Thailand imposes new restrictions on media

Thailand imposes new restrictions on media

Nakhonratchasima, Thailand — Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva last week assured journalists in the country that his government respected freedom of the press and would facilitate their work.

Speaking at the Pattaya campus of Thammasart University, Abhisit said, “The government wants to see media freedom and will facilitate the operations of members of the media to achieve freedom of expression.”

The speech, titled, “Media Lessons: The Power of the State, the Power of Capital, and the Power of the People,” was part of a seminar held jointly by the Thai Journalists Association, the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association, the Press Council of Thailand and other organizations.

Touted as a forum for media professionals to “expand their networks and cooperation,” the real purpose of the event seemed to be to ensure that Thailand’s media toed the line in its reporting.

Although the Thai government is supposedly democratic, the Democrat-led government has done no more than murmur when police have raided human rights offices, and demurred comment when innocent citizens and foreigners have been arrested for suspected insults to the monarchy – these considered not only offensive but also a “threat to national security.”

Each succeeding Thai government, whether professing to be democratic or nationalistic, “concerned for its citizens” or dealing with “difficult circumstances,” has seen fit to close down newspapers, shut down radio and television broadcasts and arrest journalists and others who were creating “inaccurate” images of what was happening in the kingdom.

To help ensure that such actions are reduced and newspapers and other media are not forcibly closed, they are now being given strict guidelines and informed how they can cooperate with the government to ensure national security, so the kingdom can achieve reconciliation and harmony.

In other words, news reports of government activities, personalities, corruption and the undermining of democratic institutions are likely to diminish, as the new rules will clearly prescribe just how far inquiry can proceed and what scope it will be permitted to encompass.

The new rules have already been sharply defined and are being reinforced with criminal law provisions. The kingdom’s computer crime law, for example, has already been used to stamp a 10-year prison sentence on Suwicha Thakor, an Internet user who allegedly spread defamatory remarks about the monarchy online.

More recently the Thai government amazed human rights and democracy watchers worldwide by announcing last week that it would demand the power to approve all programming before it is broadcast.

The announcement by Sathit Wongnongtoey, the minister in charge of the prime minister’s office, indicated that new regulations would permit “authorities” to act against broadcasters airing content “deemed” to undermine democracy.

Sathit said, “Once the regulations take effect, any broadcast station airing content deemed to be politically incendiary will not be allowed to operate.”

It’s very difficult to differentiate between what’s politically incendiary and what is not. Obviously the Thai government feels there is no need to define such differences, because it has taken it upon itself to deem and define.

In this ability to act almost without restraint in the name of national security, the government now parallels its Chinese, Burmese, Lao, Cambodian and Burmese counterparts in quashing almost anything it deems needs quashing.

These worrisome developments in Thailand, part of a general trend toward limiting, inch by inch, the power of the people in the name of national security, seem to have gone unnoticed by Thailand’s friends and neighbors. Perhaps this is because they are mostly either trading partners or brothers-in-crime, involved in exploiting natural resources or other deals.

The prognosis for the future of democracy in Thailand is not good. Despite the promises of press freedom, there are rumors of leaders meeting in secret sessions in Parliament and the Cabinet to deliberate how to retain power while keeping the media quiet.

For the time being Thailand’s relations with the West will likely remain relatively cordial, but as time goes on, the attitude of the internal state security apparatus may eventually work its way outward to identify once close allies as enemies of the state. The Thai people themselves, however, have already become the first victims of this new regime.
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(Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development.

A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand's first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post – www.thekoratpost.com – he has spent over eight years in Thailand "embedded" with the local media. He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology. ©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)

UPI Aisa

Political reform in Thailand: Structural and ideological issues

ideological
May 18th, 2009

Commenting on Thai politics and political reform in Thailand these days is no fun, because the situation is unusually complicated, and the ideological climate has become almost suffocating. Anyway,

I will make six observations that I think are pertinent to the current discussion of political reform, three each concerning structural and ideological issues.

First, if democracy means that, “Control over government decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in officials elected by citizens”

(Dahl), how does Thailand score on this issue? Thai elected governments have to accept their limited policy-making capabilities.

Security policy has been the prerogative of an independent-minded military, while the civil bureaucracy has maintained its own policy plans vis-à-vis their ministers, who they often despise.

Many technocrats still do not see why elected politicians are an improvement compared to authoritarian times.

The 2007 Constitution even forces governments, in its long chapter V on “Directive principles of fundamental state policies,” to implement a wide range of policies.

This essentially reduces the policy-making government to a set of elected managers of a constitutional policy agenda.

And this agenda was made compulsory by a democratically illegitimate group of academics and bureaucrats serving on constitution-drafting committees established by the coup-plotters.

Thus, the chapter on state policies fundamentally contradicts the key democratic principle stated in article 3, “The sovereign power belongs to the Thai people.”

Second, the Thai polity has not yet developed what for European political history has been referred to as “nationally available categories” (Tilly) of political contestation (for example,

Labor-Conservatives-Liberal Democrats). Rather, politics remains “highly localized and territorialized” (Caramani). The political party system, therefore, shows a very low degree of institutionalization. Parties have largely remained exclusive clubs of local notables and their supra-provincial factions.

This seriously undermines the policy-making and administrative capabilities of national-level political personnel (in fact, all societal areas in Thailand have similarly serious capacity building problems). This way, the performance advantages of a mature democracy cannot be realized.

Not surprisingly, this situation in some circles has undermined the ideas of freedom and democracy as the most desirable foundations of governance.

Third, although citizens are allowed to vote in elections, the political system mostly lacks inclusive formal mechanisms that would allow ordinary people interested in active political participation to access institutions of decision-making.

