http://asiancorrespondent.com/bangkok-pundit-blog/thai-foreign-ministry-we-should-not-give-credence-to-wikileaks

Thai Foreign Ministry : We should not give credence to Wikileaks
Dec. 17 2010 - 06:40 pm View comments (0)

		2	Thai, Foreign, Ministry

The Financial Times:

Thani Thongpakdi, the foreign ministry spokesman, said: "Regarding WikiLeaks in general, we are not in a position to verify or vouch for their authenticity and as most reports that have come out seem hearsay or gossip, and some may be taken out of context, we should not give credence to them."

Ok, it doesn't beat earlier Suthep's response:

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said the leaked classified information will not have much effect on Thailand.

"We don't have any secrets," Mr Suthep said. "What happens in Thailand, we tell the media and the people."

BP: Indeed. The government has no secrets. Just like all politicians are honest....

Actually, what is interesting about the Wikileaks project is that we have access to the actual cables (minus redactions). It is not a newspaper's summary. So what Thani is in essence saying we should ignore what the US Embassy states. Does this then also apply to any media report about an statement by Prem or Siddhi? (or just ones that are uncomfortable to answer?).

Unsurprsingly, Thanong of The Nation is right in step with this. He tweets:

For we are publishing stories from electronic information, which we don't know for sure where they come from

And then:

In court, what kind of evidence we may produce to back our claim that the story we published was true -- a copy from Guardian?

BP: Of course, that did not stop The Nation from publishing a quote from a cable where a Singaporean senior foreign affairs official stated that Thaksin was "corrupt", but well that was criticism of Thaksin. It is as seeing the dangers of Wikileaks that the Thai media have shut up shop and gone home. Look, BP can understand the sensitivity of reporting about certain issues, but there is plenty of other information in the most recent cables which do not breach the law and reflect negatively on PAD and also Thaksin. At the very least, shouldn't they be printing what they can? How long will this collective groupthink last? Of course, Prachatai, is one of the few exceptions with some translations into Thai of comments about Seh Daeng, Anupong, and Abhisit by Siddhi, Prem, and Anand.

btw, also from that Financial Times piece:

The US state department said: "I can't comment on the contents of allegedly classified documents nor can we vouch for their authenticity.

"What I can say is that the US holds his majesty the king and the entire royal family in the highest esteem."