Thai government moves to suppress media

23 Apr 2009
Following the anti-government protests, the Thai government has begun to crack down on the opposition media. Sinfah Tunsarawuth asks if the heavy-handed tactics will incite further chaos.

Radio and television stations in Thailand have been warned by authorities against airing anti-government criticism that could cause civil unrest.

Satit Wonghnongtaey, who is in charge of government’s media policy, told reporters that the government needed to shut down these media, suggesting they had been used to incite unrest in the country.


Among the targets were D station, a satellite television channel run by supporters of former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who form an anti-government bloc known as the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD).

Earlier this month, police blocked the broadcasts of the station and later raided the head offices in Bangkok.
Read More

100 Stories on Thailand 008

Spas take off in Asia
Healthy living is back in style in Asia,
which means a revival of ancient Asian
wellness techniques - and an explosion of spas.

August 21, 2009
HUA HIN, Thailand (Fortune) -- Yue-Sai Kan -- one of the most recognizable women in China with a cosmetics empire

and her own TV showoften needs to get away from the grueling pressures and polluted skies of Shanghai and Beijing, where she lives.

Her refuge of choice? A health spa in Thailand called Chiva-Som. "The service is amazing, and the food is amazing, too,"

she says of the wellness center in the beach resort town of Hua Hin, where patrons are offered lemongrass tea all day as a diuretic

 and eat only healthy salt-free, oil-free, sugar-free food. "I go sometimes more than once a year, from three days to 12, depending on what time I have.

But I would love to stay six months. That would really make me healthy!" Health is a key buzzword in Asia these days. The region's


rapid growth of the last decade has meant a proliferation of fried chicken and ice cream, air pollution, and generally unhealthy lifestyles.


Waistlines swelled along with GDP, and smoking and heavy drinking became fashionable among a certain segment of upwardly mobile Asians.


But increasingly, those with disposable incomes are recognizing the benefits of taking care of their health, and they're turning to spas to do it.


"Beforehand there were hardly any Chinese, hardly any Asians, and now there are a lot," says Kan, who has visited Chiva-Som for more than a decade. "People get more money and they want to be more health conscious."

That's meant a dramatic rise in the number of spas in Asia. Chiva-Som -- which started in the mid-1990s as an exclusive club for the wealthy

business elite of Bangkok -- was the first wellness spa to open in the region. For some time it had the field almost entirely to itself,

but in the last several years, the number of competitors has exploded. In Thailand alone, the number of spas grew 154% between 2002 and 2007 -- from 230 to 585.

"There's been a massive proliferation in the number of spas," says Gerard Bodeker, a professor at Oxford University Medical School and author of the book,

Understanding the Global Spa Industry. "There's a huge awareness in global value and interest in Asian therapies, so Asian countries are now actively

discovering and promoting their own health and heritage. There's an across-the-board revival of interest in Asia in indigenous health traditions."

The result, he says, is age-old methodologies being discovered not just by Westerners interested in Ayurveda or Thai massage,

but by the populations of Asia who had such treatments as part of their cultures for decades and even centuries, but rarely had a place to take advantage of them.

The Japanese have always maintained their tradition of going to onsens (hot springs) to relax, but in the rest of Asia, the traditional

therapies and healing techniques often performed by village women for generations were in danger of being forgotten before the spa trend began taking off.

While shiatsu (Japanese), tui-na (Chinese) and Ayurvedic (Indian) techniques have been joining the ranks of Swedish massages at spas in the United States

and elsewhere in the West, many of the traditional Malay, Vietnamese, Balinese, and even Indian health techniques are just starting to see a huge revival and adoption

by Asia's emerging middle class. "It's the gentrification of their traditions," Bodeker says.

"We're in the process of a big transition from simple village treatments to 21st century resort standards."

Call it a sort of globalization in reverse, or at least the opposing trend of the spread of KFCs and McDonald's franchises around the world.

Despite the recession -- and in part fueled by cheaper commodity prices -- Asia now has the largest number of spas under development of any region of the world, says Bodeker.


