Democracy effort makes few gains in climate of fear
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 2/23/2003
RANGOON, Burma -- Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Burmese National League for Democracy and a Nobel Peace laureate, called their bluff.
On Friday, a Burmese township court found her guilty of wrongful restraint in a civil suit and gave her the choice of paying a 50-cent fine or spending a week in jail. She chose the latter.
After word spread on the street that ''The Lady,'' as she is affectionately and surreptitiously called in Burma, might be headed to jail, 2,000 supporters gathered outside the courthouse. The military government relented and ordered the sentence suspended.
Despite the minor victory, the democracy movement here is struggling, eight months after hopes for a breakthrough were raised when Suu Kyi was freed from her second house arrest. Instead, relations between the National League for Democracy and the military junta that has ruled Burma since 1988 have hardened, bringing despair and frustration within the party and among its millions of supporters.
''It's obvious the process has stalled,'' one Western ambassador, who like other envoys, aid workers, and most Burmese spoke on condition of anonymity.
The case against Suu Kyi reflected the tall order democracy supporters face.
According to local and foreign specialists in Burmese law, the trial and eventual finding against Suu Kyi appeared to fraught with legal irregularities. An official spokesman for the National League for Democracy, U Luwin, said: ''It definitely was politically motivated.''
Suu Kyi ''said it was not a fair trial and not a fair judgment and would not accept the fine,'' U Luwin told a crowd gathered at the group's headquarters here on Friday.
Among the gathering were diplomats from the United States, Britain, Italy, and Germany, among others.
The suit stemmed from an altercation on May 8, two days after Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. Her cousin, described as a black sheep by a source close to the family, punched her after she refused to let him inside her compound.
Suu Kyi filed a suit against her cousin for assault, and he filed a countersuit. The cousin, Soe Aung, was also found guilty and was ordered to pay a $1 fine or spend a month in jail. The outcome of his case was unclear.
On Friday, U Luwin said in an interview that the military regime, which refers to itself as the State Peace and Development Council, was running a smear campaign against the National League for Democracy and Suu Kyi in particular. A cartoon published recently in a Burmese-language newspaper depicted Suu Kyi and the senior members of the party as tarnishing the image of the Burmese people.
''NLD officials believe there is an orchestrated political campaign to embarrass her, to diminish her, and make her look ordinary,'' a Western diplomat said. ''The irregularities with the way this case was handled support that.''
To say that a dialogue between the military and the National League for Democracy is at a standstill would imply that one had begun. It hasn't, and there are no signs of one starting in the foreseeable future.
Suu Kyi's conviction on Friday followed the arrest two weeks ago of seven National League for Democracy members and five other activists. The military has refused to negotiate.
''The general sense'' is that the democracy process ''is going nowhere, and we're extraordinarily disappointed with that,'' a Western diplomat said.
Interviews with taxi drivers, hotel clerks, professors, and health care workers all point to high discontent in Burma, or Myanmar, long one of the wealthiest countries in Asia. A taxi driver, his voice trembling and rising as he spoke, said there ''will soon be an explosion.''
Because of the ubiquitous presence of military intelligence personnel, such ''interviews'' are conducted in hushed tones in the corners of bars, or in private vehicles -- when they are conducted at all. When asked about anything remotely concerning the military regime, most Burmese shake their heads and walk away.
Those who do talk paint a picture of a society deeply frustrated with a crumbling economy and an inept military government that has failed to improve most sectors of society, from health care to education, and most of all, in sustaining an adequate standard of living.
''In a communist way of speaking, you could say that everything is `ripe for a revolution,' '' said a politician who has been jailed repeatedly for 20 years.
Adding to the unease here, the United Nations warned its employees Friday to exercise caution. A liquidity crisis in the banking system, coupled with rampant inflation of staple goods such as rice, cooking oil, and gasoline, is threatening to bring the economy to a halt.
But a revolution is not on everyone's mind. Though she described a ''smoldering discontent in Burma right now,'' a local health care worker said that conditions are not the same as in 1988, when an uprising against the socialist government led to the military takeover.
''There now exists a small segment of society which has done very well for themselves over the last few years, and has a stake in seeing that things do not change too much,'' she said.
For her part, Suu Kyi has said that even if it meant the overthrow of the military regime, she was not in favor of a violent uprising because of the suffering it would bring to the Burmese people, U Luwin said.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Tracking down 'Señor Tom'
Mexican activists spent years building child sex case against S.F. financier
Stephanie Salter, Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writers
Chronicle librarian Lois Jermyn provided research and Rafael D. Frankel of The Chronicle Foreign Desk in Thailand also reported.
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico -- A never-used orphanage for boys sits empty just south of this tourist town, linked to a 53-suite resort hotel by a narrow footbridge across the creek-sized Mismaloya River.
Thomas Frank White, the San Francisco multimillionaire whose money built it all - the footbridge, the Hotel Casa Iguana and Los Niños de Vallarta shelter and school - sits thousands of miles away, in a dirty, crowded cell in Bangkok Remand Prison.
Last Tuesday, White, a 68-year-old investor and stockbroker, was arrested in Bangkok and now waits for an extradition hearing. Mexican legal authorities and a Thai special prosecutor will use the court hearing to ask a Thai federal tribunal to send White to Mexico, where he has been charged with alleged child sexual abuse, child prostitution and providing drugs to minors.
Prosecutors in Mexico say their case is based on the sworn affidavits of eight poor boys, 10 to 16 years old, who said that White paid them for sex in his seaside villa near Puerto Vallarta and supplied some of them with drugs.
While the charges against White are only allegations, his arrest focuses attention on the increasing international problem of foreigners who travel to other countries for sex with underage boys and girls. Children's rights advocates estimate that 25 percent of such people are from the United States and almost all are men.
How White landed in a Thai jail is largely the result of one Mexican woman's controversial crusade to protect a segment of the population she believes is as voiceless as it is poor: Latin America's street children.
"He is a predator who picked up boys from the shore as if they were seashells," Maria Nicolasa Garcia Reynoso said about White.
For Garcia Reynoso and other advocates of children's rights in Mexico, White's apprehension is long overdue. The first warrant for his arrest, from the prosecutor general of the state of Jalisco, was issued two years ago this month. Mexican federal charges were lodged in October 2001. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has had a provisional arrest warrant out for him since last July.
Two months after the FBI warrant was issued, Thai law enforcement authorities say White took up residence in the resort area of Jomtien Beach in Pattaya, Thailand, about 68 miles south of Bangkok. A videotape obtained by The Chronicle shows him frolicking with boys at the beach and touring a school and shelter there that he appears to fund.
After White's arrest in Thailand last week, FBI Special Agent LaRae Quy, speaking for the bureau in San Francisco, said the FBI "is looking at several U.S. charges against Thomas White, including the production of child pornography."
SEÑOR TOM'S TRAIL
Garcia Reynoso has dogged White's footsteps since July 1999 when reports of a "Señor Tom" from San Francisco surfaced in El Sol, one of Puerto Vallarta's more sensational tabloid newspapers. The stories, which didn't mention White's last name, contained allegations about sex with children at his villa, the Casa Blanca.
Garcia Reynoso, who was doing field research on the squalor of Puerto Vallarta's street urchins, then decided to concentrate on child victims of sex abuse. She is a volunteer observer for Frente Mexicano Pro Derechos Humanos, a nongovernmental organization that has been accredited by the United Nations since 1985 for its work in human rights.
Since 1999, she has collected sworn affidavits from destitute boys she found on the public beaches and promenades of the city.
In their statements, which she eventually provided to Mexican prosecutors, the boys said that White had lured them to the Casa Blanca with promises of jobs, food, liquor and money. All of them said White used them for sex; some said he gave them drugs.
Through his attorneys in Mexico and California, White has denied the boys' charges as well as accusations in a San Francisco civil suit filed last November, in which a 20-year-old Modesto man accuses White of molesting him in San Francisco when the young man was 17.
Terming the accusations "entirely baseless" and "not credible," Juarez attorney Jose Maria Ortega Padilla said White is a victim of people "with a prejudiced agenda" against a wealthy, gay San Franciscan. The lawyer said that the child accusers "in most cases were living on the streets and addicted to drugs" and "readily adopted the stories that were presented to them" by White's enemies.
