My Chiang Mai

The Tourism and Sports Minister has admitted that our new Convention Centre, emerging slowly behind the Provincial Hall, Mae Rim, is almost 50% behind schedule, may not be finished until next year – and is asking for an extra 1.1 billion baht over budget to finish it off. It was all bad news this week from Chumpol Silpa-archa, whose Ministry began the project with a government grant of 1.8 billion baht.

Now the Minister wants to virtually double the budget to cover “infrastructure, interiors, public areas and protection from insects.” Building began 43 days late stated Chumpol, without giving a reason, and some work could not begin because architects’ designs did not match blueprints.

Intended to open in September, the Centre “could even be completed by next year” Chumpol was quoted as saying by ‘The Nation.’ Owners of the building, the Tourism Authority of Thailand, will have to pay fines of 6 million baht a month for each month of delay after September.

Editor’s Note: For residents of a city that coped for over 2 years with 2 partially completed, major under-passes on the Superhighway, this news will come as no surprise. At least there seems no risk of TAT going bust, like one of the under-pass contractors.

Members of the local ‘Love Elephant Club’, and businesses depending on the animals, took a dozen elephants to the Provincial Hall to demonstrate their need for financial help to compensate for the lack of tourism.

The ‘Northern Part’ Thai newspaper reported that the elephant owners then wrote to the Prime Minister to state their case.

The past few weeks have seen an increase in night time street begging by elephants and their mahouts. This results from redundancies which have hit mahouts who own their own animals. However, a new law not only punishes the mahouts for this practice, but also anyone giving money for the elephants’ food.

It’s an ill wind that blows no-one any good

‘Northern Part’ added that the Sports and Tourism Office of Chiang Rai reported a 20% increase in Thai tourism during June, over the same month last year. The authority concluded that this was a ‘Bangkok exodus’ due to the demonstrations in the capital.

A German-born Australian national, resident in the Doi Saket suburb of Chiang Mai for many years, is due in court today charged with raping 3 under-aged Thai sisters.

Karl Joseph Kraus, a wheelchair user aged 90, has been allowed to stay in a hospital rather than a police cell since his arrest on Tuesday.

After complaints from the girls’ parents that the offences have taken place over the past 2 years, police raided the home of Mr Kraus.
Around 100 photographs were confiscated and there are conflicting reports on whether some are indecent or not.

Police also subjected the bedroom of Mr Klaus to modern ‘blue light’ tests for semen, and took his mattress to the police station.

In a phone call to his son in Australia, the accused laughed at the charges, denied them, and added that he was “at home in Perth” on some of the dates that offences were alleged to have taken place.

An official from the Australian Embassy is due to attend court, where Mr Kraus faces a minimum jail sentence of 35 years if found guilty.
“If the judge decides he is guilty, we have no suitable jail for anyone in this situation” said a policewoman. “It would be better if he were deported immediately, as I am sure that Australia has the right facilities.”

A Transport Ministry plan to invest 800 billion baht in a rail network allowing train speeds of 250km per hour is unlikely to serve Chiang Mai.

The latest twist after years of discussion is that a 937km route from Bangkok to Hat Yai on the Malaysian border would provide better returns than one from the capital to Chiang Mai.

As well as the long southern route and that to Chiang Mai, the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning, are also considering Bangkok to Nong Khai, the border with Laos, and Bangkok to the coastal industrial city of Rayong.

Critics of the plan highlight the consistent targetting of railways in the south by insurgents and the commonplace damage to Thailand’s narrow tracks caused by heavy rains.

Editor’s Note: Despite promises by previous governments, few improvements have been made to the (mainly single line) service linking Chiang Mai with the capital since it opened in 1921. Journeys of around 12 hours duration are frequently hours late.

A firetruck is set alight by protesters in Chiang Mai

After red shirt protesters blocked the main bridge into the city with burning tyres yesterday mid-day, the government announced a night time curfew in Chiang Mai, as well as Bangkok and other cities covered by the ’state of emergency.’

No-one should be on the streets between 9.00pm and 5.00am until Monday morning.

Traffic chaos broke out yesterday when the Nawarat Bridge was blocked, along with the main road into the city from the railway station, where the ‘reds’ erected a stage a week ago and have been assembling since.

Airport Shopping Plaza and Kad Suan Kaew shopping mall closed early afternoon and were followed by Carrefour a few hours later. It is not known if these moves were made due to specific threats, or simply as a precautionary reaction to the burning of the Central World mall in Bangkok. Government schools and many international schools have been closed this week, along with banks and some petrol stations.

