“a” Hua Hin “mastermind”

The other characters will shrug their shoulders and say, “I told you so. I had nothing to do with it.” And business as usual will continue to be conducted with scant regard for the delusional punters who buy into this odd place. I guess its all over for now. Tune in after Apec for new stories with a new cast of characters.

I still enjoy your website as much as ever so, as a place where discussion is relatively open about this sort of thing, I’ll make the following points.

1. The Isoc is getting a lot of media attention these days and its certainly the most potent of the organizations in Thailand that are used in conventional and unconventional ways to assert state control in difficult circumstances. If you are curious about other Hua Hin developers who might fit into the mastermind category you should pay attention to who their financial backers supposedly are. Its well known that around Hua Hin are a number of military, border police, paramilitary and internal security related sites. The full apparatus of state coercion seems to be present here in one form or another. It should not then come as a surprise that there is some spill over into local business activities. Local developers sometimes like to get their photos taken with men in uniform. Can you really be surprised if the other inhabitants of the local expatriate community see this, possibly as they are intended to, as a sign of hidden connections and unaccountability?

2. Which leads me neatly to my next point. You should now be able to see clearly that the local expat community is quite cowed by bully boy tactics and intimidation. And posting on HHAD is unlikely to enlighten you on any serious subject. The forum presents itself as the voice of the local community but having followed its treatment of the Whiting case you’d have to be very innocent indeed to believe that this is any reflection of the true views of locals.

3. Perhaps you heard the old story of the electric shock “therapy” administered by dissatisfied associates to a large developer. He faded from the scene for a while but then made a comback. In Hua Hin’s property market, seemingly with the support of local officials, the poachers are running the reserve. Of course, you can disbelieve the rumors that a number of flagrant frauds have taken place orchestrated by a clique of dubious individuals who cooperate when there is a sucker to be fleeced. The stories usually circulate some time after the event took place. How do these stories get out? Inevitably the conspirators fall out with each other later. Sadly, it seems that to some extent the embarrassment factor is almost as potent as the intimidation factor when it comes to the victims blowing the whistle!

4. The pattern of money distribution may also be different to the usual Thailand pattern in this environment. Its certainly true that investigations are pointless when the money is flowing to the right places. I have read that normally the money flows from the bottom to the top in the cops. Michael Black and Bertil Lintner’s new work on the methamphetamine trade is good text for understanding this process. See particularly pp 102-105. Perhaps HH is a desirable posting like some of the entertainment districts in BKK? Does the cash that ends up in official hands go in at a much higher level than normal? You can also get your picture in the farang paper if you are a senior officer in HH… Many local people have direct knowledge of the lower level stuff. Some scarey mid-ranking cops are involved in entertainment businesses which explains the explosion of prostitution related activity around the Hilton but if you are a street cop then you still need to focus on motorcycle helmets at the end of the month. But what happens with the high ranking officers is a matter of conjecture and a surprising amount of newspaper publicity. Of course, the police are completely underfunded and require regular donations to supplement their meagre resources. Everything, and I really mean everything, including entire police stations, have been donated by local foreign businesses … The benefit to the local community of some of these donations is quite clear too …

4. Did you notice the role of the immigration police in the arrests? Any resident local will be able to tell you the reality of dealing with these boys and girls. If you are a farang with a local business, they are even more to be feared than the local boys or the royal police. There are so many stories around of how they enforce the rules when they find real and supposed infractions that I am sure you can source these yourself.

Your bottom line in HH is that if you want to live here the safest thing to do is to turn a blind eye and keep a low profile. The problem is that in such a small expat community, its quite difficult to maintain a low profile for long if you become involved in local society or in business. So for anyone with a public profile, turning a blind eye becomes a way of life and anyone who doesn’t turn a blind eye is a disturbance and a annoyance to those who prefer life to be simple … And they are bad for business too! In the case of those who choose to comment publicly on what is going on, the consensus seems to suggest a surprising amount of public approval for the tactics that keep people quiet. It’s a local commonplace that examples must be made, inducements must be provided and censorship must be enforced. Who can you confide in when this is the prevailing view? Who can you trust? Where will you be able to go in town and not have to suffer the attentions of the local bullies? What can you possibly gain from speaking up about the egregious behavior of local thugs?

Perhaps anonymity and discretion is a condition of existence in this environment? Or, to put it another way, the behavior of the Hua Hin community is no different to those in Phuket, Samui, or Pattaya. Local authorities, businesses and even property price sensitive homeowners will continue to condone appalling behavior if it serves to preserve HH’s reputation as somewhere different in the face of the undeniable evidence that it really isn’t different at all.

“… left them with an unfinished, sub-standard concrete monstrosity instead of the Thai-Bali style mansion they had dreamed of …”

Simply astonishing how much you can achieve how quickly around here if there’s the will to.

BangkokDan

Those defenders of O&co should be eating a hearty meal of crow and humble pie, but we will not hear a word from them. Will Hua Hin take this opportunity to clean up its besmirched image or will another of the developer mafia take his place and continue the terror.

To see what kind of “developers” Donald and Dolly were up against the discussion at

Monsters & Critics

is also a must read, especially since the main Hua Hin forum is hampered by censorship and hooligan property peddlers posing as unbiased members.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/136038/three-held-in-murder-attempt-on-american

As if our best in brown didn’t know all along.

BangkokDan

Most Thai people, if you get to know them personally, are kind hearted people and will treat foreigners highly. Of course, there are exceptions to this, as in anywhere else.

As for the farang mafias that defraud and kill people, it is another story altogether. The farang mafia cannot operate without help from local authorities, especially the Thai police, who are well known to be highly corrupted. There is good news though. A few days ago, PM Abhisit Vejjajiva has summoned 2 top police officials and personally ordered them to take on the case of Donald Whiting. So there’s still hope that crimes of such magnitude as Donald Whiting’s shooting will not be left quiet and will eventually be corrected. Let’s hope for the best!

Donald was told on numerous occasions that should he pursue his court action against this developer then his life would be taken.

Your friend at the time of the shooting was out of the country and is using this as his primary defense. People like you Super Joe and the other mods are doing a pretty good job at providing him with a secondary defense.

Everyone knows that the bubble wasn’t involved so there is only one low life in the frame who is presently on the run from the U.K. police.

e-mail me if you would like to be educated on this persons past.

John F Webb

johnforsterwebb at yahoo dot com