SCENESETTER FOR THE VISIT OF EAP A/S HILL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BANGKOK 002826 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR A/S CHRIS HILL E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/10/2016 TAGS: OVIP MARR MASS PREL PGOV TH SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR THE VISIT OF EAP A/S HILL Classified By: Ambassador Ralph L. Boyce. Reason 1.4 (a and d) ¶1. (C) INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY. Chris, we're looking forward to your upcoming visit to participate in the ASEAN-U.S. Dialogue. I am also planning to host a dinner in your honor with former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun. Anand is thoughtful and I think you'll enjoy hearing his views on southern Thailand, the ongoing political situation, and regional issues. We're also arranging for you to meet with MFA Permanent Secretary Krit Garnjana-Goonchorn immediately after you arrive from Singapore and are working with the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council on a breakfast meeting. You may wish to thank Krit for the RTG's help in facilitating the movement of the six North Koreans to the U.S. There's a decent chance the Thai will help again in the future, so long as their involvement is kept out of the press. In addition to hearing your views about regional economic issues, the USABC will want to hear about prospects for FTA talks resuming after a new government is in place. The political situation here remains fluid -- any specifics we provide in this cable could very well be overcome by events by the time you are here. Nonetheless, demonstrations have stopped for now and we have moved out of crisis mode. We are working closely with Washington agencies and PACOM on a series of initiatives designed to improve our ability to promote counter-terrorism cooperation and regional maritime security. Thai policy towards Burma remains a friction point, although the Thai are coming around to the view that ASEAN's "constructive engagement" policy is not working. The problem is what to do next. It's unrealistic to expect much progress as long as the government is in caretaker status. END SUMMARY. THE POLITICAL SITUATION ¶2. (C) The Thai political system continues to work through its biggest domestic political crisis since 1992. We can expect relative calm to prevail through the end of June as the Thai turn their attention to the 60th anniversary of the King's ascension to the throne. Once the pageantry is over, however, the uncertainty begins. One encouraging sign: the three main opposition parties give early indication they will contest the next round of parliamentary elections. With that, much speculation now is turning to Thaksin's plans. Though he vowed on April 4 not to return as Prime Minister in the next Parliament, his supporters say the subsequent annulment of the April 2 polls has changed the situation. They reason that Thaksin is now freed from his earlier pledge not to run and that there is no reason why he could not head the government if TRT wins a majority. The prospect of Thaksin's return risks reigniting street protests and attendant uncertainty. THE SITUATION IN THE SOUTH ¶3. (C) Although the domestic political crisis has dominated the news headlines (both national and international) in recent months, the violence in the South has continued unabated. It remains the RTG's most pressing security issue and a potential threat to our interests. Approximately 1,200 persons have been killed either by militants or by security forces since January 2004 when the decades-old insurgency flared up again. There is no current evidence of direct transnational terrorist involvement in the South, but we know some linkages with suspected regional terrorists (JI) exist. Southern separatists direct their anger at the government in Bangkok, not at the U.S., and continue to define their struggle mainly along ethnic rather than religious lines. However, rumors that the U.S. is somehow fomenting the violence as part of our war on terror continue to be widely believed in the South. To avoid feeding these rumors, we meticulously avoid military training exercises and the like in the South, and do not label our security assistance as related to the conflict. ¶4. (C) The RTG response to violence in the far South remains undercut by poor security force capabilities, rampant stove-piping, and the lack of an effective prosecutorial-police partnership. In the last two years we have shifted a significant portion of our wide ranging training and assistance programs to help improve Thailand's capabilities. We have determined that our excellent military-to-military assistance program is generally on the right track. The Thai police, however, remain the weak link in the southern security apparatus. We have proposed to Washington a bold, new inter-agency plan to refocus our assistance, combat Thai shortcomings, and help the government BANGKOK 00002826 002 OF 004 reverse some of its losses in the South. The key elements of this plan are: --Setting up a central, single coordinator at the Embassy to ensure that our wide range of law enforcement training fosters institutional change in the Thai security forces and improves their capabilities in the South. We are in discussion with DOJ about establishing an ICITAP presence in Bangkok to meet this need. --Identifying an appropriately experienced individual to foster a true police-prosecutor partnership, particularly in the South, that leads to arrests and convictions. We aim to adjust the work requirements of our current DOJ Resident Legal Advisor to reflect this new priority. --Setting up new comprehensive training that provides Thai security officials in the South with both basic and advanced investigative and counterterrorism skills, while encouraging them to work with their counterparts in other agencies. MILITARY COOPERATION ¶5. (C) The U.S.-Thai security relationship is based on over 50 years of close cooperation. Thailand is the fourth largest participant in the U.S. International Military Education and Training (IMET) program. Thailand's willingness to allow the United States to use Utapao Naval Air Station as the hub for our regional tsunami assistance program was key to making Operation Unified Assistance a success and was only possible because of decades of combined experience. PACOM recently named Utapao as the most important Cooperative Security Location (CSL) we have in all of the Asia-Pacific region -- it remains vital to our efforts to supply operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. ¶6. (C) A key U.S. objective in the region is to improve Maritime Security. As part of Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2006, we recently proposed to the Royal Thai Supreme Command and the Royal Thai Navy the Andaman Sea Maritime Security Initiative. This project is a layered approached to assist the Thai military to secure territorial waters while also providing coverage of the northern shipping lanes feeding into the Strait of Malacca. It would combine a