Of White, Ortega Padilla said:
"We think he's a good man. He's done many good works and helped many people,
including women and the elderly. He's opened schools, labs, an orphanage and sports clubs for street kids. In Puerto Vallarta, everyone knows him."
A Feb. 18, 2001, photograph that has been reprinted many times with stories about White in Mexican periodicals underscores Padilla's point: a smiling White is shown having a drink with Mayra Burgos, the local president of the Mexican child welfare agency, DIF, Desarrollo Integral de la Familia. DIF was to have had a role in the operation of White's orphanage and school, and Burgos' husband, Pedro Ruiz Higuera, had just taken over in January 2001 as Puerto Vallarta's new mayor.
A week later, Jalisco state prosecutors issued their warrant for White's arrest, and the local news media exploded with stories about the planned orphanage.
"Mr. White has a lot of money invested here and has been a philanthropist to the community," said Garcia Reynoso, the child advocate. "People didn't want to believe the accusations. Men like him operate like drug lords: while they're engaging in their illegal activities, they're also providing for people, building schools, homes, roads. So their supporters say, 'He can't have done this.' "
MAN OF WEALTH
Garcia Reynoso said she learned about the proposed shelter and school as early as March 2000 when a fellow human rights advocate told her that White had been granted a building permit for Mismaloya (about 8 miles south of Puerto Vallarta) and intended to establish an orphanage there.
The Mismaloya construction project was financed largely by $3.5 million in charitable contributions from the Thomas F. White Foundation of San Francisco to Los Niños de Vallarta.
According to documents on file with the California Attorney General's Office of Charitable Trusts, the contributions were for "protection of children by raising the social, cultural, intellecual (sic), artistic, sports levels, as well as social health and welfare of the children."
White founded Thomas F. White & Co. Inc. in San Francisco in 1978. Because the company and its many subsidiaries are privately held, it is difficult to estimate White's wealth. But, in addition to his millions in charitable donations, one business transaction provides a clue:
In January 1997, Dean Witter, Discover Inc. acquired Lombard Institutional Brokerage, a discount and Internet stock trading firm that White had founded in 1992 with $13,000 in venture capital. A former Lombard executive, who asked not to be named, told The Chronicle that Witter paid $70 million for their company; close to half of it went to White.
Five residential properties owned by White in San Francisco, including his primary home in the upper Haight-Ashbury, have a current market value of at least $6 million, according to comparable home sales records by the San Francisco Association of Realtors. In Mexico, a villa for sale one lot from the Casa Blanca has a $2.6 million asking price.
SAN FRANCISCO SUIT
Until White's arrest in Thailand last week, almost no one in the Bay Area knew about the charges against him in Mexico. An exception was 20-year-old Daniel Garcia of Modesto. He is suing White in San Francisco Superior Court for alleged sex abuse in White's San Francisco home while Garcia was a minor. He is also suing White's personal assistant, Nathan Lovaas, 26, a fellow Modesto resident. Garcia accuses Lovaas of procuring underage boys for White's alleged sexual exploits.
The suit accuses White of "childhood sexual abuse, sexual battery, civil conspiracy and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress." Garcia's attorneys, David Replogle of San Francisco, and John E. Hill of Oakland, filed a statement of damages with a ceiling of $100 million.
The suit claims that Garcia, when he was 17, was "given" for a night by Lovaas as a 65th birthday present to White in San Francisco. Describing evenings in White's house on Loma Vista Terrace - where alcohol was available and the garage had been transformed into a disco - Garcia told his attorneys: "It was a teenager's dream."
In a statement denouncing the Mexican charges and Garcia's suit, White's San Francisco attorney Nanci Clarence said:
"Tom White has been a prominent member of the San Francisco community for over 30 years, and his generosity to countless charitable, arts and HIV services organizations is legendary. The disturbing revelations from Mr. White's Mexican attorneys regarding the false allegations against him in that country demonstrate that his wealth and position make him a target of groundless, salacious claims brought in the hope of financial gain. We intend to show that the San Francisco lawsuit is more of the same."
According to Garcia's attorneys, the young man's lawsuit resulted in part from a meeting he had in September 2002 with San Francisco FBI agent Martha Parker, who had been told by a White associate that Garcia might be able to provide some information about White.
After Parker told Garcia about the Mexican warrants, Garcia and Replogle flew to Puerto Vallarta where they found out about Garcia Reynoso's investigation and the Mexican boys' affidavits.
Replogle said he believes his client can aid the Mexican case because Garcia was a houseguest at the Casa Blanca and one of about 75 visitors who came to Puerto Vallarta for a grand opening of the Hotel Casa Iguana over New Year's 2001.
"I want to see justice for the children of Puerto Vallarta," said Replogle. "I am a gay man, which makes what Tom White has done doubly offensive to me. This is not just a variation on being gay. It's wrong - ethically, morally, legally, every way."
WHITE'S BUSINESSES
Garcia's lawyers say they have subpoenaed and begun to depose a number of White's associates in the Bay Area, including accountants, stockbrokers, bankers and "anyone who has financial dealings with him."
Primarily under the auspices of Thomas F. White & Co. Inc. and its subsidiaries, White conducted full-service brokerage, fee-based asset management and discount brokerage since he founded his company almost 25 years ago.
Douglas Le Loy, a manager of one of those subsidiaries, CompuTEL Securities online brokerage, provided a description of the White business landscape in an Internet interview published by Stockwatch in April 2001.
"We've got a lot of different entities," said Le Loy. "It's a very, very low-key organization . . . they're kind of a venture capital company in disguise. . . . There's an Asian-Pacific division with about 60,000 accounts; there's a network of about 300 brokers that do independent contracting for the company; there's our CompuTEL division . . . there's a Russian entity; there's an offshore entity; so it's hard to put a finger on the number of accounts, but it's a fairly sizable organization from the perspective of the reach."
In June 2001 - just four months after the first Mexican arrest warrant for White was issued - Thomas F. White & Co. changed its name to Acument Securities Inc. Last year, the company went out of business.
"Our business model was financially failing," says an Acument spokesman who asked not to be identified. "In August 2002, Acument made a business decision to cease operations as a brokerage firm and transfer its accounts back to its clearing firm, U.S. Clearing Corp."
White remains president of the charitable foundation he created in his own name in 1998.
In addition to the $3.5 million it reported giving to Los Niños de Vallarta in Mexico, the foundation also has donated to such San Francisco causes as Drew College Preparatory ($205,000), the music organization Chanticleer ($25, 000), Friends of Recreation and Parks ($5,000), and the San Francisco Ballet Association ($2,000).
MEXICAN BOY'S CHARGES
The sworn affidavits of the destitute boys interviewed by Nicolasa Garcia Reynoso in Puerto Vallarta paint a less generous portrait of White as "the gringo, Señor Tom," a sexually voracious senior citizen who enticed minors to his seaside villa for lobster dinners, access to alcohol, video games and - depending on their level of cooperation - money.
Chronicle reporters took the following excerpts from eight printed transcripts, and the videotape of one of those interviews by Garcia Reynoso. Although the boys' full names are included in the affidavits, it is The Chronicle's policy not to publish the names of minors involved in cases of alleged sex abuse.
"When he filmed me, if I moved my body well, he paid me better," testified a boy, who said he was 14 when he met White.
Another, who said he was 10 when he and some friends visited the Casa Blanca, remembered White showing heterosexual pornographic films "and when we were all done, he told us that if we wanted to make more money, that we could (perform anal intercourse on) him, telling me he would give me 100 pesos. But I only did it one time, and I did it with a condom and he gave me 100 pesos. But when he did it with the other guys, he gave them 300 pesos."
One hundred pesos is equivalent to $10.
According to the affidavits collected by Garcia Reynoso and filed through a state human rights commissioner with the prosecutor general of the state of Jalisco, Mexico, the youngest of the boys was 10 at the time of the alleged sex abuse and prostitution, the oldest 16, the legal age of consent in Mexico.
Many of the boys describe a similar initial encounter: White allegedly solicited them near the Hotel Rosita, which sits between Puerto Vallarta's Malecon promenade and the popular Playa de los Muertos (Beach of the Dead). Some boys were driven to the Casa Blanca in "a white van," others said they were told to take taxis paid for by White.
One boy, who said he was 14 when he met White, gave a typical account of the villa:
"We asked if Tom was there and they said yes. We asked if we could come in and they said yes, so we took off our clothes, because that's the rule for entering that place, and they sent us to bathe in the pool. Tom got in the pool too, naked. Everyone in the house goes around naked except the guards."
