Swept Away in Thailand; Military Makes Peace

Strategy Page Pattaya Times newspaper and website 30.11.2011 02:05

Thai military goes to help Thai villagers.

Thai military come through for the public at a critical time providing relief to flood victims.

November 28, 2011: The massive floods that have ravaged the country have been good, and bad, for the army. Thousands of military trucks and boats, and more than 50,000 soldiers are seen all over the country, especially the capital, helping out. The army has become very unpopular in the last decade, mainly because of the military backed overthrow of an elected government five years ago.

The flood relief effort has changed all that, and the army has followed up with "public service" ads on radio and TV describing what the army is doing for flooded communities. The relief/PR effort is working, as polls show a more favorable attitude towards the military. This may help the military to avoid sharp cuts to its budget in the next few years. There has been great pressure to cut the military budget, which has doubled since the military coup five years ago.

When the generals stepped aside earlier this year, and let an elected government take control, it was expected that the military budget would be at risk. But the floods have caused over $30 billion in damage, and nearly as much will be spent by the government to repair it all. The GDP is about $320 billion, nearly triple what it was a decade ago, and a lot of Thais are going slide back to those earlier, less affluent days. There will not be much support for maintaining the military budget at over $5 billion a year.

Thais are particularly unhappy because GDP growth had been increasing this year, after stagnating during the years of military government. Now it appears that GDP will shrink up to four percent next year because of the floods. The enormous amount of economic damage from these floods is largely because much of the economic growth in the last few decades has been via factories and businesses built on low ground. Floods of this magnitude don't occur often (once or twice a century), and the government did not restrict construction on vulnerable land.

Despite the efforts of the security forces, civilians in the three southern (Moslem) provinces continue to flee the Islamic terrorism. A decade ago, the population consisted of 1.9 million Moslems and 400,000 Buddhists. Since then, 120,000 Buddhists and 190,000 Moslems have fled their homes because of the violence. While most of the Moslems went to other parts of the three provinces, most of the Buddhists fled the south. Most of the refugees were Moslem because the Islamic terrorists have attacked the Moslems who did not agree with the violence and opposed the terrorists. The Islamic terrorists are intent on driving all non-Moslems out of the three provinces and establishing a Moslem state.

See the entire article at http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/thai/articles/20111128.aspx

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