Thai corruption: the theory and practice.

Disregarding traffice rules; dealing in contraband goods; civil servants' and politicians getting away with fraud.   Typical transgressions that need fixing, said Thailand's new Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, yesterday at a talk he gave in Nonthaburi on the rule of law. And they need to be fixed before the country can move forward......... Oh yeah? Haven't we heard all that before?  The Prime Minister has good looks; a sweet tongue;  talks about change and often gets compared with Barack Obama.  But that isn't enough.  Only today, in the Bangkok Post, there are three examples of fraud that the government needs to set to rights if it really wants to wipe out graft and corruption in Thailand.......... 

The first is the Santika nightclub fire on New Year's Day that killed 66 people.  There were lots of corrupt practices going on there.  All of them caused the inferno.  The most serious is the claim that Police Colonel Prayout Lasua bought shares in the nighclub on Sepember 17 2006.  Up to that time the police had laid charges against he pub 47 times for operating wihout a licence.  Then, they stopped!  I wonder why.   The guy who signed in as the managing director turned out to be a parking asttendsant!  The pub's executives have now been arrested for operating without a licence, selling alcohol at prohibited times, not paying excise, signage, land OR  income taxes for five years.  The nightclub's owner also changed the building's use without permission  and failed the proper safety inspections.  And the signatures of the engineers that designed the building and organised its construction were falsified.  Lastly, the panel investigating this fire criticised government officials for colluding in all this. 

Quite a neat textbook example of how businesses get away with murder!

The second example is the claim by e 400 or so Rohingya refugees that the ISOC, a "shadowy wing of the armed forces" (Bangkok Post) roughed them up, threw four of them overboard with their hands tied up, and set them out to sea in a rickety boat with no engine and not enough food and water for them to survive.  The Prime Minister has so far made all the right noises about these abuses.  'We must investigate;  we must ensure it does not happen again;  it is totally unacceptable;  we will not tolerate violence and abuse'.........those kinds of noises.  Blah, blahg, and blah again, onk, onk and more onk-onk.

But will he - can  he - change things?  Physical abuse of undocumened migrants ha been going on in Thailand for years. 

Everyone knows about it.  Some talk about it. Many actively support it.  Nobody lifts a finger to change it.  And Thailand's military denies it. So it stays the same.

But the Prime Minister is in a fix about it.  As the Sydney Morning Herald points out:  the PM 'certainly owes his commanders big favours'.   Before he got appointed, the army consistently under-mined the previous two PMs by ignoring instructions to tackle the Government House and the airport occupations.  Indeed, the Prime Minister owes his very appointment to the behind-the-scenes support of the armed forces. To make matters worse, Colonel Manas Kongpan, the ISOC Chief responsible for the Rohingya fiasco, has previous form.  In 2004, he was found by a court to be directly responsible for the eath of 30 Muslim men  sheltering in Pattani's Kru Se mosque after fighting broke out with soldiers.  That time, he got away with it. 

So what, if anything, will the Prime Minister do?  Does he have the bottle to pursue the Colonel?  I doubt it.

The third bit of graft comes from THAI Airways, yet again.  They're accused of giving over generous benefits to the THAI board members, and bumping off ordinary, paying customers when VIPs want seats for themselves and their cronies.  Pretty small change really.  But it shows how entrenched corruption is in Thailand.

While corruption is widespread in this country, Thailand does not rate that highly in Transparency International's World Corruption Index compared to, say, India or China.  Their graft, bribery, and corruption is big, big stuff.

But that is irrelevant to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.  Now is the time for tough action.

YES, WE CAN?  We wait.  We watch!

POST SCRIPT:  It was announced late today that the job of managing the Rohungya refugees arriving on the Thai coast is being taken away from the army and given to the police service (the two serrvices are always at loggerheads with each other).  This time, the police (who are notoriously corrupt) are being careful to look after the immediate needs of the refugees:  some of them have been taken to hospital  Clearly, Abhisit Vejjajiva has been stung by the international criticism over the army's handing of this!  Will the issue ever be tackled head on?  What a stupid question:  this is Thailand!

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