Increasingly, Asian luxury hoteliers like Aman Resorts, Mandarin Oriental, and the Banyan Tree -- a Thai luxury resort chain


that opened a spa resort in Lijiang in southwest China in 2006 -- are building wellness retreats, not just adding spa facilities to their urban or beach resort properties.

In Thailand, 19% of respondents polled online by the International SPA Association said they had stayed at a destination spa, as did 21% of Chinese

and 15% of Indians. And more than half of the people of those three nationalities said they had visited a day spa. (The ISPA survey, conducted in Asia for the first time last year,

reaches only those with Internet access and is therefore considered a self-selected sample of the urban elite.) While the global spa industry

is valued at $255 billion annually, according to the Global Spa Summit, data about the trend in Asia is only now being gathered. A 2007


study by the GSS -- also its first-ever tracking Asian spas -- found 82 destination or wellness spas in the Asia-Pacific regions, which includes spas in Australia and New Zealand,


 as well as Ayurvedic facilities in India, out of a global total of 1,485 destination or wellness spas. A decade ago, Bodeker says it's safe to say, there were almost none of these facilities in Asia.

Thailand was the first Asian country to develop a spa industry, which was natural given its status as a rest-and-relaxation center for American soldiers

during the Vietnam War. "There's been an effort to separate out the sex industry from the spa industry," says Bodeker. "Previously the word 'massage'

was a synonym for sexual services." Plus, Thailand has a rich heritage of unique massage, herbal treatments,

and meditation, a philosophical framework of mind/body balance, a well-trained service sector, and a highly developed tourism industry.

Now India, Bali, China, and even Malaysia -- with its highly lauded Pangkor Laut Resort -- are building up their spa industries, too.

A destination resort called Life Wellness Resort Quy Nhon -- based on local health practices -- has even opened in central Vietnam.

At Chiva-Som, while Europeans made up 51% of the visitors in May (the most recent data available), Asians were second at 26 % of guests.

And their numbers jump considerably during Asian holiday periods such as the Lunar New Year of January-February.

With the recession, the fact that Chiva-Som costs about 30% less than a comparable American or European spa -- or even a regular

vacation abroad -- means that many Asians are choosing to stay closer to home this year, says Paul Linder, Chiva-Som's general manager.

Americans and Europeans realize that they can combine a Thai vacation with a spa experience for the same price as a trip to, say,

the Canyon Ranch or Golden Door spas in the United States, or the Kempinski St. Moritz spa in Switzerland. "People are being more

careful in how they spend their money," Linder says, "but more people are coming to spend it on their bodies than on luxury products."

At Chiva-Som, treating the body both inside and out is the norm. Daily routines start with a sunrise walk on the beach or Tai Chi Chuan,

then meditation, morning yoga, stretch class, and a break for breakfast. (No oil, salt, or sugar, remember?)

Then there's water aerobics, regular aerobics, and an array of Pilates, kinesis, cardio, and other classes.

Most patrons schedule massage and beauty treatments for the rest of the afternoon: One daily massage is mandatory,

and most massage options include adaptations of Thai massage techniques. With that kind of regimen, even the most unfit and

overweight urban Asians can't help but get healthier -- and feel inspired by their own traditions while they're doing it.
CNN Money

Thai king world's wealthiest royal

NEW YORK - With a fortune estimated at $35 billion US, Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej is the world's richest royal sovereign, and oil-rich Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi is far back at No. 2, Forbes magazine says.

King Bhumibol, 81 tomorrow and, at 62 years on the throne the world's longest-serving head of state, pushed to the top of the richest royals list by virtue of a greater transparency surrounding his fortune, Forbes said.

It said that the Crown Property Bureau, which manages most of his family's wealth, "granted unprecedented access this year, revealing vast landholdings, including 1,414 hectares in Bangkok."

Forbes called it a good year for monarchies, investment-wise. "As a group, the world's 15 richest royals have increased their total wealth to $131 billion, up from $95 billion last year," Forbes said on its website.

With oil prices soaring several months ago, the monarchs of the petro-kingdoms of the Middle East and Asia dominate the list.

