Foreign Minister and PAD acolyte Kasit Piromya is cited at length in the Bangkok Post (10 November 2009: “Govt blasts Thaksin’s interview”).

Given the current political climate, the article is surprisingly even-handed. Kasit isn’t. He claims that “condemned the remarks as offensive and inappropriate.” Kasit adds that “Thaksin also made inappropriate comments about His Majesty the King and the Crown Prince.”

This is an interesting claim, for Thaksin actually praises the prince. So is Kasit opposed to the prince or just not thinking before speaking? Maybe it is Thaksin’s “hidden motive” that Kasit is thinking about but hasn’t explained.

Kasit claims that “Thaksin’s interview is a violation of the monarchy, which is the country’s core pillar and a highly respected institution. It is unacceptable and should have never taken place…”.

PPT suggests that readers consider the released transcript, for Thaksin really does try his best to attack Prem, Surayud and the “network” while claiming to be exceptionally loyal to the throne. Yes, Thaksin makes some suggestions about needed reform, but he keeps talking respect and loyalty.

Kasit also claims that “the interview lacked credibility as it contained several false or distorted items of information regarding the role of the monarchy in politics and the bilateral spat between Thailand and Cambodia over the appointment of Thaksin as an adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen and his government.” PPT noted a factual error related to the 2001 election result, but we’ll wait to hear more from Kasit.

It is a remarkable interview.

Prachatai (10 November 2009: “Columnist pressured to quit from Thai Post”) reports the the Campaign for Popular Media has asked the Thai-language Thai Post to explain “its decision to remove the column of Bai Tong Hang, who eventually resigned from the paper.”

The columnist “consistently expressed political views drastically different from those of his colleagues in the same paper” and it is suspected that the Thai Post is cleaning its house of dissident views: “In sharp contrast with his colleagues in the paper, he was a strong critic of the 2006 coup and the anti-Thaksin movement.”

Prachatai states that “Bai Tong Hang is the pen name of Atheukkit Sawaengsuk. For many years, he wrote the column ‘Wai Tuan Nam (Swimming against the Tide)’, in which he answered Thai Post readers’ letters on political issues and reported exclusive political interviews with prominent figures in the Thai Post’s Sunday tabloid edition.”

This is not the first time that there has been this kind of development since the 2006 coup. The situation in Thailand is becoming difficult for media freedom, with the Abhisit Vejjajiva government working against web-based media and controlling much of the visual and sound media, and  a remarkable lack of variety in the mainstream media and almost no critical thinking or engaged journalism.

A short report in the Bangkok Post (8 November 2009: “Rebel strikes likely to rise”) provides some useful information about the advice available to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and a little additional internet-based research a little more light on the links between the military-palace cabal and the current government.

In the report, General Wattanachai Chaimuenwong is cited as claiming that “insurgent violence in the far South is likely to increase as the regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah is adopting more extreme approaches…”. Wattanachai is said to be “a senior national security expert,” a “former adviser to ex-prime minister Surayud Chulanont” (one report states that Surayud and Wattachai were classmates) and is reported as serving “as an unofficial adviser to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.”

As well as invoking JI, the adviser warns that it is “trying to get the United Nations and Organisation of the Islamic Conference to speak out on the issue…” on “human right abuses…”. Wattanachai states that JI “wants to establish an Islamic state, entered Thailand between 2003 and 2004 and had trained youngsters to be guerrillas.”

This is not the first time Wattanachai has made JI claims (see below) and we’ll have more comments below on his specific claims.

But why has he made these claims at this moment? It is because Wattanachai is wanting to attack his old enemy General Chavalit Yongchauyudh. Following the Puea Thai Party chairman’s suggestion for a special administrative zone he called “Pattani City,” Wattanachai warned that “JI had tried to separate the Muslim-dominated provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat from the rest of the southern region.”

Of course, Chavalit is not proposing separation but a form of autonomy. This kind of proposal has been made by several others in the past, ranging from academics to royalist Prawase Wasi, and as Bangkok Pundit points out, also by Abhisit.

What can we make of Wattanachai’s claims as unofficial adviser to the prime minister?

Readers will know that PPT does not follow the events in the south in all of its detail, so in turning to the JI claims, we rely on available commentary. What does this tell us? GlobalSecurity.org is cautious in claiming JI operations in southern Thailand. The most recent International Crisis Group report states: “As earlier Crisis Group reports have stressed, the movement shows little influence of Salafi jihadism, the ideology followed by al-Qaeda and the Indonesia-based regional jihadi group Jemaah Islamiyah.” The report adds: “While militants’ words may be the same as those used by Islamist jihadi groups such as al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah, the movements are ideologically dissimilar. The struggle is rooted in Malay nationalism rather than any solidarity with a global Islamic jihad.”

