Bangkok, Thailand
By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent
BANGKOK, Thailand – Let's hear it for freedom of speech! Tibet, Zimbabwe and now Myanmar are all refusing access to journalists who want to report on the hardships of their people.
In Tibet, the Chinese are clamping down in fear that unrest will spoil the summer Olympics in Beijing; Tibetans complain of beatings and killings. In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe is hanging on grimly, trying to overthrow an apparent election loss by subterfuge and violence, after running his country into the ground for twenty years. And in Myanmar, after 46 years of iron rule by a military junta, the generals wants to stop outsiders from witnessing the devastation of Cyclone Nargis. They're afraid of a threat to their power.
As a journalist who has tried to enter each of these places in the last three months and failed – my heart goes out to the citizens under stress, whose stories I would dearly like to tell, in the hope some good would come of it. But my predominant emotion is thanks to the world into which I was fortunate enough to be born. My world has enough food and my vote is a force that cannot be changed, unlike Zimbabwe; I can say what I like, unlike in Tibet; and I know I can count on my government in case of a natural disaster, unlike in Myanmar.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
While American are being treated to a political thriller, here in Thailand we are being entertained by something closer to pantomime,
the latest act being the return this week of Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister, deposed in a bloodless military coup 17 months ago.
I learned of his imminent return from a taxi driver who picked me up at the airport after I'd arrived back in Bangkok from North Korea, where local TV doesn't carry a great deal of news about the outside world, or anything else for that matter, and where I had been covering the visit of the New York Philharmonic.
It was a curious conversation. "Sorry, no meter. Meter not working," the taxi driver announced, soon after we'd set off. It was late, I was tired. I really didn't need this, so I replied rather curtly, "No meter, no money!"
The meter then miraculously sprung back to life. A moment or two later he turned to me, beaming, giving a thumbs up sign.
"Thaksin back tomorrow, back tomorrow!"
I'm sure there is no direct connection between the driver trying to rip me off and the return of a man whose government was accused of massive corruption, but it did give me pause for thought.
The last time Thai politics made headline news was when the military sent tanks onto the streets of Bangkok in September 2006 to remove Thaksin from power. It was the 18th coup since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.
It followed massive protests, largely engineered by the Bangkok elite, and accusations of abuse of power, as well as corruption.
I guess the generals thought Thaksin would just fade away as most deposed leaders have in the past. But the billionaire businessman had three things going for him: Massive support among Thailand's poor, a well-oiled political machine and pots of money.
He had reinvented Thai politics, which used to be essentially a competition of the Bangkok elite, with populist policies, including cheap health care and low-cost village loans. Men like my taxi driver, who suspect all politicians are corrupt, loved him for it.
Elections gave him the biggest majorities in Thai political history.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
BANGKOK, Thailand –
Here's a paradox: Myanmar's ruling generals are trying very hard to keep us, professional journalists, out of the country, yet news and images of the pro-democracy protests and the bloody crackdown are firmly in the global spotlight.
That's thanks largely to two factors: a large and active exile community on the outside, together with cyber dissidents inside the country with access to technology that wasn't available the last time they rose up against the generals.
In the YouTube era, it' has revolutionized the way the story is being covered.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
I always found it hard to imagine Thai policemen wearing Hello Kitty armbands as a mark of shame for wayward officers.
Evidently most policemen did too, because Thailand's top cops decided Friday to abandon the idea.
It seems there was a rebellion in the macho ranks, as well as outrage on Hello Kitty Web sites.
 |
| Yasushi Ukigaya / AP |
| A police officer in Bangkok showed off the Hello Kitty armband that was going to be a used as a disciplinary measure on Monday. The police have since abandoned the idea. |
"You have to understand that it's embarrassing for our 30- to 40-year-old policemen to be made to wear this girly, pink armband," conceded police Maj. Weeraprach Wongrat, of the Crime Suppression Division, whose idea it was in the first place.
"It also attracted so much attention – a lot of praise, but a lot of criticism," he said Friday. The Thai police found themselves blasted by Hello Kitty lovers for using their cute icon as a means of punishment.
"We are concerned about the image of police as much as that of Hello Kitty," Weeraprach said. "We decided to drop the plan."
He said they would be looking at other designs.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
At first sight, Bangkok’s new airport looks impressive enough. To the thousands of tourists who land here every day, the modern glass and steel terminal building, shimmering in the heat, appears every bit the symbol of modern Thailand it was intended to be.
Look closer, though, and you’ll see the workers racing to fill the numerous cracks that have appeared on the runways and taxiways just four months after it was opened and hailed as the Pride of Thailand. It’s now impossible to use 11 of 51 air bridges, and the Thai government said this week that at least some flights will be shifted back to the old airport, while the runways are patched up.
Last weekend Thai aviation authorities refused to extend an international safety certificate for problem-plagued facility. The airport’s general manager said it had yet to set up a safety committee because they were “too busy resolving other problems.”
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
These are strange times in Bangkok. The city’s still reeling from a series of New Year’s Eve bombs, Thailand’s military-appointed government is rapidly losing credibility -- and Eric Clapton has come to town.
The veteran blues star gave a cool and clinical performance Monday evening at a packed City stadium, which was surrounded by some of the tightest security I’ve seem during my time in the city.
Foreigners, who probably made up half the audience, seemed to take it in stride. Although in reality, the bombs have sent a chill through an expatriate community that had regarded the Thai capital as one of the safest cities in Asia, and had been rather blasé about the coup.
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