Sheik Khalifa, 60, the current president of the United Arab Emirates, was estimated to be worth $23 billion, on the back of Abu Dhabi's huge petroleum reserves.

In third was the sovereign of the world's biggest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, 84, who inherited the Al-Saud family throne in 2005, came in with a fortune of $21 billion.

The previous king of kings, wealth-wise, 62-year-old Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah of tiny, oil-endowed Brunei on the Southeast Asia island of Borneo, fell to fourth place with $20 billion.

"The sultan, who inherited the riches of an

unbroken 600-year-old Muslim dynasty, has had to cut back on his country's oil production because of depleting reserves," Forbes explained of his dwindling fortune.

Fifth was Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, 58, of another emirate, Dubai, with a net worth of $18 billion.

One of two Europeans on the list, Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, 63, ranked six on the list with $5 billion in wealth. However, the bank that is a key source of his family's wealth, LGT, is under investigation by the U.S. for helping wealthy people evade taxes.

Qatar's Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, 56, came in at seventh, worth $2 billion; eighth was King Mohammed VI of Morocco, 46, his $1.5 billion fortune based on phosphate mining, agriculture and other investments.

Number nine was Prince Albert II of Monaco, 50, his diverse fortune in the southern European principality put at $1.4 billion.

Tenth on the list was Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman, 67, worth $1.1 billion.

Rounding out the top 15 were: The Aga Khan Prince Karim Al Hussein, 71 ($1 billion); Britain's Queen Elizabeth, 82, $650 million;

Kuwait's Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, 79, $500 million; Queen Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard of the Netherlands, 70, $300 million; and King Mswati III of Swaziland, 40, with $200 million.

Forbes noted that because many of the royals inherited their wealth, share it with extended families, and often control it "in trust for their nation or territory," none of those on its list would qualify for the magazine's famous annual world billionaires ranking.

"Because of technical and idiosyncratic oddities in the exact relationship between individual and state wealth, these estimates are perforce a blend of art and science," it added.
Canada

Former Thai Prime Minister Samak dies

November 24, 2009

Bangkok, Thailand (CNN) -- Former Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, who was ousted from office last year for appearing on television cooking shows for payment, died Tuesday.

Samak died after a two-month hospitalization at Bangkok's Bumrungrad International Hospital for liver cancer, said his personal secretary, Paisarn Akkasarakul. Samak was 74 and had battled cancer for a year.

His funeral will be held at Benjamaborpit Temple and a royally sponsored bathing rite is set for Wednesday, the Thai News Agency said.

Samak steered the People Power Party to victory in December 2007 in the first democratically held election since a bloodless coup the year before.

But the veteran politician and former governor of Bangkok was accused of being a nominee of friend and former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose administration was mired in allegations of corruption.

Samak also faced allegations of corruption, appealed a three-year prison sentence for defaming a deputy governor and dealt with an election commission decision that his party had committed fraud in the 2007 balloting and should be dissolved.

His nine months in office ended last year with political crisis in Thailand.
Thousands of protesters camped outside the government's headquarters and blocked Samak from entering.

But it was his television show, "Tasting While Grumbling," that ultimately ended Samak's career. As host, Samak served up his favorite Thai dishes, as well as commentary that struck his fancy

He was forced to step down as prime minister in August 2008 after Thailand's Supreme Court ruled that he had violated the constitution by accepting payment to host the popular show.

Thailand: The Cockroaches take over

The appointment of “Democrat” Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva as the new Thai Prime Minister is the final stage of the second coup against an elected government.

After the deliberate chaos created by the PAD’s seizure of the airports, the courts stepped in to dissolve the hugely popular governing party for the second time.

The Army chief then called a meeting of Democrat Party parliamentarians along with some of the most corrupt elements of the governing coalition parties. It is widely believed that the Army chief and others threatened and bribed MPs to change sides.

Chief among them is “Newin Chitchorp”, who was named by his father after the infamous Burmese dictator.
The Democrat Party is known among the cyber community as the “Cockroach Party”.

This is because cockroaches live in filthy places and can survive even nuclear holocausts.