There remains a “wide gulf between political elites and citizens” (Carothers). At the provincial level, political structures are largely informal and invisible.

Rather than being expressions of democratic public affairs, up-country politics are mostly treated by its important personnel as mere extensions of their family households and personal friendship networks (phuak). This situation fundamentally contradicts the principle of equal democratic citizenship.

Together with the preceding point, it is thus not surprising that voting is largely determined by local conditions, rather than being an expression of a nationallyhomogenized electorate (the proportional vote, though, does have a strong element of nationalization).

From the perspective of the Thai socio-political and monarchist Establishment representing the old hierarchical nature of the Thai polity as well as subsequent long periods of military and bureaucratic rule, the preceding three observations are unproblematic.

On the contrary, they only confirm that the present form of democracy, including the lack of democratic qualification supposedly exhibited by politicians and voters,

does not serve “the country/nation” well, which is the reason used to justify continued paternalist elite rule, though in a democratized way.

The following three ideological issues are more problematic, certainly to the Establishment (no malicious intent here; the following issues merely serve to highlight certain causal elements of the current political conflicts; these elements will have to be considered in search for solutions).

First, the monarchy and the actions of the royal family are strictly removed from any public debate, even if such actions and the monarchy as an institution are politically significant.

This relationship between the monarchy and the citizens of Thailand’s democratic polity has recently gained publicity under the label of lèse majesté.

The king himself-in his speech given on the eve of his birthday anniversary on December 4, 2005-had said that the king can be criticized, and that it was actually the king who was in trouble if people were punished for lèse majesté. Grant Evans made a pertinent remark on this issue in the Bangkok Post:

With each charge of lese majeste people are being asked to chose between monarchy and democracy and ultimately this will work against the former’s stature. … vigilante monarchists seem to be the main threat to the monarchy’s longevity.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has sent a few signals about changing the application of lèse majesté. However, one might doubt-given strong opposition-whether key issues will be tackled, such as the transfer of

the right to initiate complaints, a significant reduction of penalties, the permission of academic and journalistic analysis, and the dissociation of lèse majesté from the issue of national security.

The broader context of lèse majesté is a reframing of the relationship between monarchy and citizens. There are at least two opposing ways of handling this issue.

The PAD, for example, adhered to the official ideology that the outstanding feature of Thai society was that “the king is at the center of the people’s soul” (Sondhi Limthongkul; sunruam chitwinyan khong prachachon).

However, since the PAD also knew that this was rather more a normative statement than a reflection of reality, they wanted to impose this position upon the people by expanding the constitution’s chapter on the monarchy by a stipulation that would have made it a duty for every Thai to protect and worship the monarchy.

Obviously, this attempt to create artificial unity in the face of empirical diversity would face enforcement problems, not to mention that it collides with the normative and practical requirements of a democratic political order. Senior citizen and monarchist Prawase Wasi offered a view much more liberal than that of the PAD, saying

In a pluralistic society, people think differently. There are people who worship the monarchy and those who don’t-it is natural. The key is how to channel the differences towards creative collaboration and output. (Bangkok Post, April 18, 2009)

Prawase’ statement thus goes far beyond the usual ideological emphasis on national unity by stating that Thailand is pluralistic.

(The “White Shirts” seem to regress to a nationalism-based unity, and thus do not show the way to a “new democratic deal” for Thailand. Matichon, May 7, 2009, headlined a major article,

“Stop harming the country – dissolve the colored [political] camps by using the national flag.” At the end of this piece, we read, “Consider the following words,

‘We must join our hearts and stand in respect of our national flag with pride in our independence and the sacrifice of our Thai ancestors.’ Afterwards, we can join in singing the Thai national anthem before there will not be any nation left to respect.”)

This brings me to the second point. The official Thai state ideology of “Nation, Religion, Monarchy” (chart satsana phramahakasat) sees people as conformist subjects, not as responsible citizens. According to this trinity,

the Thai state depends in its existence on the unity and functioning of these three “institutions,” or “pillars,” not on the democratic capacity of its citizens. The latter merely have a role in uncritically submitting to these three elements, and thereby secure the survival and the unity of the Thai nation

Here, “nation” is conceptualized as an abstract entity that possesses its own inherent and superior interests, as defined by Thailand’s socio-cultural elite. It is actively promoted by state organizations (government offices, local authorities, schools).

In a democracy, such an ideological subjectification should probably not exist, because it collides with the normative-democratic idea of a majoritarian will as formed in an ongoing pluralistic discourse among equal citizens.

Ideological products such as “Nation, Religion, Monarchy” normally are key tools for the support of authoritarian regimes. Until today, state officials legitimize their operations by reference to this trinity, although the only reason for their existence is the constitution, based on the sovereignty of the people.

My final point concerns the latent (and sometimes manifest) conflict between monarchism and democracy that has not been resolved since it occurred in 1932. When the civilian leader of the revolution,

Pridi Banomyong, had to leave Thailand for good after his failed anti-military “Grand Palace Rebellion” in 1949, much of the political potential for a more citizen-oriented conception of democracy was also lost.

Thailand’s oldest political party, the Democrats, was founded in 1946 as a royalist-aristocratic defense of monarchist values against incipient citizens’ politics symbolized by Pridi. Six decades later, during the

protests by the “People’s Alliance for Democracy” (PAD) in 2006 and 2008, which were heavily framed by royalist symbolism, the Democrats chose the side of the PAD.

The protests of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), on the other hand, conspicuously lacked any royal symbols.

Rather, their attacks against members of the king’s Privy Council indicated a conception of the Thai monarchy that is very different from what the PAD, the Democrats, and the amatayathipattai stand for.

