"The Threat of communism is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to the people of North-east Thailand. Not that communism is necessarily a good thing, but the threat of it has forced the Thai Government to sit up and take some notice of the North-east."

This is the opinion of John Harlow, Victoria University student, who spent three months working as a free-lance correspondent in South-east Asia this year.

Mr. Harlow, who spent most of his time in Thailand and South Vietnam, says that conditions in the north-east provinces of Thailand seemed to be very similar to those which prevailed in South Vietnam 10 years ago.

Today, he says, the North-east is a potential hotbed of communism and could well become a second Vietnam unless the government moves quickly to rectify its short comings of the past.

He says that for centuries the people of the North-east have been neglected by the government and left to try to find enough to eat in a land of limited resources.

"Now there is every possibility that the communists would take over the North-east by either subversion or invasion and that the local population would give at least tacit support to such a takeover," says Mr. Harlow.