Cleaning up, and praying tourists return to Thailand
Posted: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 6:50 AM
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Bangkok, Thailand
By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
SUVARNABHUMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, Bangkok - Serirat Prasutanond has perhaps the least enviable job in Thailand right now. "We are doing our best, really," he told me. "We want the tourists to start coming back to Thailand."
Prasutanond is the acting president of Suvarnabhumi, Bangkok's international airport, which was taken over and closed for a week by anti-government protesters, and today he was supervising the clean-up. He said the computer systems were fine and the inside of the vast terminal -- which resembled a refugee camps, strewn with bodies just a few hours earlier - was mostly cleared of rubbish.
He has told the Thai media that the airport could be fully open by Friday, but was cautious when I asked him if this was realistic. "It all depends on security. The security systems have to be approved," he warned.
As we spoke, teams of cleaners hauled away bags of rubbish, and hundreds of sheets of cardboard, which the protesters had used as mats to sleep on. Others dusted and washed the floors, while earnest-looking airline officials hovered with clipboards. At a Thai Airways check-in desk, a supervisor told me their systems were fine and they'd soon be testing the baggage belts, which a few hours earlier were being used as beds. "There was no damage," she told me, "they (the protesters) were educated people," betraying her sympathy for a group that has largely drawn its support from Bangkok's middle class.
Outside, on the approach road to the terminal, barricades made of tires, sharpened wooden staves, razor wire and luggage trolleys, had been abandoned. Airport workers pushed one snake-like line of trolleys back towards the terminal, while policemen - conspicuous by their absence from the airport in recent days - tried gingerly to coil the wire.
A Thai Airways Boeing 747 did arrive from the resort island of Phuket early this afternoon, but passengers were handled at a small facility that usually serves crew members, away from the main terminal. A second flight was due to arrive from Jordon later in the afternoon, but passengers would likely be bussed into downtown Bangkok for immigration and customs checks.
U.S. security worries
A team of security experts spent the day vetting the airport. The seizure by the anti-government protesters represents a huge security breach, and Thai and international authorities will have to be satisfied with the integrity of the system before the airport can be fully reopened.
One sign of U.S. security sensitivities came when a Los Angeles-bound Thai Airways flight had to stop in Japan for a full security check, before being allowed to fly onto U.S. territory. American authorities were not satisfied with the standards of security at U-Tapao air force base, from where the flight originated.
U-Tapao, a Vietnam-war era base, remains the main exit point for stranded tourists, now thought to number more than 200,000. It is now handling 40 to 50 flights a day, but the scene down there is crowded and chaotic. The system has been improved thanks to city-based check-in and immigration, one at a big convention center. Today Thai Airways suggested as an interim measure processing passengers for Suvarnabhumi at these same city facilities.
Regional airports, in Phuket and Chiang Mai, also are being used.
The anti-Government Peoples Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which had seized the airport, was today basking in its "victory" after Thailand's constitutional court brought the government down by dissolving the ruling party for electoral fraud at the last election, and disqualifying from office its leading officials, including the prime minister.
The Thai courts have played a far more assertive role in the last couple of years, since the Thai king appealed to the country's top judges to solve what he called the political "mess." They have now obliged, just ahead of the king's birthday Friday, but this does look more like an intermission rather than a solution to the crisis.
Only an intermission for crisis
The government and its coalition partners still have a majority in parliament, and members of parliament from the dissolved ruling party were preparing today to shift to another "shell" party, which will then form a government, holding onto power. They also are able to mobilize tens of thousands of their own supporters for street protests should they choose to do so, and would almost certainly win if Thailand were to hold another election tomorrow.
The PAD claims the government is a proxy of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, accused of corruption and misrule, and deposed in a 2006 coup. He is now in exile, but retains enormous support among Thailand's rural poor.
The PAD claims to be acting in the name of the king, and has already threatened to return to the barricades if it doesn't like the look of the new administration. In spite of its name, it is neither democratic, nor particularly representative of the people. It draws most of its support from the Royalist elite and Bangkok's middle class, though its seizure of the airport has cost it a lot of that support. It has a rather mangled view of democracy, and advocates largely scrapping Thailand's electoral system and replacing an elected parliament with a body largely appointed by worthy people, such as themselves.
They don't believe the poor and uneducated (the core of government support) can be trusted with the vote.
So, all-in-all, there could still be lively times ahead. The court decision has given a breather, but not much more.
Should tourists still come to Thailand? On balance, yes. The PAD is unlikely to repeat its seizure of the airports with all the enormous damage this has caused to Thailand's economy and image, and the on-going conflict will hardly be noticed by most visitors.
One British newspaper recently listed Thailand as one of the twenty most dangerous countries on the planet. This is absurd. But do be aware, there is far more to this kingdom than the legendary smile.
Related link: Thailand's political maze - A beginners guide