This fundamental tension between the remains of an earlier stratified top-down societal order, in which all power was vested in the king, and the egalitarian and liberal implications of a democratic polity remains unresolved. In 1982, a well-known academic (PAD ideologue Chai-anand Samudavanija) wrote,

“The tensions evident since 1973 are the result of a conflict between two alternative bases of legitimacy: one emanating from traditional hierarchical traditions, the other based on popular sovereignty”.

More than a quarter century later, this conflict still exists, and it has gained additional urgency by the imminent issue of succession.
NEW MANDALA

Thai courts' use of legal double standards encourages extralegal means by opposition

International's Law

Thailand's Law

Awzar Thi [Member, Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong]: "At a meeting of lawyers and jurists in Hong Kong this week a participant from Thailand identified the key issue for her country's legal system as political control of the judiciary.

Her statement was remarkable not because it revealed something that other participants didn't already know, but because just a few years ago few professionals from Thailand willingly admitted that their laws and courts operate according to double standards. Now, few can deny it.

The double standards have been all too apparent this month. Following protests that forced leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and partner countries to flee from a summit venue in Pattaya, the incumbent prime minister,

Abhisit Vejjajiva, imposed a state of emergency as blockades and violence spread in Bangkok. The army deployed. A court promptly issued arrest warrants for the red-shirted demonstrators' leaders. Some were quickly rounded up and detained, while others went into hiding.

By contrast, the yellow shirts that took over Government House and two international airports for an extended period last year were allowed to stay put until the government was forced out through a court ruling on a narrow question under the army-imposed 2007 Constitution.

No soldiers came to eject them. The legal process took weeks to move against the organizers. When the new prime minister was questioned on the authorities' inactivity he disingenuously said that it was a matter for the police, not him.

The criminal inquiries have been repeatedly postponed and at no time have the yellow shirts' leaders been held in custody. One of them, businessman Sondhi Limthongkul, last week survived a shooting attack on his car.

Although the ousted Thaksin Shinawatra regime undermined the work of the upper courts, it was the 2006 military coup that brought them back firmly and openly under executive control.

The coup leaders shut down a senior court, appointed a tribunal in its stead, had it go after the former premier, declared themselves immune from prosecution and proclaimed all their orders lawful.

After voters re-elected Thaksin allies to the lower house of parliament (top judges are now responsible for the upper), it took two absurd legal cases against successive prime ministers for

the coup-makers to finally get a government after their own heart, rather than one that the electorate wanted. The judges responsible for the verdicts included men who owed their jobs to the generals.

The double legal standards in the handling of rival political camps have done nothing to diminish the likelihood of further bloodshed and uncertainty in the near future.

On the contrary, the obvious differences in how the yellow shirts and red shirts have been treated will only encourage government opponents to resort to increasingly extralegal means to get their way.

Both sides and their backers have the aptitude and means for violence. Thanks to the politicizing of Thailand's courts, now they have more appetite for it too."
Jurist-hotline

“I Built My Life” Ch1 THAKSIN

22's Talk Around The World
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Translate By Mr, Jakrapob Penkair

“I Built My Life”

by Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra (Prime Minister of Thailand, 2001-2006)

Chapter 1 (Tuesday, January 26, 2010)

A lot of my self-appointed enemies are now working so hard in branding me a figure of corruption. Thai media in the likes of The Nation, The Manager Group, Naewna, Thaipost.

All of them are busily doing “negative campaign” hoping to influence the court soon to judge me and my family of the seized 76,000 million Baht, which is the fruit of my life’s work.

Influencing the court is indeed a violation of the court’s jurisdiction. But they still do. That is precisely why I must ask you to allow me to use a portion of this show to tell you of my life struggle, as some people, especially those of the new generations, do not know what is true and what is pure fiction.

They must know that I and my family have been wealthy long before our entrance to politics, and politics have never been a tool or a source of our wealth.

Such seizure, deemed “robbery” by some, is against all principles of ethics and morality. These people are in total lack of life principle.

I may dislike someone intensely, but I have never gone after the person beyond these principles. Look what happens in the US. The government is financing in great amount the struggling financial and insurance corporations.

One must look at the bright and gloomy sides to understand the overall. Have I been bad from day one, when I assumed Thailand’s premiership, to the very last?

My premiership has absolutely nothing to claim credits for, hasn’t it? Our loan to Myanmar, to cite just one such accusation, is portrayed as my financing them so they could buy products sold to them by my family companies. How about those concessions they granted to PTT (Thailand’s Petroleum) along the years? Don’t they count as a merit to obtain such loan?

This is my way of explaining to all of you, the fair-minded international citizens, of the truth betrayed nowadays in Thailand. If you like it, I will consider expanding the show into 2 hours. It is not my self-advertising. Rather my life anecdotes. I will tell all. My colorful fights in my working life. Hope it help you in your own tough times right now.

I was born in the country, San Kampang, Chiangmai, away from what you would call an urban life. The nearest town was 13 kilometres away, with big trees on the 2 long road sides. My father had a motorcycle and struggled to make ends meet.

At the age of 3-4, I started my memories of his and my mother’s hard works. He opened a small, country-style coffee corner. My mom woke up first, along with me, and boiled the water for dad. He would come down and start selling. By that time, my mom went to the open market for her business of selling clothes.

Before she arrived, I would get there with a helper of hers. I was a little one so I sat in the frontal part of a wooden cart we used for clothes. I would just sit there, watching out for our products, till my mom showed up.

I went back home and helped cleaning coffee glasses. Sometimes I did it on the stretch of my toes, as I was so small. This became my routine before going out to school.

There was no such thing as kindergarten at the time. However, there was a volunteer at the Rongtham Temple by the name of “Kru Kwai” (Teacher Buffalo) from Uttaradit.

