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TAT-too You: Tourism agency’s 1st
body art festival draws big crowds
Crowds gather to watch May
Pitchnat with body art applied during the opening festivities for the
International Tattoo Festival at Central Festival Pattaya Beach.
Saksiri Uraiworn
With nearly as many tattoo studios as massage shops, it should be no
surprise Pattaya was chosen by the Tourism Authority of Thailand to host
first-ever International Tattoo Festival.
Not to be confused with the annual Jimmy Wong World Tattoo Festival, this
event co-sponsored by the Thailand Tattoo Association and Central Festival
Pattaya Beach July 24-27 featured body artists from around the world,
tattoo-adorned Thai celebrities and performances from Pattaya’s new Jo Louis
Puppet Theatre.
Central Festival assistant marketing manager, Natthakit Tangpulsintana said
the event was designed to boost tourism by highlighting a more-colorful side
of Thai society. The event not only allowed tourists to get inked by
well-known Thai artists, but participate in tattoo contests, collect
autographs from the likes of celebs Ploy Chermal, May Pitchnat, Pei Panwad
and Kratae Supasorn, enjoy traditional arts and watch as others go under the
needle.
The festival also served the tattoo professional, with sales of equipment
and supplies. Aspiring artists could also consult with tattoo schools, such
as Ajarn Noo Kanpai, which ran one of the most popular booths.
The celebration finished with a concert and an exhibition from 400 tattoo
lovers who linked arms to form an infinity symbol, breaking the world
records for the most people with ink in one place.
ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly to meet in Pattaya
Ariyawat Nuamsawat
Four months after the aborted April summit, the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations will try again to stage a multi-country meeting in
Pattaya with hopes that red-shirted anti-government protestors will this
time stay away.
 Chonburi
Gov. Senee Jittakasem asks Chonburi residents to be good hosts for the 30th
General Assembly of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly.
The 30th General Assembly of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly will
take place Aug. 2-8 at the Royal Cliff Beach Resort.
Participating in the summit will be representatives from Brunei, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and
Vietnam. Nine other countries and the European Union will also be observing
the meeting that will see Brunei accepted into the AIPA.
ASEAN’s return to Pattaya comes after April’s aborted summit was rescheduled
successfully last week in Phuket. Determined to avoid a repeat of the
Pattaya protests, the government enacted heavy-handed security laws around
Phuket that prompted the red shirts to leave town rather than face
confrontation with the army.
Chonburi Gov. Senee Jittakasem will head the meeting’s organizational
working group, whose goal it is to “create a good impression” and implement
security delegates can trust.
The AIPA General Assembly is ASEAN’s policy-making body and a forum to
discuss laws the organization would like to see enacted in all member
countries. The Pattaya meeting will “create a cornerstone for the
organization’s policy and a forum to exchange ideas and policy guidance,”
according to an AIPA press release.
Pattaya to host 30th AIPA General Assembly
August 2-8, 2009
(L to R) Khumpyr Disttakorn,
Deputy Secretary General; Colonel Apiwan Wiriyachai, Deputy Speaker of the
House of Representatives; Professor Prasobsook Boondech, President of the
Senate and Leader of the Thai Parliamentary Delegation; and Mrs. Tassana
Boontong, Associate Professor and Vice-President of the Senate announce the
30th AIPA Congress to be held this weekend at the Royal Cliff Beach Resort
in Pattaya.
The National Assembly of Thailand will hold the 30th
General Assembly of the AIPA from August 2-8, 2009 at the Royal Cliff Beach
Resort, Pattaya. Representatives from 8 AIPA member countries; Kingdom of
Cambodia, Republic of Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia,
Republic of the Philippines, Republic of Singapore, Kingdom of Thailand, and
Socialist Republic of Vietnam, along with 2 special observer countries;
Union of Myanmar and Brunei Darussalam, as well as 9 observer countries;
Australia, Canada, People’s Republic of China, Republic of Korea, Japan, New
Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russian Federation, United States of America,
plus 1 organization, European Parliament will attend the General Assembly.
