Deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban surrounded by reporters (photo credit: Prachatai on Flickr)

When things get tough for you in a debate, accusing your opposite party of being unpatriotic has been a tried and trusted method of ending the conversation – so long as you don’t care how silly that will make you sound.

According to at least three Thai-language sources (see here, here and here), Deputy PM Suthep on Friday had a heated exchange with reporters over the issue of the April-May red-shirt crisis. One particular thorny question was who were responsible for the violence and the deaths. When a reporter asked him what the CRES (the vastly powerful government-military agency set up to oversee the emergency situation) would do about people’s belief that civilians were shot by army troops, Suthep at once pointed to that reporter’s face and angrily asked “Are you Thai?” before quickly disappearing into his office.

As is repeated time and time again, the official version of what transpired during the red-shirt encampment is that all violence was perpetrated by “some” red-shirt protesters and mysterious unaligned paramilitary forces. None of the deaths were caused by the army, who, lest we forget, were authorised to fire live rounds in the protest zone.

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(photo credit: Prachatai on Flickr)

No matter which government we have in power, human rights remain essentially an alien concept in Thailand. The Rohingya affairs, the drug war, the perpetual emergency decree – you name it. And yet things have taken a strange, or should I say depressing, turn when the country was elected as president of the UN Human Rights Council (see here). Yes you heard it right. A country with serious human rights problems like Thailand now gets to chair a global agency in charge of promoting civil liberties and scrutinising human rights situation worldwide!

The Nation was quick to portray this as a significant achievement of the Abhisit administration:

Kudos must go to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, who did not budge when they were urged by international and Thai human rights groups to withdraw from bidding for a seat at the Human Rights Council.

The result was telling. Thailand came in second with 182 votes after the Maldives (185), despite the political crisis that was brewing on the streets of Bangkok. The result indicates the country’s diplomatic and human rights credentials. [...]

However, Pokpong Lawansiri in The Guardian provides an illuminating insight into what actually happened during the selection process (emphasis added):

Can this election of the council’s presidency be viewed as a realistic reflection of Thailand’s human rights standards?

The council was set up in 2006 to replace the contentiously debated UN commission on human rights. The election of the presidency is done on a rotating basis from five regional groups: Latin America and Caribbean, eastern Europe, Africa, western Europe and other states, and Asia. Since 2006, representatives of all four regional groups have served as presidents to the council, with the exception of Asia.

Based on this, Thailand was not competing against countries with better recognised human rights records such as those governments of Switzerland or Norway. Instead, Thailand was competing against countries in Asia, namely Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan and Maldives – all of which are criticised by rights watchdogs as human rights violators.

[...]

Maldives, a relatively young democracy, has only just emerged from a history of military coups and held its first democratic election in 2008. The country was ruled by Maumoon Gayoom, who denied free and fair elections, for 20 years. Being a small country, the Maldives lacked the political leverage required to convince member states of their leadership.

This is how the council was left with Thailand. As chair of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2009, Thailand had strong support from the member states in addition to many other states that could be provided by its ambassador.

Interestingly, one thing that The Nation and Pokpong seem to agree on is that this new privilege will also increase the pressure on the Thai state to do more to protect civil liberties and rectify existing human rights violations in the country. If pressures from rights groups around the world have not been strong enough for the government to act, now it has the added burden of chairing a UN body to live up to.

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[...] But Mr Abhisit, whose term ends in late 2011, said in a speech on May 23rd that his commitment to an election date no longer applies. He would have to wait to see if orderly elections could be held.

Such backsliding, even if founded on a realistic assessment of the risks, is bound to antagonise his opponents. They will take it as proof that he always intended to wriggle out of the offer they rejected. Nor will they set much store by Mr Abhisit’s demand for an independent investigation into the violence. The army, which stands behind Mr Abhisit, has a long history of covering its tracks. That a few red shirts were armed will be used as justification for killing those who were not. Thai media can mostly be relied on to stick to the official narrative. And without an election timetable, all of this will be seen, as a senior Western diplomat puts it, as “window-dressing”.

The rest of the article is well worth reading.

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(source: here, via this link)

The above photos purportedly show a couple of red leaders, detained and branded as terrorists by the state, looking relaxed and living in reasonably comfortable surroundings a day after they surrendered themselves to the police. They are also seen greeting a group of people,  allegedly well-wishers. Red leaders are said to be detained in the seaside resort town of Hua Hin.

The photos have provoked outcries from those who expected tougher treatment of the red detainees. They also have raised questions. Is this part of some kind of a deal thrashed out beforehand between the reds and the government? Who will take responsibility for putting ‘terrorist’ suspects in such privileged conditions? Does this prove that indeed there are red sympathisers within the police and the military top brass?

Needless to say, this is such an anti-climax.

