A patronising and offensive view of Africans 

Burin Kantabutra says that when our foreign friends point out inconvenient truths, we should argue the points instead of attacking them for not being Thai. This is perfectly reasonable.
It is therefore confounding when he does exactly what he is cautioning us against in his letter. He says that attacking the nationality of writers is the “exclusionary approach used by African countries” and that “Unlike the Africans, Thailand seeks to achieve international standards in various areas and help others do likewise.” Instead of telling us why we should not attack the nationality of the writer, he tells us that we should not do it because this is what Africans do. This is deeply offensive.
Apparently, in Mr Kantabutra’s mind, no African country seeks to achieve international standards. Moreover, and this is telling, he implies that none of the African countries counts as a “foreign friend” of Thailand. Thailand has her “foreign friends” and then we have “the Africans”, who are exclusionary and do not seek to achieve international standards.
May I advise Mr Kantabutra to spend his time doing some reading (or travelling) instead of sending letters containing wild generalisations to media houses. Maybe then he will realise that in the area of discrimination based on sexual orientation that he talks about, there are African countries that have already achieved some of his so-called international standards.
James Nyongesa