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LETTERS

  HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]: 
 
Has he lost the plot?

Unsolved Murder in Pattaya

Picture proof

And yet another opinion on the aircraft

Pilfering at the pumps

The dangers of house buying

Has he lost the plot?

Dear Sir,

I hope Thomas Schmid has not lost the plot. It is hard to dispute the point that many if not most under-aged prostitutes in Pattaya engage in their trade knowingly (although there are enough cases on record of foreign paedophiles ‘breaking children in’ to put up an argument). But that is hardly the point. Laws provide that children require protection no matter how cunning Mr. Schmid thinks they are. And they have to be treated as the victims. If a child is under 15, sexual intercourse is rape. Period. No contest. No matter whether the child was ‘willing’.

Prostitution is not a profession of choice by children. That is a paedophile viewpoint. The choice is made for them by their circumstances and by foreign or Thai paedophiles willing to pay them such money as they may never have seen before. Of course it may soon become a career with older children teaching younger children the tricks.

While readers may have read about the many arrests of foreign paedophiles, the Pattaya Mail I am sure will soon inform readers that to date ‘due to local circumstances’ very few arrested in Pattaya have ever got convicted (e.g. just one in 20 Brits arrested in five years and he was fined 10,000 baht). Very few children willingly go to police to complain. Where they do their evidence is often retracted for financial considerations.

Schmid refers sarcastically to the ‘oh so caring parents’ involved. But why would an impoverished family not take cash instead of having to go through a trial which may last years and which can be a quite appalling ordeal. The paradox is of course that the west can still learn a lot from Thailand about family values.

Mr. Schmid I believe has been in Thailand many years. Had he a greater understanding of how the legal system works its possible he might take a different view.

Things may change with the arrival of competently trained police and the establishment of the Woman and Children’s Protection Centre in Pattaya.

Thailand may need to improve its social services - but getting rid of the paedophiles by putting the fear of God into them is a much quicker remedy to the problem.

On that I hope, and think, I am in agreement with Mr. Schmid, but I would dispute Mr. Schmid’s assertion that a 14-yr-old is an ‘older teenager’.

Andrew Drummond

Bangkok

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Unsolved Murder in Pattaya

Dear Sir:

This letter is written in memory of my son Joe Gaal who was murdered while a guest at Ocean View Hotel in Pattaya April 30, 1989. Joey arrived in Pattaya late afternoon of April 27 and booked into room 112 at Ocean View Hotel. He was a Canadian photojournalist taking a break from covering the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan for the Associated Press out of Peshawar Pakistan.

The Saturday evening of April 29 holds many different stories as to whom he met, when he was last seen and how his severely bruised, fractured, lacerated and bloody body ended up in the deep end of the swimming pool at Ocean View Hotel (discovered at about 11 a.m. Sunday morning April 30). Joey was not a swimmer, nor did he like swimming pools, something the killers did not know when they staged the accidental drowning scene!

It is stated that Joey wanted a story on the drug lords and what better place than Ocean View Hotel, owned and operated by Lothar Kroehn and Wolfgang Ulrich. It is said that there was a negotiated price for the story, but included in that price was a payoff to an assassin to kill Gaal as he had learned too much though his relentless questioning.

There was also the mysterious life insurance policy. Who took it out and who collected?

I am pleading with the Pattaya International Crime Suppression Bureau as well as the head of the Royal Thai Police in Thailand to help our family find justice for Joey. Someone in your country is responsible for this murder or knows who did it.

If you are one of the people who remember what happened to this 29 year old Canadian or know something about this staged murder, please contact me (I am his mother, Arlene Gaal) by e-mail at: [email protected] or telephone 250 765-9960 collect at anytime. You could also write to: Arlene Gaal, 1035 Neptune Road, Kelowna, B.C., Canada. V1X 3E4.

There is a large reward for information leading to the conviction of those responsible. Thank-you for reading this letter, I will await your reply.

Sincerely,

Arlene Gaal

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Picture proof

Editor;

Re: What Kind of Aircraft Is This? The military transport plane shown in the junkyard is certainly a Fairchild C-123 Provider. The attached photo verifies this. In the mid 1960s I saw silver colored versions of this aircraft used to spray defoliant on the jungles of Vietnam, as part of a mission called ‘Operation Ranch Hand’. One squadron, at Saigon’s Ton San Nhut Air Base, had a large sign featuring ‘Smokey The Bear’, and the motto ‘Help Prevent Forests’.

