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APEC security brings rare silence to Bangkok

BANGKOK - Silence, so rare on a weekday Bangkok morning, descended on the Thai capital on Monday as an unprecedented security clampdown for U.S. President George W. Bush kept shoppers and workers at home.

Officials said 30,000 police and soldiers had been deployed across the normally teeming city of 10 million people to ensure the safety of the 21 leaders attending the two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

At the heart of the security operation, scores of brown-uniformed police ringed Bush's towering, white concrete hotel, closing several major downtown roads in the area.

Pedestrians were prevented from walking near the building, and, prepared for every eventuality, four fire trucks were stationed at the hotel's corners.

But despite the road closures, Bangkok's notoriously static traffic flowed with unexpected ease as many workers chose to heed the government's request that everybody take an impromptu national holiday.

The few commuters on the city's high-tech "sky-train" elevated railway enjoyed the rare luxury of a seat rather than the usual fight for elbow room.

"We are normally so busy at this time," said Ying, one of the handful of employees twiddling their thumbs at a coffee shop behind Bush's hotel. "I am looking forward to when it gets back to normal."

Across the road, the vast World Trade Centre shopping complex, a warren-like temple to Asian consumerism, sat silent and empty behind steel barricades erected to deter expected but absent anti-globalisation campaigners.

Skeleton staff in the few malls which opened were busy only with stock-taking or cleaning. On the streets, not a noodle or satay vendor stirred.

"I've never seen it like this," said Manley Waddell, a Canadian living near Bush's hotel. "It seems more like a Sunday evening than Monday morning.

The Thai government launched one of the largest security operations in the country's history for the summit barely two months after Southeast Asia's most wanted man was arrested just north of Bangkok.

Indonesian-born Hambali, believed to be the operations chief of Jemaah Islamiah and al-Qaeda's point man in the region, is accused of being behind last year's bombs which killed 202 people on the Indonesian island of Bali.

The Thai government has even trained taxi drivers to recognise anti-aircraft missiles, despite dismissing as rumours reports that some had been smuggled in from neighbouring Cambodia.

"Things are in good order," police major-general Tritos Ronnaritivichai told Reuters. "There is nothing to worry about because every security measure we provide is in line with international standards."

Source: Reuters

Leaders treated to royal spectacle

BANGKOK - In graceful counterpoint to discussions about modern-day terror and tariffs, Apec leaders were treated last night to a visual feast from Thailand's enduring royal past.

The 21 leaders, including US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, were hosted in an inner palace sanctum where kings once housed their numerous concubines. They and their spouses earlier saw the kingdom's most venerated Buddhist icon.

Last night, the 600-year-old past came alive as 50 boats, paddled by 2,082 Thai navy sailors in period costumes, glided down Bangkok's Chao Phraya River in a rarely staged royal barge procession. The VIPs watched the stirring spectacle from riverside seats most Thais would kill for.

The carefully choreographed event, however, got off to a soggy start when a brief tropical downpour forced escorts to break out umbrellas to shelter the dignitaries arriving in limousines.

After dinner, they were taken a short distance to the river by tuk-tuks - modern versions of the motorised trishaws used by commuters who battle Bangkok's snarling traffic everyday.

The host had gone all-out to lay down the red carpet for the Apec summit, hoping to present an image of Thailand as both a modern, go-getting society and as an exotic, tourist-friendly place where traditions are still cherished.

In a country where the monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, is arguably the most popular man and offending him could land Thais and foreigners in jail, the summit organisers are stressing the royal angle.

The annual conference opened at Government House, once a princely villa and used as the seat of government since 1941. The summiteers sat on lounge-like chairs in an opulent room and then gathered, in cocktail party fashion, to exchange views and some small talk while sipping wine and snacking around a round table.

The leaders were hosted by the royal couple in the Chakri Maha Prasat Hall of the Grand Palace, a vast, walled compound by the Chao Phraya river enclosing elaborately decorated pavilions, halls and a temple enshrining a small but greatly revered jasper statue of the Lord Buddha. Mr Bush described the icon as 'impressive'.

The Prasat Hall, the largest of the palace buildings, was designed by British architects in 1882 as a blend of traditional Thai and Italian Renaissance architecture. Kings traditionally housed their huge harems in its inner recesses, which were guarded by combat-trained female sentries.

A major tourist attraction, although some of its buildings are off limits to the public, the Grand Palace is used largely for state receptions and ceremonies while the royals reside in a far more modest residence in another area of Bangkok.

The barge spectacle recreates annual processions in which intricately gilded and carved boats ply the river as a reminder of the monarch's great power and the artistry of his craftsmen.

Today, most of the boats - canoes made from towering tree trunks - are restored antiques, and all are national treasures.

Source: The Straits Times/AP