As far as PPT can determine, the only mention of JI in Human Rights Watch reports is in connection with the disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit, when two of the persons he was defending were claimed to have JI connections. Amnesty International, which unlike its pathetic stand on lese majeste, does issue reports on the south appears not to link JI to events there.

It seems to PPT that most of the claims about a JI connection come from Wattanachai (see his 2007 claim here). When he has made these claims in the past, the government has usually discounted them. If readers find more than we have from independent sources, let us know.

But what of the man making the claims?

Back in 2001, Wattanachai was commander of the Third Army Region in the northern border areas and became embroiled in a border spat that included an alleged Burmese incursion into Thailand and a Thai response, including artillery shelling of Burmese troops, followed by a war of words and with the Burmese over their attacks on the Shan State Army. Wattanachai caste his actions in terms of Thai nationalism and pride. These retaliations began earlier, before Thaksin came to power, and there had been suggestions that Thai soldiers were supporting the SSA and Wattanachai was strong in support of his “Shan brothers.” In May 2001, Wattanachai accused the Burmese of deliberately shelling a royal project.

More details on this dispute are available in Desmond Ball’s working paper “Security Developments in the Thailand-Burma Borderlands,” for the Australian Mekong Resource Centre in October 2003. This paper reports that these events saw Chavalit and Wattanachai at loggerheads, with the former trying to get the latter sacked by Thaksin. According to Ball’s report, Wattanachai stayed due to support from Privy Council President General Prem Tinsulanonda and the queen.

Surayud also supported him. In fact, after Surayud became premier, he seemed to rely heavily on Wattanachai, even having him investigate engineering problems at the international airport.

Following the 2006 coup, when he was adviser to Surayud, Wattanachai made the unsupported claim that “Muslim insurgents from southern Thailand were paid to carry out deadly New Year’s Eve bombings in Bangkok by politicians toppled in last year’s coup…”. According to the general, the ousted politicians “to discredit the current government.” As far as PPT can recall, no one was ever charged in this case.

In 2007, Wattanachai caused a brief stir when he claimed that JI was infiltrating Muslim communities in Cambodia. Wattanachai would later deny making this claim, but the story caused an angry riposte from Hun Sen. The claim saw some arrests of Cambodian Muslims entering Thailand, but nothing appeared to come from these arrests or Wattanchai’s claims. According to Ian Storey, Wattanachai “had earlier claimed that southern militants had copied their tactics from Al-Qaeda, including roadside IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and decapitations, of which there have been more than 30 since 2004.”

In this brief survey, two things seem clear. First, Wattanachai is prone to making grand and unsubstantiated claims, and second, he is a died-in-the-wool royalist who links the Democrat Party government to the Privy Council and the Surayud government.

Original post (updates below): This article will cause apoplexy in the palace and government if for nothing else than the headline. Thaksin speaks to the Times Online (8 November 2009: “Ousted Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra calls for ‘shining’ new age after King’s death”) as he heads to Cambodia.

Thaksin is reported as calling “for reform of the country’s revered monarchy and spoken of his expectations of a ’shining’ new age after the passing of the ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej.” According to the article, Thaksin sees that he has a political future in a Thailand led by King Vajiralongkorn.

Throwing his hat in that pond won’t win him a huge number of supporters or is he just further stirring the political and palace pots?

Thaksin says: “He’s not the king yet. He may not be shining [now]… But after he becomes the King I’m confident he can be shining . . . it’s not his time yet. But when the time comes I think he will be able to perform.”

According to the Times, “Thaksin is careful to emphasise his deep loyalty to King Bhumibol, but is deeply critical of the ‘palace circle’, principally members of the Privy Council, whom he blames for plotting his overthrow with the help of senior generals.”

The Times also makes this claim: “Supporters of Mr Thaksin have told The Times that by endorsing the Crown Prince and lending some of his own popularity, he hopes to gain the support of a future monarch who will not interfere with his political ambitions.” Thaksin is quoted as saying, “The Crown Prince may not be as popular as His Majesty the King…. However, he will have less problem because the palace circle will be smaller . . . He had education abroad and he’s young. I think he understands the modern world.

He went on: “When the world is changing every organisation must adapt to the changing environment…. Every institution, not just the royal institution, is the same — it must be adapted.”