Regards,

Otto Uebel, San Francisco

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And yet another opinion on the aircraft

Sir,

To Oliver Minto: the aircraft you have seen is a Fairchild C123 provider from Air America fame. The Thai Air Force still fly a few. If you need any more info my email [email protected]

Cheers,

Chris in the jungle

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Pilfering at the pumps

Dear Sir,

Once again the Shell petrol station on South Pattaya Road next to the International Telephone Exchange are up to their old tricks. This time with a twist, not waiting with the pump handle in their hand and 20 or 30 baht worth of petrol already on the meter, after just serving a motorbike, ready to pop it in the next motorist tank. But cleverly returning the pump handle to the pump, and cunningly hooking it on its side, so as not to reset the meter.

When I raised this with the pump attendant at the time I got told I know too much. This is Thailand!

G. Coleman

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The dangers of house buying

Dear Sir,

I would like to congratulate Mr. Leslie Wright on his recent articles concerning the pros and cons of renting against purchase of property in Thailand. His sound advice on renting and keeping your capita should be heeded by all.

Even those who don’t, for whatever reason, invest in the markets will be far better off keeping their money in the bank. It always pays to be cautious, however this is particularly so in Thailand as there appears to be a certain element who are after the cream as well as the sugar from your tea and unfortunately, more often than not, get it in the end.

Not only is this the case with property purchased in the new “wife’s” name, it also extends to other areas including the investment markets. There appears to be a certain scam around concerning the Futures market and I know of one individual who, through greed, lost most of his hard-earned savings with promise of massive profits that never materialized. He had used a back street ‘trader’ operating in some pub or other and couldn’t even prove that he has handed over his cash as no contract notes were ever issued. I would therefore advise anyone who was not au fait with the investment markets and who wanted to invest to use a reputable broker or financial adviser.

Three times in the past six months I have seen the same woman saying goodbye at a particular Thai airport to a different ‘farang husband’. On each occasion she was dripping with new gold. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that she was there every two weeks saving goodbye as yet another ‘new husband’ departs on the homebound package holiday flight. Appears to me that she has found an excellent niche market that produces a far better return on investment than anything Mr. Wright can achieve and that’s no reflection on his abilities.

I was approached recently by an acquaintance asking for some advice. He had ‘married’ (in haste and was now repenting) the girl of his dreams nine months ago after meeting her six weeks beforehand in some bar or other. He was in the throws of putting the finishing touches to his million baht love nest, sorry, ‘wife’s’ home, that had over-run on costs and he was starting to run low on cash, mainly due to the fact that his ‘wife’ kept demanding expensive furnishings.

His problems were many. Not only was he giving his ‘wife’ a massive 15,000 baht a month purely to feed the two of them, he was also falling for the ‘Supermarket Scam’ into the bargain. You know the old dodge where you are left to pick up the tab for all the messages while she searches for the 5 baht pack of peanuts she ‘forgot’ to get. The strange thing is that he had still not cottoned on to the fact that they spent less than 5,000 baht a month on food.

His ‘wife’ had also just informed him that next month her brother, his wife and two children would be coming to permanently utilize the two spare bedrooms in the new house (common cultural practice in Thailand) as they were currently staying in a rundown shack somewhere near Bangkok. Suddenly his dream of a nice house in which to love in tranquility was shattered and he was desperately worried that his million baht had gone down the ‘Swanee’. What could he do? Not a lot as far as I could see, unless he could reach some sort of compromise, except cut his losses and run fast before the tax bill for the new house arrived!

Transpired that he wasn’t even legally married, which in his case may or may not be a bonus. Having only gone through the ceremony with the Monks, he had neither signed any paperwork nor obtained a marriage certificate from the local Amphur. He had, however, for some strange reason, managed to take the trouble to sign the documentation at the Amphur allowing the ‘wife’ to purchase the house with this money.

Perhaps the foregoing are extreme examples, then again perhaps not; however, it should act as a warning to all to remember the saying “Man Mind Thy Self”, - nobody else will!

Yours sincerely,

Peter

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Updated by Chinnaporn Sangwanlek, assisted by Boonsiri Suansuk.

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