Pubdate: Mon, 11 Apr 2005
Source: Bangkok Post (Thailand)
Copyright: The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2005
Contact:  http://www.bangkokpost.co.th/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/39
Author:  Veera Prateepchaikul, is Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Post Publishing 
Co Ltd
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?236 (Corruption - Outside U.S.)

WITH THE PROMISE OF ANOTHER CAMPAIGN

It has been almost six months since Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra 
launched his campaign against corruption. The launch was as low key as the 
campaign itself has been. So little has been heard about this campaign that 
one might wonder whether it is continuing or has been allowed to die 
quietly away.

This raises the major question of whether the prime minister is genuinely 
interested in ridding corruption from the government bureaucracy.

The only matter involving corruption that Mr Thaksin has taken any real 
interest in is the doctoring of sodium chloride purchased by the state for 
use in artificial rain-making to help alleviate the drought, a project 
supervised by His Majesty the King. And there is some question whether this 
matter would have attracted the attention of Mr Thaksin and his government 
if it not been for the fact that the project is supervised by His Majesty.

The amount involved in the procurement is roughly five million baht for the 
purchase of 800 tons of sodium chloride. This is chickenfeed compared to 
the multi-billion-baht mega-projects that the government has implemented or 
is in the process of getting under way.

If we give the prime minister the benefit of the doubt and assume he has 
quite simply forgotten his public utterances about doing something about 
corruption because he has so many things on his mind, and more and more 
each day, then perhaps we the members of the public are equally to blame 
for forgetting to remind our elected leader of his promises. After all, it 
is difficult to remember everything we are told will happen when we are 
bombarded with one campaign after another, to the point we have lost count 
of how many are being waged. Or is it we just don't really care?

Another campaign was launched last week, at the order of the prime 
minister, to rid Bangkok of the mafia gangs that extort money from pavement 
vendors. At a meeting with a large group of vendors from Bo Bae market who 
converged on Government House to air their grievances, Mr Thaksin issued a 
warning to the mafia gangs, especially those employed in government 
service, to turn over a new leaf or face harsh punishment, including the 
possibility of having their ill-gotten gains seized by the state.

Why this sudden interest in racketeering and the pavement vendors being 
preyed upon when this problem has been well known to almost every resident 
of Bangkok, including the prime minister, for goodness knows how long?

Just a couple of days after the launch of the campaign against the mafia 
gangs, the Thaksin administration announced it would relaunch its infamous 
war on drugs. Why a new campaign in the war is being launched now and who 
are its intended targets is unclear.

The campaign was mentioned in passing during the prime minister's weekly 
radio address, "PM meets the people", on Saturday when Mr Thaksin was 
speaking about the mafia and the southern violence, among other issues 
bedevilling Thai society. The comments were not even picked up by most 
local newspapers and the one television station which did make mention of 
the new campaign gave no details. Whether the prime minister is serious 
about this new onslaught on drugs remains to be seen. But if he is, let us 
hope that there will not be a repeat of the earlier excesses when more than 
2,000 people, mostly small-time drug pushers, were killed during the first 
campaign launched two years ago. If so, the government must expect loud 
condemnation from human rights groups.

This launch of one campaign after the other in dealing with specific 
problems _ be it corruption, drugs or poverty _ serves as a reminder to the 
public that this government is not turing a blind eye to society's ills, 
even if little real action is taken.and the authorities tend to think of 
them, if at all, as nothing out of the usual.

So don't get too excited when the prime minister announces the launch of 
some new campaign during the course of his radio programme. His failure to 
carry through on his promises is not because his words cannot be trusted. 
It is that he thinks ahead and too fast for his subordinates to keep pace.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom