ASEAN Summit re-scheduled on June 13-14 in Phuket

Monday, 11 May 2009
eTravel Blackboard

The Thai government on Monday guaranteed full security for a regional summit on June 13 to 14 in Phuket, after the event was derailed last month by protestors.

"Every person in Phuket guarantees there will be an ASEAN summit on June 13-14," Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Tuebsuban said.

A summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its six main partners - Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea - had to be cancelled on April 11 after red-shirted anti-government demonstrators stormed the summit's hotel venue at Pattaya beach resort, 100 kilometres south-east of Bangkok.

Mr. Suthep was in charge of security for the Pattaya summit fiasco, blamed on poor co-ordination between the police, military and pro-government thugs. It was the first ASEAN summit to be canceled because of protests in the group's 42-year history.

The military will be soley responsible for security at the Phuket summit, officials said Monday.

Thai Defence Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan said the government will place the summit venue and a 5-kilometre radius under the National Security Act, prohibiting all protests and allowing authorities to arrest unauthorized gatherings of more than five people.

Phuket, an island resort 600 kilometres south of Bangkok, is a political stronghold of the Democrat Party, which is led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

Mr. Suthep, a deputy leader of the Democrats, originally wanted the summit to be held in Phuket instead of Pattaya, because he felt more confident about the security situation on the pro-Democrat island, government sources said.

However, Phuket hoteliers were not keen on hosting the summit because of lack of rooms, forcing the government to shift the event to Pattaya.

Thailand's political instability has made ASEAN summit planning difficult for more than a year.

The 14th ASEAN summit plus sessions with its main partners was originally planned for mid-December last year, but was cancelled after anti-government protestors shut down Bangkok's two international airports for a week.

The ASEAN summit was then held in Hua Hin beach resort, 130 kilometres south of Bangkok, on February 28-March 1, but the side-summits with ASEAN's main partners had to be postponed until April because of scheduling difficulties.

Thailand, which is chair of ASEAN throughout 2009, will host yet another summit near the end of the year, politics permitting.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam.

Asean Summit: Fears of 'Scary Army Presence'

Too scary for tourists? Phuket police in riot practice today (Photo by phuketwan.com)

Saturday, May 9, 2009
By Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison
Phuket Wan (Thailand)

CONCERNS are being expressed that a large-scale military presence during the Asean Plus Six summit in June could damage Phuket's image as a popular, peaceful tourist destination.

Members of Thailand's Internal Security Operations Command and top generals met with local officials on Phuket today and decided that there will be stringent checks around the summit centre in the western beach resort of Karon.

Tourists and residents will face checks at a five-kilometre cordon, and again at a three kilometre cordon, Phuketwan has learned.

More than one resort owner fears that television footage of soldiers and police on virtually every street corner will alarm travellers as much as the red shirt protest invasion of the Pattaya summit resort did in April.

Phuket's police were showing off their new skills with riot sticks and shields on a parade ground today, and they will be reinforced by thousands more men in uniform for the summit replay.

While Phuket authorities at all levels have guaranteed the behavior of local people and are clearly committed to prevent disturbances, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is talking of imposing the Internal Security Act.

This could make many normal gatherings on the island, possibly including weddings and parties, especially those close to the centre of the summit, illegal.

Is this an over reaction?

Local businessman Adisak Auksintawakul believes that sensitive Chinese and Japanese tourists will be turned off Phuket if a large-scale demonstration of military presence is on display.

In any case, he believes it is unnecessary to put Phuket's reputation as a peaceful tourist destination at risk.

''This year Phuket has hosted the Asean Plus Three Finance Ministers' meeting and an Asean Education Ministers' Meeting,'' he told Phuketwan.

''These were peaceful gatherings. There is no cause for alarm about any summit on Phuket.

''To impose the Security Act is not far short of declaring a State of Emergency.

''Instead of encouraging tourists to visit, having too much unnecessary protection could discourage tourists, which is just what the island does not need.

''It is a two-edged sword.''

Phuket is normally thinly policed with just 1100 officers to protect up to one million residents and visitors in high season months.

Local island police will be reinforced by 2850 more, just for the weekend summit on June 13-14.

But these officers will all be on the perimeter, with an unknown number of military personnel guarding a five-kilometre ''cordon sanitaire'' around the summit central meeting point, the Hilton Arcadia Phuket Resort and Spa in Karon.

What this will mean for people going about their normal business within the five-kilometre zone, and for tourists, has yet to be made plain by local and national authorities.

The island's best known holiday town, Patong, all of Karon itself and Kata, all fall within five kilometres of the summit.

