UN-style mission may be the way to help Burma

For a variety of reasons, real and imagined, Burma's delaying the entry of urgently-needed foreign disaster workers needs to be urgently addressed.

I propose forming a UNHCR Burma Mission modelled along the lines of UN peacekeeping missions, where soldiers of many nations work under UN command and with the consent of all parties involved - only this mission would be humanitarian in nature.

The mission would be headed by a national of a country that Burma trusts, eg, India, China, or Thailand. In fact, because we're not a major military power in the region, Thailand might be best suited to this role. There are many advantages to this proposal. All personnel would be under a unified, coordinated command, and not be just a hodge podge of efforts. The Burmese government would have more trust in it than in individual governments, since the UN is not a colonial power, and it could be headed by a nation of their choosing.

Mission personnel would be easy to identify, since all would be wearing blue berets or scarves over their regular uniforms, and all vehicles, aircraft, etc. would be UN-badged.

The major cost of this proposal is that it would take a little while to set up, and time is of the essence - but the workers aren't getting in now, so what is there to lose?

The Myanmar government should have a highly-visible role in the Mission, as it's their citizens and we'd need them to communicate with villagers anyway. At the same time, donors have the right to be assured that their efforts were going to those most in need, not where the political payoff was highest for the junta. Thus, work allocation must be up to the UNHCR.

Alternatively, Asean could form such a mission, although I don't know if it has the experience to do so as effectively or quickly as the UN.

Burin Kantabutra

Bangkok

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Ministerial move to inactive post makes no sense

Re: your May 12 editorial, "Noppadon's baffling reshuffle", is relevant in questioning the motive of the Foreign Minister in transferring the director-general for Treaties and Legal Affairs, Virachai Plasai, to an inactive post.

The minister believes in putting the right person in the right job. He was quoted as having praised Virachai as most capable and yet moved him from the post that is so fitting to Virachai and currently crucial to our national interest,to an inactive post.

If he had put him in another important post to justify his praising of Virachai, then his defence would have been believable and not questioned as to possible intervention in the due process of justice in the CTX case.

Songdej Praditsmanont

Bangkok

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Extortion sucking the lifeblood out of Pattaya

Dear sirs/mams, you ain't seen nothing yet! In Pattaya when they have finished extorting the motorists in the daytime, police turn their kind attention to the nightlife entertainment centres (in fact, they even drive down at the weekend from Bangkok to make sure they get their fair share).

And so the town becomes distressed; after all, it relies for 95 per cent of its income from the nightlife industry. Customers leave and businesses close!

Corruption is easy to live with, extortion more difficult.

I feel sorry for all those concerned, and they wonder why neighbouring countries are laughing all the way to the bank, and of course at Thailand's expense.

"Thai people are being sacrificed on the altar of official/police greed!"

James Elliot

Austin, Texas