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The Economist has an article up on its website on 19 May 2010. Key excerpt:

The prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, has failed to make any headway towards reconciliation. He had already created a terrific obstacle to peace on April 10th, when he hastily sent in troops to clear another protest site; 25 people died but the red shirts remained. But Mr Abhisit may deserve credit for offering a plausible compromise to the red shirts. That the leaders of their United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) failed to grasp this olive branch is tragic. They must bear some responsibility for the lives lost, as do the soldiers who marched into downtown Bangkok.

[...]

As the bullets flew, Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister and billionaire telecoms tycoon who encouraged the red shirts after he lost power in 2006 to a military coup, tweeted his sorrow to his followers. From his exile, Mr Thaksin denied, once again, that he was giving orders to the red-shirts leaders and urged everyone to embrace peace. There is little doubt, however, that Mr Thaksin held sway over the splintered, squabbling leadership of the UDD. The two-month protest would not have been possible without his deep pockets and political network. Though the red-shirt cause outgrew him, his stubbornness seems to have undone the peace talks.

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3. The UN Speaks

Thailand must step back from the brink and begin talks to end clashes between protesters and troops, the UN says.

UN rights chief Navi Pillay said Bangkok was in danger of spiralling out of control, after five days of violence which has seen 37 people killed.

She spoke a day after protesters called for UN-backed talks to end the crisis – a move rejected by the government.

[...]

In a statement, Ms Pillay said: “I urge leaders to set aside pride and politics for the sake of the people of Thailand.

“To prevent further loss of life, I appeal to the protesters to step back from the brink, and the security forces to exercise maximum restraint in line with the instructions given by the government.”.

In effect, this can be seen as largely a setback for the reds who were earlier hoping for outside intervention, involving the UN or foreign governments.

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1. Petition to Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, Regarding the Violence in Thailand
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If the clashes in Bangkok were transposed to central Paris, international commentators would be talking excitedly about revolution, class warfare, the future of the social contract, looming economic catastrophe and the end of democracy. Outside pressure to calm the situation would be immense.

Indeed there have been complaints by frustrated Thais as to why the Bangkok crisis has not got more international attention. But if the conflict drags on, that may well change.

[...]

Thailand’s continuing democratic example matters to Malaysia, to the south, where tensions over ethnic, civil and human rights sometimes produce autocratic responses, and even more so in Burma, to the north, where pro-democracy forces oppose a brutal military dictatorship. But sustaining Thai democracy also matters to Britain and other western countries, which look at a region increasingly influenced by the Chinese communist hegemony and wonder how long key states such as Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, will uphold western democratic values and standards if neighbours discard them.

Generally speaking, Thailand used to be regarded as the region’s “beacon of democracy” especially in the 1990s and early 2000s. The coup in 2006 did much to destroy that image, and currently Indonesia – with its increasingly robust democratic politics – seems to be the Western world’s new darling in terms of setting an example for other Southeast Asian countries to follow.

Yet, it is still premature to think of the reds as a definitively pro-democracy movement for the reasons I have pointed out before (see here and here). And in the next section, Tisdall is cautious enough not to overplay the reds’ and Thaksin’s democratic credentials (although calling the red-shirts “a pro-Thaksin movement” is inaccurate as well):

The political, as well as physical, collision between the redshirts – a pro-Thaksin movement ostensibly representing the urban and rural poor – and establishment forces comprising the political and military elites, royalists and Thailand’s newly wealthy bourgeoisie also has a significance reaching beyond Bangkok. The rich versus poor theme can be overplayed. The reality is more complicated.

The billionaire Thaksin is no Robin Hood, and his time in power was marked by a violent war on drugs, high-level corruption and harsh military measures in the south. [...]

Tisdall goes on to give us his last reason why the world should be worried:

Southern Thailand is home to a long-running separatist insurgency involving ethnic Malay Muslims who reject direct rule from Bangkok. There is evidence that al-Qaida-related activists in Indonesia and Malaysia have tried to fan and exploit this conflict in the past.

A collapse, or prolonged paralysis, of the central civil authority would be an invitation to further polarising unrest. And the last thing world needs is another battlefront with militant Islam.

In other words, a state failure.

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—

May 2010

Dr. Neric O. Acosta
Secretary General and Interim Executive Director
Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats
7-B Amorsolo Street,
San Lorenzo Village,
Makati City 1223 Philippines

Subject: Continuing abuse of power by Mr. Abhisit Vejajiva in Thailand

Dear Dr. Acosta,

We are a group of concerned scholars, civil society organisations, human rights organisations, students, and individuals who are writing to you to raise your concerns on the recent bloody crackdown by the Democrat Party-led government under Mr. Abhisit Vejajiva. Democrat Party is a member of the Council of Asian Liberal and Democrats (CALD).

There has been confirmed reports by international journalists and rights organisations of the military personnel under the order of Mr. Abhisit have been firing live ammunitions into the crowd of the opposition protest group, the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) also known as the “red shirt” resulting in the death of at least 22 unarmed protesters and at least 200 protesters injured, and the number is rising as we speak. The government is also putting military snipers on skyscrapers around the area targeting at the protesters.