Many of the Mexican boys who gave testimony said that condoms were used during anal and oral sex and that White kept a huge supply of the prophylactics. Some of the boys said they were given marijuana or cocaine.
One boy said he shared White's bed for a week, but most said they were dispatched in about an hour, then given food, access to the pool, money and transportation back to town. Some said they were paid $10 or $15 for sex, others got $80 or $100.
Some of the children recounted drinking wine, tequila, beer or other alcoholic drinks in which "a white powder" was dissolved, supposedly to help them achieve or keep erections. Most said they were videotaped by cameras in White's bedroom.
Another 14-year-old, who said he made two visits to the Casa Blanca, recounted a scene in which "Señor Tom" allegedly completed fellatio on him, then turned to two of Marcos' young friends and had sex with both of them. In the same room, a fourth companion "was playing Nintendo and wasn't with anybody."
On the first visit, the 14-year-old said, his and his companions' clothes were returned to them at the end of the evening "all washed."
Garcia Reynoso said that the boys she interviewed suffered "extreme poverty,
they are homeless or live in cardboard shantytowns." Most had come to Puerto Vallarta from other cities like Tepic or villages elsewhere in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit. One 12-year-old's occupation is listed as "chewing gum vendor."
In a videotaped interview of a boy who says he is 14, a rooster can be heard crowing nearby and several other boys appear to be living in tin shacks in a vast ravine. Curly but matted black hair sticks out of a dark blue baseball cap that the boy wears backward on his head.
Another boy testified: "Tom also wanted me to stay and live in his house because he wanted to (sodomize) me. . . . He told me that he would put me in school and buy me whatever I wanted, that he would take me to the United States."
RECANTATIONS CLAIMED
White's Mexican attorney, Jose Maria Ortega Padilla, stated that the boys were "coerced" to accuse his client of "salacious acts that he never committed. "
He also said last week that "in sworn statements to a state prosecutor, Mr. White's accusers have already recanted all of their criminal accusations against him and have affirmed that their stories were invented, since they were forced to declare against Mr. White under serious threats."
Ortega Padilla said the retractions had been filed as part of an attempt to quash the Mexican government's case, but that they could not be shared with the public.
Marco Roberto Juarez Gonzalez, who heads the Jalisco prosecutor general's office in Puerto Vallarta and is handling the White case, said he knew nothing of the recantations. If they do exist, he said Wednesday, a Mexican judge would have to decide whether they carry more weight than the boys' original statements.
Garcia Reynoso told The Chronicle she took care to videotape or audiotape all her interviews with the boys, and she did not work with anyone who could have coerced or threatened the boys. Government cooperation, including from police, was virtually nonexistent during most of the years she was investigating White, she said.
As a mound of photocopied correspondence confirms, Garcia Reynoso complained about the lack of action, especially on the state level, to everyone from the lowest city functionary to Mexico's president, Vicente Fox.
Since the assignment eight months ago of Juarez to the state prosecutor's post, Garcia Reynoso says the situation has much improved.
Mayra Burgos, the mayor's wife and local president of the child welfare agency, DIF, has joined with her husband's administration to address Puerto Vallarta's problem of vulnerable street children. A public shelter for them has been opened about 4 miles from the city.
Last autumn, a DIF-generated poster was displayed all over the city. It upset many U.S. citizens who live in Puerto Vallarta because it featured a U.S.
passport-carrying tourist and a warning that pornography and child prostitution are crimes.
"Puerto Vallarta is trying to fight off its reputation as a center for sexual tourism for children," said Bruce Harris, the executive director of Casa Alianza, a nongovernmental Costa Rican agency that aids street children in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
"Once it gets to the point where a city has a reputation, it has gotten really bad," he said. "You see it on the streets, it is very blatant, foreigners talking to kids, often homeless kids. They prey on the child's vulnerability and desperation and hunger. They offer as little as $5 for sexual favors. Out of desperation the children accept. The authorities, who are supposed to protect them, don't."
Despite the improvements, Garcia Reynoso concedes that her fight is not over.
It will now be "very difficult" to find any of the boys who testified, given their wretched living conditions, their fear and the long passage of time, she said. Mexican law does not require minors to retestify against an alleged abuser, but a judge could ask for that.
Mexico increased the penalties for child sex abuse and child prostitution last year, but the law is not retroactive. According to Juarez, the state prosecutor, if White is extradited from Thailand, brought to trial in Guadalajara and convicted, any sentence "could be decreased" because Mexican statutes tend to show mercy to senior citizens.
"The important thing is to condemn him, to publicize it, to (make it known) that this is not the paradise to be doing that," said Juarez.
U.S. REVELATION
Two days after White's arrest in Thailand, photos of him being escorted to jail appeared in Mexican and U.S. newspapers and on television. Clarence, White's San Francisco attorney, said White has been forced to sleep on a concrete floor in a "filthy" 26-by-13-foot cell with about 20 other prisoners awaiting hearings.
It is a marked contrast from a videotape obtained by The Chronicle, on which White and an unidentified male friend are shown participating in a Thai New Year's tradition at Jomtien Beach in Pattaya. Silk bags, representing all one's sins for the year, are lighted and set aloft over the sea.
White tells his friend about a black-tie dinner he had attended in the Czech Republic in September 2001. The friend sidetracks him by asking, "This was all with a sprinkling of boys among those people?" White says no.
Then he tries to retrieve his narrative, laughs and says, "So what was the point I was going to make?"
The friend jokes and says: "I don't know, but it's going to come back to young sweet boys, somehow."
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle Press
Stephanie Salter, Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writers
Chronicle librarian Lois Jermyn provided research and Rafael D. Frankel of The Chronicle Foreign Desk in Thailand also reported.
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico -- A never-used orphanage for boys sits empty just south of this tourist town, linked to a 53-suite resort hotel by a narrow footbridge across the creek-sized Mismaloya River.
Thomas Frank White, the San Francisco multimillionaire whose money built it all - the footbridge, the Hotel Casa Iguana and Los Niños de Vallarta shelter and school - sits thousands of miles away, in a dirty, crowded cell in Bangkok Remand Prison.
Last Tuesday, White, a 68-year-old investor and stockbroker, was arrested in Bangkok and now waits for an extradition hearing. Mexican legal authorities and a Thai special prosecutor will use the court hearing to ask a Thai federal tribunal to send White to Mexico, where he has been charged with alleged child sexual abuse, child prostitution and providing drugs to minors.
Prosecutors in Mexico say their case is based on the sworn affidavits of eight poor boys, 10 to 16 years old, who said that White paid them for sex in his seaside villa near Puerto Vallarta and supplied some of them with drugs.
While the charges against White are only allegations, his arrest focuses attention on the increasing international problem of foreigners who travel to other countries for sex with underage boys and girls. Children's rights advocates estimate that 25 percent of such people are from the United States and almost all are men.
How White landed in a Thai jail is largely the result of one Mexican woman's controversial crusade to protect a segment of the population she believes is as voiceless as it is poor: Latin America's street children.
"He is a predator who picked up boys from the shore as if they were seashells," Maria Nicolasa Garcia Reynoso said about White.
For Garcia Reynoso and other advocates of children's rights in Mexico, White's apprehension is long overdue. The first warrant for his arrest, from the prosecutor general of the state of Jalisco, was issued two years ago this month. Mexican federal charges were lodged in October 2001. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has had a provisional arrest warrant out for him since last July.
Two months after the FBI warrant was issued, Thai law enforcement authorities say White took up residence in the resort area of Jomtien Beach in Pattaya, Thailand, about 68 miles south of Bangkok. A videotape obtained by The Chronicle shows him frolicking with boys at the beach and touring a school and shelter there that he appears to fund.
After White's arrest in Thailand last week, FBI Special Agent LaRae Quy, speaking for the bureau in San Francisco, said the FBI "is looking at several U.S. charges against Thomas White, including the production of child pornography."
SEÑOR TOM'S TRAIL
Garcia Reynoso has dogged White's footsteps since July 1999 when reports of a "Señor Tom" from San Francisco surfaced in El Sol, one of Puerto Vallarta's more sensational tabloid newspapers. The stories, which didn't mention White's last name, contained allegations about sex with children at his villa, the Casa Blanca.