The party has survived for many years, forming governments after various crises. These so-called Democrats have systematically backed anti-democratic measures.

They supported the 2006 coup, the military constitution and the PAD. One Democrat Party MP was the leader of the mob that took over the international airport.

Over the last 30 years, the Democrat party has never won an overall majority in parliament.

It does not represent the people. During the Thaksin years it spent the whole time criticising the universal health care scheme and other pro-poor policies.

After the 1997 economic crisis it used state money to prop up the banks and guarantee the savings of the rich, while telling the poor to fend for themselves and depend on their families. Even Abhisit’s name in Thai means “privilege”.

He is an Oxford graduate from a wealthy family.
The first coup, on 19th September 2006, was a straight forward military coup, using tanks and soldiers wearing Royal yellow ribbons.

The military junta tore-up the democratic constitution and replaced it with an authoritarian one.

Half the Senate was appointed by the military and many so-called independent bodies were staffed by junta supporters.

The military appointed themselves to lucrative state enterprise positions. Then they got the courts to dissolve the Thai Rak Thai Party despite the fact that it had won repeated elections.

Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party was and remains hugely popular among the majority of Thais. This party introduced the first universal healthcare scheme and projects to stimulate village economies.

The aim was to develop Thailand as a whole, increasing the education and health status of the general population, thus turning them into “stake-holders”.

This was a winning formula, an alliance between a pro-poor capitalist party and the poor, both urban and rural.


But Thaksin’s modernisation plans, which also included major infrastructure development such as public transport projects for Bangkok, upset the Old Order.

This “Old Order” is not headed by the King, as many commentators think.

The Old Order is made up of local political mafias, the army, conservative judges and the Democrat Party.

They were joined by businessmen like Sondhi Limthongkul, who initially supported Thaksin, but fell out over personal interests.

The PAD mobilised a fascist-style middle class mob to cause chaos. They seized the Government House, destroyed offices, stole weapons and then tried to close parliament. Their final act was the take-over of the two international airports with the open support of the military.

The PAD and the Old Order want to reduce democracy further.

They want to reduce the number of elected members of parliament, stiffen Lese Majesty laws and destroy the alliance between the poor and Thaksin.

They are angry that the poor have become politicised.

They hate the fact that state budgets were spent on healthcare, rural development and education. nstead they want to cling to their old privileges, espouse strict “Monetarism” (except for elite and military spending) and advocate that the poor should be “Sufficient” in their poverty.

These people use neo-liberal free-market ideas in association with the King’s “Sufficiency Economy” ideology. Their excuse for opposing democracy is their belief that the poor are too stupid to deserve the right to vote.

The Thai King has always been weak. His status has been systematically promoted by military juntas and the elite in general. We are all socialised to think that the King is an “ancient Absolute Monarchy”, while at the same time being within the Constitution.

This picture of power creates a shell to protect the entire ruling class and the status quo under a climate of fear. The army especially needs such a legitimising shell because it is no longer OK for the military to hold political power, unless it can claim to protect the Monarchy.

In previous political crises, such as in 1973 and 1992, the King only intervened late in the day after it was clear who had won.

In the present crisis the King has remained silent and has not made any attempts to resolve the crisis. He missed his annual birthday speech on 4th December this year, claiming a sore throat.

The Royal dimension to this crisis is that it is a struggle between two elite groups. One side have been much more successful in claiming Royal legitimacy.

But ironically this claim by the anti-Thaksin lot is causing a crisis for the Monarchy because it associates PAD violence and law-breaking with the Monarchy and the actions by the military have created an image that the Monarchy is against the majority of the population.

The support shown by the Queen for the PAD has also angered or disappointed many Thais. The new government will be made up of a coalition of some of the most corrupt and unprincipled politicians.

This shows that the elites’ opposition to Thaksin was never really about preventing corruption or vote buying, despite the fact that many ordinary middle-class people might have felt that it was. Even the Democrat Party has a history of vote buying and corruption.

The Democrat governor of Bangkok had to resign recently under a corruption cloud. Yet the party was not dissolved by the courts. So far, Thaksin and his fellow politicians have only been found guilty of technicalities.

