Crucial among these realities is that the nonsensical official pronouncements that pass for truth under the Leninist People's Action Party (PAP) dictatorship do not hold water in freer settings.

Chan charges in his letter that opposition candidate James Gomez "sought to deceive the Election Department" about having filed certain paperwork. This charge is a serious one. Gomez has said that his claim to have filed paperwork when he had not done so was an honest, terrible mistake. He has apologised for this mistake. If Chan and the PAP despots have evidence that Gomez's claim was in fact wilfully deceitful, they should file charges against him and offer him the chance to defend himself in open court, with the benefit of counsel. Certainly, Singapore's famously "pliant judiciary" would deliver up the requisite verdict of "guilty" against Gomez. Instead, after flamboyantly preventing Gomez from leaving the country and interrogating him for many hours, the PAP's police henchmen have declined to charge him formally.

Chan says that "there is nothing to prevent Singaporeans from speaking out" and that the island's media "gave full coverage" to recent large opposition rallies. More nonsense, or rather lies. As in any dictatorship, so in PAP Singapore: a shrewdly developed climate of fear, fortified by the hyperactivity of the dictatorship's sinister Internal Security Department, does much to keep ordinary Singaporeans quiet. Add to that the PAP state's prohibition of films that touch on domestic politics and of Internet podcasts to publicise political parties' platforms. Finally, even the most cursory glance at Singaporean blogs during the recent campaign season revealed strong criticisms of the regime-controlled print and broadcast media's skewed electoral coverage.

"Singapore does not hold itself out at a model for any other country," Chan writes. How then to explain its explicit, ultimately disastrous effort to export "the Singapore system" to China, in the form of a failed industrial park at Suzhou? Or the energetic work of the regime-sponsored Singapore International Foundation to expose the youth of other Southeast Asian countries to the blessings of Singapore's white-shirted fascism while on educational exchange? Or the fact that Kishore Mahbubani, former permanent secretary of Chan's own ministry, now serves as dean of a new, preposterously named "Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy"? With its faculty hiring vetted by "Minister Mentor" Lee himself and with the clear goal the training of the Asian apparatchiks of the future, this school is about nothing so much as the export of post-1965 Singapore's reprobate political values.

Poor old Chan has drunk so much of the PAP's Kool-Aid that he really seems to think that "the foreign media" propose "an idealised liberal democracy … as the universal solution to mankind's problems". Perhaps during his service here in Thailand he will realise that the opposite is true. A liberal political climate is far from ideal, in this world of flawed humanity. But it holds out, more than any alternative, the possibility of self-correction, of calling attention to injustice visited upon the weak the strong and despotic, and of at least some progress toward the unrealisable ideal state that reflects the best in our natures. Food for thought for Chan - and for the Thais whose once and future prime minister is admirer, crony, and tool of the regime that Chan represents.

Uan Na Thap Thiang

Bangkok

-------------------------------

Ambassador's response has sinister portents

 Re: "Singapore's political system works for Singaporeans", Letters, May 19.

I see we have the Singaporean Ambassador popping up like a jack in the box, if somewhat belatedly, to object to your well written editorial of May 12 ("Show of spirit in Singapore") that pointed out amongst other things, the corrupt practices of the People's Action Party (PAP) in trying to bribe voters with promises of cash and to suppress any opposition by financial or any other bullying means. Strangely he sought not to address any of those important points but concentrated instead on the case of the hapless James Gomez, who seems to have attracted a disproportionate whirlwind of venom and malevolence from the Singaporean ruling elite.

But we must, I fear, treat this letter with the same disregard as his excellency's previous discredited missive of January 18 ("Singaporean media are not controlled by the government"), when he asserted the freedom of the Singaporean press. That tissue of nonsense was addressed by a letter pointing out the true state of affairs: that the Singaporean press was rated, in freedom terms, 140th out of 167 worldwide.

However, what I did find rather sinister, and it is presumably said with the clear blessing of his masters in Singapore, was his statement: "But it [the Singaporean political system] will not conform to an idealised liberal democracy touted by foreign media as the universal solution to mankind's problems".

The future is I fear, not bright for what at least the civilised and enlightened world calls democracy in Singapore.