Garcia Reynoso, who was doing field research on the squalor of Puerto Vallarta's street urchins, then decided to concentrate on child victims of sex abuse. She is a volunteer observer for Frente Mexicano Pro Derechos Humanos, a nongovernmental organization that has been accredited by the United Nations since 1985 for its work in human rights.
Since 1999, she has collected sworn affidavits from destitute boys she found on the public beaches and promenades of the city.
In their statements, which she eventually provided to Mexican prosecutors, the boys said that White had lured them to the Casa Blanca with promises of jobs, food, liquor and money. All of them said White used them for sex; some said he gave them drugs.
Through his attorneys in Mexico and California, White has denied the boys' charges as well as accusations in a San Francisco civil suit filed last November, in which a 20-year-old Modesto man accuses White of molesting him in San Francisco when the young man was 17.
Terming the accusations "entirely baseless" and "not credible," Juarez attorney Jose Maria Ortega Padilla said White is a victim of people "with a prejudiced agenda" against a wealthy, gay San Franciscan. The lawyer said that the child accusers "in most cases were living on the streets and addicted to drugs" and "readily adopted the stories that were presented to them" by White's enemies.
Of White, Ortega Padilla said:
"We think he's a good man. He's done many good works and helped many people,
including women and the elderly. He's opened schools, labs, an orphanage and sports clubs for street kids. In Puerto Vallarta, everyone knows him."
A Feb. 18, 2001, photograph that has been reprinted many times with stories about White in Mexican periodicals underscores Padilla's point: a smiling White is shown having a drink with Mayra Burgos, the local president of the Mexican child welfare agency, DIF, Desarrollo Integral de la Familia. DIF was to have had a role in the operation of White's orphanage and school, and Burgos' husband, Pedro Ruiz Higuera, had just taken over in January 2001 as Puerto Vallarta's new mayor.
A week later, Jalisco state prosecutors issued their warrant for White's arrest, and the local news media exploded with stories about the planned orphanage.
"Mr. White has a lot of money invested here and has been a philanthropist to the community," said Garcia Reynoso, the child advocate. "People didn't want to believe the accusations. Men like him operate like drug lords: while they're engaging in their illegal activities, they're also providing for people, building schools, homes, roads. So their supporters say, 'He can't have done this.' "
MAN OF WEALTH
Garcia Reynoso said she learned about the proposed shelter and school as early as March 2000 when a fellow human rights advocate told her that White had been granted a building permit for Mismaloya (about 8 miles south of Puerto Vallarta) and intended to establish an orphanage there.
The Mismaloya construction project was financed largely by $3.5 million in charitable contributions from the Thomas F. White Foundation of San Francisco to Los Niños de Vallarta.
According to documents on file with the California Attorney General's Office of Charitable Trusts, the contributions were for "protection of children by raising the social, cultural, intellecual (sic), artistic, sports levels, as well as social health and welfare of the children."
White founded Thomas F. White & Co. Inc. in San Francisco in 1978. Because the company and its many subsidiaries are privately held, it is difficult to estimate White's wealth. But, in addition to his millions in charitable donations, one business transaction provides a clue:
In January 1997, Dean Witter, Discover Inc. acquired Lombard Institutional Brokerage, a discount and Internet stock trading firm that White had founded in 1992 with $13,000 in venture capital. A former Lombard executive, who asked not to be named, told The Chronicle that Witter paid $70 million for their company; close to half of it went to White.
Five residential properties owned by White in San Francisco, including his primary home in the upper Haight-Ashbury, have a current market value of at least $6 million, according to comparable home sales records by the San Francisco Association of Realtors. In Mexico, a villa for sale one lot from the Casa Blanca has a $2.6 million asking price.
SAN FRANCISCO SUIT
Until White's arrest in Thailand last week, almost no one in the Bay Area knew about the charges against him in Mexico. An exception was 20-year-old Daniel Garcia of Modesto. He is suing White in San Francisco Superior Court for alleged sex abuse in White's San Francisco home while Garcia was a minor. He is also suing White's personal assistant, Nathan Lovaas, 26, a fellow Modesto resident. Garcia accuses Lovaas of procuring underage boys for White's alleged sexual exploits.
The suit accuses White of "childhood sexual abuse, sexual battery, civil conspiracy and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress." Garcia's attorneys, David Replogle of San Francisco, and John E. Hill of Oakland, filed a statement of damages with a ceiling of $100 million.
The suit claims that Garcia, when he was 17, was "given" for a night by Lovaas as a 65th birthday present to White in San Francisco. Describing evenings in White's house on Loma Vista Terrace - where alcohol was available and the garage had been transformed into a disco - Garcia told his attorneys: "It was a teenager's dream."
In a statement denouncing the Mexican charges and Garcia's suit, White's San Francisco attorney Nanci Clarence said:
"Tom White has been a prominent member of the San Francisco community for over 30 years, and his generosity to countless charitable, arts and HIV services organizations is legendary. The disturbing revelations from Mr. White's Mexican attorneys regarding the false allegations against him in that country demonstrate that his wealth and position make him a target of groundless, salacious claims brought in the hope of financial gain. We intend to show that the San Francisco lawsuit is more of the same."
According to Garcia's attorneys, the young man's lawsuit resulted in part from a meeting he had in September 2002 with San Francisco FBI agent Martha Parker, who had been told by a White associate that Garcia might be able to provide some information about White.
After Parker told Garcia about the Mexican warrants, Garcia and Replogle flew to Puerto Vallarta where they found out about Garcia Reynoso's investigation and the Mexican boys' affidavits.
Replogle said he believes his client can aid the Mexican case because Garcia was a houseguest at the Casa Blanca and one of about 75 visitors who came to Puerto Vallarta for a grand opening of the Hotel Casa Iguana over New Year's 2001.
"I want to see justice for the children of Puerto Vallarta," said Replogle. "I am a gay man, which makes what Tom White has done doubly offensive to me. This is not just a variation on being gay. It's wrong - ethically, morally, legally, every way."
WHITE'S BUSINESSES
Garcia's lawyers say they have subpoenaed and begun to depose a number of White's associates in the Bay Area, including accountants, stockbrokers, bankers and "anyone who has financial dealings with him."
Primarily under the auspices of Thomas F. White & Co. Inc. and its subsidiaries, White conducted full-service brokerage, fee-based asset management and discount brokerage since he founded his company almost 25 years ago.
Douglas Le Loy, a manager of one of those subsidiaries, CompuTEL Securities online brokerage, provided a description of the White business landscape in an Internet interview published by Stockwatch in April 2001.
"We've got a lot of different entities," said Le Loy. "It's a very, very low-key organization . . . they're kind of a venture capital company in disguise. . . . There's an Asian-Pacific division with about 60,000 accounts; there's a network of about 300 brokers that do independent contracting for the company; there's our CompuTEL division . . . there's a Russian entity; there's an offshore entity; so it's hard to put a finger on the number of accounts, but it's a fairly sizable organization from the perspective of the reach."
In June 2001 - just four months after the first Mexican arrest warrant for White was issued - Thomas F. White & Co. changed its name to Acument Securities Inc. Last year, the company went out of business.
"Our business model was financially failing," says an Acument spokesman who asked not to be identified. "In August 2002, Acument made a business decision to cease operations as a brokerage firm and transfer its accounts back to its clearing firm, U.S. Clearing Corp."
White remains president of the charitable foundation he created in his own name in 1998.
In addition to the $3.5 million it reported giving to Los Niños de Vallarta in Mexico, the foundation also has donated to such San Francisco causes as Drew College Preparatory ($205,000), the music organization Chanticleer ($25, 000), Friends of Recreation and Parks ($5,000), and the San Francisco Ballet Association ($2,000).
MEXICAN BOY'S CHARGES
The sworn affidavits of the destitute boys interviewed by Nicolasa Garcia Reynoso in Puerto Vallarta paint a less generous portrait of White as "the gringo, Señor Tom," a sexually voracious senior citizen who enticed minors to his seaside villa for lobster dinners, access to alcohol, video games and - depending on their level of cooperation - money.
Chronicle reporters took the following excerpts from eight printed transcripts, and the videotape of one of those interviews by Garcia Reynoso. Although the boys' full names are included in the affidavits, it is The Chronicle's policy not to publish the names of minors involved in cases of alleged sex abuse.