No serious corruption charges have been proven. No evidence of real election fraud has ever been unearthed. In fact,

Thaksin’s party was reducing the importance of vote-buying through pro-poor policies. This is what angered the Old Order.

It meant that they could only overthrow his government buy promising more to the poor or by using various means to organise coups.

There are a number of questions which need to be put to the new government: Read More

Questioning Amnesty International’s double standards

Yesterday PPT posted on the Asian Human Rights Commission statement on the use of the Computer Crimes Act as a substitute for the lese majeste law and Reporters Without Borders released a report the day before criticizing the use of this other laws that limit expression.

PPT assumes that because these “crimes” are political and related to the monarchy in Thailand, that Amnesty International will say nothing. That has been its “policy.”

But what are they doing elsewhere? On 16 November 2009, there was this:

Urgent Action 308/09 – Prisoners of conscience – Bloggers Jailed in Azerbaijan: URGENT ACTION APPEAL – From Amnesty International USA

Two “activists and bloggers” are said by AI to “have been sentenced to two and a half years and two years respectively in an unfair trial.

Amnesty International believes the charges against them were fabricated and they have been imprisoned solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression.” One of the men posted “a satirical video … criticizing the Azerbaijani government … on the video-sharing website YouTube.”

Interestingly, in this case, the men are jailed on charges that don’t relate to their postings. However, AI considers them prisoners of conscience because the government has targeted them for their political views.

So can anyone at Amnesty International explain why Thailand is different for the organization? How is the jailing of people in Thailand different? PPT sees that the details are different.

In fact, the use of the law is harsher in Thailand (jailing for 20 years, reduced to 10 – Suwicha Thakor) and being held for long periods without bail (Suwicha and Nat Sattayapornpisut), but political “crimes” are very similar.

Indeed, in Thailand a special law has been created to facilitate intimidation and to allow for people to be “imprisoned solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression.”

That law was put in place by an illegitimate, military-backed government. The trials of these Thais could never be considered fair.

We wonder how it is that Amnesty International feels comfortable operating with such double standards.

Readers may want to ask AI, but be aware that emailing AI produces, in PPT’s experience, no response at all: Amnesty International USA, 600 Pennsylvania Ave SE 5th fl, Washington DC 20003, Email: uan@aiusa.org, http://www.amnestyusa.org/, Phone: 202.544.0200, Fax: 202.675.8566

AHRC and RWB on computer crimes as lese majeste

On 20 November 2009, the Asian Human Rights Commission released a timely statement on the use of the Computer Crimes Act as a substitute for the lese majeste law and Reporters Without Borders released a report the day before criticizing

the use of this and other laws that are meant to control and limit expression: “Harassment and intimidation are constantly employed to dissuade Internet users from freely expressing their views.”

Read the report on RWB at Prachatai, where some extra and useful links are included.
As PPT readers may have noticed, at our pages on Pending Cases and About Us, we also recognized this substitution.

Some months ago we began including those charged with “national security” offenses under the Computer Crimes Act along with lese majeste cases.

AHRC mention five cases: the royals health rumors scapegoats Thatsaporn Rattanawongsa (arrested just a couple of days ago), Thiranan Vipuchanun, Khatha Pachachirayapong and Somjet Itthiworakul

(arrested earlier in November), Prachatai’s webmaster Chiranuch Premchaiporn, charged back in March, and Suwicha Thakor, arrested in January, convicted in April and sentenced to 20 years jail, reduced to 10 after he finally agreed to plead guilty.

RWB list others, including Nat Sattayapornpisut, arrested in October.
AHRC makes some excellent points, noting that negative publicity “over the cases against persons critical of its royal family,

or persons claiming to act on the royals’ behalf” has caused the Democrat Party-led government to change tack and downplay lese majeste while using other means to repress and censor.

It is added that the Justice Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga remarkably claimed that “Offences against the King, the Queen, the Heir-Apparent or the Regent are considered offences relating to the security of the Kingdom,

not ‘lese-majesty’… I am certain that each state as well as Thailand has its own way of interpreting what constitutes offences relating to national security.