John de Laurent

Bangkok

-------------------------

Tourists charged more but get little for their money

 The disgraceful practice of charging white-skinned people 10 times more to enter Thailand's very ordinary national parks has already been discussed on this page this week. It's unlikely to change in the near future, given the short-sighted tendency of anyone, government or otherwise, involved in the local tourist industry to get away with whatever scam they can while they can. However, visitors, regardless of race, are entitled to ask what exactly they get for their money.

In the 10 years I've been going to Koh Samet, in theory a national park, the place has deteriorated sadly, though there is a nice new sign just past the gate where the park officers are, from time to time, forced to interrupt their eating, card-playing and reading, to grab the cash from tourists. The sign announces that visitors have just entered paradise on earth, but the trash strewn around the beach is the same, and the roads and tracks are more eroded than ever, with electricity cables looped through the stunted bush at neck height and exposed, leaking water pipes set just where you are most likely to trip on them.

Of course there is the wildlife - felis domesticus and canis familiaris in abundance. The only thing more disgusting than having a cat suddenly leap on the table demanding part of your meal is a mangy dog sitting beside you on the beach scratching its scabby skin raw. The only thing more disturbing than a mongrel yapping at nothing for hours when you were expecting the sound of the wind in the trees or waves on the beach is the screeching of a couple of cats in an all-night mating ritual.

This must be one of the few national parks in the world that not only allows but encourages domestic animals, which as even a Thai national park officer must realise, play havoc with birds and lizards and real wildlife.

Samet has also added a new twist to the concept of national parks - private beaches. The popular walk down the coast to the southern end of the island is no longer possible since the high-end Paradee Resort now claims the adjacent beach as its own. Non-paying visitors are quickly hustled away from the coast and back up the dusty main road. No doubt a nice little earner on the side for the national parks folk who for years have ignored and no doubt profited from encroachment on what should be public land. Parody Resort would be a better name for this latest addition, and indeed the whole island.

Sandy Shores

Bangkok

----------------------------

Asbestos is highly dangerous, regardless of its form

 Re: "Asbestos can cause cancer, but 'it's cheap'," News, May 14.

This article points out that asbestos has been banned throughout the European Union and other advanced nations. The reason for this prohibition is the irrefutable scientific and epidemiological proof that all types of asbestos can kill.

The statement by Dr David Bernstein, who has received substantial financial research support from the Canadian asbestos industry, that "we can use chrysotile (white asbestos) safely if it is cleverly used", is nonsense. I am curious about who Bernstein is referring to when he says "we". Bernstein lives in Switzerland, where the use of asbestos has been banned for decades. Bernstein's research funding comes from Canada where there is a de facto ban on asbestos; Canada exports more than 95 per cent of all the asbestos it mines. If asbestos can be used "safely", why do Canadians refuse to use it?

On July 26 and 27, the Asian Asbestos Conference will take place in Bangkok. This landmark event is being organised by the Thai Department of Disease Control, the Ministry of Public Health, the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare, the Social Security Office and the Ministry of Labour. I would suggest that the author of this contentious article should attend this event if he really wants to understand the reality of asbestos use in Thailand and Asia.

Mrs Laurie Kazan-Allen

International Ban Asbestos Secretariat

Stanmore, England

--------------------------------

Raising an outcry over 'Da Vinci' only helps producers

 I would like to tell fellow Thai Christians not to let "The Da Vinci Code" sway your faith in Jesus Christ. To us, Jesus is the Son of God and we deeply accept His divinity no matter what the movie says about Him.

I was disappointed to see some of you protest and demand that the movie be altered. By doing so you only draw more attention to it, which is exactly what Sony, the production company, wants.

Movies come and go and are soon forgotten. In any case this one is lousy, apparently. The review in the trade publication Variety called it a "stodgy, grim thing". It went on say: "Sitting through all the verbose explanations and speculations about symbols, codes, secret cults, religious history and covert messages in art, it is impossible to believe that, had the novel never existed, such a script would ever have been considered by a Hollywood studio."

What Sony is guilty of is not blasphemy but making a rotten movie. Now it is counting on Christians around the world to make a big fuss, thus drawing curious minds that otherwise would never care to see the film in the first place.

Meechai Burapa

Chiang Mai