HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Corruption allows all sorts of crime to be committed with impunity

Traffic jams at the Dusit roundabout

Immigration’s eighty pages

Losing good will for Thailand

Jomtien Walkway dangers

A walk along Wongamart and Bamboo Beaches

West’s old Puritan mentality, based on hypocrisy is now being adopted here

Corruption allows all sorts of crime to be committed with impunity

Editor;

I have long been puzzled by the supposed crackdown on drugs and vice that steadfastly ignored the home grown Thai problem of all pervasive corruption. Since corruption would be the single biggest factor hampering any real impact on drugs and vice (even the disgusting pedophilia practice) in Thai society, it was easy to see that the politicians were just targeting foreigners for use as a scapegoat for Thailand’s social ills. It is nothing new - here in Australia we had a very obnoxious politician (Pauline Hanson) who specialised in exactly the same racist methodology.

It is a fact made even more repugnant with supposedly responsible governors (Chadej Insawang) coming right out on the public record with blatant racist statements: “Foreigners are to receive “special attention”. There is no way to qualify or defend a statement such as that. It is pure racist political grandstanding at it’s most disgusting. If any of these politicians had any real interest in fixing any social problems, they would be targeting corruption above all else. By it’s nature corruption allows all sorts of crime, major and minor, to be committed with impunity.

Cheers,

R. Hardy

Brisbane Australia

Traffic jams at the Dusit roundabout

Dear Sir,

Could some influential person tell the transport department at City Hall that their new traffic scheme at the Dusit roundabout, predictably, isn’t working. There was little need to make the section of Second Road between Central Road and North Road one-way since much of the traffic travelling north filters off at Central Road, but the additional decision to install traffic lights at the Dusit roundabout has resulted in chaos and queues of static vehicles stretching back several hundred metres toward Naklua and up North Road. Roundabouts are an excellent means of smoothing traffic flow and the last thing that’s needed are traffic lights, which defeat the purpose. For the sanity of all I hope that this mad scheme is quickly jettisoned.

Yours in hope rather than expectation,

A. Stewart

Immigration’s eighty pages

Dear Editor,

Methinks Senior Citizen (Mailbag January 18) does protest too much. The notion that Pattaya immigration police ordinarily require 80 pieces of paper to process the renewal of a retirement visa is fantastic. The applicant would need the ID page of his current passport plus the page(s) used since last year’s approval, a letter from a Thai bank showing at least 800,000 baht together with the first and last used pages of the bankbook, proof of local address and evidence of pension income or foreign capital. At most, all these might total ten items, all of which will be returned except the original of the bank letter. The two photocopies, that is around twenty pieces of papers in all, are necessary as Pattaya must keep one set and send the other to Bangkok immigration headquarters.

In fact, it is not mandatory these days to have a letter from your embassy when renewing. However, if your paperwork is incomplete, ambiguous or lacking, the receiving officer may ask you to provide that as well. Indeed, one suspects that if retirees such as Senior Citizen are as aggressive in person as in print, they may perchance complicate and delay the whole process for themselves. It is true that renewals lodged in Bangkok tend to be a month or so quicker than those in Pattaya or Phuket, but most people know and accept the reality that Bangkok is the heart of a centralized bureaucracy. If Senior Citizen happened to apply for a twelve months’ visa in Malaysia or the Philippines, he could well find himself obtaining chest x-rays, stool samples and proof he had sufficient medical insurance to pay for his own post mortem. Hassle is in the eyes of the beholder.

Yours sincerely,

Barrie Kenyon

Losing good will for Thailand

Editor;

I am getting sick of the anti foreigner stench emanating from the Thai officials in the press. First of all it was “targeting foreign owned bars and businesses” and this week Pattaya Mail is quoting “targeting foreign criminal elements” - then they have the hide to say “non criminal foreign elements have nothing to worry about”. Am I the only the person to see the flaw in this argument? To me it is akin to saying, “We will be targeting businesses owned by Negroes (example only) and Negro criminals, but there is nothing wrong with this as law abiding Negroes will not be affected.”

You target a crime, then you pick up the perpetrator regardless of who they are or what nationality they may be. Any other way of going about it is completely racist and unjust.

The situation in Thailand seems to have developed into a sustained xenophobic campaign for the sake of political grandstanding. The oldest political trick in the book: blame the foreigners for the country’s woes. It is also one of the more repugnant practices too.

Of course being studiously ignored by all officials and press is Thailand’s number one social problem: corruption. Whilst rampant corruption exists you cannot “clean up” anything.

