Originally Posted by
Wayne Kerr 06-05-2007, 10:12 PM
Up until now this joint has been administered by the Australian Government, but in reality it has been managed by Bill Slape who has done a great job. Anyway, I’ve just heard “through the grapevine” that this may change. The place will likely end up being run as a commercial venture in the near future, i.e., touts at the entrance, crappy post cards on sale, and visitors (including family of Prisoners of War) being charged an entrance fee to go into the museum, or maybe even to go down to Konyu Cutting (Hellfire Pass). It would be very disappointing if this was to happen. It may mean the complete loss of control over a cultural/historical site by the Australian Government. I think that you’d all like to know that an Australian Department of Veteran Affairs official is about to sign this site over to the Thai administration – and I mean very soon. This may be about the given official having made a promise several years ago that he now cannot keep.