"When he filmed me, if I moved my body well, he paid me better," testified a boy, who said he was 14 when he met White.
Another, who said he was 10 when he and some friends visited the Casa Blanca, remembered White showing heterosexual pornographic films "and when we were all done, he told us that if we wanted to make more money, that we could (perform anal intercourse on) him, telling me he would give me 100 pesos. But I only did it one time, and I did it with a condom and he gave me 100 pesos. But when he did it with the other guys, he gave them 300 pesos."
One hundred pesos is equivalent to $10.
According to the affidavits collected by Garcia Reynoso and filed through a state human rights commissioner with the prosecutor general of the state of Jalisco, Mexico, the youngest of the boys was 10 at the time of the alleged sex abuse and prostitution, the oldest 16, the legal age of consent in Mexico.
Many of the boys describe a similar initial encounter: White allegedly solicited them near the Hotel Rosita, which sits between Puerto Vallarta's Malecon promenade and the popular Playa de los Muertos (Beach of the Dead). Some boys were driven to the Casa Blanca in "a white van," others said they were told to take taxis paid for by White.
One boy, who said he was 14 when he met White, gave a typical account of the villa:
"We asked if Tom was there and they said yes. We asked if we could come in and they said yes, so we took off our clothes, because that's the rule for entering that place, and they sent us to bathe in the pool. Tom got in the pool too, naked. Everyone in the house goes around naked except the guards."
Many of the Mexican boys who gave testimony said that condoms were used during anal and oral sex and that White kept a huge supply of the prophylactics. Some of the boys said they were given marijuana or cocaine.
One boy said he shared White's bed for a week, but most said they were dispatched in about an hour, then given food, access to the pool, money and transportation back to town. Some said they were paid $10 or $15 for sex, others got $80 or $100.
Some of the children recounted drinking wine, tequila, beer or other alcoholic drinks in which "a white powder" was dissolved, supposedly to help them achieve or keep erections. Most said they were videotaped by cameras in White's bedroom.
Another 14-year-old, who said he made two visits to the Casa Blanca, recounted a scene in which "Señor Tom" allegedly completed fellatio on him, then turned to two of Marcos' young friends and had sex with both of them. In the same room, a fourth companion "was playing Nintendo and wasn't with anybody."
On the first visit, the 14-year-old said, his and his companions' clothes were returned to them at the end of the evening "all washed."
Garcia Reynoso said that the boys she interviewed suffered "extreme poverty,
they are homeless or live in cardboard shantytowns." Most had come to Puerto Vallarta from other cities like Tepic or villages elsewhere in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit. One 12-year-old's occupation is listed as "chewing gum vendor."
In a videotaped interview of a boy who says he is 14, a rooster can be heard crowing nearby and several other boys appear to be living in tin shacks in a vast ravine. Curly but matted black hair sticks out of a dark blue baseball cap that the boy wears backward on his head.
Another boy testified: "Tom also wanted me to stay and live in his house because he wanted to (sodomize) me. . . . He told me that he would put me in school and buy me whatever I wanted, that he would take me to the United States."
RECANTATIONS CLAIMED
White's Mexican attorney, Jose Maria Ortega Padilla, stated that the boys were "coerced" to accuse his client of "salacious acts that he never committed. "
He also said last week that "in sworn statements to a state prosecutor, Mr. White's accusers have already recanted all of their criminal accusations against him and have affirmed that their stories were invented, since they were forced to declare against Mr. White under serious threats."
Ortega Padilla said the retractions had been filed as part of an attempt to quash the Mexican government's case, but that they could not be shared with the public.
Marco Roberto Juarez Gonzalez, who heads the Jalisco prosecutor general's office in Puerto Vallarta and is handling the White case, said he knew nothing of the recantations. If they do exist, he said Wednesday, a Mexican judge would have to decide whether they carry more weight than the boys' original statements.
Garcia Reynoso told The Chronicle she took care to videotape or audiotape all her interviews with the boys, and she did not work with anyone who could have coerced or threatened the boys. Government cooperation, including from police, was virtually nonexistent during most of the years she was investigating White, she said.
As a mound of photocopied correspondence confirms, Garcia Reynoso complained about the lack of action, especially on the state level, to everyone from the lowest city functionary to Mexico's president, Vicente Fox.
Since the assignment eight months ago of Juarez to the state prosecutor's post, Garcia Reynoso says the situation has much improved.
Mayra Burgos, the mayor's wife and local president of the child welfare agency, DIF, has joined with her husband's administration to address Puerto Vallarta's problem of vulnerable street children. A public shelter for them has been opened about 4 miles from the city.
Last autumn, a DIF-generated poster was displayed all over the city. It upset many U.S. citizens who live in Puerto Vallarta because it featured a U.S.
passport-carrying tourist and a warning that pornography and child prostitution are crimes.
"Puerto Vallarta is trying to fight off its reputation as a center for sexual tourism for children," said Bruce Harris, the executive director of Casa Alianza, a nongovernmental Costa Rican agency that aids street children in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
"Once it gets to the point where a city has a reputation, it has gotten really bad," he said. "You see it on the streets, it is very blatant, foreigners talking to kids, often homeless kids. They prey on the child's vulnerability and desperation and hunger. They offer as little as $5 for sexual favors. Out of desperation the children accept. The authorities, who are supposed to protect them, don't."
Despite the improvements, Garcia Reynoso concedes that her fight is not over.
It will now be "very difficult" to find any of the boys who testified, given their wretched living conditions, their fear and the long passage of time, she said. Mexican law does not require minors to retestify against an alleged abuser, but a judge could ask for that.
Mexico increased the penalties for child sex abuse and child prostitution last year, but the law is not retroactive. According to Juarez, the state prosecutor, if White is extradited from Thailand, brought to trial in Guadalajara and convicted, any sentence "could be decreased" because Mexican statutes tend to show mercy to senior citizens.
"The important thing is to condemn him, to publicize it, to (make it known) that this is not the paradise to be doing that," said Juarez.
U.S. REVELATION
Two days after White's arrest in Thailand, photos of him being escorted to jail appeared in Mexican and U.S. newspapers and on television. Clarence, White's San Francisco attorney, said White has been forced to sleep on a concrete floor in a "filthy" 26-by-13-foot cell with about 20 other prisoners awaiting hearings.
It is a marked contrast from a videotape obtained by The Chronicle, on which White and an unidentified male friend are shown participating in a Thai New Year's tradition at Jomtien Beach in Pattaya. Silk bags, representing all one's sins for the year, are lighted and set aloft over the sea.
White tells his friend about a black-tie dinner he had attended in the Czech Republic in September 2001. The friend sidetracks him by asking, "This was all with a sprinkling of boys among those people?" White says no.
Then he tries to retrieve his narrative, laughs and says, "So what was the point I was going to make?"
The friend jokes and says: "I don't know, but it's going to come back to young sweet boys, somehow."
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle Press
Friday, February 14, 2003
S.F. man jailed on child sex charges
Multimillionaire held in Thailand at Mexico's request
Stephanie Salter, Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writers
Staff writer Tyche Hendricks provided translations, and Rafael D. Frankel of The Chronicle's Foreign Desk in Thailand also reported.
Friday, February 14, 2003
A San Francisco multimillionaire was jailed in Thailand this week for possible extradition to Mexico on charges of child sexual abuse involving young boys in the resort town of Puerto Vallarta.
Thomas Frank White, who made his fortune here in investment securities and helped pioneer discount online stock brokering, was being held in a 26- by 13- foot cell with about 20 other inmates at the Bangkok Remand Prison, Thai law enforcement authorities said.
According to Thai authorities, White was arrested Tuesday evening in the lobby of Bangkok's opulent Hotel Oriental. Lt. Col. Chanchai Likitkarnsatorn of Thailand's Crime Suppression Division Police made the arrest, which had been requested by the Mexican government. Mexico does not have an extradition treaty with Thailand, but petitioned the Thai government for White's arrest on Dec. 4.
White founded Thomas F. White & Co. Inc. in San Francisco in 1978 and established many subsidiaries in the ensuing years. Today is his 68th birthday.
One of his American attorneys, Nanci Clarence, who flew from San Francisco to Bangkok, described the conditions in the cell as "crowded and filthy" and "intolerable." She said White has been forced to sleep on a cold, hard concrete floor and has not received medication for a heart condition.