The General Assembly of AIPA shall be the policy-making body and a forum to
exchange information and recommendations of policies and encourage the
enacting of laws dealing with mutual interest among ASEAN countries to be
considered by their governments. All the resolutions approved by the General
Assembly shall be disseminated by each AIPA National Group to their
respective governments and parliaments to stimulate their implementation of
recommendations of AIPA resolutions.
Background and History
(From AIPO to AIPA)
Ten years after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) was formed in 1967 there was realization among the ASEAN
parliamentarians that the strength of ASEAN emanates from the roots of its
societies. Therefore, closer cooperation among the respective legislatures
and the parliamentarians (being the representatives of the peoples of ASEAN)
would result in greater participation by the peoples of the ASEAN countries
in the efforts to achieve ASEAN’s three main original objectives: to promote
the economic, social and cultural development of the region through various
programs of cooperation; to safeguard the political and economic stability
of the region against big power rivalry; and to serve as a forum for the
resolution of intra-regional differences as enunciated in the ASEAN
Declaration adopted on August 8, 1967 in Bangkok.
It was to significantly contribute through inter-parliamentary cooperation
in the attainment of the goals and aspirations of ASEAN that the ASEAN
Inter-Parliamentary Organization (AIPO) was formed.
The establishment of AIPO was at the initiative of Indonesia. In the early
1970’s, encouraged by the progress being made by ASEAN, the Indonesian House
of Representatives came up with the idea of setting up an organization
consisting the parliaments of the then five ASEAN member countries of
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. In 1974 the
Indonesian House of Representatives sent a special mission to Thailand and
the Philippines in May as well as to Malaysia and Singapore in September to
seek support for the establishment of an ASEAN inter-parliamentary forum,
and received a positive response.
Following the initial contacts, the parliaments of ASEAN member-states
agreed to hold the first meeting in Jakarta to further discuss the
realization of the idea to form a parliamentary cooperation forum, and
Indonesia was chosen as the host of the First ASEAN Parliamentary Meeting
(APM) from 8th to 11th January, 1975.
Indonesia as host of the First APM proposed the formulation and signing of
the “Statutes of the ASEAN Parliamentary Cooperation.”
At the closure of the Third APM on 2nd September 1977, the Statutes of the
ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization (AIPO) were signed by the heads of
delegation of the parliaments of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore and Thailand which marked the birth of AIPO.
According to Article 10 of the Statutes of AIPO, the General Assembly of
AIPO shall be held annually, unless decided otherwise whereas Article 11
stipulated that the venue of the General Assembly shall be rotated among the
member parliaments in alphabetical order.
In 1995 Vietnam was admitted as an AIPO member followed by Lao People’s
Democratic Republic in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999. Brunei and the Union of
Myanmar have no legislatures and as such they had been accredited special
observer status.
By 2000, AIPO was comprised of 8 member parliaments in ASEAN, namely, the
parliaments of Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic,
Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. As mentioned
earlier, Brunei Darussalam and the Union of Myanmar have no legislatures,
and as such they were accredited special observer status participating fully
in AIPO activities.
As ASEAN progress towards the building of an ASEAN community by 2015, the
aspiration of establishing an ASEAN Parliament resurfaced. The idea of an
ASEAN Parliament was first proposed by the Philippines delegation at the 3rd
AIPO General Assembly held in Jakarta in 1980. However, at the 27th AIPO
General Assembly held in Cebu City, the Philippines in 2006, there was
consensus that the ASEAN Parliament would be a long term goal. It was
further concurred that it would be more appropriate at this juncture to
first proceed with the transformation of the organization into a more
effective and closely integrated institution and along with it to change the
organization’s name from the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization (AIPO)
to the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) including amending the
Statutes of AIPO to become the Statutes of AIPA.
The new Statutes of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) was signed
on 17 April 2007 by the member countries of AIPO, namely, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand,
and Vietnam as well as the special observer country of Brunei Darussalam
during the extraordinary meeting of the executive committee of AIPO held in
Kuala Lumpur from 16 to 19 April 2007. AIPO member country, the Philippines,
did not attend the meeting due to its national elections and is expected to
sign the new Statutes of AIPA in due course. Likewise special observer
country, Myanmar has yet to sign the new Statutes.
