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Thailand takes 'hospitable' action on
Iraq
By Richard S Ehrlich
BANGKOK - Anxious to strengthen its military
partnership with the United States and qualify as a
"major non-NATO ally", Thailand has dispatched more than
420 troops to Iraq. Wearing camouflage uniforms topped
with berets and carrying US-made M-16 assault rifles and
other weapons, the biggest batch of them headed to Iraq
on Sunday night.
"Thailand and the US are
allies," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on
Saturday. "When the US requests help from us, we
respond. It is a gesture of hospitality."
Religious amulets, considered lucky by most
Thais and usually worn on a necklace, were handed out by
Thai officers to boost the soldiers' confidence, though
Thai scholars insist amulets are a corrosive,
superstitious belief that Buddhism is supposed to
correct.
A small number of female and Muslim
soldiers were included in the Thai contingent to ensure
Islamic sensitivities are well handled during body
searches and other types of contact with Iraqis. The
current deployment is to be replaced in six months with
a fresh batch of about 400 troops.
The Thai
troops will be under Poland's command and will be posted
in Karbala, where some Iraqis have expressed anger at
foreign occupation. Karbala is a holy city revered by
Islam's minority Shi'a sect, who are considered heretics
by the fundamentalist Sunni Muslims from whom Osama bin
Laden, the Taliban and Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi faction
have drawn some support. In this alien environment, the
Thais may find companionship with a contingent of about
180 Mongolian soldiers also under Poland's command and
who share some similar Tibetan Buddhist and Chinese
traditions. The Philippines - a former US colony in
Southeast Asia that is currently fighting its own
southern Muslim insurgency against Hispanic-born,
Catholic domination - has also agreed to send forces to
Iraq.
Each year the United States trains Thai
troops in military exercises within the Southeast Asian
country. Thai officials were nervous, however, about
sending soldiers to Iraq and insisted they were mostly
engineers and others on a humanitarian mission who would
shoot only in self-defense. Thai officials also played
down fears that anti-American insurgents would consider
the Thais legitimate targets because they were US
allies.
"I believe Thai troops are not the
attackers' targets because we are there to help," said
General Surayud Chulanont, the armed forces supreme
commander who saluted their departure on Sunday night.
To guarantee that Thai troops are viewed in this
respect, the Bangkok Post reported that Surayud "warned
the soldiers to follow the strict code of conduct and
customs, particularly the prohibition against physical
contact with Muslim women".
It was believed
earlier that Thailand was prepared to send a total of
about 800 troops to Iraq all at once, but worry about
the unraveling security situation in that country
apparently prompted the number to be reduced to half.
"No one feels safe in Iraq now, and not a day
goes by without more civilians being killed or injured
by US soldiers or by armed groups acting with impunity,"
said London-based Amnesty International last Thursday,
criticizing the lack of investigations whenever American
soldiers kill civilians. "US forces are facing direct
attacks and a serious law and order emergency, but that
cannot be justification for a virtual license to kill,"
the human-rights group said.
The Thai government
reflected a similar sentiment in August after an
increase in violent attacks. "We admit the situation in
Baghdad following the bomb attack on the UN headquarters
is not good," Thaksin said in August. But Thailand's
motivation for Iraqi involvement is more than its desire
to lend a helping hand. By sending troops to Iraq, the
Thai government hopes to forge an even stronger military
alliance with the United States. When Thaksin met with
US President George W Bush in Washington in June, the
White House announced that "the United States is
actively considering Thailand's designation as a Major
Non-NATO Ally (MNNA)" to mark their close military ties.
The Thai public, meanwhile, has mixed opinions about the
US-led occupation of Iraq.
"Thailand may be
abundant in food, but it doesn't produce oil, so we may
have to reconsider our position and continue to hold the
farangs' [Caucasians'] toilet paper for some time to
come," wrote a contributor to an online chat group
dominated by anti-war comments and hosted by the website
of the Nation, Thailand's respected English-language
newspaper.
Some echo such anti-war feelings and
dislike Thailand's decision to cede US requests. Some
support the war, hoping the US occupation will end the
spread of terrorism, while others fear it has worsened
the danger. When the US began bombing Iraq, a small
"stop the war" rally was held in Bangkok, where souvenir
sellers offer T-shirts emblazoned with "The Twin
Terrorists" and illustrated with portraits of Bush and
bin Laden. Other T-shirts show bin Laden's head as a
bull's-eye target.
This is also not the first
time the US has looked to Thailand for help. Thailand
sent forces to Afghanistan to support the US-led
occupation there, and the US Central Intelligence Agency
benefited from Thailand's cooperation in August when
they jointly captured Hambali - also known as Riduan
Isamuddin - in the Thai city of Ayutthaya. Hambali was a
suspected leader of Indonesia's al Qaeda-inspired Jemaah
Islamiya militant organization. He is currently
undergoing interrogation by the US at an undisclosed
site.
In Thailand's Muslim-majority south,
meanwhile, Thai officials have suffered deadly
hit-and-run attacks by a handful of local Islamic
separatists for decades. And now many Thais are more
concerned about Southeast Asia's own Islam-inspired
terrorism spreading in Thailand. A few years ago,
Thailand sent several hundred soldiers to East Timor to
help stabilize the infant nation after it broke from
Indonesia's domination, but that was under a United
Nations mandate.
(Copyright 2003 Richard S
Ehrlich.)
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