Every time I browse a Thai paper these days, I seem to lose yet more good will for Thailand.

Cheers,

R Hardy

Australia

Jomtien Walkway dangers

Dear Editor,

Firstly may I offer my congratulations to the blue uniformed police (volunteers) who controlled the traffic at the notorious Thepprasit/Thappraya T-Junction so expertly over the New Year. Not a queue in sight - two of Pattaya’s finest were looking on in disbelief.

On another point, can someone explain why the gates at the entrance to Dongtan Beach are now permanently open? I have been to the police hut on three occasions and they seem to think it is the job of city hall. Perhaps someone from City Hall could explain. Could it be that, if the gates were closed from 10.00 to 1700, as advertised, the police would be unable to play their pathetic game of chasing the hapless vendors in their red pick-up? The motorcyclists and motorists do pose a real danger on the “walkway”.

John Davis

Jomtien

A walk along Wongamart and Bamboo Beaches

Editor;

I recently took an early, early morning walk along the Wongamart Beach and back along Naklua Soi 16 and Wongamart Beach Road. Results: 26 dogs 6 humans. Two packs of angry aggressive dogs hunting in heat bitches were looking very dangerous so I chose to cross the road to pass. Q: Should the City Dog Hunter give it a call before a child is bitten?

Bamboo Beach at the north end of Wongamart used to be the only beach in Pattaya still not commercialised and natural. Now we have a beach bar / cafe twenty umbrellas and 40 deckchairs (see pic). Q: Does City Hall know? Are they licensed and who gave approval to spoil this last natural beach?

BW

West’s old Puritan mentality, based on hypocrisy is now being adopted here

Dear Editor,

More constructive with his contribution than most writers of late ‘Observer’ (PM 4 Jan) made a very significant reference that Pattaya will disregard at its peril. The strength of the resort is that it has always been “utterly lacking in hypocrisy”. That is to be changed if the current Interior Minister and Chonburi governor have their way. The current clampdown on ‘showing flesh’ is supposed to be to appease criticism made by those envious of Thailand’s (past) freedom and to rid the country in general and resort in particular of some of the bad image it has. Paradoxically, the UK is finally shrugging off some of the Puritan legacy that created a pleasure-repressed society. Bowing to public requirement, ‘table dancing’ bars are being permitted to open across the country and where dancers ‘show flesh’. It seems the West’s old Puritan mentality, based on hypocrisy is now being adopted here.

Many Mailbag contributors are keen to tell us what it is that prevents tourists from coming to Pattaya or what will prevent them from returning. Some criticisms are constructive, but many are petty, and one realizes it is just another ex-pat with nothing better to moan about. We all know the traffic needs something doing about but is there a city in the world where that doesn’t apply? I have never heard of anyone saying the road system made or spoiled their holiday and to anyone who did say it I could only reply that their destination planning was seriously lacking. Don’t popularity and congestion in fact go hand in hand?

I was ‘back home’ for a short visit recently and whilst there saw a widely publicized program on Thailand that I learned from a personal encounter had a profound effect so far as tourism to this country is concerned. The title was “Who killed Kristu Jones?” and related to the murder of an English girl in Chiang Mai not too long ago. Very convincing evidence was presented to suggest that murder may be committed with impunity here by Thai or foreigner providing enough funds are available to grease the right palms. The gist of the program was that the Thai authorities are no more than inept and corrupt and an effective justice system is entirely lacking. Much was made of the way news media trample the scene of the death and destroy any forensic evidence that might have been helpful in solving any anomaly. One only has to watch Pattaya’s local news channels to see that this criticism has merit. Indeed, any holidaymaker must take home the impression that Thailand is certainly no place to expire if any degree of dignity is required.

The personal encounter that I had? A receptionist I engaged in conversation revealed that with three friends, not put off by the salacious reporting western media seizes on, she was to holiday in Thailand in March. The aforesaid program, however, put paid to those plans. Incidentally she was the receptionist at the Thai consulate I went to for my visa and the more senior staff of which could not allay the concerns raised in the program. In the knowledge that it is not just a policy where farangs are concerned and that being no consolation, neither could I. Any volunteers?

The mating game being the principal motivation for many visitors to Pattaya, such trivialities as a sense of well-being instilled by faith in the local justice system are an irrelevance. For the more sedate middle classes however, the authorities’ current focus of attention for remedying social ills is way off target and seen to be where it matters.

T.C.

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