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Published on November 25, 2007

Admiral Sathiraphan Keyanon, the Navy's commander-in-chief, yesterday sought to purchase a submarine as part of a multi-billion-baht naval modernisation programme.

Sathiraphan said the country still has no submarine to defend and protect its seas and natural resources.

He warned that the armed forces should not be blamed for failing to prevent violations of territorial waters or repel invasions if there is no support for the multi-billion-baht submarine procurement.

Several attempts by the Navy in the past decade to acquire a submarine have been unsuccessful partly because of the high price tag.

Satiraphan, deputy chairman of the Council of National Security, yesterday attended the first of a two-day annual conference on the armed forces' strategy, chaired by defense minister Gen Boonrawd Somtas.

The Navy, Air Force and Army have proposed their 10-year procurement and modernisation programmes to upgrade their units.

Boonrawd voiced support for the Navy, saying that at the moment the Navy has the most urgent requirement for arms purchases including an outlay for submarine deployment.

"Over the past decade following the 1997 financial crisis, the budgets for armed forces have been relatively small, resulting in shortages of new equipment so we have to better prepare ourselves so that we could respond to national security threats more effectively," said the defence minister.

The next government is expected to factor in the military's weaponry requests and allocate the funds accordingly, he added.

Key commanders from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Supreme Command and Defence Ministry showed up in full force to participate in the conference.

The planned purchase of Ukrainian armoured vehicles will be carried out unless the Office of the Auditor-General raises further doubts after the Army explained away the previous questions, Boonrawd said.

Seen accompanying Boon-rawd were Defence permanent secretary General Winai Phatthiyakul, Supreme Com-mander General Boonsarng Niumpradit, Army chief General Anupong Paochinda and Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal Chalit Phukphasuk.

Chulalongkorn University lecturer Panithan Watthanayathorn also outlined a comparative armaments study and the security threats likely to emerge over the next five years during the opening session of yesterday's conference.

For fiscal 2008, which started October 1 this year, the defence ministry got a 24-per-cent budget increase, bringing the allocation to Bt143 billion.

For the following three years, the ministry has planned to seek a budget of Bt150.8 billion for fiscal 2009; Bt150.9 billion for fiscal 2010 and Bt148.1 billion for 2011.

Panya Tiwsangwan

 The Nation