From: yongyuth@ipied.tu.ac.TH (Yongyuth Pahirah)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: (none)
Date: 5 Oct 1992 12:58:09 +1000
Organization: Mail/News gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: munnari.oz.au

House urged govt to look into battle with drug-producers

The Nation Oct 4 edition  

  A Democrat MP yesterday urged the House of Representatives and the Chuan
  Cabinet to look into escalating border fighting between Thai border patrol
  police forces and an armed group of drug producers who set up bases in deep
  jungles on the Thai-Burmese border in Petchaburi.

  Alongkorn Pollabutr said that he would submit a motion during the House
  meeting tomorrow, asking for a House inquiry into the armed clashes.

  He said he also expected the Cabinet to take up the issue at its next
  meeting on Tuesday.

  Alongkorn said he had raised the matter with Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai,
  who expressed keen interest in it and asked him to keep him informed of new
  developments. The Petchaburi MP said that he would raise the issue at the
  party meeting tomorrow to seek the party's support for his motion.

  Alongkorn made the comments following a report by BPP Commander Pol Lt Gen
  Chatichai Chaiaroon on increased harassment attacks by the armed group,
  believed to be a die-hard group of the Burmese Communist Party, on BPP
  forces deployed for a pending offensive to dislodge the armed intruders from
  the Thai side of the border.

  Speaking with reporters after an inspection visit to a BPP forward base at
  Lamtakien Village in Tambon Lamtakien Kong, Kaeng Krajan sub-district, the
  BPP commander said BPP units were confronting a group of no few than 100
  armed insurgents.

  ``We have received reliable reports that they will launch a pre-emptive
  assault on our force. The area where the two forces are confronting is
  located in the vicinity of Karang Bon village, just one or two kms from the
  enemies' stronghold,'' he said.

  Pol Lt Gen Chatichai said that the armed drug traders had launched frequent
  hit-and-run attacks on the BPP units.

  ``To tell you the truth, we want them to attack us first so we can identify
  them and estimate their real strength. But they have only harassed us,'' he
  said.

  About 1,000 BPP troopers were reportedly deployed in the border area early
  September and laid a seige to the stronghold of the armed group which is
  believed to be protecting a drug producing base and drug trafficking
  activities on the border. The deployment came in response to an ambush by
  the armed insurgents on a team of nine BPP troops on a reconnaissance
  mission in August.

  Five of the troops were killed and the rest had a close brush with death,
  forced to hide themselves in the deep jungles in a monthlong ordeal.

  The BPP commander denied that his force dilly-dallied in launching a
  decisive crackdown, saying such an offensive had been hampered by the
  geographical advantage of the alien force's position. The armed insurgents'
  positions were fortified by steep mountainous slopes, he said.

  Heavy rainfall in the past week has also obstructed the BPP advance, he
  said.

  However, the Meteorological Department reported that the rains would subside
  after October 10.

  ``But I am not suggesting that we will wait until the rainy spell is over.
  We may launch the attack before that,'' he said.

  Pol Lt Gen Chatichai also said that the D-day of the offensive would be
  decided by the Supreme Command, which direct BPP's tactical operations.

  Alongkorn yesterday led a group of about 200 local villagers on a visit to
  the front-line border troopers at the BPP company base at Lamtakien village.

  They delivered food and fruits to the troopers, and expressed full moral
  support from the Thai residents.

  He said the House and the government had to find measures to drive out the
  alien group which placed the border area under its own sovereign control.

  ``They have to be dislodged as soon as possible and must not be allowed to
  return to the Thai territory again,'' Alongkorn said.