To apply at this Embassy the main destination must be the Netherlands. Only citizens of Thailand and citizens of other countries  with a valid Thai residence permit can apply for a visa at the Netherlands Embassy in Bangkok. The Thai residence permit must be valid for at least three (3) months after date of return to Thailand.

Each applicant is required to submit the following with the visa application.

In case you are staying with a guarantor in the Netherlands:

Minors (persons younger than 20), traveling without their parents/guardians should submit the following additional documents:

The embassy reserves the right to request additional documents and/or information or forward the application to the Visa Service in the Netherlands for further processing. In case the applicant fails to submit the requested additional documents and/or information  within four weeks after the date of application, the visa application will be rejected automatically.

Application procedure:

In case the visa application has been approved, the Embassy staff will state from which date the passport with the requested visa can be collected.
On the collection day between 08.30 and 09.00 hrs, the following should be submitted:

General information:

A visa issued includes a margin of 14 days as from the day of validity. Departure after 14 days after the date of validity decreases the period of stay.

A Schengen consultation obligation is in place for passport holders of a number of countries, among which some countries in South East Asia. Thailand is not one of these countries, but for holders of non-Thai passports a delay of two (2) weeks could occur. Please check with the consular section for more information.

Please do NOT call the duty officer outside office hours as he/she cannot give you any information about the status of a visa application.

bron: The Nation

Read Thaksin's letter in which he says, "Whatever happen to me is a political driven actions collaborated by various group of privileged elites who believe in anything but democracy.

 

 

The undated photo shows convicted ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife; Pojamarn, attend a religious rite in a temple in London, UK. The couple were on the run from jail terms in Thailand on different charges.//forwarded mail

Woodsome Manor

Surrey, England

22 of October, 2008

 

Dear My Friends in International Media,

 

I am writing to you today to clarify few facts, The news headlines have reported that I have been   convicted of corruption for two years stemming from the purchase of land by my wife, Khunying Potjaman Shinawatra.

What you have read is true, I was convicted for two years, but not because of corruption charge. The only reason I was sentenced to Jail is because at the time my wife bought the land through the open bid, I was the Prime Minister.

 I listened to the judgment yesterday and even now I am still confused ; there is no evidence of fraud, corruption nor abuse of power in relation to the   bid in question; my wife was the one who involved and made decision to bid for the land, offered a lot more seller, Financial Instit ution Development Fund (FIDF), than other bidders, signed the contract with the seller, paid for the land with no involvement from her husband except when he was required to sign a spousal consent form.

In terms of any alleged influence I may have had no direct supervisory power over the FIDF. Interestingly, the Court did not find the sale transaction of my wife unlawful or illegal, they did not convict her because she is not a politician; nevertheless, I was . I trust that you will independently verify the above facts as professional journalists often do.Unfortunately, most of you professsional colleagues in Thailand refuse to do so.

 The best. I can comprehend is that I was convicted simply because I was a politician . In that case I was quite quite guilty cause I was quite a successful politician, I got elected twice by the majority of thai people as Prime Minister.

If I were to be guilty of anything, that would be what I have shown to the Thai people, especially those underprivileged   rural thais that they can, and have the right to, demand their government to provide effective policy and programs to improve their lives.

I received this judgment with mixed feeling; relief for my wife as I pulled her into enough troubles because of my politcal ambition to bring greatness and well-being to my country and my people, amused and bitter with the illogical of the judgment, and worry for those politicians in Thailand that they could go to jail simply because their unhappy spouses may sought to manipulate the law.

For those of you who may not be too familiar with Thailand, state offices and enterprises in Thailand are doing so many businesses from telecommunication, banking, power generator or even owning gas stations.

I do not know should I laugh or cry to see   the direction Thailand is moving forward: a democratically elected leader was put out of job because he cooked on a TV show but those who unlawfully trespassed and occupying the government house got protection from the Court.

Whatever happen to me is a political driven actions collaborated by various group of privileged elites who believe in anything but democracy. I am a threat to them because I represent the principle of liberal democracy which promote hope and pride of the poor of my country.

Thailand is and will remain a great and beautiful country. Few people cannot face the face,obstructing the will of majority of the people. I believe that at the end Thai people will win over this struggle. And the end of their nightmare is not far.