The signing of the Statutes of AIPA on 17 April 2007 in Kuala Lumpur
replacing the previous Statutes of AIPO marked the transformation of the
ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization or AIPO into the ASEAN
Inter-Parliamentary Assembly or AIPA. A new era of a more closely integrated
ASEAN inter-parliamentary cooperation has set in.
Significant role to be the host of the 30th General
Assembly and President of AIPA
The objectives of the General Assembly are to adopt policy
initiatives and provide inputs to policy formulation and propose
legislatives on issues of common concern for recommendation to the
respective governments of ASEAN countries for their consideration. The
participants will discuss further the aims and aspirations of AIPA and
promote goodwill among the representatives of the peoples of ASEAN in the
view of Political Matters, Economic Matters, Social Matters, Organizational
Matters, Women Parliamentarians Meeting (WAIPA) and having Dialogue with
Observers. The meeting will have a forum for discussions between AIPA and
the ASEAN Secretary General. Finally, all resolutions approved by the
General Assembly will be disseminated by each AIPA National Secretariat to
their respective parliament and governments to stimulate their
implementation.
This year, the National Assembly of Thailand holds the Presidency of AIPA
and the Thai Government which currently holds the ASEAN Chairmanship; both
are carrying the important position of the ASEAN region. These are the
auspicious occasions to move ahead to establish an ASEAN Community together
by 2015. Therefore, AIPA will call for reciprocal attendances of the
Chairman of ASEAN to attend the meeting as same as the President of AIPA
which recently attended the 14th ASEAN Summit at Cha-am.
Trade / direct investment between Thailand and China soaring
Delegates gather to cut the
ribbon to officially open the Thai-Chinese Business Forum at Pattaya’s Dusit
Thani Hotel.
Ariyawat Nuamsawat
Even as western exports market sag, trade with China is expected to
grow to $50 billion next year with the number of Chinese companies looking
for direct investment in Thailand doubling.
“The world economic crisis has shrunk markets in the U.S. and Europe, but
China doesn’t seem to be shrinking at all. If we can negotiate partnerships
with China, we can expand our businesses there,” Pinij Jarusombat, secretary
of Thai-Chinese Culture and Economic Association, said at the opening of
this week’s Thai-Chinese Business Forum at Pattaya’s Dusit Thani Hotel.
The July 26-28 forum brought together 800 business leaders from 300
companies from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macau and 500
representatives of Thai firms. The event was expected to help generate about
20 billion baht in trade and investment between the two countries.
Nine Chinese companies inked agreements for more than 10 billion baht in
investments projects with local partners on the forum’s first day alone,
with 35 other Thai firms using the meeting to further their negotiations,
according to Industry Minister Charnchai Chairungrueng. He said interest in
Thailand has spiked since the opening of a Thai Board of Investment office
in Beijing in April. He said that the Chinese are interested in 16
industries in Thailand with an eye toward establishing manufacturing bases
here.
Formal bilateral trade between the two countries began 34 years ago with
volume growing to $36 billion last year, said Lu Junqing, executive chairman
of the World Eminence Chinese Business Association. That number likely will
jump to $50 billion in 2010 with tourism growing to four million travelers
between the two nations.
“About 200 million Chinese have high purchasing power,” Pinij noted. “If you
look at the car market, for example, you’ll see about 11 million new cars
are sold each year, vs. only 8 million a year in the U.S.”
While Thai companies came to the forum to look for opportunities overseas,
the main focus of the forum was on increasing Chinese direct investment in
Thailand and joint ventures with local partners. The forum saw the signing
of a memorandum of understanding between the two governments and the private
sector to increase investment opportunities, as well as a tour of Rayong and
Chonburi industrial estates.
To date, 277 Chinese projects have been granted investment promotion
certificates with total investments worth 36 billion baht. BOI
Secretary-General Ornchaka Sibunruang Brimble told the forum that the number
of Chinese companies seeking investment privileges in Thailand has almost
doubled in the first half of 2009 with 10 projects worth 507 million baht
already requesting BOI promotional incentives.
Over the next few years, she added, the value of Chinese projects applying
for BOI privileges is expected to jump to 20 billion baht a year, up
four-fold from the previous five years.
Curtain falls on major pirated DVD supplier
Sattawat Saengchan (right)
was arrested for copyright infringement.