She was not highly-educated, but she was one superb teacher. Parents paid her 80 Baht per month to teach their children. I was a student of hers. She would give us an individual session. Interested students got a longer session. From basic Thai language to Mathematics. Kru Kwai was an excellent Math teacher.

I learned plus, minus, times, divided. Pretty advanced for a child that age. I believe Kru Kwai was responsible for my progressive and interactive thinking process, which benefits me in later years.

My family helped here, too. Senior family members always challenged me, teasingly, to do Math. They would keep asking my all those Math puzzles until I was cornered. Math helps you think.

When I was in Grade 3, my dad changed from a coffee shop business to farming. My granny gave him a piece of land and he turned it into a fruit field. I learned a lot here.

Dad was not highly-educated, but he was fond of new technologies. He went to Thammasat, which was then an open university much like Ramkanheang today. I remember that our little coffee shop had a refrigerator. It was oil-generated. The only one in that area.

The fridge attracted a lot of people. We sold soda water and my mom’s frozen foodstuffs. I helped them selling “Wanyen” or an ice stick with a bit of sweet syrup, one “Slung” (one cent) a piece. Same as lottery results. One Slung a sheet also.

My dad grew oranges and bananas. I sold banana leaves (people used them as today’s plastic bags) and flowers attached on banana’s trunk. Money from that was used to buy food back home. I grew up all my life like this, making a living with hard works.

At the time I enrolled at Montford, which was and is a famous school. I was forced to repeat Grade 3 because the first 2 Shinawatra boys’ academic performance was so poor they thought the third one must be as bad.

My very first visit to Bangkok was when I was in Grade 4. A cousin bet me to obtain 80% or over on my academic report. The reward was to take me to Bangkok. I got 84%. I traveled to Bangkok with my granny and we stayed for 4 days.

On the way, we stopped at Kao Samroyyod (the Mountain of 300 Peaks), where my now well-publicized photograph among pineapples was taken. It was owned by my dad’s friend, who sold him tractors for our farm. With 400 Baht given by my granny, so much at the time, I bought some toys back home.

One of them was roller-skate shoes, the wheel kind. We the kids played them at night when the road was empty. I played with these toys. I got into sports of every kind. We played all seasons, even when it rained.

Dad changed his work again. He was now a compradore of the Nakorn Luang Thai Bank. A compradore at the time screened loans giving out to the applicants.

Eventually, he took over some troubled businesses from his clients. I remembered one called “Charoenchai”, a Honda motorcycle agent. I went everywhere to collect monthly payments from our clients, 100 Baht per month a piece. My life had always been close to people’s real life.

I understand them well. My study was also prospering. I didn’t spend so much time reading my textbooks. But I did my homework, and that helped me understand it even better. Dad got involved in several businesses this way. Then he was cheated by business partners.

The family fortune started sinking. It was the beginning of our rough time. One of my dad’s helpers asked me to stop school and came to work full-time to revive the business. I told him no. “Money and properties can be earned back. But without knowledge, we will be lost”. Those were my words to him.

I attended the national military cadet school at the time, which took 2 years. Before getting accepted, I wasted the first year because of a health result. They declared I had a spot in my lung. It was later proven a shadow of a rip or bone. By that time, the family’s financial situation got worsened.

After graduation, I received a salary of 1,300 Baht or so. I rented a small room around a Bangkok’s area of Kiak Kai at 300 Baht per month. There were a bed and a small closet and that was it. Toilet was pool with other renters. I had to

place my Buddha image on top of the closet, which was the highest location in the room. I lived like that until I obtained a government scholarship for a Master’s Degree. My family could no longer support me financially.

I was in love when I was between Year 1 to 2. Pojaman, who eventually became my beloved wife, and I started our relationship since then. A few years before my graduation, she went abroad for language study. I was tempted to come with her. At the time I was first in my police-cadet class and student leader. I chose police because no Shinawatra was in the police force before. We were present in the Army and the Air Force. Navy was never a choice for a boy from the mountainous north, since he was hardly a good swimmer. Now, this police-cadet scholar wanted to further his study in the US.

It was my desire to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). I got accepted. But the government salary of a scholar at $160 a month couldn’t allow it. I went instead to another institution. My mom gave another $1,000 of the family’s hard-earned money. As a young man, I had needs and wanted more money.

Wanting a sporting car, Free Bird, I took an extra job at KFC, selling fried chicken. My senior Thai friends, Chidchai (Wannasathit, later a Ph.D., Drugs Suppression Chief, Deputy Police Commander, and Deputy Prime Minister) and Wichienchote (Sukchotirat, later a Ph.D., Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Justice Ministry and Government Spokesman) all worked.

Chidchai was at UPS, doing the hard labor of loading boxes and all. Wichienchote waited tables at a hotel and he asked me to join him. I did. Eventually, I was also working in the hotel’s breakfast kitchen since I loved cooking. With little extra money, Pojaman soon joined me.

We went out sometimes. My Master’s Degree took 1 year and 4 months to complete. It was longer than I should because I decided not to take summer courses but rather took a long drive around the US. Anyway, I was a straight A student. A in all courses.

I returned to Thailand alone because my love was still pursuing her degree. My rank was adjusted based on the new degree into Police Captain, with 1,800 Baht per month. Soon Pojaman came back and we were married. We had no home of our own. Not enough money for that.

We then stayed with my wife’s parents until we decided that I should pursue my Ph.D. in the US. We returned to the US. I went to school. She didn’t. As fate would have it, I was away from Thailand at the times of our two major political riots: October 14 of 1973 and October 6, 1976.

I only got news from here and there about what had happened. Even the May Incident of 1992, I was again out of the country.

