Ref: AsianCorrespondent.com
(update: Oct. 13 2010 - 05:10 pm)
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Russian gunrunner complicates life for Thailand's foreign ministry, writes Asia Sentinel's Pavin Chachavalpongpun
The controversial case of suspected Russian gun runner Viktor Bout is unending. Bout has been locked in a Thai jail since 2008 after US agents posing as rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia lured him to Bangkok, allegedly with the promise of an arms sale.
The Americans want Bout for what he knows, and the Russians want him, presumably for what they don't want the Americans to know – about Russian activity in global arms sales. A continuing series of judicial "technicalities" has kept the 43-year-old former Soviet Air Force pilot where he is as the two major powers struggle over his fate.
The case is unending simply because the issue has been highly politicised and profoundly entangled in the country's complicated domestic politics. It also demonstrates that Thailand has implemented a flawed foreign policy, and that the much celebrated Thai diplomacy of bending with the prevailing wind has come under heavy stress.
The Old Guard in the Foreign Ministry like to believe that Thailand nowadays continues to exercise its shrewd diplomacy, playing one power against the other in order to maintain a high degree of autonomy in the country's foreign affairs, as it did so successfully during the colonial period.
But in reality, the Thai government has under intense pressure from the US, which has accused Bout of executing arms deals with many militant groups around the world, including the FARC. Washington has classified the FARC as a terrorist organisation, and thus demanded that Thailand extradite Bout to be prosecuted in the United States.
As it has turned out, Thailand seems to have lost much of its control over its foreign policy. The Thai Foreign Ministry in the past prided itself on a mastery of bamboo diplomacy: always solidly rooted but flexible enough to bend whichever way the wind blows in order to survive. More than mere pragmatism, as one American professor once said, this adage reflects "Thailand's long-cherished, philosophical approach to international relations."
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