Boonlua Chatree
That copy of the latest Harry Potter movie you’ve been looking
for might be harder to find after Pattaya police busted one of the
area’s largest suppliers of pirated DVDs.
Police arrested Sattawat Saengchan, 19, at his Thepprasit Condo workshop
July 22, seizing more than 100,000 DVDs and CDs as well as computers,
printers and blank discs. The Pattaya Police Superintendent Col. Sarayut
Sa-Nguanpokai said the haul, valued at more than 5 million baht, was the
largest ever of its kind.
Police fight a continual cat-and-mouse game with movie and music
pirates. But a number of recent arrests pointed to one source for the
fake flicks, said Lt. Col. Chanapat Nawalak. In the 11th floor condo,
Sattawat had been copying and distributing DVDs and CDs for 60-150 baht
each to many area retailers.
Sattawat told police he worked for a broker named “Hia Aoun” and that he
was merely the hired help. Officers nonetheless arrested him and are
continuing to search for the director calling the shots.
Food vendor’s fingers almost
added to pork recipe
Boonlua Chatree
The next time her pork grinder gets stuck, Wilaiwan Patchai will
know not to stick her hand in the machine.
 Although
panicked and in pain, Wilaiwan did not lose her fingers in her pork grinder,
thanks to careful work by rescuers from the Sawang Boriboon Foundation.
The lucky Pattaya food vendor narrowly escaped losing three fingers in the
early morning hours of July 23 when her Amornrat Village neighbors,
responding to panicked cries for help, cut off the power before a pork
grinder cut off her digits.
Rescuers from the Pattaya Sawang Boriboon Foundation responded around 8 a.m.
and dismantled the machine and freed her. Two fingers were broken and
another cut, but all were still attached.
Wilaiwan, 39, told medics she usually gets up around 3 a.m. to start
preparing ingredients for her food-cart business. On this occasion, however,
the blades jammed on a piece of pork and, with the machine still running,
she tried to loosen the meat with her fingers. She’s not likely to do that
again.
British alleged pedophile
arrested for 3rd time in Pattaya
Police also arrest German on similar charges
Boonlua Chatree
Pattaya police are again trumpeting their efforts to crack down on
child molesters after last week’s arrests of two alleged pedophiles. But
while their campaign makes for good headlines, its success is again being
questioned after it was learned one suspect had been arrested twice before
for abusing underage boys.
 Robert
Alexander Horsman was arrested for the 3rd time in Pattaya.
British citizen Robert Alexander Horsman, 45, and German Gerhard Heiner
Gatsche, 61, were arrested separately at their homes in Central Pattaya’s
Park Rungruang Village development. Both were charged with engaging in sex
with children under age 15. The camera-lit walk of shame to jail was a
familiar one for the Suffolk, England native. He’d done it twice before,
most recently in December when he was nabbed during a joint Thailand-U.K.
pedophilia crackdown.
“Operation Naga,” staged by Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online
Protection agency and Pattaya-area law enforcement, saw the arrest of
Horsman and 25 others for luring boys ages 9-13 into providing sexual
services in exchange for gifts and playing video games. CEOP touted its
victory in press releases sent around the world and posed with Thai police
officials on TV to pronounce that they’d made a major dent in Thailand’s
child sex industry.
If it were only true. After British officers went home, the case disappeared
into the murky underworld of pedophile prosecution. Since then all 26
suspects have been set loose on bail, witnesses have gone missing and no
court dates appear imminent.
 German
Gerhard Heiner Gatsche is remanded to custody for allegedly abusing a
14-year-old boy.
It was not the first time. The Pattaya property developer was actually free
on bail in December from his arrest in March 2006 for engaging in lewd acts
with five boys between 10 and 14 years old. Stern-faced prosecutors said
they had their man “dead to rights” and promised maximum penalties. But as
the case dragged out, prime witnesses disappeared and when Horsman’s “dead
to rights” case came to court, the prosecution suddenly had no evidence to
offer and he was set free.
Horsman’s latest arrest July 20 - and the first reported one for his
neighbor Gatsche - follows similar patterns.
