Whilst the military junta have been reasonably diligent in their goals of working to restore peace in the south of Thailand and chasing the ousted PM on corruption allegations, there can be little doubt that the army have continued a long standing tradition of taking care of their own.
My point? Well the recent tit for tat diplomatic squabble between Thailand and Singapore - initially caused by Thailand's objections to Singapore welcoming ex - PM Thaksin to a conference on their land - reached a pinnacle this week when the minister for IT began disseminating bizarre warnings that "Telephone conversations are being tapped" and "Private telephone conversations are being relayed to telecommunications companies in Singapore".
This ambiguous and innocuous set of claims seemed to heap paranoia on the already strained relations between the countries and served to increase annoyance and distrust amongst the working class, easily influenced and partisan working class group of Thais.
Less than a week later, the junta have declared their intention to fund a billion bhat satellite project to "increase national security".
What a coincidence , eh?
***************
This weekend I welcomed two friends over to Bangkok. Neither of them were first timers, in fact they had both been over three times each before. You see, there's something about Thailand that people struggle to let go from. No doubt the female inhabitants have a great temptation, but there is more, The beaches, the food, the shopping . Thailand fever is contagious, beware!
Monday, January 22, 2007
You heard it here first
Labels:
bank of thailand,
diplomatic relations,
junta,
phone tapping,
satellite,
singapore
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1 comment:
You have a great blog on Thailand.
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