There are also reports of at least 10 Thai and international journalists being injured via gunshot by the military. There are roughly 10,000 protesters in the site, women and children among them and the government has the policy to crackdown on these protesters. This atrocity adds up to the death tolls in the 10 April 2010 crackdown by the government which claimed the lives of 20 protesters and more than 800 peoples injured.

In the past two months, Thailand has been ruled under the grip of the emergency decree giving the absolute power to the Prime Minister to summon and arrest anyone critical of the government. On 13 May 2010, Mr. Abhisit has signed an order in imposing State of Emergency in 15 provinces in the country in an attempt to allow Thai peoples to join the protest site in Bangkok. Human Rights Watch has reported that hundreds of opposition politicians, student activists, media workers, and individuals have been summoned by the government for questioning. Furthermore, more than 1,030 political and news website have been summarily shut down under the order of Mr. Abhisit.

We therefore are writing to you to express our utmost concerns about the recent bloody crackdown and for you to take immediate possible action with the leadership of the Democrat Party. The atrocities and excessive uses of forces by prohibit those voicing opposition to his government as committed under Mr. Abhisit will undermined the principles to respect human rights and democracy as respected by CALD. Governments cannot simply shoot guns at its citizens who think different than them.

Furthermore, the continuing abuse of power by Mr. Abhisit is a direct contradiction to the charter of CALD and its Manifesto for Transparency, Accountability and Access to Information which calls for CALD members that “CALD member party must be in consistent with its policies of good governance when it is in power”.

Sincerely yours,

Signatories

The petition will be sent to members of the CALD, including:

Liberal Party of Sri Lanka, member of CALD
Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan, member of CALD
Liberal Party of the Philippines, member of CALD
Singapore Democratic Party, member of CALD
Sam Rainsy Party of Cambodia, member of CALD
Inter-Parliamentary Union Secretariat
Liberal International Secretariat

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(credit: motifake.com)

Federico Ferrara, an academic from the National University of Singapore and regular commentator on Thai politics, has written a Facebook note speculating whether there will be a civil war in Thailand. He argues that while a full-scale civil war is unlikely, there is real potential for more violence and street fighting. Key excerpt:

Is Thailand at risk of finding itself in this situation? Possibly. The risk, however, is less of a war between civilians (yellow v. red) than it is that of a war between different parts of the Thai state. Most ominously, the violence on April 22 and on April 10 shows that there are deep splits within the security forces (between most of the police and parts of army on one side and the rest of the army on the other). Given the firepower and strength of the two sides, the conflict definitely has the potential to create mass casualties.

That being said, I don’t think that a real “civil war” per the definition is especially likely, in the sense that the two sides of the security forces are unlikely to engage in open warfare with one another. The greater likelihood is that there might be more acts of sabotage by one/both groups but only sporadic and relatively low intensity fighting between one another in riot situations.

I do not know whether the full text has been published elsewhere, so for the time being you can read the rest of his note on Facebook here.

UPDATE: Bangkok Pundit has now got the full text of Ferrara’s note, so head here to read the rest.

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Much of the international press and media has romanticized the events in Bangkok as some kind of grassroots democracy at work, in which the poor rural masses have come to Bangkok to confront the cruel ruling classes. This is utter nonsense. Thailand is being torn apart by gangs of hoodlums masquerading as democrats and pretending they are embarked on the pure quest for fresh elections. Mobs of “red shirts,” proclaiming allegiance to exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, are in command of a glitzy hotel and shopping district close to Bangkok’s main financial area.

[...]

There is big money backing the red shirts, with large numbers of demonstrators being paid 1,000 baht a day, five times the agricultural wage, and their leaders having recourse to the comforts of five-star hotels. The red shirts have also shown good planning and organization and the support of modern weaponry. Some Red leaders have said they are going to wage “war” against the government.

[...]

If it is war against the government, this is not democracy. It means that the only democracy the demonstrators will accept is theirs. A BBC correspondent in Bangkok claimed that Thaksin had “empowered the poor.” Other Western commentators have painted Thaksin as some democratic hero turfed out of office by military thugs acting on behalf of Thailand’s elite vested interests.

[...]

Any civilized government would find it impossible to accept what the red shirts are doing. The mobs move in convoys, randomly blocking all traffic, and storm Parliament, threatening to lynch the prime minister, then go to his house and throw excrement and threaten to kill him. When authorities move in to disperse them, they fire rocket grenades and snipers use laser guidance to pick off officers.

There is a tendency for some international observers to overromanticise the red shirts, as Rafferty points out in the article. We need to have a realistic assessment of the reds, just like how we look at the government and other groups.

Yet, there is also a danger that the government will exploit the negative press surrounding the reds and instigate another round of crackdown. As the latest negotiation between the reds and the government has failed (see here and here), another violent clash looks more likely day by day. And who knows what will happen this time…

By the way, if the red shirts have been paid to join the rally, why does the government not pay them to go home? Mob dispersal would never have been so simple.

Note: Please look for the Japan Times article yourself. As it touches on certain sensitive subjects I cannot provide the link.

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