N.Z. may help train Thai armed forces

Press, 24 August 1976, Page 4

N.Z. may help train Thai armed forces

NZPA staff corres. Bangkok New Zealand will give training assistance to the Thai armed forces if the Thais want it, according to the Minister of Defence (Mr McCready) before he left Bangkok on Sunday for Singapore.

Thai military heads had not said directly that they wanted assistance but the subject had been discussed in general terms during his talks in Bangkok, Mr McCready said. “If they want assistance with training, we will try to accommodate them, although there is a limit to what we can do,” he said. Senior Thai officers are expected to visit New Zealand to see what fields New Zealand can help them in. New Zealand's assistance would probably take the form of technical training. Until now. New Zealand has given no bilateral assistance to the Thai armed forces, whose aid has come principally from the United States.

New Zealand is already providing training assistance for Singaporeans, Malaysians, and Indonesians. Mr McCready said he had spent some time in Bangkok discussing insurgency and felt that the Thais were optimistic about their ability to deal with it.

“They have a very, very efficient organisation to counter it,” he said. “Their intelligence is good, and I am sure they have got it well in hand.”

Mr McCready was unable to meet Thailand’s Minister of Defence (General Tawit

Seniwong), who has been closely involved in efforts to get the former Deputy P™ ll ® Minister, Field Marshall Praphas Charusathiara, who slipped in from exile in Taiwan last week, out of the country again. But he met the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Mr Bichai Rattakul), the Undersecretary of Defence (Admiral Jit SangkhaduD and the supreme commander, Admiral Sa-Ngad Chaloryoo. The Thai armed forces have been in a state of alert during Mr McCready’s visit because of student demonstrations about Field Marshal Praphas’s return. But apart from the cancellation of his meeting with the Thai Minister of Defence, who also had to miss a dinner he was to give for Mr McCready, the latter’s pro-i

1 gramme went ahead as planned. Speaking to journalists before he left, Mr McCready said the question of the All Blacks’ tour of South Africa had not arisen in his talks with Ministers in Singapore. Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok.

“No-one has mentioned it — not one,” he said. “I am sure that if they had been as concerned about the tour as some sources would lead us to believe, it iwould have been brought up. I have met a lot of Ministers and officials and not lone of them has brought the matter up.”

Mr McCready will met the Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore and Minister of Defence (Dr Goh Keng Swee) in Singapore today before flying to Jakarta tomorrow.