High Frequency Radar in the vicinity of Phuket capable of reaching Sumatra -- 200 miles away -- with a constellation of overlapping x-band radars to provide radar coverage of the waters off the west coast of Thailand. The USD 20 million initiative would also improve the Royal Thai Navy's interdiction capabilities. If we can create similar arrays in neighboring countries, this system could be part of a regional network -- perhaps providing a clear view of all ocean traffic in SE Asia. ¶7. (C) While you are here, our largest annual exercise, Cobra Gold, will be underway. Perhaps due to their lack of a colonial heritage, Thai leaders are far more willing to host multilateral exercises than are others countries in Asia. Unlike Japan, which only hosts annual bilateral exercises due to legal prohibitions over collective security, or Australia, which avoids multilateral exercises so as not to "dumb down" its own training opportunities, the Royal Thai Government supports multilateral exercises as a way to show regional leadership. So long as our concepts are properly sold to Thai military and political leaders, we should be able to continue to modify exercises to meet our regional security objectives -- including an ability to establish a near-continuous presence in the region. Cobra Gold 2006 will include almost 7,000 U.S. troops working together with Thai counterparts in field training exercises ranging from Military Operations in Urban Terrain and Air Assault Operations to Naval Special Forces protecting offshore natural gas platforms. The Command Post Exercise at Cobra Gold will include participation by U.S., Thai, Japanese, Singaporean and Indonesian forces and will focus on peace keeping operations. Cobra Gold in the coming years will be a centerpiece of our Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), which is designed to train 15,000 regional peacekeepers by ¶2010. THE ROLE OF CHINA ¶8. (C) While emphasizing the vital role of the U.S. in the region and Thailand's desire to intensify U.S. engagement, Thai leaders also focus on developing stronger relations with China. Bangkok views both India and China as sources of unlimited consumer demand and hope to conclude FTAs with both nations. China's growing influence in Thailand is evident in BANGKOK 00002826 003 OF 004 business, the arts, the media and the military. Chinese TV -- in Mandarin and English -- is widely available. Every visit by a senior American official is countered by multiple visits by Chinese. The Thai military has a growing number of Chinese weapons systems in its arsenal. The PLA Navy has close links with the RTN and recently conducted a major ship visit to Phuket. The Chinese Ambassador here speaks good Thai and previously served as their DG for East Asian Affairs. Their Defense Attach is sophisticated, experienced and polished. GENERAL ECONOMIC PICTURE ¶9. (SBU) U.S.-Thai economic relations remain strong, with the U.S. being the largest market for Thai goods. U.S. direct investment in Thailand is second only to Japan's. The Thai economy has largely recovered from the 1997 economic crisis, although growth rates remain at levels much lower than the economy's pre-1997 performance. Buoyed mostly by exports, GDP looks set to grow at around 4-4.5 percent this year. Major economic challenges include adapting to the onslaught of China; infrastructure development; and addressing persistent widespread poverty in the countryside. The bilateral FTA is in limbo due to the current political crisis. The FTA had encountered growing opposition within Thailand before the onset of the current crisis, and its unpopularity will hinder any future Thai government efforts to re-start talks. Given hesitancy in Thailand and a short time frame in the U.S. before Trade Promotion Authority expires, Thai officials have hinted at negotiating a less ambitious trade deal that would address immediate problems such as possible changes in U.S. GSP policy, and trade diversion caused by Thailand's other FTAs. HUMAN RIGHTS IN THAILAND ¶10. (C) Thailand lost in its bid to gain a seat in the new UN Human Rights Council despite receiving 120 votes and U.S. support. G/TIP has decided against placing Thailand on the Tier 2 Watch List this year. The decision is largely due to significant progress from the RTG to return seven TIP victims from Malaysia. The seven are hill tribe members and are not technically considered Thai citizens by the RTG. They have been in Malaysian immigration detention for over a year after being rescued from a brothel. One bright spot in the ongoing political drama is in the area of press freedom. The print media has been particularly bold in its criticism of the government, and even the government controlled broadcast media has taken tentative steps away from self-censorship. REFUGEES ¶11. (C) The RTG gave excellent cooperation on the six North Korean refugees. This was a positive in the bilateral relationship. At this point, we do not have a good sense of how many other North Koreans will ask for U.S. resettlement. The RTG position remains that they will work with us on a discreet, case-by-case basis. On Burmese refugee resettlement, the material support waiver recently signed by Secretary Rice will allow us to proceed with DHS interviews SIPDIS for some Karen refugees. We expect a DHS team to arrive and begin interviews in early June. Persons who provided support to the Karen National Union (KNU) can now be approved for U.S. resettlement if otherwise qualified. The material support waiver does not cover former combatants and Karen National Union members. These two groups will remain ineligible. The net result will likely be an approval percentage well below what we had initially hoped for. This will be a disappointing result for us, the RTG, and the refugees. BURMA ¶12. (C) Like several other ASEAN countries, Thailand is coming to grips with the fact that the policy of constructive engagement with the regime in Burma is not working. The dilemma is what to do next. The caretaker status of the current government means that no new Burma policy directions can be expected until the domestic political turmoil is resolved. We are concerned by Thai plans to collaborate with Burma on the construction of several hydro-electric dams along the Salween river in Burma. The construction of these dams will likely result in increased forced labor and bring new waves of population displacement. The dams promise to bring a new source of energy to Thailand, but many of the displaced persons will undoubtedly add to the population already in camps along the border. The "reorganization" of population around the new capital and a recent military BANGKOK 00002826 004 OF 004 offensive in Karen State are other sources of renewed population displacement. Thai officials have downplayed reports of a major Burmese army offensive in the border provinces, but note that close to 2,000 new refugees have arrived in one camp and are awaiting in-processing. WE WELCOME YOUR VISIT ¶13. (U) I'm looking forward to catching up and to hosting you for dinner. Skip BOYCE