PPT apologizes to all hardworking sex workers for this headline which may be seen asassociating them with academics for hire. However, we are at a loss as to how to describe the behavior of senior “academics” who seem to sell themselves to any regime that is willing to fork out the jobs and cash.
It is reported in the Bangkok Post that “former cabinet secretary-general and law professor Borwornsak Uwanno will head a panel of largely outsiders to study the controversial Constitution Court video clips.”
Bowornsak, currently secretary-general of the royalist propaganda unit, the King Prajadhipok Institute, has an envious record of political promiscuity. He worked assiduously for Thaksin Shinawatra when he was prime minister, including fronting efforts to have Paul Handley’s The King Never Smiles, blocked and/or banned. He was rather late for a royalist in jumping ship. When he did, he was like a man who had found a new religion, writing pretty lame statements of loyalty to the current monarch and then being invited to work for the post-2006 coup regime. Now he’s working for the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime as if nothing has changed for him. In fact, he will bed down with any regime.
This time, Bowornsak is paid to “investigate those who released the controversial Constitutional Court videos. Not the substance of the videos which show a corrupt court, but the whistle blowers. His ability to accept such “work” is disgraceful, but expected from this kind of academic for sale. No principles except those associated with filthy lucre and the reflected glory of the amart.
Bowornsak is a “model” for “engaged” and entrepreneurial academics in Abhisit’s Thailand; he will go wherever there is money or status to be had. As a lawyer, he is betraying the best principles of his profession by following the loot rather than seeking anything approaching justice.
Update: Bowornsak says that he has quit this panel. We doubt this was due to PPT’s comments….
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