In Horseman’s case, a social worker reported to authorities at the Region 2
Children’s and Woman’s Protection Division that a 14-year-old boy working at
the Look go-go bar in the infamous Sunee Plaza said he’d been coerced into
providing services to a foreign man and had been asked to live with him
full-time. Horsman was arrested by Banglamung police after the social worker
and boy confronted him at his home.
Gatsche was arrested hours later in a case dating back to March when the
mother of a 14-year-old boy complained to CPWC officers that he’d been
molested by the German man after meeting him in Sunee Plaza. Gatsche
initially denied he knew the boy but then said the entire incident was in
the past and he’d already forgotten about it.
He is again free to roam Sunee Plaza after being released on 200,000 baht
bail.
Police ring up Ghana man
charging him with fake plastic
Boonlua Chatree
The clerk at the Yes Boss tailor shop in North Pattaya knew
something was wasn’t right when a Ghana man trying to make a purchase
insisted a credit card bearing the name “Jennifer Moore” was his.
 Agabrah
Treach is behind bars for trying to use stolen or counterfeit credit cards.
Convinced the tall African was not named “Jennifer” - nor Sasithorn or
David, the names on the other two cards he presented - store staff alerted
police who 30 minutes later arrested the alleged member of a credit-card
fraud ring that had been operating in Pattaya for some time.
Police caught up with 29-year-old Agabrah Treach at nearby Sun Moon Fashion
on Second Road. On him they found the Citibank and Standard Chartered
plastic, 65,000 baht in cash and a sales receipt for 10,000 baht showing
he’d managed to convince at least one shop owner he was indeed Jennifer.
Initially feigning an inability to understand English, Treach eventually
admitted to Pattaya police investigators he was running a scam where he’d
make a deal with small shopkeepers to charge the cards - which he insisted
were not stolen or counterfeit - for fake purchases, then give the store
owner 60 percent of the total. By keeping just 40 percent, he’d still
managed to cash in 65,000 baht.
He was charged with possession and use of counterfeit credit cards.
Pattaya officials look to improve students’ outlook on life
Vimolrat Singnikorn
Pattaya social-welfare officials are keeping a close eye on handicapped and
elderly residents, offering them free vision tests and eyeglasses as part of
a nationwide campaign to assist the physically challenged.
 Manita
Ketpet, 10, a student at Pattaya School 5 gets an eye exam.
Pattaya-area students lined up for the eye exams at Pattaya City Hall July
13 and will receive their glasses Aug. 19. Run by the local Social Welfare
Office, the Disabled and Elderly People with Physical Handicaps Project is
part of the national Social Welfare and Development Plan. Social worker
Arunrasamee Boonkerd said the goal over the welfare plan is to assist poor,
elderly, disabled and handicapped residents.
The handicaps don’t have to be serious, either. Many of those attending the
eye exams merely suffered from near-sightedness.
10-year old Manita Ketpet, a student at Pattaya School 5, is one of those.
She said she spends a lot of time playing computer games, but cannot see the
classroom blackboard. Her teacher sent her to get the glasses she cannot
otherwise afford.
Arunrasamee said that’s exactly the point of the outreach effort, the fifth
the city has run. A citywide survey revealed there were a large number of
elderly and disabled people who couldn’t afford to buy aids and equipment to
make their lives easier. Eyeglasses, she said, are just the beginning.
Vet preps Thailand’s first
artificial shell for sea turtle
Officials at the Sea Turtle Preservation Center
tend to the Green Turtle’s injuries.
Patcharapol Panrak
It looked like a sea turtle who’d swam from the Philippines to nest
on Koh Khram would never get to lay her eggs after she was struck by a boat
propeller. But the lucky Green Turtle may get another chance as
veterinarians prepare to give the terrapin a rare artificial shell.
Nantarika Chansue, director of the Chulalongkorn University’s Aquatic Animal
Disease Research Center, became the first in Thailand to develop an
artificial turtle shell in 2001, fitting Jikko, a freshwater turtle run over
by a truck, with a new fiberglass appendage. The vet now has a chance to
craft the first such device in Thailand for a sea turtle.