Therefore, whoever violates the law of the Kingdom will be fairly charged and prosecuted according to the law of the Kingdom.”

As AHRC points out, the Computer Crimes Act “is an excellent substitute” for a repressive government that wants to appear to international community as one that favors the “rule of law.” As is clear, they use this law to harass, intimidate and to lock up those who oppose the national ideology.

AHRC notes that the Computer Crimes Act “was passed in the final hours of the military-appointed proxy legislature following the 2006 coup, and … was designed as a tool to suppress dissent, not responsibly deal with Internet crime in Thailand.

Its ambiguous provisions, notably the section under which all these persons have been charged, allow for the prosecution of any type of thought crime on the disingenuous pretext that the crime is one of technology rather than one of expression or of ideas.

Therefore, the state can claim that it is bringing people to court for one type of crime, while sending a clear message to a society that the real offence is altogether different.”

100 Stories on Thailand 007

Thai police: 20 people wounded in car bomb

August 25, 2009
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- About 20 people were wounded Tuesday when a car bomb exploded near a Buddhist restaurant in southern Thailand, police said.

The bombing occurred in Narathiwat province around lunch time, a local police sergeant said.The car used in the attack had been stolen

from a civil servant who had been killed by Islamic insurgents, police said. The bomb was detonated by a cell phone, they said.

Bombings are an ongoing issue in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, where an Islamic insurgency that flared in January 2004 has resulted in the deaths of about 3,000 people

Thaksin Shinawatra threatened with extradition from Cambodia

November 10, 2009
Thailand says it will seek to extradite former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, if he arrives as expected in Cambodia later this week.

Mr Thaksin, who's on the run from a graft conviction at home, has accepted an economic advisory role with the Cambodian government. That has infuriated authorities in Bangkok, who believe he'll use the post to further incite his supporters in Thailand.

Mr Thaksin is already engaged in a vigorous online campaign, posting every few minutes on Twitter, where he has more than 40,000 followers. Observers say the use of the internet is escalating in Thailand's internal political struggle.

Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra Correspondent
Speaker: Nicholas Farrelly, South East Asia specialist, Australian National University, Canberra

• Listen:
• Windows Media

FARRELLY: Thaksin Shinawatra since he was exiled from Thailand in 2006 has developed a suite of websites, some of which have now been taken offline.

But in that suite he's really put together information and arguments that ensure that he remains a key player in Thai political life.

These days he is a very active Twitterer, and through his Twitter page he keeps in contact with a lot of his supporters and followers, he keeps them up to date with some of his movements when he's travelling around the world he tends to offer them nuggets, ideas, suggestions.

But at other times he can use that kind of forum to really tap into what's going on in Thailand itself and influence how politics plays out on the ground.

MOTTRAM: What about Prime Minister Abhisit, is he able to match Thaksin's approach?

FARRELLY: Prime Minister Abhisit also has a Twitter page, he's also interested in using this technology but he isn't nearly as prolific and to some extent he seems to be lacking some of the technological nouse that Thaksin brings to bear.

We should remember that Thaksin made his initial fortune in the telecommunications business and in many ways this is the kind of thing that probably comes quite naturally to him and to his people.

MOTTRAM: And what about in terms of the wider forces; the red shirts versus the yellow shirts? Are we seeing a clear delineation of sites from them?

FARRELLY: We are and what we see is a battle between two very different kinds of politics that is playing itself out online.

There are those sites which we can see very clearly are aligned with the red shirt movement. On the other side we see some very powerful and very widely read sites that are explicitly yellow in their orientation.

The most famous of those yellow shirt sites is the one that belongs to yellow shirt leader, Sondhi Limthongkul, and that's his Manager website, based around the newspaper of the same name. Sondhi is also a telecommunications tycoon and he has really built up an incredible stable of websites, some of which he can use to influence political matters within the country.

MOTTRAM: And you have a particular favourite here called Liberal Thai, tell me about that?

FARRELLY: So Liberal Thai is a website that fills many of the gaps in the Thai mainstream media's coverage of Thai politics. It runs with the slogan, "We translate, you decide, we inform, you block".