The Times states that “Thaksin’s supporters are still hopeful that King Bhumibol may use his 82nd birthday next month to issue some kind of pardon or amnesty that would allow him to return to Thailand as early as January.” Thaksin says that he hopes that “after His Majesty gets stronger he will find a way for the country to be back to unity. We cannot let the country go on like this. We will be getting worse and worse and the division will be getting deeper and stronger.”

PPT leaves it to readers to contemplate this article and its implications.

Update 1: The transcript of the interview is at Times (9 November 2009: “Thaksin Shinawatra: the full transcript of his interview with The Times”). It is stated in the headline that it is a “full transcript” while the next lines state: “Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor of The Times, spoke to the ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra at his home in Dubai. Here are edited excerpts from their conversation.”

Update 2: Thaksin claims that this interview in the Times has distorted his views (Bangkok Post, 9 November 2009: “Thaksin: My comments were distorted”). He states: “It (the article) was a complete distortion of my interview. The falsified article has caused confusion among the readers and the Thai people. The headline made by Timesonline is not true. I never said that in the interview…”. He says he is “very upset” and “condemn[ed] Timesonline for publishing this false and confusing article.” The former prime minister says that he did not “offend any institutions” but “defended the monarchy as being above politics and said Thai people adore the institution.” He added: “I would like to repeat again that my family and I are loyal to His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen and, like all Thai people, ready to sacrifice our lives to protect the monarchy.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s spokesman called on “all parties to take action on this matter, saying that it affected the feelings of Thais.” Democrat Party spokesman Buranaj Smutharaks “said that this is not the first time Thaksin has offended the high institution.” Buranaj, who regularly calls for media censorship, said that the “Democrat Party will propose the government and security agencies consider appropriate action against media that report the interview.”

Update 3:  Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya has called for the Ministry of Justice to decide whether Thaksin has committed lese majeste (not for the first time, see here): “The foreign minister said he found many of Thaksin’s comments in the interview to be strongly offensive, inaccurate and unacceptable by the majority of people.” PPT guesses that Kasit means that he believes that the majority will find it to be this way.

Kasit “believed Thaksin, in giving the interview, had a hidden objective.” He added that the “Foreign Ministry would issue a statement to the foreign media setting the facts straight…”. PPT can’t wait for that!

Perhaps not by chance, the Bangkok Post has its Quick Poll up today asking: “Do you feel Mr Thaksin has betrayed his country by becoming an economic adviser to Cambodia?” Again, PPT sees the coming together of two dangerous forces – xenophobic nationalism and blind loyalty monarchism.

Update 4: It seems the link to to story PPT originally posted on (Times Online, 8 November 2009: “Ousted Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra calls for ‘shining’ new age after King’s death”) is now blocked in Thailand, with a default redirect to the MICT page for blocked sites. Even so, the fuller transcript (Times Online, 9 November 2009: “Thaksin Shinawatra: the full transcript of his interview with The Times”) appears not to be blocked. In any case, the transcript is a better read, with more details and greater context than the other, now censored, story.

If readers have access, Thai E-News is translating some of the transcript (see คำต่อคำทักษิณสัมภาษณ์ TIMESONLINE แฉสื่อลิ้ม-สื่อหลักบิดขาวเป็นดำจากภักดีเป็นล้มสถาบัน).

Update 5: The Times Online (10 November 2009: “Thai government bans Thaksin Shinawatra interview with The Times”) has a new article that details the moves to prevent people in Thailand see the original pice cited above.

Well it’d be a joke if the person making these claims wasn’t someone who has previously held senior positions in Thailand.

Apparently impervious to all good sense, Pridiyathorn Devakula has a column in the Nation (9 November 2009: “Uncovering the source of those rumours is critical”) that takes up the health rumors one more time. Usually PPT doesn’t take much notice of these trite columns, but this one caught out eye, not least because Pridiyathorn develops a jingoistic line not heard for a while.

Being a good few days behind the news doesn’t help his case, but Pridiyathorn says he’s gung ho for the witch hunts and the striking down of scapegoats, but then says this: “Both suspected persons studied in the western world and worked in businesses which fully exposed them to western culture, possibly wrongly absorbing the western way of thinking regarding one’s freedom of speech.” Crazy fools, they thought there was freedom of speech.

Pridiyathorn uses a very common elite line amongst Thais who prefer authoritarianism to anything else: blame those nasty “westerners” for odd ideas about freedom and democracy. It is such a stupid ploy but invariably gets the rabid nationalists on side.

