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Given the fact that Thailand may have lost US$500 million in terms of lost commercial business and employment of Thai workers in Saudi Arabia because of lack of progress in investigations, one would have thought that Thailand would have cracked the case by now.
Oil-rich nations like Saudi Arabia can exert significant pressure on the world community, but tackling corruption in Thailand has proved to be a tougher task than it imagined.
In 1989, Kriangkrai Techamong, a Thai employee working in a Saudi Royal household, stole about US$20 million worth of jewelry, including an infamous Blue Diamond, and shipped the goods to Bangkok before boarding his own flight back home.
When three Saudi diplomats were sent to Thailand to solve the case, they were gunned down, and a Saudi businessman was kidnapped and killed. The Saudis had enough and banished all Thai workers.
That did not deter Thai authorities or the league of involved officials in the theft, distribution, resale and subsequent shipment of the jewels after they were recovered – sort of, back to Saudi Arabia. However, 75 percent of the returned jewelry turned out fake including the Blue Diamond.
Anyone can flip up the popular online video site YouTube and see where at least someone thinks the Blue Diamond is, but Thai authorities claim not to know. It may be gone forever. But the case lingers on.
The Saudi gems, diplomats and murdered businessman cases take an even more bizarre tone when one engages in conjecture over why Saudi Arabia has mellowed a bit over time even though the jewels have not been located nor the murderers caught. One theory is the Gulf rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, wherein the Saudi kingdom finds Iran’s growing influence in Thailand a disadvantage to its relations with Thailand.
Iran and Thailand have become somewhat amiable in the recent past, visiting each other’s local chambers of commerce and increasing trade ties. Also, Thailand’s southern Muslim community is of particular attention to both Iran and Saudi Arabia as it is a potential source for peddling influence.
In January 2007, Thailand’s Nation newspaper reported that trade between Iran and Thailand had increased 57 percent over the preceding ten months. Iran was exporting some US$50 million worth of chemicals, iron and steel, aquatics and machinery to Thailand and importing rice, radio and TV sets, air conditioners, synthetic fibers, electronic devices and rubber products, in return. There were forecasts that bilateral trade between the two countries would reach US$600 that year.
While Iran was engaged in trade with Thailand, Saudi Arabia’s long history of commerce with Bangkok was telling. Back in 2005, when “warmer relations” were being announced, bilateral trade between the two kingdoms was already near US$3 billion. In 2008, however, trade relations were off-balance, with Saudi exporting some US$4.5 billion worth of goods to Thailand while the latter exporting a mere US$1.5 billion worth.
Whether the current Thai government will last is said by some to be a moot point because of its military backing, but what is questionable is whether the current reopening or re-emphasis to resolve the Saudi murders and jewelry case will really pan out into concrete results.
Twenty years down the road and no end in sight, whoever has the Blue Diamond and the other 75 percent of the jewels is likely to keep the stash, and high ranking officials involved in the Saudi murders are likely to remain foot loose and fancy free.
But as with other criminal and human rights issues in the Land of Smiles, money in the form of payoffs, trade and commerce, military sales and tourism is destined to push human rights and democracy issues way back on an unlit burner.
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(Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development. A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand's first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post – www.thekoratpost.com – he has spent over eight years in Thailand "embedded" with the local media. He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology. ©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)