The life of Bangkok Bank’s founder, the billionaire Chin Sophonpanich, inspired me to enrich myself in business. “If a person with only Grade 4 of educational background can do it,” I said to myself and my wife. “I as a Ph.D. pursuer must be able to earn some 100 million Baht in life”.

We went to the US this time with that determination. Remember that my family, all 9 brothers and sisters, were all poor. My youngest sister Yinglak, currently AIS President, was only 9 years old. My father-in-law, who was then Commander of Bangkok Police’s Southern Area, contributed $100 a month for us.

I combined it with $90, my police salary at home, and went off. My wife found a babysitting job for small children and a sales clerk at a department store. I studied hard, and also worked. My job was to fold newspaper and deliver them to home.

Sometimes I missed out and had to recollect them. Some vicious dogs chased me with vengeance. Finally, a doctorate degree was obtained after 2 years and 8 months. My oldest son Oak was born in the US. When we carried him back with us, he was barely 5 months old.

We had 2 cars in the US: my left-steering wheel Mercedes Benz and my wife’s Volvo. The Volvo was sold as we wanted to keep the Mercedes. The problem was we couldn’t afford the tax. Our entire saving at the time was 200,000 Baht, but the tax was posted at 400,000 Baht. A loan was sought.

We returned again to the home of my wife’s parents, who has 4 children. My wife and I was given a room. The others had to share. Every morning I went through every page of Bangkok Post’s Classified. I was so preoccupied with an extra income or more.

I almost took a job as English instructor, somewhere in Nanglerng, and a job as Night Manager of a hotel. What choice did I have? No investment money. No network of friends in business. My wife’s family background was also governmental. No connection to business world, whatsoever. I built myself up one step at a time.

My family has had a silk business. We obtained some commodities without having to pay first. But we needed to open a shop. I joined a business group whose 5 members invested 10,000 Baht each. We took turn taking the whole sum of 50,000 Baht for business use. This was how I got started.

I paid the rent to General Witoon Yasawat, who owned a hotel called Trocadero, where my rental shop was. My wife with our little boy baby went to the store everyday. Business was not good.

We ended having boiled eggs for dinner everyday. Without the burden of payment for silk products, we were still in the red. I told my wife to mind the store and went out looking for other ways to survive.

Came another month, I found myself at a leading Thai film production company: Five Stars Promotion. My friend, Kiat Iampungporn, suggested that I purchased the right of his film to show at the cinema of the northern territory. The movie in question was one of the most popular ones: Ban Saithong (“The Saithong House”).

The main female character was Pojaman, who bore my wife’s name. I thought of it as a good sign. Director Ruj Ronapop was also in support. So was Pracha Maleenont, Channel 3’s owner, whose friendship with me started there. We agreed.

But the right fee was 1 million Baht, which I didn’t have. The Mercedes was put as a collateral so we had enough money to pay. Looking back, it was so risky.

The risk paid off. Within 1 month, we earned back one million Baht. The Mercedes returned to be ours. Another month was another 1.3 million, which was pure profit for me. It was the first time we touched upon that kind of sum. I went on to another film “Yod Talok” (“Super Funny”), played by Den Dokpradoo.

This time, 300,000 Baht in profit. We went on to buy a house of our own. My wife asked to have a house in Chokechai 4, Ladprao, which belonged to my father-in-law. She got her wish. We then spent some money preparing the house and moved in for 6 years. This was where several businesses were conceived.

My second baby girl was born here. With more success, we moved to a new house in Bangplad. Heard that a man came digging at the Ladprao house which was shut down.

He claimed to get some dirt of a successful house to put among his own at a factory, so he too could be rich. Later, the movie business was in decline. Some were in red. My wife advised me to start a business which would rely on my own knowledge, instead of taking risks.

I was again in financial troubles. Bounced cheques started to appear. I became used to issuing pre-dated cheques. The middle man sold it at 5% interest rate. I was responsible for that. There were times I couldn’t even manage to pay the interest. They sued me. I went to court.

Paying back and going to court in switching. I was sometimes close to put in jail. It was like drowning in a vast sea, but we managed to survive, barely so.

In Bangkok’s area of Rachawat, there was a movie house called “Dusit Theatre”. It was put out for sales. I wanted to own a piece of property. I went to “Maha Nakorn Trust” and asked for 18 million Baht (Actually, it was 18.5 million, but 500,000 Baht was spent on accommodation of the deal). I met the top person of the trust on Monday.

He looked at me for a long time and granted it, at the interest rate of 21%. I asked him why he granted it. He said he mastered in the Chinese art of reading faces, and he found me never to go bankrupt on him. It was an old-fashioned way of doing business. I went along with it, too, but also with knowledge and information.

With the money, I owned several units of building there. Our plan was to sell 90 units for a big profit. Interest rate was so high and on my back all the time. I paid 325,000 Baht every month.

Fridays were days of high pressure. Any Friday I talked the rate down to 300,000 Baht, it was a course for celebration. I packed up my family and we were off to Pataya. I needed a break to reduce my great tension. You must give yourself a break whenever you become too intense and stressful.

You must sleep well. Closing eyes to rest and opening eyes to fight on. But the building construction hit a major roadblock. Interior Minister General Siddhi Jiraroj issued a ministerial order that all buildings near the royal palace must not exceed 21 metres in height.

My 15 floors were reduced to 7 floors. A big chunk of profit went out the door. Even worse, the sales of buildings were eaten up by advertising cost. We decided to stop selling and bought back the sold units. My wife and I determined to go for a new direction, so our lives could stay afloat.

She sought out 10 million Baht and handed it to me to embark on a new business: computer sales. It was Pojaman who asked me to march ahead with the business, and she would deal with the debts and financial problems it had caused.

