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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
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
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
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
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
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
Copyright 2000 Pattaya Mail Publishing Co.Ltd.
370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, Chonburi 20260, Thailand
Tel.66-38 411 240-1, 413 240-1, Fax:66-38 427 596; e-mail: [email protected]
Updated by Chinnaporn Sangwanlek, assisted
by Boonsiri Suansuk.
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