Thailand, GMS neighbours join forces against crime along Mekong

CHIANG RAI, September 11 (TNA) - Thailand and three other member countries of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), including Laos, Myanmar and China, have joined forces in providing security in areas along the Mekong River. Provincial police chief, region 5, Police Lieutenant General Suthep Dejraksa, in his capacity as Director of the Mekong River Crime Suppression Center, has acknowledged that Thailand and the three GMS neighbours have worked together to maintain shipping safety along the Mekong River, right from Chiang Saen District in Chiang Rai Province in the Thai North to Xishuangbanna in China's southern Yunnan Province. As part of the cross-border cooperation, the Mekong River Crime Suppression Center organized a workshop in Chiang Rai on Monday, in which officials concerned participated and were briefed on measures to be used for preventing and suppressing crime in the areas close to the Mekong River, aimed to boost security for marine transportation in the lead-up to the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. Even though, Nokham (หน่อคำ), a Myanmar drug lord who murdered 13 Chinese sailors, has been nabbed by Chinese and Lao authorities, there have been movements of three armed ethnic groups along the 9-kilometre-long Mekong Rim to collect protection money from boats. (TNA)