That is the story for next time.
“I Built My Life”

Translation Licence from
Mr.Jakrapob Penkair
Issue by ID-Day on 28 January 2010

The sanctity of law [THAILAND]

ID-Day an article all about Thailand

OVER the last year, we’ve seen scenes of chaos, anger and mayhem. People stranded for days at airports, high level government meetings postponed and the near collapse of a political system.

Thailand is a sobering example of a flailing democracy. To prevent a recurrence of the Thai calamity, it might be sobering to look at the roots of the crisis.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra came to power with a huge mandate. In both urban and rural areas he was greeted with massive support.

There were, inevitably, some murmurings of unrest, academics and journalists who were a little unhappy about the concentration of economic, social (particularly through the media) and political power that he represented.

But they were a minority, and were to a large part ignored. And initially it seemed with good reason.

Thaksin increased his popularity and power with economic reforms, directed at the rural sector, which became the bulwark of his support.

His disturbing campaign against crime, resulting in widespread extra-judicial killings, was also greeted with widespread support, even if it violated the rights (including right to life) of a couple of thousand people. Something was being done. But it was just part of an increasingly disturbing picture.

The larger picture showed this as just one part of an increasing disregard for Thailand’s 1997 Constitution.

The administration’s treatment of the media – the increasing concentration of ownership and refusal to institute the National Broadcasting Commission which would have dispersed this concentration – were also symptomatic.

Thaksin was also perceived to be perverting the independence of the judiciary. And the urban elites were not the only ones to be concerned that Thaksin was undermining the legitimacy of the very institution from which he derived his power – the constitution.

It was this perception that led to the popular (urban) support for the coup of 2006. It may well have been one of the factors behind the coup itself.

Of course, this in turn tumbled the house of cards. It was almost impossible for the new system to have popular legitimacy.

The generals wanted to ensure that Thaksin would, and could, not return. The mass of the population still supported him, his policies and his party.

But it should be remembered that the current prime minister came to office not on the power of protests, but due to a court decision on corruption. It was the courts that paved the way for his ascension.

The problem by this point was that the courts were seen as massively compromised. They were placed in the impossible position that whatever decision they made in these highly political corruption trials, the decision would be perceived to be unjust, to be politically motivated. The independence, impartiality and fairness of the judiciary, having been tainted under Thaksin, was completely compromised.

Various authors have pointed out that the judiciary could have escaped the problem, they could have referred these cases to other bodies (such as oversight committees, electoral bodies and the like), and retained their impartiality. They chose not to. And the result has been that the judiciary is tarred.

And this is bad for Thailand, for the Thai people and for those in power. Because there is nowhere that legitimacy unquestionably resides.

The one possible exception in Thailand is the monarchy, but the inability of the people to discuss the role of the monarchy coupled with the unease of the king’s role and the king’s inactions in the various political dramas are eroding faith in this one previously unassailable institution.

It’s hard to see a way forward. The only path is to rebuild faith in all the institutions of government, from the constitution onwards. There is an urgent need to rebuild legitimacy, to rebuild faith in the judiciary, in the police force, even the medical services.

Perhaps the main lessons for Thailand’s neighbours are to not let things come to this impasse.
Ensure that the institutions of government – the judiciary, the police, the army – are seen as impartial, apolitical and equally accessible to all.

To ensure that the monarchy remains untainted with political machinations. And, above all, to uphold the supremacy of the constitution and the rights enshrined within it – the right to life, the right to freedom of speech, the right to legal representation. And the right to a legally elected representative democracy.

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Thai premier flies from one crisis to another (News Feature)

Mar 31, 2009
www.monstersandcritics.com

Bangkok - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Tuesday left behind a looming political crisis in Bangkok to go help the Group of 20 (G20) leaders fight the global economic crisis.

   Abhisit, 43, was personally invited by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to attend Thursday's summit in London even through Thailand is not a member of the illustrious group of the world's 19 largest economies and the European Union.

   Thailand's Oxford-educated premier is in London in his capacity as chairman of the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations.

   The G20 leaders could be forgiven if they prove more interested in Abhisit's views on Thai politics than his suggestions for cleaning up the global financial mess.  

   Thailand has arguably been undergoing unprecendented political instability since a military coup overthrew populist prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September 2006. 

Thaksin, a billionaire former telecommunications tycoon who was prime minister beginning in 2001, has refused to fade from the political scene.

   Although living in self-imposed exile and avoiding a two-year jail sentence in Thailand for a conviction on abuse-of-power charges, Thaksin is very much in the limelight again this week.   

   On Thursday, he galvanized thousands of his supporters, called Red Shirts after their wardrobe, to surround Government House, the seat of the administration, to demand Abhisit resign, dissolve parliament and call for a new election.

   The scene is deja vu with different colours for Bangkokians. Last year, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), or Yellow Shirts, occupied Government House for four months in its bid to topple a government led by the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP).

   On December 2, after the PAD seized and shut down Bangkok's two airports for a week, the PPP was dissolved by the Constitution Court for committing election fraud in polls a year earlier.

   The dissolution of the PPP - which automatically ended the premiership of Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin's brother-in-law - paved the way for Abhisit, leader of the former opposition Democrat party, to become prime minister two weeks later.

   'This government was installed by a silent coup,' Thaksin said Monday night in a phone-in address to his supporters. 'It is not a democratic government. The coup was staged by the Constitution Court, the military and the Privy Council president.'

   On Friday, Thaksin named Privy Council President Prem Tinsulanonda as the chief architect of the 2006 coup that overthrew him. He also named Privy Councillor Surayud Chulanont, who was prime minister after the bloodless putsch, as a co-conspirator in the coup.

   The accusations were immediately denied by both members of the council that advises King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

   Thaksin's audacity in attacking Prem personally and calling for his resignation from the Privy Council was a direct challenge to Thailand's political establishment.