And this is a slogan that makes a great deal of sense to those in Thailand who are struggling to get information about their country's politics that defeats the censors and gets around the other forms of barriers that have been put in place to try and stop open and critical discussion of many of the political players, including the Thai monarchy.

MOTTRAM: So this is where you'll see discussion of the monarchy and the future of the King?

FARRELLY: Absolutely on this site you'll see discussion that draws its inspiration from much of the English language content that circulates in newspapers in countries like Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, and from that content there will be translations made,

rendered I should say into very readable Thai and then put up online, open for comments from the wider audience so that people get a sense of exactly what is being said about Thailand outside the country. Much of that information isn't otherwise easily available inside Thailand.

MOTTRAM: Now a lot of that is very risky territory too, legally for anybody engaging in it. Are there attempts to block these sites by the authorities given that content?

FARRELLY: The efforts by the authorities to block these kinds of websites are ongoing, and in those efforts there is a strong sense that anything online that is even moderately critical of the yellow shirt side of the palace,

which is largely aligned with that yellow shirt end of the political spectrum, is very dangerous to the country, to its national security and to everything that the Thai nation stands for.

MOTTRAM: And just finally you mentioned recently that there'd been a comment made that this could be the world's first internet insurgency. What's your view of that?

FARRELLY: I think that we're seeing a battle between two sides that are at this stage quite unwilling to compromise and in their lack of compromise we do see all sorts of aggressive tactics. The aggression on the government side is to put down what they I'm sure do see as a digital uprising against royal authority and against the political establishment.

On the other side there is a great concern that the coup of 2006 and everything that it meant for Thai democracy has been such a setback that there needs to be a new effort to debate Thailand's future and in that debate we are seeing the insurgents of Thai political life finding forums online.

A country for old men?

With so much happening in Thailand’s politics in the past few weeks, it has been difficult to keep up. Seeing the bigger picture is a challenge.

Following our retrospective on Thailand three years after the 2006 palace-military coup, where we attempted to be positive, we now offer some observations regarding the current situation.

We begin with the police chief debacle. Why has this appointment been so drawn out and so conflicted? Of course, there are the related views that Thaksin Shinawatra controls the police or that the police support Thaksin.

Another view is that there was a tug-of-war going on between coalition partners. There is truth in both perspectives. However, PPT suggests that there is more to this dispute.

Reports suggest that Privy Council President General Prem Tinsulanonda (b. 1920) is at work. We won’t go into great detail for Bangkok Pundit has collected some of the comment on the police chief saga and most especially on the latest debates on who should get the job, including from ASTV/Manager and the Bangkok Post (17 September 2009: “New twist in police drama”) where there were guarded comments “new influential players.”

Police General Jumpol Manmai, the “alternative” candidate is known to be close to Prem and The Nation (17 September 2009: “Top Cop : Deadlock remains”) had stated that Jumpol “is known to have very strong backing outside the Police Commission, and lobbying was said to have reached fever pitch in the past few days.”

So is it Prem who is lobbying? Probably. Why? We suggest it is because, for some years, the palace and Privy Council have been trying to get increased control over the legal system. There has been a heightened urgency to this in the battle to root out Thaksin and his “regime.” Retired judges have been brought onto the Privy Council.

In what has clearly been a deliberated strategy, five of the last seven appointments to the Privy Council have been from the courts. The odd ones out were Admiral Chumpol Patchusanont (Former Commander of the Royal Thai Navy) and General Surayud Chulanont, who was appointed after he left the army and stepped down to be premier appointed by the military and then went back to the Privy Council when that guest appearance ended.

The former judges on the Privy Council are: Sawat Wathanakorn (appointed 18 July 2002 and a Former Judge of the Supreme Administrative Court); Santi Thakral (15 March 2005, Former President of the Supreme Court of Justice); Ortniti Titamnaj (16 August 2007, Former President of the Supreme Court of Justice); Supachai Phungam (8 April 2008, Former President of the Supreme Court of Justice); and Chanchai Likitjitta (8 April 2008, Former President of the Supreme Court of Justice and Minister of Justice).