He has a long ending to his story that is about hunting down culprits. He says: “simple common sense tells me that media outlets in any civilised country must be responsible for the accuracy of news they broadcast or publish and must recheck this accuracy with due care so that individuals and organisations are not hurt. If so, the network that started distributing this rumour and realised it was wrong, should have had enough conscious guilt to cooperate with our authorities in tracing the original source. Such cooperation could save them from a possible legal suit and public condemnation for protecting the ill-willed culprit.”

Why would civilized countries do more than correct an error, if there was one in this case? The former governor of the Bank of Thailand appears to want to get the “real culprit” for then the government wouldn’t look so much like a police state and the monarchy would be “protected.” Close that gate and look for the horse….

With royalists like this, there is no need for republicans.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, one of the most frequent commentators in English on Thai politics has an article in the Guardian (8 November 2009: “Thailand’s urban-rural split”). Readers of this blog will find the analysis of interest.

PPT recognizes that the article is meant to explain a highly complex political situation to outsiders and that this necessitates a little simplification. However, we consider that Thitinan has made it just a little too simplistic.

Take, for example, his initial claim that the “country’s wrenching political struggle over the past several years has, at bottom, concerned what will happen after the … king’s reign … comes to an end.” We think this devalues the struggles and debates of the past decade. Sure, some analysts tried to say that the 2006 coup was, at base, about managing succession. But the evidence has been that the coup was one part of a broader reactionary agenda to maintain the political and economic status quo in Thailand politics. So, at bottom, the struggle is about power and control, not about what happens when the king dies. What is at stake is not “the soul of an emerging Thailand” but control of political and economic power in Thailand.

Further, the claim that “Thailand’s colour-coated crisis pits largely urban, conservative, and royalist “yellow” shirts against the predominantly rural “red” columns of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra” might have some validity but PPT would hope for an  analysis that explains the complexity associated with such a rural-urban characterization. Just one example. What are we to make of the working class? There’s been a tendency to say that their “connections back home” make them rural and “red.” These connections may be important, but they operate in a different social and political milieu born of industialization and urbanization. It may be that there class location is what is significant.

Thitinan makes much of inequality, and this is an important issue. Readers may well want to look at the recent Chang Noi column (2 November 2009: “Politics and Thailand’s wealth gap”) that has some data on the astounding income and wealth inequality in the country. The struggle is on, not necessarily for a “share” but for a different allocation of wealth and associated political power.

With the Abhisit Vejjajiva government adding overt nationalism to its  royalism, the military-palace government now enters an extremely dangerous phase of its decline into authoritarianism. Governments in the past that have mixed these ingredients have generally been the most absolute and most repressive.

This mix of shibboleths allows governments to cover a multitude of traits that would usually, in a freer environment, be the subject of vehement criticism. This is not to say that there’s no criticism of the Abhisit government in Thailand; it’s just that it’s becoming more difficult to find brave mainstream critics.

At the same time, the reliance on rabid nationalism, conservative royalism and ever more blatant repression allows the Democrat Party-led government to “forget” commitments it made in several areas. PTT lists some of these here, and we are sure we will be forgetting some:

• liberalism and democracy – remember when Abhisit masqueraded as a liberal democrat? Wasn’t it the Democrat Party and this premier who kept saying that democracy was more than election victories? Didn’t they promise to be better at a truly liberal democracy than the elected governments associated with Thaksin Shinawatra?
• reconciliation – that was the catch-cry when the Democrat Party was maneuvered into government with Newin Chidchob’s coterie by the palace and military. It’s gone now and all about rooting out “traitors.”
• solving the Sondhi Limthongkul assassination bid. That was said to be a sure thing by the end of September…. PPT wonders if anyone cares too much now as the Democrat Party and PAD seem to be thrown back into comfortable alliance.
• working out a relationship with webmasters that prevented “misunderstandings” on computer “crimes” and lese majeste. Abhisit made the statement several times that he was the first prime minister to meet and discuss with webmasters. Now the Democrat Party-led government seems intent on on shutting down rather than “communicating.”
• solving the murder of Somchai Neelaphaijit. That idea seems lost now.
• less corruption – the corruption stories from the Office for Sufficiency Economy Community Projects, Ministry of Public Health and Ministry of Education all seem to have gone quiet.
• amending the military’s 2007 constitution – a dead issue?
• there was a time when Abhisit said that some analysis of the monarchy was acceptable; that is now long forgotten, with any excuse used to invoke lese majeste against the government’s opponents and all those identified as “traitors.”
• the lese majeste case against Chotisak Onsoog had been dropped or resolved – the case continues.
• Abhisit claimed that all of the people charged will be “treated fairly” and “given due process” – patently absurd, with Darunee Charnchoensilpakul having been tried in a closed court.
• and then there was the desire to protect the monarchy and depoliticize it in public discourse  – ironically, this is probably the government’s most notable failure, with the monarchy now central to political debate and damaged by the government’s own political use of the monarchy.

