Will Thailand become a divided country?

Anger and violent protests on the streets of Bangkok by the red shirts of the North and Northeast have further widened the gap between Bangkok and the rural poor. And now with an assassination attempt in the heart of Bangkok, guerrilla war has come to the capital. In the South, war continues among the Muslim population against the occupying Bangkok military. It is not known if they have joined forces with the people of the North and Northeast.

Thailand is becoming the Yugoslavia of Southeast Asia. Bangkok is surrounded, but it is the power centre and controls the military. No nation can exist unless it is unified, but Thailand is not unified. It is a divided nation at war with itself; a sad, terrible mess.

How did this come about? I think because representative democracy has never been the model for Thailand's governance. Bangkok's elite has considered rural people too stupid, too uneducated, too backward to vote. This thought has been expressed openly in the press and has further inflamed the disenfranchised in the North, Northeast and South.

Bangkok has imposed totalitarian rule upon its own people. Radio stations in rural areas have been shut down to keep them from talking about politics and the existing unfairness of the government. Television stations and newspapers are censored. Internet sites critical of the government are closed down. And the government encourages people to spy on one another, telling them to report on fellow Thais who speak against the ruling elite.

Thailand is no longer one nation. It is three antagonistic populations living within one territorial border called Thailand. But within the border there is only a growing civil war. Unless these three factions can come to some kind of fair and just mutual agreement as to how to govern Thailand, we may have the beginning of the Balkanization of Thailand.

Ted Gugelyk

Ubon Ratchathani

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A disease that simply won't go away

Some may argue that the swine flew from Thailand months ago, but the danger of further outbreaks remains.

The UAE, now with less of its head in the sand, is regaining consciousness, but the people of Nicaragua and Liberia require clear guidelines concerning the cancerous toxin that has recently been washed ashore. Eastlands, eventually succeeding in the banishment of its host, has been pronounced "clean" following a two-year contagion.

While some in the international media (whose symptoms include a seemingly red rash, headache and blurred vision) remain insistent that the virus is good for mankind, the organism continues, as passports mutate, to spread unchecked across the unsuspecting free and less-than-free world.

Containment is difficult. Hallucinating and frenzied, most carriers of this pestilence are feverish, demo-crazy, and oblivious to the dangers of the potion of lies sold to them on prescription as a panacea. The more noxious ones have vanished for fear of being quarantined, though they frequently transmit on the BBC-PENK airwaves and are presumed underground, dormant and dangerous (UDD). (Regular updates on: www.special_relationship.com/nudge-nudgewink-wink.)

As yet, there is no cure in sight; awareness has increased, yet blindness still prevails.

John Shepherd

Bangkok

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Location unknown, but being monitored

Supalak Ganjanakhundee (News, April 28) quotes Deputy Foreign Minister Panich Vikitsreth as saying the government is "closely monitoring Jakrapob Penkair's movements, though his whereabouts are still unknown". I would have thought it pretty difficult to do the former while in ignorance of the latter, which might help to explain why so many trails go cold.

Citizen Jane

Bangkok

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Thais had the chance to reject the present constitution

I have been unable to fail to notice that all reference to the 2007 Constitution refers to it as having been implemented by the Army coup-makers. Has everyone forgotten that it was presented as a referendum to the Thai public in order that they might express their opinions and vote upon it?

The then-government mailed all voters copies of the proposed constitution for their consideration. My wife, our children and our maid all read and discussed with each other their thoughts on the matter. I witnessed those discussions. Each voted when the date to do so came about.

It is history that the 2007 Constitution was approved by a majority of Thai voters. Therefore, it cannot be said with that only the Thai Army (coup-makers) forced the current constitution upon this country.

William Reynolds

Chiang Mai

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