End destructive protests to save the economy

We have had enough. Our economy is entering a major recession, where thousands of people are losing their jobs. Unemployment will be even worse if the rest of the world continues to view Thailand as unstable and unfit for visiting or investing in, as a result of never-ending political instability and turmoil.

This past month, we felt the damage done to our tourism industry as a result of the shutdown of Suvarnabhumi Airport by the PAD. Hotel occupancy, for example, was down below 25 per cent in many Bangkok hotels for November. Normally, this is peak tourism season when hotels are overbooked.

People outside Thailand are now getting wind that the political situation here has not been resolved, despite the appointment of Abhisit as prime minister. Their nervousness and reluctance to do business in Thailand is worsening the country's economic slowdown and spiking unemployment.

We must be able to find a more effective way to deal with the conflicts plaguing the country. The PAD and DAAD leaders need to at least agree to resolve their differences in a more productive way without destroying Thailand's economy in the process.

Surely the common goal is to make our country a better place to live. Surely if we allow the common goal to guide decision-making we can, at least for the moment, agree on a productive path forward and subordinate the other destructive reasons that influence decision-making such as greed, self interest, nepotism and corruption.

The alternative is to wait until the economic crisis forces us to choose between fighting or surviving. But surely we are more reasonable people than that to let that happen.

Unless our political leaders can hold the welfare of our country above all else, and start acting and making decisions to lift our country out of the global economic crisis, everyone in Thailand - PAD, DAAD, you and me - will suffer deeply.

OUTRAGED TAXPAYER

BANGKOK

Asset freeze, if true, would be on public record

Re: "Thaksin asset freeze needed checking", Letters, December 28.

I would like to echo Watchdog's reservations about the veracity of reports that the equivalent of US$4.2 billion in Thaksin Shinawatra's name has been blocked in the UK. One would normally expect any government or court order affecting assets of this magnitude to be very much in the public domain through the efforts of the British media.

Accurate reporting is obviously in the interests of everyone. Meanwhile, let's hope that the oft-mentioned Bt76 billion frozen in Thai banks remains unaffected by global warming and does not somehow start trickling away.

Chris Jeffery

Bangkok

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Israel too, must be reined in

The Israeli defence minister says that the bombing of Gaza is necessary to teach the Palestinians how to behave.

However, who will teach the Israelis how to behave in order to stop them stealing even more land from the Palestinians, or how to behave now that they keep Palestinians in what are large, ghetto-like prisons?

Also if the Likud get into power in the coming election, who will make the Israelis behave if they institute a policy to remove the Palestinians altogether from the West Bank?

Just who will stop the Israelis and make them behave? Certainly not the cowardly Western media nor the biased US and UK governments or the rest of the so-called international community!

G W FARROW

Bangkok

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