Thai police "steal a gun" in Thai waters?

how could Thai police be "in breach of Vietnamese Law" in Thai waters ?

40Km off Narathiwat, that's 200 seamiles (=350 Km) from Vietnam's closest shore, so that means these waters are clearly Thai or Malaysian. The Viets had nothing to lose there.

over 12 marine miles from shore are intended international waters and 40 kms offshore are well over national waters.

[Fat Haggis]

40kms is 21 nautical miles, if this was 40kms from land its international waters . 12 miles is recognised as "territorial waters" although some nations argue their waters extend further, the Somalis for example.

Beyond territorial you have contiguous for another 12NM and he exclusive economic zone extends to 200NM , the incident would have happens within Thais economic zone, would be interesting to get the Lat and Long of the location and see what zone it happened

Edited September 18, 2015 by Fat Haggis