   Since Friday, Prem has been ridiculed and criticized at Red Shirt rallies on a nightly basis. As a close adviser to Thailand's revered king, the attacks on Prem were likely to provoke a response.

   'They are in provocation mode,' said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst from Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. 'The Reds and Thaksin have very little to lose.'

   Thaksin, in fact, has about 2 billion dollars to lose.

   His family's local bank deposits have been frozen since the coup, and Thai courts are expected to soon decide on whether the fortune was illicitly gained.

   Given the political circumstances wherein Thaksin has been able to stir up plenty of trouble without his Thai-based assets, it was unlikely that the courts would gladly hand the money back to the Shinawatras.

   For Thaksin, the more political chaos, the better his chances of a return to power.     

   'If a shooting breaks out - soldiers shoot at people or a coup takes place - I will return and lead more protestors to Bangkok,' he vowed in Monday's phone-in address.

   The government's best tactic is to do nothing.

   After Abhisit's departure for London Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban announced that the cabinet would not convene this week, which makes the Red Shirt blockade of Government House rather pointless.

   Democrat sources said they expected the protestors to disperse for Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year, from April 11 to 15.

   They are likely to return after the holidays when the game of brinksmanship would resume.

   'The Red Shirts can set the condition for a confrontation, but where will the knock-out punch come from?' Thitinan said. 'Only if there is a reaction and mishandling from the other side.'

Suwicha gets 10 years!

April 3, 2009 Suwicha Takor gets 10 years in prison!

Associate Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn

What kind of country and society imprisons someone for making comments on the internet? What kind of Foreign Minister encourages armed conflict with neighbouring countries in order to distract attention from internal problems?

What kind of government comes to power by a combination of a military coup, two judicial coups together with street violence, bribery and threats?


What kind of Prime Minister tells lies to the foreign press and Oxford academics about the state of democracy and the use of the draconian lese majeste laws? What kind of ruling class uses “the love of


the King” to justify a military coup, terrorist acts by its supporters at international airports and severe censorship? Yes, Thailand is now firmly among the ranks of tin-pot despotic regimes around the world.


That the Thai ruling elite, the military and the fascist PAD yellow shirts, together with the mis-named Democrat Party, should lock up people like Suwichai Takor for 10 years is not surprising. All that Suwicha did was to post a comment about the Monarchy on the internet.


The fascist PAD leaders who used street violence and blocked the airports are still free and unlikely to be put in jail. The Generals who abused their power in a coup are still racking in the money. No one should be surprised that there is no justice in Thai courts.


There is no transparency and accountability of any major public institutions, including the Monarchy, the Judiciary, the Government and the Army. The judges have their own version of the lese majeste law to stifle any criticism.


What should surprise and worry us is that almost the entire Thai NGO movement, almost the entirety of Thai academia and all the mainstream media have kept silent, or worse, supported this destruction of free speech and democracy.


And what should anger us also, is that Amnesty International has refused to do anything of substance to defend prisoners of conscience in Thailand.


The NGO movement turned its back on “politics” and the primacy of mass movements in the 1980s. Instead they embraced “lobby politics”. First they loved-up to the Thai Rak Thai government.


Then, when they were wrong-footed by the government’s pro-poor policies that proved that the NGOs had only been “playing” at development, they rushed over to love-up to the conservative Royalists. Such an about face was only possible by ignoring politics, international lessons and any theory.


NGO leaders argued that they were the true activists, not book worms or theoreticians. This is explains why they can justify to themselves the support for the 2006 coup and why they have failed to defend


democracy since. Instead of bothering to analyse the political situation, they beat a path to lobby generals, governments of every shade and anyone who has power.


The academics are even worse. For decades they have shunned political debate, preferring personal squabbles to principled arguments.


No one is ever forced to justify or argue for their beliefs. On the occasion when papers are written, they are descriptive and ignore work by those who pose awkward questions. So when they defended their Middle-Class interests and supported the 2006 coup, they felt no need for a serious explanation other than to say that the poor “did not understand democracy”.


This un-academic behaviour has rich rewards. Many have extra earnings from collaborating with the ruling elites.The Thai conservative elite are playing a dangerous game. They have started a civil war between the people (now represented by the Red Shirts) and the Yellow-shirted Royalists.


Early in 2006 they decided that they would use extra-Constitutional means to get rid of an elected government. Their justification was the “corruption” and “abuse of power” by the Thai Rak Thai Prime Minister Taksin Shinawat.


While there is much to criticise in the actions of Taksin and Thai Rak Thai, it must also be said that the conservative elites, including the Monarchy, have always been corrupt and abused their power. What they didn’t like was that someone else might be getting more powerful than them through the democratic process.


These elites have for decades ruled Thailand from behind the scenes as if it were their own personal fiefdom. A poisonous patron client network draws in new recruits to this “elite feeding trough” where fortunes are to be made at the expense of the hard-working poor.


This vast parasitic organism maintains its legitimacy by claiming that Thailand has an Absolute Monarchy, where the King is an all-powerful god. Yet the King is weak and has no “character” and his power is a fiction. .


Army generals, politicians, businessmen and privy councillors prostrate themselves on the ground and pay homage to the “powerful” king, while exercising the real power in the land and racking in the profits.


But the King is very old and his son is hated, feared or viewed with contempt. Where will the elite’s new meal ticket come from when the King dies?Like the story of “the Emperor’s New Clothes”, the elites relied on telling the Thai population (and maybe even the King), a pack of lies in order to promote their own agenda.


The King is a God! The King is all powerful! We serve the King! And the lese majeste law and other authoritarian measures are used to back up these lies. But the boy has already spoken! Most people in Thailand can see that the Emperor has no clothes! The King hasn’t “held together Thai society”.