He has been wanted in Mexico on charges of child sexual abuse and providing drugs to minors since the state of Jalisco issued a warrant for his arrest on Feb. 26, 2001. Mexican federal prosecutors followed with their own warrant on similar charges in October 2001.
White also is named as a co-defendant in a civil suit filed in San Francisco Superior Court in November, which alleges sex abuse of a minor from Modesto in White's Upper Haight home, one of five residential properties he owns in the city. The plaintiff, now 20, says the abuse took place when he was 17.
White had been under scrutiny since mid-1999 by child protection advocates in Puerto Vallarta, where he owns a resort hotel and a seaside villa called the Casa Blanca.
Mexican authorities say his alleged victims are about a dozen poor or homeless boys between ages 10 and 16 who submitted sworn affidavits accusing White of enticing them to his home, paying them for sex and providing some with drugs.
Through attorneys in San Francisco and Mexico, White has denied all charges.
Jose Maria Ortega Padilla of Juarez told The Chronicle that his client is the victim of "an orchestrated conspiracy" and has been "accused by some young children who were used by someone wanting to harm White. They were pressured to accuse White. These are not credible charges."
Ortega Padilla called the allegations "entirely baseless" and said the case against White "was instigated by people who seek notoriety by making false accusations against prominent members of the community. With a prejudiced agenda they were only too pleased to ruin the reputation of a wealthy, gay San Franciscan who spent time in Mexico . . ."
Ortega Padilla said he has filed sworn affidavits from "each of Mr. White's accusers" who allegedly have recanted their accusations against White.
But according to Marco Roberto Juarez Gonzalez, who is handling the Jalisco general prosecutor's case against White in Puerto Vallarta, any retracted statements that may be filed would have to be examined and ruled upon by a judge.
In Mexico, said Juarez, "justices tend to give more value to initial statements" than to retracted ones because "they know that witnesses can be compromised" into changing their testimony.
Until the municipal government of Puerto Vallarta refused to issue a use permit in February 2001, White planned to operate a shelter and school for poor children in a compound he had built in the village of Mismaloya, just south of Puerto Vallarta.
Information in a videotape obtained by The Chronicle indicates that White also is funding a school and shelter for poor children in the Jomtien Beach area of Pattaya, Thailand, about 68 miles from Bangkok.
Citing protections guaranteed by the U.S. Privacy Act, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok refused to confirm that White was in custody, but did say that embassy staff had "made contact" with a U.S. citizen who had been detained.
In July 2002, at the behest of Mexican authorities, the FBI issued a transit warrant for White. It notified U.S. law enforcement agencies, including the San Francisco Police Department, that White was wanted for extradition as a "narcotics user" and for "child molestation of several minors. " The transit warrant advised police to contact the San Francisco office of the FBI.
Sometime after the FBI document was issued, White left San Francisco and traveled to Pattaya, Thailand. He has been living there for several months in an exclusive residential development that caters to European and American buyers and offers extra privacy as a key selling point.
Piyathida Jermahunsa, the special prosecutor in Bangkok who will handle the White case for Thailand, told The Chronicle that White could be detained in jail for up to 60 days. She said she is waiting for the Mexican Embassy in Bangkok to forward information about the Mexican investigation of White.
A spokesman for the Mexican embassy in Bangkok said he would not answer any questions about the case at this time.
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle Press
Stephanie Salter, Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writers
Staff writer Tyche Hendricks provided translations, and Rafael D. Frankel of The Chronicle's Foreign Desk in Thailand also reported.
Friday, February 14, 2003
A San Francisco multimillionaire was jailed in Thailand this week for possible extradition to Mexico on charges of child sexual abuse involving young boys in the resort town of Puerto Vallarta.
Thomas Frank White, who made his fortune here in investment securities and helped pioneer discount online stock brokering, was being held in a 26- by 13- foot cell with about 20 other inmates at the Bangkok Remand Prison, Thai law enforcement authorities said.
According to Thai authorities, White was arrested Tuesday evening in the lobby of Bangkok's opulent Hotel Oriental. Lt. Col. Chanchai Likitkarnsatorn of Thailand's Crime Suppression Division Police made the arrest, which had been requested by the Mexican government. Mexico does not have an extradition treaty with Thailand, but petitioned the Thai government for White's arrest on Dec. 4.
White founded Thomas F. White & Co. Inc. in San Francisco in 1978 and established many subsidiaries in the ensuing years. Today is his 68th birthday.
One of his American attorneys, Nanci Clarence, who flew from San Francisco to Bangkok, described the conditions in the cell as "crowded and filthy" and "intolerable." She said White has been forced to sleep on a cold, hard concrete floor and has not received medication for a heart condition.
He has been wanted in Mexico on charges of child sexual abuse and providing drugs to minors since the state of Jalisco issued a warrant for his arrest on Feb. 26, 2001. Mexican federal prosecutors followed with their own warrant on similar charges in October 2001.
White also is named as a co-defendant in a civil suit filed in San Francisco Superior Court in November, which alleges sex abuse of a minor from Modesto in White's Upper Haight home, one of five residential properties he owns in the city. The plaintiff, now 20, says the abuse took place when he was 17.
White had been under scrutiny since mid-1999 by child protection advocates in Puerto Vallarta, where he owns a resort hotel and a seaside villa called the Casa Blanca.
Mexican authorities say his alleged victims are about a dozen poor or homeless boys between ages 10 and 16 who submitted sworn affidavits accusing White of enticing them to his home, paying them for sex and providing some with drugs.
Through attorneys in San Francisco and Mexico, White has denied all charges.
Jose Maria Ortega Padilla of Juarez told The Chronicle that his client is the victim of "an orchestrated conspiracy" and has been "accused by some young children who were used by someone wanting to harm White. They were pressured to accuse White. These are not credible charges."
Ortega Padilla called the allegations "entirely baseless" and said the case against White "was instigated by people who seek notoriety by making false accusations against prominent members of the community. With a prejudiced agenda they were only too pleased to ruin the reputation of a wealthy, gay San Franciscan who spent time in Mexico . . ."
Ortega Padilla said he has filed sworn affidavits from "each of Mr. White's accusers" who allegedly have recanted their accusations against White.
But according to Marco Roberto Juarez Gonzalez, who is handling the Jalisco general prosecutor's case against White in Puerto Vallarta, any retracted statements that may be filed would have to be examined and ruled upon by a judge.
In Mexico, said Juarez, "justices tend to give more value to initial statements" than to retracted ones because "they know that witnesses can be compromised" into changing their testimony.
Until the municipal government of Puerto Vallarta refused to issue a use permit in February 2001, White planned to operate a shelter and school for poor children in a compound he had built in the village of Mismaloya, just south of Puerto Vallarta.
Information in a videotape obtained by The Chronicle indicates that White also is funding a school and shelter for poor children in the Jomtien Beach area of Pattaya, Thailand, about 68 miles from Bangkok.
Citing protections guaranteed by the U.S. Privacy Act, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok refused to confirm that White was in custody, but did say that embassy staff had "made contact" with a U.S. citizen who had been detained.
In July 2002, at the behest of Mexican authorities, the FBI issued a transit warrant for White. It notified U.S. law enforcement agencies, including the San Francisco Police Department, that White was wanted for extradition as a "narcotics user" and for "child molestation of several minors. " The transit warrant advised police to contact the San Francisco office of the FBI.
Sometime after the FBI document was issued, White left San Francisco and traveled to Pattaya, Thailand. He has been living there for several months in an exclusive residential development that caters to European and American buyers and offers extra privacy as a key selling point.
Piyathida Jermahunsa, the special prosecutor in Bangkok who will handle the White case for Thailand, told The Chronicle that White could be detained in jail for up to 60 days. She said she is waiting for the Mexican Embassy in Bangkok to forward information about the Mexican investigation of White.
A spokesman for the Mexican embassy in Bangkok said he would not answer any questions about the case at this time.
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle Press
Sunday, February 02, 2003
Cambodian-Thai enmity at root of riots
Reports of slur open old wounds among neighbors
By Matt McKinney and Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondents, 2/2/2003
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - As mobs rampaged through this city last week, one of the rioters exhorted the gangs to ''teach Thais to stop looking down on Cambodia.''
The rallying cry helps to explain the explosion of street violence Wednesday against Thais and Thai-owned businesses.