That so many judges are appointed send a clear message regarding intent. The king’s speeches to judges confirm the palace’s intentions. That such links to the judiciary have been put to use in the battle against Thaksin is seen in the ample evidence of meddling in the courts.

The palace has also been keen to have its people at the top of the police. In recent years, Police General Seripisut Temiyavet was said to be a palace favorite. When the military took over in 2006, Seri was made acting and then Police Commissioner and became a member of the junta’s Council for National Security.

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Thai Analyst Charged with Insulting King

Giles Ungpakorn is a liberal commentator and academic who works at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.  Police filed formal charges against him on January 20th.  His crime?  For insulting the king in a 2007 book criticising the previous year's military coup.

Ungpakorn arrived at a Bangkok police station with dozens of supporters to hear the charges. He said the army and Democrat Party-led government were merely using Thailand's draconian lese majeste laws to crush dissent and political opposition.

[Giles Ungpakorn, Political Commentator]: (IN ENGLISH)    "In Western democracy, they have a monarchy, full accountability and transparency is allowed. Therefore, one has to wonder what the purpose of the lese majeste law is. In my view lese majeste laws are there in order to protect the military, protect governments that come to power through military action and so on."

Insulting the monarchy is taken extremely seriously in Thailand, where many people regard King Bhumibol Adulyadej as semi-divine.  It carries up to 15 years in jail. Critics say the law is frequently abused by politicians since a complaint can be filed by anybody  against anybody else, no matter how trivial or tangential the alleged disrespect to the crown.

[Colonel Paisal Luesomboon, Pathumwan Police Station]: "He is charged for lese majeste. Just only one charge."

[Reporter]: "Do you have enough evidence to send him to court?"

[Colonel Paisal Luesomboon]: "We have evidence. The evidence is his book 'The Coup for The Rich' that sold at the Chulalongkorn University Bookstore.  Someone read it and reported it to us."

The books were later withdrawn from the bookstore. An Australian author was sentenced to three years in jail on January 19 for defaming the crown prince in a 2005 novel that only sold seven copies.

Others to have fallen foul of the lese majeste law in the past year include a pro-Thaksin minister, a British correspondent for the BBC and a democracy activist who refused to stand up for the king's anthem at the start of a movie screening.

NTDTV

RePADifying "In Thailand"

PPT is interested in the way Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya has been speaking in recent days. We understand that Kasit has been under considerable pressure in dealing with the Thailand-Cambodia conflict.

What is interesting is the comments Kasit made regarding an alleged Thai spy arrested in Cambodia and the link between his alleged actions and the Cambodian expulsion of the Thai First Secretary.

The alleged spy is said to have provided flight information of ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Cambodia’s Hun Sen and provided that information to the Thai Embassy.

Kasit is reported to have cut short his participation in an APEC meeting in Singapore, claiming that “Cambodia’s arrest of a Thai engineer on spying charges is nothing more than intimidation with the intention to defame Thailand.”

He is then said to have accused Thaksin “of using a helping hand from a neigbhouring country as a tool to overthrow the monarchy and the government.” Kasit added: “The only problem now is that Thaksinocracy is still alive…”.

This kind of attack – notably using the monarchy – is the language that Sondhi Limthongkul and the People’s Alliance for Democracy used in attacking Thailand in the period from 2005. As PPT has been pointing out, underpinned by the support of the palace and the military, when the “enemy” is Thaksin, PAD and the Democrat Party remain closely aligned.

Update: PPT has not seen any other confirmation of a report we found in the quirky blog Thai Intelligent News, which claims that the spy case in Cambodia was part of a Thai plot to assassinate Thaksin.

Such a plot is not unthinkable given the hatred of Thaksin amongst his powerful opponents and the fact that assassination is a part of Thailand’s political landscape.

Think of the “influential people” who have been bumped off, the extra-judicial killings under Thaksin and several other governments, the attempts to assassinate Thaksin when he was in power, and the failed attempt on Sondhi’s life.

Readers comments and links to other stories like this would be welcomed (email us by going here).