He hasn’t created justice and equality and he has sided in public with the military and the anti-democrats throughout his reign. But the process of destroying the corrupt, privileged and authoritarian network around the Monarchy will take time.


People like Suwicha Thakor, Da torpido, Boonyuen Prasertying and many others will suffer in jail. The Red Shirts will have to mobilise and organise on a long-term basis.


Meanwhile, politicians like Taksin, and many others, are still clinging to Royalist ideas, claiming to be “loyal subjects” of the King, while attacking privy councillors for planning the coup. Many Red Shirts are restless and want to go much further in order to build Democracy and Social Justice.


We must not be afraid anymore. But that is easier for me to say from the safety of Britain! We must all be the little boy who says what he sees as the Emperor walks past naked.


Why should we, the Thai people, be “loyal subjects of the King”? In a democratic and equal society the King should be loyal to us. If he or any future Monarch is not prepared to listen to the people, respect the people as his master, and defend democracy, then we definitely need a republic. 3 April 2009

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Can Thailand Avoid the Abyss?

April 21, 2009

The Huffington Post

The hate campaign in Thailand, which started in 2005 and intensified in 2008, has been successful and has polarized the Thai society to an unprecedented degree. It is time to reset Thailand's domestic politics before it is too late.

It was frightening then to notice that the themes and the words used were similar to the ones used in Rwanda, which led to genocide in that country 15 years ago.

The success of the hate campaign owed much to the round-the-clock live television, broadcasting and reaffirming hate messages. This was supplemented by demonstrations and rallies, including the occupation of Government House and the closure of international airports by demonstrators wearing yellow shirts, members of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), determined to bring down several elected governments. The PAD has called for a parliament to be dominated by appointed, rather than elected members.

These events sent a strong message that illegal acts, detrimental to Thailand's national interest and with the aim of bringing down elected governments, are acceptable in Thailand. The military did not react to enforce the law against the "Yellow Shirts".

Earlier this month, following the examples set by the "Yellow Shirts", an opposing group of people, members of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), wearing red shirts, took to the streets to demand a return of full democracy to Thailand. A regional summit was abruptly cancelled as a result, and this time, the military reacted swiftly to enforce the law against the "Red Shirts".

Opposing groups in Thailand now see the situation as a "zero sum game," in which if one side wins, the other side loses. With this attitude, there is no possibility of a settlement with mutual gains.

As events developed following the coup, many Thais became convinced that there is a double standard in Thailand in which members of one side can break the law with impunity while members of the other side are subjected to maximum punishment.

Both sides used strong personal attacks on key personalities, resorting to emotional accusations. In this way, action leads to reaction, escalating into violence. The situation is grim, and there is real potential for things to get worse, leading Thais into the abyss together.

How can we put an end to this escalation of conflict?

The only way out that I can see is to borrow the words of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as she met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. On that occasion, mindful of deteriorating relations between Russia and the United States, she said, "Let us press the reset button." I now say, it is time to press the reset button for Thailand.

A fresh start for Thailand is needed urgently. This means nothing less than the immediate change in assumptions and attitudes for all sides, followed immediately by constructive action. But how?

1. Thais must stop using their time, energy and brain power to attack and destroy one another. Instead, these resources should be used by Thais to jointly find solutions agreeable to all sides through constructive negotiation and dialogue. This means all sides must stop seeing the situation as a "zero sum game." Attitudes must change to enable all sides to see that a "positive sum game" or a "win-win" situation is possible, one in which all sides, by working together, can gain together and save the kingdom.

2. Thais must separate the people from the problem -- and stop trying to find creative ways to destroy one another. We must resist the temptation to act against someone on the basis of assumptions based on rumors or unverified accusations. Personal attacks only lead to counter personal attacks and the hardening of opposite positions. This must end.

3. Instead of declaring positions and thinking that we cannot back down from the declared positions without losing face, let us focus on our underlying interests and work together to find common ground. We are all Thais. We have lived happily together for over 800 years. There is no reason why we cannot work together now.

4. All Thais must have good reasons to be convinced that there is no double standard in Thailand. Due process of law must apply to all Thais, regardless of which side the person may be perceived to be from. All Thais, whether they are rich or poor, whether they are from Bangkok or from the rural areas, must be made to feel that they are all Thai citizens, with equal rights under the same law. This includes voting rights.

5. We should avoid the retroactive application of laws which take away people's rights, such as the one by which if one executive of a political party is found guilty of violating election law, the entire political party can be disbanded and all party executives lose their rights to vote in local and national elections and are prohibited from holding political positions for 5 years. In addition, the principle of proportionality should be applied when punishments are handed down by the courts.

6. We must stop debating whether or not there is a double standard in Thailand from the 2006 coup d'etat, until now. Debates on this point are counterproductive, since they can only help entrench the polarized positions of each side. Except for very serious crimes of which the evidence is clear, the fact that a significant part of the Thai society feels that there is a double standard is enough to trigger amnesty across the political board.

7. Controversial provisions of the 2007 constitution must be revised to be more consistent with democracy.

8. The results of our next elections must be respected. All political parties have ample time to design effective strategies to win elections. Resorting to illegal means to reverse election results must not be condoned.

I want to see the day when all Thais can walk proudly together, wearing whatever color shirts we like, uniting together in a just society and working together to enable the kingdom to succeed with flying colors under globalization.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has often emphasized that he is determined to bring about reconciliation by the promotion of justice, democracy and political reform, including the amendment of the constitution. He said that he would invite all parties concerned to discuss ways for the country to move forward. The formation of a truly impartial and independent body, acceptable to all parties concerned, to help with the reconciliation process, would be helpful. It is now time to Reset Thailand by translating those noble words into concrete actions.