People in both countries say the unrest fed on some Cambodians' longstanding mistrust of their wealthier, more-developed neighbor and insecurities about Cambodia's national cultural treasure.
Rioters, led by groups of students, stormed the Thai Embassy, restaurants, and factories after rumors spread that a Thai soap opera star had suggested Thailand was the rightful owner of the Angkor Wat temple complex.
At least one Cambodian died, eight Thais were injured, and the Thai government has estimated the damage at $23 million.
Although it now appears doubtful the actress made such comments, the reports fueled a commonly held belief among Cambodians, and one often admitted by Thais, that citizens of the richer, larger country assume a superiority complex when it comes to Cambodia, analysts said.
The countries share the same branch of Buddhism and many cultural traits.
But while Cambodia has struggled to recover after years of war, Thailand became a major force in the local economy.
Cambodia remains dependent on imports from Thailand and has been swept by a wave of Thai music, movies, and television shows.
Dr. Charnvit Kasetsiri, a professor of Southeast Asian history at Thailand's Thammasat University, said that ''in some ways the Thais know they are modern compared to Cambodians.''
''In recent history, during the period of colonialism, and in the American war in Indochina, [Thailand] escaped all the trouble,'' he said. ''So we've become very successful, and we look down on our neighbor.''
The Hindu-Buddhist Angkor Wat, so central to Cambodia's identity that it is incorporated in the country's flag, has figured prominently in the enmity between the countries, during territorial wars between their ancient dynasties.
The sculptured walls of the main temple, which was completed in 1150, show a band of Thai mercenaries marching with Khmer soldiers.
But in 1431, the Thais - then known as Siamese - returned to sack Angkor Wat and seize some of its treasured possessions, setting off a battle for control.
The Thais held the property until they were forced by French colonialists in the late 19th century to return it; the temples again fell into Thai hands during World War II, but were soon returned to Cambodian control.
A dispute over access to the temples continues today. Cambodia completed an access to the remote Preah Vihear temple, near the countries' shared border, after Thailand shut down an entrance to protest what it said was pollution coming from Cambodia.
''If you go back to Angkor, that's the height of Cambodian civilization, and the Thais took over, literally, and then absorbed the high civilization of the Khmer,'' Kasetsiri said. ''So with this kind of inferior-superior complex, a kind of family, love-hate relationship with Cambodia has developed. This makes some bad feelings between the two nations sometimes, and it's very sensitive.''
That sensitivity was palpable not only in the rioting in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, but the day after in Bangkok, when hundreds of Thais gathered at the Cambodian Embassy in their own protest and tore down the Cambodian national emblem on the front wall of the embassy.
The crowd only dispersed after it heard a message from King Bhumibol Adulyadej, seen as the highest moral voice in Thailand, urging the protesters not to resort to violence.
For now, both countries are trying to repair their damaged relations after the riots, which prompted Thailand to downgrade diplomatic links and cut economic ties with its neighbor.
Many Cambodians say they are worried that the violence could take a toll on the country's efforts to shed its ''war-torn'' reputation and assure foreign business leaders and tourists that stability has finally been achieved.
''The challenge for [Cambodian] Prime Minister Hun Sen now is to move on with this as gracefully as possible and try to restore full diplomatic relations with Thailand,'' said Kao Kim Hourn, executive director of the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace. ''Cambodia didn't deserve this at all.''
McKinney reported from Phnom Penh; Frankel from Bangkok. Material from the Los Angeles Times was included in this report.
© 2003 Globe Newspaper Company
By Matt McKinney and Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondents, 2/2/2003
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - As mobs rampaged through this city last week, one of the rioters exhorted the gangs to ''teach Thais to stop looking down on Cambodia.''
The rallying cry helps to explain the explosion of street violence Wednesday against Thais and Thai-owned businesses.
People in both countries say the unrest fed on some Cambodians' longstanding mistrust of their wealthier, more-developed neighbor and insecurities about Cambodia's national cultural treasure.
Rioters, led by groups of students, stormed the Thai Embassy, restaurants, and factories after rumors spread that a Thai soap opera star had suggested Thailand was the rightful owner of the Angkor Wat temple complex.
At least one Cambodian died, eight Thais were injured, and the Thai government has estimated the damage at $23 million.
Although it now appears doubtful the actress made such comments, the reports fueled a commonly held belief among Cambodians, and one often admitted by Thais, that citizens of the richer, larger country assume a superiority complex when it comes to Cambodia, analysts said.
The countries share the same branch of Buddhism and many cultural traits.
But while Cambodia has struggled to recover after years of war, Thailand became a major force in the local economy.
Cambodia remains dependent on imports from Thailand and has been swept by a wave of Thai music, movies, and television shows.
Dr. Charnvit Kasetsiri, a professor of Southeast Asian history at Thailand's Thammasat University, said that ''in some ways the Thais know they are modern compared to Cambodians.''
''In recent history, during the period of colonialism, and in the American war in Indochina, [Thailand] escaped all the trouble,'' he said. ''So we've become very successful, and we look down on our neighbor.''
The Hindu-Buddhist Angkor Wat, so central to Cambodia's identity that it is incorporated in the country's flag, has figured prominently in the enmity between the countries, during territorial wars between their ancient dynasties.
The sculptured walls of the main temple, which was completed in 1150, show a band of Thai mercenaries marching with Khmer soldiers.
But in 1431, the Thais - then known as Siamese - returned to sack Angkor Wat and seize some of its treasured possessions, setting off a battle for control.
The Thais held the property until they were forced by French colonialists in the late 19th century to return it; the temples again fell into Thai hands during World War II, but were soon returned to Cambodian control.
A dispute over access to the temples continues today. Cambodia completed an access to the remote Preah Vihear temple, near the countries' shared border, after Thailand shut down an entrance to protest what it said was pollution coming from Cambodia.
''If you go back to Angkor, that's the height of Cambodian civilization, and the Thais took over, literally, and then absorbed the high civilization of the Khmer,'' Kasetsiri said. ''So with this kind of inferior-superior complex, a kind of family, love-hate relationship with Cambodia has developed. This makes some bad feelings between the two nations sometimes, and it's very sensitive.''
That sensitivity was palpable not only in the rioting in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, but the day after in Bangkok, when hundreds of Thais gathered at the Cambodian Embassy in their own protest and tore down the Cambodian national emblem on the front wall of the embassy.
The crowd only dispersed after it heard a message from King Bhumibol Adulyadej, seen as the highest moral voice in Thailand, urging the protesters not to resort to violence.
For now, both countries are trying to repair their damaged relations after the riots, which prompted Thailand to downgrade diplomatic links and cut economic ties with its neighbor.
Many Cambodians say they are worried that the violence could take a toll on the country's efforts to shed its ''war-torn'' reputation and assure foreign business leaders and tourists that stability has finally been achieved.
''The challenge for [Cambodian] Prime Minister Hun Sen now is to move on with this as gracefully as possible and try to restore full diplomatic relations with Thailand,'' said Kao Kim Hourn, executive director of the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace. ''Cambodia didn't deserve this at all.''
McKinney reported from Phnom Penh; Frankel from Bangkok. Material from the Los Angeles Times was included in this report.
© 2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Saturday, February 01, 2003
All quiet on the Balinese front
Letter from Bali
BY RAFAEL D. FRANKEL, UPI Correspondent
Kuta, Indonesia—The government has arrested 17 suspects in the bombing. Peace concerts with famous musicians were held. And the wreckage of the Sari and Pati clubs on the main strip here was cleared away.
And yet still, the island is empty.
The Balinese have done just about everything to come to terms with and move on from last year’s Oct. 12 bombings which killed 193 people here, mostly tourists, including performing the Hindu cleansing festival.
And while spiritually they no longer dwell on the extreme violence which was brought to their tropical garden of Eden more than three months ago, business is so bad that every day life has turned into a struggle.
“I told my children they have to eat dried noodles now for breakfast,” said Martin Sitapu, 46, and the owner of an internet café and travel agency. “They used to have fresh bread and jam every morning.”
Like most businesses in Bali these days, Sitapu’s is on the verge of collapse. Businesses is down over ninety percent for him, and bankruptcy is only a year away barring a major pick-up.
As resourceful as the U.S. economy proved to be following the 9/11 attacks, Bali’s seems just that fragile following its own hell come to pass. Sixty-seven percent of its GDP in 2001 came from tourism.