PPT will stop here, but welcomes reader additions, emailed to us.

The Bangkok Post (8 November 2009: “Cancel other pacts, financial aid projects to Cambodia, PAD urges”) again shows how PAD and the Abhisit Vejjajiva government come together. Leaving aside the direct linkages through dual memberships, this article has PAD calling on the government to cancel all its agreements, including bilateral aid, with Cambodia “to show its displeasure, after Cambodia hired former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an adviser…”.

PAD also supported the government’s decision “to cancel a memorandum of understanding on development of an overlapping maritime area in the Gulf of Thailand.”

The Democrat Party has already announced that the government will “review all MoUs signed by the Thaksin administration with Thailand’s neighbour. They must be reviewed to protect Thailand’s interests” according to Democrat spokesman Buranaj Smutharaks, who regularly speaks for PAD-like political positions. Forgetting all of the taunts by his yellow-shirted compatriots, Buranaj blames Thaksin for souring bilateral relations with Cambodia.

Update: Unlike the red shirts who are greeted with the ISA and massive police and military forces when they rally at Government House, PAD gets invited in for a chat with Abhisit (Bangkok Post, 9 November 2009: “PAD: PM must get back at Cambodia”).

PAD’s Phibop Dhongchai called on the “government to revoke all bilateral projects with Cambodia and financial assistance for the neighbouring country” and demanded that the “government drive the Cambodian army out of the disputed border area around the ancient Preah Vihear temple.”

As would be expected from this prime minister, after a 30 minute meeting, Abhisit “promised him that he will raise the group’s demands at the cabinet meeting tomorrow.”

In PPT’s crazy nationalism post, we referred to an ABAC poll reported in both The Nation and the Bangkok Post. Our post wasn’t a comment on the polling but on the interpretations that might be drawn from it. For further details on the polling, see Siam Report.

Update: Bangkok Pundit also has a useful post on the nature of the polling.

The Bangkok Post (7 November 2009) has two stories worth considering together on the current Thailand-Cambodia dispute.

The first (“Recalling ambassador seen as ‘over-reaction’ in dispute”) sets out the reactions from a series of diplomats and concerns that Thailand, as the chair of ASEAN is sparring with another member state, threatening ASEAN, the Mekong Summit and the united voice of Southeast Asian countries in dealing with big powers. Professor Charnvit Kasetsiri, who has long tried to be a moderate and reasonable voice on Thailand’s relations with its neighbor is also cited. Of course, the cited former Thai ambassador disagrees.

Cited in the second story (“Borwornsak backs PM’s retaliation”) is  law academic Bowornsak Uwanno, who is also the head of the King Prajadhipok’s Institute (the main royalist institution that seeks to deny Thailand’s democratic history) . Regular readers will know that PPT has been critical of a couple of academics who seem to fit a long “tradition” of being for hire by governments of various persuasions. Bowornsak seems to fit the category, having jumped from a senior position in the Thaksin government to the military’s side and as a royalist supporter of the military-palace government led by the Democrat Party.

The all too predictable Bowornsak supports the Abhisit Vejjajiva government’s “retaliation.” However, he also warns that “could be the starting point of a fall” of ASEAN. That starting point probably had more to do with the legacy of the ASEAN old guard who brought in Burma, but the point remains that the coincidence of this current dispute between the chair country and another member is indeed potentially disintegrating.

In The Nation, ASEAN boss and Democrat Party member Surin Pitsuwan also expresses “concern over the escalation of tensions between Cambodia and Thailand, appealing to both countries to exercise maximum restraint,” and pointing to the dispute’s potential for “undermin[ing] the credibility of Asean…”.

In the Bangkok Post, and continuing the predictable line, a Thai military leader predicts “But if the war really breaks out, Thailand will be the winner.” What can PPT say that isn’t predictable?

Update: Further on war, under the somewhat misleading headline “Situation in Si Sa Ket normal” (7 November), it is reported that “villagers in Bhumisalon border village nearby the Preah Vihear ancient temple of Cambodia had built 15 bunkers at the village school. The bunkers are for safety of the school’s teachers and students in case the war between the two countries takes place.”