OPINION

Neighbour beware

Re: "Tools of terrorists", (March 11).

In this letter, Than Htwe, Deputy Chief of Mission, Myanmar Embassy Thailand, made a pathetic attempt to legitimise the lawfulness of the brutal military regime that overthrew the duly elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021. At the same time, he denied that the Tatmadaw was terrorising ethnic minorities throughout Myanmar and put all the blame for terrorism on resistance fighters.

UN Special Rapporteur, Tom Andrews, is about to present a report to the Human Rights Council that states unequivocally that Myanmar is a failing state and that the situation is getting worse because of the actions of the illegitimate government headed by Tatmadaw chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. In his report, Andrews backs calls for the UN Security Council to pass a resolution that will refer the situation in Myanmar to the international criminal court. He cites the cases of neighbouring governments that have forcibly returned people, including military deserters and children, to Myanmar, despite the risk of imprisonment, torture or even execution.

According to the UN, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance has soared from 1 million before the coup to about 17.6 million this year.

When it is officially released, the report should be a wake-up call to Thailand to review its currently benign policies towards the military dictatorship in neighbouring Myanmar and collectively for Asean to take a firmer stance against this evil regime. Also, it will be interesting to see how chief apologist and propagandist in Thailand for Myanmar's military dictatorship, Than Htwe, attempts to sweep this damming report under the carpet.

Re: "Restore faith in sports", (Editorial, March 20).

If faith in the Thai nurturing institution known as the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) is indeed waning as alleged, or if there is a suspected deviation from the proper perfection of implicit trust in that institution's handling of its relatively modest budget of 5.5 billion baht, there is a simple, well-proven remedy at hand.

The root of the problem is obviously all those "complaints about its operations, including allegations of a conflict of interest, inefficiency and discrimination in budget allocations". The NSDF's solution is to criminalise all complaints and threaten those voicing them with appropriate prison time. In this regard, the Post's suggestion that the institution itself, no less, "must listen to criticism and take it into account" is most improper, presuming as it does that there could actually be reasonable grounds for some criticism. Is this really the kind of precedent to be advocating?

Re: "PM2.5: Endless deja vu in Thailand", (BP, March 13).

Thank you to the authors for a cogent and comprehensive review of the sources of PM2.5 pollution in Thailand and recommendations for solving this problem. Although their ideas for targeted legislation and government policy initiatives are definitely needed to address the root causes, we also need urgent intervention to deal with this NOW -- we are in the midst of an environmental/public health crisis!

As referenced, Thai citizens (and foreign residents) are getting sick and dying by the thousands. I pray that the government will declare a state of emergency. Please mobilise the Third Army to put out the farmland and forest fires and set up patrols to prevent this ongoing insanity.