Despite major discounts being offered by hotels in Bali, Indonesia Tourism Minister I Gede Ardika said Jan. 13 that Indonesia is projecting a maximum of 4.5 million tourists in 2003. That figure was revised downward by one million after the Bali bombings, and accounts for a precipitous drop in tourists visiting Bali which would have been around 1.5 million.
On the island, waiters at cafes sit and play cards amongst empty rooms of set tables and slowly rotating fans. And proprietors look crushed when tourists walk out of their shops without making a purchase. Even pricing sarongs at $1.10, one shopkeeper in Lovina beach on Bali’s northern coast told UPI she had not sold anything in five days.
Though the exodus of tourists in the days following the bombings was well documented, there is now an daily exodus of other sorts crushing Bali all the same.
Thousands of people who came from Java and across other parts of the Indonesian archipelago, to work in the once booming Balinese economy are packing up and going home.
“Bali is quiet now, and many people are sad,” said Yoyo Fredricko, 25, who owns the Toke’Surf Shop. “We are also very angry, really hate the terrorists.”
“Hate” would not have found its way into the Balinese vernacular before the bombings. But such is the reality of post-Oct. 12 Bali where one of the fastest selling items on popular Poppies Gang (street) is a t-shirt with two words in big, black, bold, print: “(Expletive) Terrorists!”
Rather than being a sharp wound where the pain was quick and the healing time manageable, the damage inflicted to Bali is beginning to resemble a slowly progressing disease with an uncertain prognosis.
The prospect of War with Iraq is not helping matters. After the bombings, the conventional wisdom in Bali was that business would be back to normal in three to four months. But with another international crisis looming, and a slew of Western governments issuing travel warnings to Southeast Asia, even the most hopeful are now sullen.
“Bali is safe, but maybe your people are afraid?” Sitapu said. “I don’t understand, and it’s very difficult because now the fear [of war] is in all our hearts.”
Despite all the gloom, the ingredients for a recovery are all here: an unambiguously friendly people, a stunning tropical setting, and a name that was once, and may well be again, synonymous with paradise.
The surfing community of the Pacific region was perhaps the hardest hit by the bombings, and are among the first to be coming back to Bali.
Australia in particular took the brunt of the blow, and that made it particularly difficult for Simon Ferguson, 28, from New Castle, Australia to come to Bali. “I always wanted to come here. Bombs don’t wreck reefs,” said Ferguson, who booked tickets to Bali the day before the bombings with his girlfriend. He wound up coming alone, and has met only three other Australians on the island which once served as the country’s back yard.
Gung-ho surfing attitude aside, Ferguson said it was not easy being here, and that he broke down in tears laying flowers at the wreckage of the Sari Club on Australia’s National Day.
“But the people are so friendly here and nobody is worried at all. I feel safer here than I do at home because the people look after you like you would a guest in your own house,” he said.
The Indonesian government is also optimistic about Bali’s long-term prospects. "Indications show that we are on the right track to recovery," Minister Ardika said. "By the end of 2003, the government of Indonesia hopes that the tourism industry would return to normal and be ready to expand."
"We want [tourists] to see for themselves that the perception that Bali is unsafe is not true. Bali is safe and is still the island of peace. Conditions have normalized," he said.
Perhaps he is right. Despite partying at the Sari club just three days before it was destroyed, and despite one of his friends dying there, Sean Conley, 25, from Port Angeles, Washington, decided to return to Bali on his way back to the United States after traveling around Asia and the Pacific for five months.
“It actually seems better than before. There’s less people, it’s more quiet,” Conley said. “I’ll be back for sure.”
©2005 United Press International
BY RAFAEL D. FRANKEL, UPI Correspondent
Kuta, Indonesia—The government has arrested 17 suspects in the bombing. Peace concerts with famous musicians were held. And the wreckage of the Sari and Pati clubs on the main strip here was cleared away.
And yet still, the island is empty.
The Balinese have done just about everything to come to terms with and move on from last year’s Oct. 12 bombings which killed 193 people here, mostly tourists, including performing the Hindu cleansing festival.
And while spiritually they no longer dwell on the extreme violence which was brought to their tropical garden of Eden more than three months ago, business is so bad that every day life has turned into a struggle.
“I told my children they have to eat dried noodles now for breakfast,” said Martin Sitapu, 46, and the owner of an internet café and travel agency. “They used to have fresh bread and jam every morning.”
Like most businesses in Bali these days, Sitapu’s is on the verge of collapse. Businesses is down over ninety percent for him, and bankruptcy is only a year away barring a major pick-up.
As resourceful as the U.S. economy proved to be following the 9/11 attacks, Bali’s seems just that fragile following its own hell come to pass. Sixty-seven percent of its GDP in 2001 came from tourism.
Despite major discounts being offered by hotels in Bali, Indonesia Tourism Minister I Gede Ardika said Jan. 13 that Indonesia is projecting a maximum of 4.5 million tourists in 2003. That figure was revised downward by one million after the Bali bombings, and accounts for a precipitous drop in tourists visiting Bali which would have been around 1.5 million.
On the island, waiters at cafes sit and play cards amongst empty rooms of set tables and slowly rotating fans. And proprietors look crushed when tourists walk out of their shops without making a purchase. Even pricing sarongs at $1.10, one shopkeeper in Lovina beach on Bali’s northern coast told UPI she had not sold anything in five days.
Though the exodus of tourists in the days following the bombings was well documented, there is now an daily exodus of other sorts crushing Bali all the same.
Thousands of people who came from Java and across other parts of the Indonesian archipelago, to work in the once booming Balinese economy are packing up and going home.
“Bali is quiet now, and many people are sad,” said Yoyo Fredricko, 25, who owns the Toke’Surf Shop. “We are also very angry, really hate the terrorists.”
“Hate” would not have found its way into the Balinese vernacular before the bombings. But such is the reality of post-Oct. 12 Bali where one of the fastest selling items on popular Poppies Gang (street) is a t-shirt with two words in big, black, bold, print: “(Expletive) Terrorists!”
Rather than being a sharp wound where the pain was quick and the healing time manageable, the damage inflicted to Bali is beginning to resemble a slowly progressing disease with an uncertain prognosis.
The prospect of War with Iraq is not helping matters. After the bombings, the conventional wisdom in Bali was that business would be back to normal in three to four months. But with another international crisis looming, and a slew of Western governments issuing travel warnings to Southeast Asia, even the most hopeful are now sullen.
“Bali is safe, but maybe your people are afraid?” Sitapu said. “I don’t understand, and it’s very difficult because now the fear [of war] is in all our hearts.”
Despite all the gloom, the ingredients for a recovery are all here: an unambiguously friendly people, a stunning tropical setting, and a name that was once, and may well be again, synonymous with paradise.
The surfing community of the Pacific region was perhaps the hardest hit by the bombings, and are among the first to be coming back to Bali.
Australia in particular took the brunt of the blow, and that made it particularly difficult for Simon Ferguson, 28, from New Castle, Australia to come to Bali. “I always wanted to come here. Bombs don’t wreck reefs,” said Ferguson, who booked tickets to Bali the day before the bombings with his girlfriend. He wound up coming alone, and has met only three other Australians on the island which once served as the country’s back yard.
Gung-ho surfing attitude aside, Ferguson said it was not easy being here, and that he broke down in tears laying flowers at the wreckage of the Sari Club on Australia’s National Day.
“But the people are so friendly here and nobody is worried at all. I feel safer here than I do at home because the people look after you like you would a guest in your own house,” he said.
The Indonesian government is also optimistic about Bali’s long-term prospects. "Indications show that we are on the right track to recovery," Minister Ardika said. "By the end of 2003, the government of Indonesia hopes that the tourism industry would return to normal and be ready to expand."
"We want [tourists] to see for themselves that the perception that Bali is unsafe is not true. Bali is safe and is still the island of peace. Conditions have normalized," he said.
Perhaps he is right. Despite partying at the Sari club just three days before it was destroyed, and despite one of his friends dying there, Sean Conley, 25, from Port Angeles, Washington, decided to return to Bali on his way back to the United States after traveling around Asia and the Pacific for five months.
“It actually seems better than before. There’s less people, it’s more quiet,” Conley said. “I’ll be back for sure.”
©2005 United Press International