Teh Nation - EDITORIAL: Right offic

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Subject: Teh Nation - EDITORIAL: Right official signal must be sent out now

The Nation - Oct 5, 1999.
Editorial & Opinion

EDITORIAL: Right official signal must be sent out now

The siege of the Burmese Embassy over the weekend offers many lessons for
Thailand to learn and remember -- not the least is the need for the
government to give the right signal to the international community and to
rethink the accumulation of related problems that were left unattended over
the years to ultimately boomerang into a national crisis.

First and foremost is that the Thai government has not given the right
signal on its position towards the embassy siege, which was nothing short of
a terrorist act. It is fortunate that the five armed men were not trained,
hard-line terrorists but student rebels who were willing to negotiate for a
quick and peaceful ending.

But that does not warrant a sympathetic comment by Interior Minister Sanan
Kachornprasart of the Burmese students carrying assault weapons and
grenades. The interior minister called them ''student activists''. Even
though this act, apparently by a small number of Burmese ex-university
students, reflects the growing frustration of a Burmese populace which has
suffered under 37 years of military rule, Sanan and other Thai policymakers
should condemn the act -- which not only put at risk the lives of innocent
people but was also a clear violation of national sovereignty.

Besides, it is the duty of the Thai government to make sure that all
embassies are well protected. In reality, foreign diplomats are probably not
certain now about their safety and are likely to be making their own plans
to beef up their security. The news reports that the Thai intelligence had
known that the rebels might do something at the Burmese Embassy four months
back brings to light the breakdown in communications and security
arrangements which were obviously lacking.

The prime minister and other leaders of the government are known to be quite
angry at how foreign nationals could travel with ease carrying concealed
weapons of war on the streets of Bangkok. In a way, they should not be
surprised. If they look around themselves and at a bigger picture of how
security personnel and Interior Ministry officials conduct their
assignments, it is not ironic for even a tank to roam about in Bangkok.

The evidence of incompetency is everywhere. The Chuan government has been
warned many times that both the immigration and intelligence systems need a
major overhaul as well as a more unified command. The evidence is that
perhaps as many as a million foreigners -- Burmese, Chinese and others --
have been allowed to enter the country illegally and without any record.

This slack control is known to everyone but it has not been rectified after
all these years. The weekend siege will lead to tightening of the
supervision of Burmese refugees and illegal entry but that will not be the
end of the problem until the entire system is put to a revamp and followed
up by the day.

Another big problem which surfaced during the siege is the way in which the
police organised themselves around the embassy. The roads to and from the
embassy should have been closed off because of the security risk and not
left open to street vendors, media people and passers-by to move in and out
at will. Their safety is just as important.

The entire episode was managed unprofessionally.

It was neither the intelligence apparatus nor the security system of the
government that was in control but a local radio station disc jockey who was
dictating things to the driver of one of the vans: this shocked many of us.

The siege should now move to the top of the Thai government's diplomatic
agenda in dealing with Rangoon. The Burmese military junta is now back in
the spotlight of international diplomacy. The fact that many people are
sympathetic with the student rebels should serve as a reminder to Rangoon
that they cannot get away with refusing to cooperate in negotiations with
opposition leaders and should abide by the deadline for the passage of the
new Constitution.

Thailand always has a tough time dealing with the Burmese junta which
resorted to closing off its border with Thailand. The siege represents an
opportunity to drive pending issues forward. Even if world attention had not
been drawn to it by the dramatic action against its Sathon Road mission, the
Rangoon dictatorship must still face all legitimate pressure to give the
Burmese people the democracy they badly deserve.

The Nation