Strong waves and wind this month tossed 15 Green Turtles on their way to Koh
Khram under a boat. On July 16, Navy officials found several of them on
Thungprong Beach, including one badly injured by a propeller. The reptile
had sustained deep cuts to its flesh and a broken shell.
Unlike those used by creatures such as crabs and snails, the shell of a
turtle is part of the animal’s bone structure and cannot be shed. Once
cracked, it opens the turtle up to infection and pneumonia and most times
leads to death. There have been few reported cases worldwide of successful
shell repairs.
Members of the Royal Thai Marine Corps’ Reconnaissance Battalion delivered
the injured turtle to Sea Turtle Preservation Center at the Sattahip Naval
Base for treatment. About 15 years old and weighing in at 43.5 kg, the
turtle had its cuts cleaned, stitched and medicated. But repairing the 77 cm
shell was beyond the abilities of Navy vet Tanainan Nokam.
So he called in Nantarika, whose work with Jikko eight years ago garnered
her international media attention. Back then she placed a fiberglass shell
over the animal’s broken natural cover to speed the healing process. The
artificial shell, developed from denture-plate material by a Chulalongkorn
architecture student, fell off after the natural shell was restored.
Animal doctors hope that - if she survives her other injuries - the same can
be done for the mother Green Turtle, who was born near Koh Khram, migrated
to the Philippines and had swam back to lay eggs before being hit by the
prop.
Space: Thailand’s final frontier
(L to R) Niklas Hedman, Office
for Outer Space Affairs; Zhang Wei, APSCO secretary-general; Nimit
Damrongrat, advisor to the Minister of Information and Communication
Technology; Lin Sen, deputy director-general of China’s Ministry of Industry
and Information Technology; and Lee Khiam Jin of the United Nations Economic
and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
Sawittree Namwiwatsuk
With a total solar eclipse and the 40th anniversary of the first
moon landing in the same week, space was much on the mind of Thailand’s
science officials when they hosted space program administrators from around
Asia at an Asia Pacific Space Cooperation Organization forum.
Sponsored by APSCO and the Ministry of Information and Communications
Technology, the July 20 International Symposium on Space Cooperation for
Asia brought together 70 representatives from 13 countries to the Pattaya
Marriott Resort & Spa to plot the region’s future space-development plans.
APSCO blasted off in April with delegations from Bangladesh, China, Hong
Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand,
Turkey, and the Ukraine with the goal of exchanging knowledge and technology
to promote satellite activities, exploration, research and science.
Nimit Damrongrat, advisor to the MICT minister, said the group drafted a
plan to work together in the areas of remote sensing, communications
satellites and overall space technology.
“This will make space available to other countries with joint capabilities
under the framework of cooperation and agreement between countries,
including promoting each country’s functions on the world stage as a country
member of APSCO, and developing space knowledge for Thai space personnel,”
Nimit said.
Navy ‘Hell Week’ creates
soldiers with morals
New soldiers march around
Rangsi Sunthorn Temple
in full kit to reinforce their morals.
Patcharapol Panrak
With Thais grounded in the peaceful philosophy of Buddhism, breeding fierce
soldiers can be challenging for the country’s military. To mold recruits
into the best they can be, the Royal Thai Navy training conscripts are put
through something they have come to call “Hell Week.”
The latest edition of Hell Week started July 18 for 38 new members of the
Navy’s Marine Corps’ Reconnaissance Battalion who applied for the special
training with an eye toward going into special operations. They were trained
how to infiltrate an area and then seize control with the help of amphibious
troops.
But reinforcing a message that soldiers fight to protect, and not wantonly
kill, officials had them parade in a Buddhist temple to reinforce their
morals.
“Soldiers must train to be both strong physically and morally, said
battalion commander Lt. Col. Roengrat Uthisen. “They cannot be efficient if
they lack either of these.”
Military training, he noted, runs counter to Thai people’s feelings. Some
call what the military does ruthless, but it’s necessary. Otherwise soldiers
die, he said. The challenge, however, is to be sure soldiers know to shoot
only the enemy, not non-combatants.
“We train the conscripts to understand both sins and virtues to help them
create killer scruples,” Roengrat said.
To get the message across, trainees ran three laps around Rangsi Sunthorn
Temple in full kit. They then took the opportunity to pray to become good
soldiers.
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