Thailand seems to be following Singpoare’s lead on ensuring that it officially responds to news stories and “setting the record straight.” A reader pointed the latest effort out to PPT.
Vimon Kidchob, Director-general, Department of Information in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a short letter in the latest Economist, responding to a report from 17 October. The letter appears under the headline “Thailand’s monarchy.”
“SIR –The Economist painted too dark and pessimistic a picture of Thailand’s political situation (“Exile and the kingdom”, October 17th). Since 1932, and despite many ups and downs along the democratic path, Thais have persevered towards a true parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy. Irrespective of their political colours, Thais share an unwavering respect for the monarchy. The current political impasse reflects different perspectives about what Thai democracy entails, and efforts are being made to bridge such differences peacefully through parliamentary means.
Meanwhile, the Thai people enjoy their constitutional rights, not least the right to peaceful assembly, which has been continuously exercised and respected.”
What can PPT say? The path to (Thai-style) democracy may be as stated, but not the path to democracy, which the elite has worked to dig up and block at every turn. And still does.
The right to peaceful assembly exists for some – such as the yellow-shirted supporters of this government – but not for others like the red shirts who assemble under the auspices of the draconian Internal Security Act and prevented from assembling in particular locations (Phuket, Dusit area, Hua Hin/Cha-am), while the Democrat Party-led government puts numerous obstacles in place that are not there for the royalist yellow shirts.
Vimon is paid to be a mouthpiece for the government, so he has to come up with a story that is at least moderately plausible. But then put it together with this story in the Bangkok Post (27 October 2009: “Suthep sets Hun Sen straight on Thaksin”) and PPT wonders whether the government isn’t beginning to believe its own spin.
In this story, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban is said set Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen right on the “real” story of the ouster of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Suthep explained that “Thaksin had not been unfairly treated,” that he had “broken the law and was sentenced to imprisonment in a proper judicial process.” Hun Sen was told to forget all those stories about the 2006 coup, because Thaksin was only fleeing the jail sentence.
And, by the way, that “post-coup government stayed for only one year and a new constitution was approved by the people in a public referendum.” Of course, Hun Sen needed to know that “Thaksin and his men accepted the constitution, took part in the elections and their party was the winner and subsequently formed governments in which Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsawat were the prime ministers.” Those governments only fell “because they had broken the law…”.
Only the most gullible of observers and staunch yellow shirts would accept this story with a single flinch, although even they might correct the factual error and acknowledge a military-back and royalist government of 16 months. PPT thinks that the government continues to spin and Suthep and Vimon do the government and themselves any credit by such misrepresentations.
Or could it be that there are fairies in the back gardens of houses occupied by deputy prime ministers and director-generals.
1 Comment
November 7, 2009 at 6:39 pm
[...] the Director-General of the Department of Information at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who PPT also cited yesterday on a different story, has a letter dated 23 October 2009. Here is what he says, [...]
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