Maitree Narukatpichai, owner of the Hilton Arcadia Phuket and Villa Zolitude and a past President of the Phuket Tourist Association, has previously urged an increase in local police numbers to guard the safety tourists.

He is pleased the summit is being held on Phuket and not worried about security being overplayed.

''The Government needs to ensure that leaders are safe,'' he told Phuketwan. ''We don't want a repeat of Pattaya.''

Local Tourism Association of Thailand director Setthapan Putthani is delighted that the Asean summit is coming to Phuket and not concerned about the security, which he says is well short of a declaration of a state of emergency.

Phuket is a Democrat yellow shirt stronghold, and any invading protesters would have to get past a checkpoint near the bridge that connects the only road from the island to the mainland.

In any event, a repetition of the Pattaya invasion seems unlikely for one simple reason: it did the red shirts' cause great harm.

On Phuket, preparations for the Asean summit have begun in earnest, with median strip garden beds on the road from the airport freshly planted and unsightly tree stumps being removed.

The Asean Plus Six Summit has a troubled history. First scheduled for Bangkok, it was postponed because of the invasion of the capital's airports by yellow shirt protesters in November.

Then it was to be Phuket's turn, but sufficient accommodation could not be found during the Songkran-Easter break, so it went to Pattaya.

Poor security led to red shirt protesters invading the resort on the day the summit was to begin, triggering an emergency airlift to safety for some national leaders.

The 10-member Asean grouping of Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos and the Philippines is to be bolstered by China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.

In the context of the global downturn, this makes Asean Plus Six the most important conference in the Asia-Pacific for many years.

Plane crash at Thai resort kills 88

A Thai forensic officer looks at plastic bags containing bodies recovered from a crashed One-Two-Go Airlines plane in Phuket, Thailand, Monday, Sept. 17, 2007. The plane carrying 123 passengers and seven crew from Bangkok crashed Sunday on the resort island of Phuket, killing at least 91 people, including 55 foreigners, an airline official said Monday. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

A Thai security officer stands by the wreckage of a crashed One-Two-Go Airlines plane lies on the side of a runway in Phuket, Thailand, Monday, Sept. 17, 2007. The plane carrying 123 passengers and seven crew from Bangkok crashed on the resort island of Phuket, killing at least 91 people, including 55 foreigners, an airline official said Monday. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

AFP/Reuters

PHUKET (Thailand), Sept 16: A Thai passenger plane crashed and burst into flames as it landed in driving rain on the resort island of Phuket, killing 88 people, including foreigners, officials said.

A senior civil aviation official said the pilot of the MD-82, operated by budget carrier One-Two-Go and carrying 123 passengers and seven-member crew had received permission to abort the landing at the last minute.

Instead the plane smashed onto the runway, careered into an embankment and broke in two, witnesses and officials reported.

“The plane just dropped really fast and then jerked back up. The right wing hit a tree and then the plane hit the ground,” said 23-year-old survivor Parinyawich Chusaeng.

“The people all around me were burning. Some on the floor and some standing, and they were on fire,” he told AFP.

Marine Keisel, from Paris, watched the disaster unfold from a following plane.

“When the plane landed it caught fire,” she told AFP at Phuket airport. “We could see the fire coming out of it. It was chaos inside my plane.” Television images showed the blackened, smouldering jet lying on grass off the runway by a fence and close to trees. Officials and rescuers could be seen carrying bodies covered with blankets from the wreckage in the pouring rain.

Health Minister Mongkol Na Songkhla said in a statement that 87 people had died and 43 survived, accounting for all those on board. Initial reports had put the total on board at 128.

Officials believe 15 survivors were Thai and 28 were foreign but were still verifying the identities of the dead and injured. Deputy transport minister Sansern Wongcha-um earlier said there were at least 70 foreigners on board.

British passengers were among the fatalities, according to a Thai official quoted by Sky News.

“Some victims died of fire, some were thrown out of the airplane,” deputy provincial governor Vorapot Ratsima told AFP.

Five people were in critical condition at the Bangkok Hospital Phuket, where 30 survivors had been admitted to stay overnight, hospital director Kongkiat Kespechai said.

Among those being treated were citizens of Thailand, Germany, Austria, Britain, Australia, Ireland and Iran.

Other hospitals in Phuket, Thailand’s largest island and a hugely popular resort destination, said they were treating people from the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy.

“There are bodies piled up inside the smouldering wreckage,” Vorapot told Channel 11 television earlier. “What we have to do is to identify and return dead bodies to their relatives.”

The health ministry said bodies had been laid out at the Phuket airport terminal due to a lack of hospital refrigerators.