Thais question open door policy
Authorities worry it may turn Bangkok into a haven for criminals
BANGKOK: Unwinding at a beach town with bar girls came first. Building bombs was allegedly for later.
The three Iranians detained in Bangkok and accused of plotting to attack Israeli diplomats set priorities during their trip to Thailand.
They spent time in the company of prostitutes at a famous beach resort that has attracted many of the world’s unsavoury characters.
Thailand’s tourism industry, which accounts for 6% of the economy and employs more than two million people, brings in more than Us$25bil (Rm76bil) in revenues every year.
It is inevitable then that among the roughly 12 million visitors every year, there will be many people with nefarious backgrounds.
The “Land of Smiles” has long been a favourite haven for criminals – from Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout to gangsters, drug smugglers and paedophiles – drawn by its opendoor visa policy, lax law enforcement and huge variety of white sand beaches.
Officials are now questioning if they should roll back the welcome mat a little.
“We have to admit that there are threats all over the world, and our country is a weak link,” National Security Council chief Wichean Potephosree said after an apparently foiled bomb plot was uncovered when an explosion in the Iranians’ rented house on Tuesday forced authorities to acknowledge that Thailand was a target of international terrorists.
Within days of the terror scare, the Thai Tourism Ministry put on hold a plan to allow visas on arrival to citizens of Middle Eastern countries, including Iran. Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubumrung said he would order immigration authorities to “closely check people who enter the country, especially from countries that might have problems”.
On Friday, police revealed that the three Iranians had flown into the resort island of Phuket on Feb 8, then moved to Pattaya.
They stayed there for at least two nights and cavorted with several female sex workers, one of whom was brought to Bangkok to identify the suspects on Thursday, said Lt-col Noppon Kuldiloke, a senior immigration police investigator in southern Thailand.
They drank and played snooker together, according to one of the women quoted in Friday’s Bangkok Post.
The men left Pattaya on Feb 13 and there the details get murky until the following day at about 2pm, when explosives in their rented Bangkok house blew up accidentally, forcing them to flee.
Two suspects, Mohammad Kharzei and Saeid Moradi, were detained in Bangkok.
A third suspect, Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, was captured on Wednesday in Malaysia.
Part of Thailand’s problem in tracking criminals is also a regional one.
Borders in South-east Asia are notoriously porous, making it easy to slip out of Thailand and disappear.
In another blow to Thailand’s image, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force this week named it one of 15 “high-risk” countries for failure to take sufficient steps against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Thailand joins the likes of Cuba, Myanmar, Nigeria and Syria.
“I insist Thailand is not a place for money laundering,” Deputy Prime Minister Gen Yuthasak Sasiprapa said on Friday. “Thailand is only a transit place because it’s easy to go through.”
He added that Thailand is increasingly aware of its conflict: “On the one hand we have to invite tourists. On the other hand, we have to closely scrutinise them.” — AP