Thai activists reject U.S. call on WTO race

Thai activists reject U.S. call on WTO race

BANGKOK (AFP): Thai activists Tuesday rejected a U.S. appeal for calm over the highly charged race for the WTO leadership after Washington sparked fury here by failing to back Thailand's candidate.

About 20 activists, including a Bangkok MP, delivered two letters to the U.S. embassy here demanding U.S. neutrality in the selection process for the World Trade Organization's new leader.

Thailand has accused the U.S. of blocking a consensus behind its candidate Commerce Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi in favor of New Zealand's former premier Mike Moore.

"We are calling for neutrality from the U.S. and asking them to ensure transparency in the selection process," said MP Chareon Khantawong.

"If the U.S. cannot live up to President Clinton's word, please tell the Thai people we cannot trust a letter from your president any more," he said.

Chareon was referring to a letter in which President Bill Clinton told Thai Premier Chuan Leekpai that Washington would not block a consensus for Supachai.

Following comments Monday in which senior U.S. envoy Ralph Boyce called for calm after a wave of anger directed at the United States, Chareon insisted the fault lay with Washington.

"It is the U.S. which is making this issue serious because they are trying to block us," he said, adding that as long as transparency was guaranteed, Thailand would accept the result, win or lose.

The letters were addressed to Boyce, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, and U.S. ambassador to Thailand Richard Hecklinger.

The leadership campaign, which has split the 134 members of the WTO, is being viewed as a matter of national prestige in Thailand, which has been stung at the stance of the United States which it regards as a close ally.

Boyce warned Monday that Thai-U.S. relations could be damaged by an anti-U.S. campaign whipped up by the press and some politicians.

"I want to ask Thai people not to take this too seriously as it is not good for relations between our two countries," Boyce told reporters in fluent Thai.

"I want them to think about the long relations between the two countries."

Reports here say WTO members will meet Wednesday to try to thrash out a consensus for either candidate.

The WTO has been without a leader since Renato Ruggiero of Italy stepped down at the end of his term in April. The council is due to meet on Wednesday.

In Geneva, a WTO spokesman said that the ruling General Council of the trade organization will meet on Wednesday to discuss the selection of the next WTO director-general, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

But prospects for breaking a deadlock between countries favoring Mike Moore, a former prime minister of New Zealand, and those backing Thai Deputy Prime Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi, appear slim, according to trade envoys.

The European Union's ambassador to the WTO told a news conference last week that given the stalemate, the chairman conducting the process, Tanzanian ambassador Ali Mchumo, may have to declare that neither candidate can get the job.