Yesterday, a government spokesman gave almost unprecedented English language advice to foreigners on Channel 7 TV.  He said that the problems in Bangkok were being contained, that travel within Thailand was unrestricted and reminded people that, according to Thai law, foreigners should carry their passports with them at all times.

Soldiers inspect the damage at the provincial governor's residence in Chiang Mai

The British Embassy, Bangkok, now closed to the public, yesterday extended its warning “to avoid all but essential travel” from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, mentioning ” a number of violent incidents, some involving gun fire.”

Editor’s Note: The atmosphere in Chiang Mai now is one of quiet frustration rather than tense anxiety. We have had no reports of violence against persons and no gun fire. Some expats here feel that the British Embassy warning is greatly over-cautious with no grounding in fact.

In the early hours of Monday, May 17th, 2 home made bombs were thrown at banks near Chiang Mai city centre.

City police chief Maj. Gen. Sommai Kangwisaisuk said that “futher incitement to the political sitation” was behind the attacks on Siam Commercial Bank, Chang Puak, and Thai Military Bank, Nong Hoi. No injuries and limited damage was caused.

Editor’s Note: Minor night time attacks on banks in the capital have been ascribed to enmity towards the banks major shareholders. The atmosphere in Chiang Mai remains calm and Foreign and Thai tourists are still in evidence.

Thai and expat residents of Chiang Mai were surprised last evening (Thursday) to find that their peaceful province had been included on a list of 15 to suddenly have “emergency law” imposed upon them.

Within a few hours of the shooting of a prominent “red shirt” leader in Bangkok, Col Sansern Kaewkamnerd of the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) announced that Chiang Mai and the neighbouring provinces of Chiang Rai to the north and Lampang to the south were now under the “state of emergency.”

The aim of the decision, which enables army and police to restrict people’s movements and gatherings of over a few in any one place, was to “prevent possible red shirt protests”, he said.

Over the past few weeks, small red shirt crowds have briefly – and politely – interrupted traffic flow on minor city streets close to their headquarters hotel near Wat Phrasingh. No other disruption has been seen and the only daily visible signs of local solidarity with the anti-government, pro-Thaksin “reds” are red flags and streamers flying from some local taxis and private cars.

“The situation with the demonstrations in Bangkok is now the flash point”, a ‘red shirt’ organiser has told mychiangmai.com in an exclusive interview.
Asked if Chiang Mai – historically the business and power base of the red’s No 1 supporter, ousted Prime Minister Taksin Shinawatra – would be affected, our informant replied.

“The red shirts will never start violence. It is up to the government to solve the problems”

said the middle aged Thai business owner, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“If there is any violence at all, it will be started by the army or the police”

he emphasised.

“Chiang Mai will be peaceful. The whole focus of the protests is Bangkok because that’s where all the decisions are made.”

The man claimed that nothing had been seen recently of the pro-government yellow shirts because “so many of them have realised we are right and now wear red shirts!”

“I hope this will all end peacefully and early elections will be called”

he concluded.

Article contributed by David Hardcastle, Copyright David Hardcastle 2010

THE $120-billion Asian liquidity booster known as the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI)has morphed into a multilateral agreement from the bilateral, and is now governed by a single pact instead of several.

In a joint statement, finance ministers and central-bank governors of the Associaiton of Southeast Asian Nations plus 3 (Asean+ 3) announced on Wednesday the mutation of the CMI’s multilateral nature takes effect that day.

In the event of a liquidity crunch, a country in the initiative can draw a percentage of its contribution. China and Hong Kong together, plus Korea and Japan, contributed a total $96 billion to the pool, while the 10 Asean members contributed an aggregate $24 billion.

This means any member with a need of foreign currency may tap from the communal pool for balance-of-payments support as and when necessary. The resource was planned after the region plunged into the 1997 financial crisis, but the first steps were done bilaterally.

A press statement of the CMI participants said, “Each participant is entitled, in accordance with the procedures and conditions set out in the agreement, to swap its local currency with US dollars for an amount up to its contribution multiplied by its purchasing multiplier.”

Almost 100 monks, from Wat Umong in Muang district in Chiang Mai, the home province of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, have joined the red shirt rally violating a Buddhist regulation that bars them from taking part in political activities.

The monks are defiant, even to the point of saying “so, defrock us then!”, they are determined to remain at the rally and to serve as what they call a ”human shield”  between the protesters and the police.

In a recent letter to the Office of National Buddhism (ONB), the pro-red shirt monks attempted to justify their participation in the rally by saying their presence would serve as a warning to the government not to use force against the demonstrators.

But the monks are treading a fine line when they speak on stage at the UDD’s rallying point at the Phan Fa Bridge. Some were also seen riding pillion on red shirt motorcycles during the movement’s mass mobile rally through Bangkok last Saturday.