I thank you for the opportunity to share the facts with you.

Truly Yours,

Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra

Source : matichon.co.th

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

There is one simple but profound question behind the turmoil that has overtaken Thailand's political life from the military coup late in 2006 to protesters' occupation of the PM's office compound today.

What happens when ailing 80-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej dies?

Since he came to a discredited throne in 1946, King Bhumibol has worked diligently to establish the monarchy as an island of sanity and court of last resort in Thailand's turbulent and frequently interrupted transition to democracy.

As is famously known, the king has become much revered for his record of, on occasion, blocking coups, and casting his deciding vote for the people and against special interests.

But the overall picture of the role of the king and the royal household is not that clear-cut and within Thailand the confusion of loyalties and objectives is made even more opaque by the fiercely-enforced lese-majeste laws. These threaten severe punishments for uttering anything held to be untoward about all senior members of the royal family.

So much of what you are about to read would merit a prison sentence in Thailand.

The waning years of the king's reign have coincided with the coming to electoral authority of a new phenomenon in Thai politics, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin is a populist, self-made billionaire businessman who became prime minister after a landslide election victory in 2001.

But from the start Thaksin's high popularity among the rural poor put him at odds with the palace and its loyalists. Thaksin compounded his sins by falling prey to the arrogance of power.

Persistent street demonstrations against Thaksin by a royalist party made up largely of urban middle class professionals called the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) prompted the army to oust Thaksin in a coup in September, 2006.

The fingerprints of the palace are all over that coup, especially those of Prem Tinsulanonda, the former army general who was prime minister through most of the 1980s and who has been the king's chief adviser as head of the Privy Council since 1998.

But to the plotters' disgust, the return of democracy at the end of last year only resulted in the return to power of a new party, the People's Power Party (PPP), that is a self-confessed front for Thaksin, now in exile in Britain.

The impetus now among royalists is to try to control the succession by imposing limits on democracy before the king dies and Thailand enters a period of uncertainty.

So the PAD has continued its demonstrations, occupied the prime minister's office compound and is demanding the resignation of the government led by Thaksin's brother-in-law Somchai Wongsawat.

The PAD wants a new constitution that would take away the vote from the rural poor and establish a largely appointed parliament stocked with professional and middle class people loyal to the palace.

King Bhumibol has played to his loyalists by encouraging intervention by the courts, whose judges have ruled against the government. And last week Queen Sirikit committed the partisan act of attending the funeral of a PAD demonstrator.

The key question is whether the king will be succeeded by his thuggish son Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, whose lurid love-life is a matter of public scorn and whose accession to the throne would herald a dangerous rift with the current parliament.

The alternative is Crown Princess Sirindhorn, who is much loved for her work for the poor though she has never married and is said, respectfully, to prefer the company of women.

jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com

 

Read also

 

 

 

©  The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Krung Thep, the full name

bron

Unless talking to foreigners who don't know any different, Thais will never call their capital city Bangkok - indeed, some Thais in the more remote provinces may never have even heard of it being called that. Instead in Thai it is known as Krung Thep , which roughly translates to 'City of Angels'.   ((กรุงเทพ)
Bangkok (translating as 'village of wild plums') was the original site for the capital city and was located west of the Chao Phraya river (in modern day Thonburi). In 1782, King Rama I decided to move to a more defensible site and moved across the river to found his new capital, Krung Thep. For whatever reason, foreigners have never since caught up with the name change and the old name of Bangkok has stuck. In recent years, Krung Thep/Bangkok has expanded at such a fast rate that it now sprawls over a huge mass of land on both the sides of the Chao Phraya and has engulfed the once independent Thonburi.

Krung Thep is actually an abbreviated version of the ceremonial full name, which is shown below.

กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยามหาดิลก ภพนพรัตน์ ราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์ มหาสถาน อมรพิมาน อวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยะ วิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์

In the official English romanisation, this is certified as the longest place name in the world in the Guinness book of records. It's pronounced something like:

Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit

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bron

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

They came prepared with iron bars and crash helmets. Their plan, as always, was to create chaos in the hope that the military would stage a coup or that the ruling party would once again be dissolved by the courts.

Their claim is that the present government led, by the People’s Power Party (PPP) (formed by former members of ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra’s Thai Rak Thai, which was banned after the Thaksin government was overthrown in a 2006 military coup), is “illegitimate”.

The PPP and previously the TRT party have consistently won large majorities in elections, proving that they are popular with the poor, who make up the majority of the population. This support from the poor is not surprising, since the party was the first elite party in 30 years to offer a universal health care scheme and public funds to develop the rural economy.

The PAD’s claim that the government is somehow “illegitimate”, is based on the fanatical belief that the poor do not deserve the right to vote because they are “too stupid”. This belief is shared by the opposition Democrat Party, which supported the 2006 military coup and is now supporting the actions of PAD by boycotting parliament.

The DP boycotted the 2006 elections because it knew that the poor would not vote for its monetarist and neoliberal policies.

When in office, the DP had set police dogs on peaceful protestors from the Assembly of the Poor. That protest was nothing like the PAD riots of the past few weeks. The Democrats also used public funds to bail out the banks in the
1997 crisis. The poor were told to fend for themselves.

The PAD is calling for the defence of the military constitution introduced in 2007, which has already restricted the electorate’s right to vote for the Senate.

PAD wants to bring about a Suharto-style “New Order”, where only half the MPs will be elected and the PM need not be an elected MP.

On the morning of October 7, the police cleared one side of parliament using tear gas. This was to allow MPs to enter the building.

The police made it clear that the PAD would continue to be allowed to protest outside the other entrance to parliament. However, the PAD responded by attacking the police with sharpened flag polls, homemade guns and their own tear gas grenades.

In any other parliamentary democracy, the PAD leaders and their rioting supporters would have been arrested. They have been illegally occupying Government House for over a month.

Yet the police have been told to “lay off the protestors” by
people in high places.

Every public institution and organisation in Thailand is now compromised by this inter-elite conflict and the losers, as usual, are the poor — the workers and small farmers.

The monarchy has failed to defuse the situation. The queen has openly sided with the PAD mob. The courts are practising double standards, attacking Thaksin and TRT/PPP corruption, while ignoring illegal coups, mob violence and corruption by opposition politicians and the military.

The military, as always, is on the side of the conservative royalists. The police are unable to act and the government lurches from crisis to crisis.

The majority of academia is hopelessly compromised by its support for the coup and their support for decreasing the democratic space. Democratic principles have been thrown out of the window by professors who teach “democratisation” and the need for “the rule of law”.

Even the peoples’ movement has shown itself not to be up to the job. Instead of building an independent political position, on the side of the poor and oppressed, sections of the NGO movement supported the coup, the military constitution and the PAD.

Rosana, the so-called NGO senator elected from Bangkok, has joined in the ultra-nationalist fanaticism, especially over the ancient Khmer temple on the border with Cambodia.

These people must bear responsibility for the recent injuries
of both Thai and Cambodian troops in a needless border dispute.

Rosana also disrupted parliament today, working with military-appointed senators. She believes that the poor are too stupid to be allowed to vote. Yet all these people bang on about the need for “good governance” and “accountability” — who are they themselves accountable to?

The Thai economy faces the full force of the global economic melt-down. We need measures to protect the poor. We need income redistribution and a welfare state, and we need to bring peace to the three southern provinces.

Thaksin and his top military men should have been imprisoned long ago over human rights abuses in the south and as part of the so-called war on drugs. Yet this is never mentioned and he and his wife are seeking asylum in Britain while poor people from all over the world seeking the same are sent home to die by the British government.

We need to reform society to bring about progressive changes. This means expanding democracy, not allowing Thailand to slide back into the dark ages of dictatorship.

But the task will only take place when forces in the
peoples’ movement — the left, the NGO networks, social movements and trade unions — come together to outline our own reform strategy. We cannot rely on the corrupt human-rights abusers in the government, nor the fascists of the PAD and their allies to achieve these aims.

 

 

 

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Train Tour to Samut Sakhon

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Day Trip to Pattaya and Coral Island

See more on Green Wood Travel

 

 

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Last day in Thailand,