Stories worth reading

There are a few media stories currently available that are worthy of attention. PPT doesn’t have time to put each out in separate posts, so we are listing them here with brief comments, all from the Bangkok Post:

Impeaching Suthep

The new Speaker of the Senate Nikom Wairatchapanich has put the impeachment of Democrat Party MP, former deputy prime minister and signatory to sniper letters Suthep Thaugsuban on the senate agenda for Monday, Nikom’s very first day on the job. The charge from the National Anti-Corruption Commission is relatively minor, but these rules were set in place by those attacking pro-Thaksin Shinawatra parties, not thinking that silly rules will turn and bite them. PT would far prefer to see Suthep axed for his deliberate decisions to have anti-government protesters killed.

Suthep

More state blacklists

As is well known from the War on Drugs, when the state puts together lists of “suspects,” the so-called suspects need to be very, very frightened, for the state’s tendency, through the police and military, is simply to conduct extrajudicial killings or to lock people up, often without a shred of evidence. Hence, it is very scary to learn that lists

… including politicians, school heads and local religious leaders, have been named as part of the southern insurgency network in a newly launched army handbook…. The blacklisted names are listed in two books which together are called The Order of Battle…. The second handbook identifies the names of leaders and their forces in each village, tambon and district of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and in four districts of Songkhla. The 500-page book lists 9,692 people as being involved in the insurgency network.

The Army has such a poor record, regularly killing its own citizens, that such a list of names constitutes a serious threat to each and every one of these persons.

Prayuth

The magic wand

The GT200 story just won’t go away, mainly because the fools who purchased the useless things, often at inflated prices, and who continue to defend them (an example being Army boss General Prayuth Chan-ocha) are also trying to charge the sellers. Sure, the sellers were frauds, but what about the dopes who bought the supposedly magic toys. Maybe investigators should look at the incompetence amongst the so-called security agencies.

We want it all!

The cry of the rich as they such up all the wealth, land and other resources! While PPT is not convinced that the reporting in the Bangkok Post editorial is entirely accurate, the basic point holds. We noted this: “For juristic persons, the biggest land owner has more than 2.8 million rai…”. PPT thought readers might wonder if this owner was royal. It seems that this might not be the case. The chapter on the Crown Property Bureau in the semi-official King Bhumibol Adulyadej. A Life’s Work, states that the CPB holds 41,300 rai (p. 283). Could it be the armed forces? Or one of the big farmers like CP? If readers have any ideas, let us know.

Army good, protesters bad

Who could possibly be surprised when Thawil Pliensri defends the Army’s murderous assault on red shirt protesters in 2010. After all, Thawil was secretary-general of the National Security Council at the time of the sniper orders and secretary of the Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situations set up by the Abhisit Vejjajiva government to crush the protests by the red shirts. He says that “the operation to retake areas in Bangkok occupied by the protesters was a legitimate one.” Of course he does. He claims that “[s]ome information has been distorted and tampered with,” but seems to provide no evidence. Ultra-royalists will believe him. He, like the Army boss, declares: “state officials who risked their lives to disperse unlawful protesters deserved praise and should not be accused of killing people.” What causes Thawil to defend murder with statements that are so ludicrous as to make him look like a lying fool is his fear that he may not enjoy the impunity that he currently enjoys.

Publications of interest II

Following from our earlier post on interesting reading, another reader has suggested that the site whereisthailand.info is worth a visit. PPT recommends some of the analysis at the site, particularly its post on the regional expenditure of government budget. There’s a brief English summary of the data here.

The associated chart (below) explains the situation pretty well:

Democracy vs. the monarchy’s ruling class

PPT enjoyed the Bangkok Post‘s discussion with historian Charnvit Kasetsiri on the 1932 Revolution and contemporary politics. We certainly agree with his observation that:

throughout the past 80 years, conservative forces have retained a lot of their influence, making democracy unstable. It is more like “transient democracy”, not a permanent one as long as citizens’ rights and equality are not achieved concretely.

That situation is not one that has gone uncontested over those eight decades, but it has to be said that it has been the palace, supported by the post-1957 military and the US in the 1960s and 1970s, that has established hegemony. Charnvit points out that:

Initially, Khanarassadorn wanted to adopt the phrase ‘Monarchy under Constitution’, but acceded to King Prachadhiphok’s wish for ‘Constitutional Monarchy’. It was changed after Field Marshall Sarit Thanarat’s … [1957] coup with the emergence of ‘Thai-style democracy’ and ‘Democracy with the Monarch as head of state’. It has been a long struggle….

In his reported comments, Charnvit seems to forget that this has not been an uncontested fight. There have been struggles by the People’s Party remnants, by communists and socialists, by students and workers and farmers. The royalist military has been vicious in its responses, repressing and murdering virtually non-stop during the years since 1957.

The hegemony of the royalist elite has had particular impacts beyond repression and murder. Without mentioning the vast and obscene wealth of the monarchy itself, Charnvit observes that: “Wealth is still concentrated…. If people accept their station in life, the status quo can be maintained.”

Charnvit points out that:

since the time of Field Marshall Sarit, the monarchy has been used as a tool to discredit and destroy political opponents, starting from communism and now the attempt to amend Section 112. Those who advocate change were and are lumped together as disloyal to the monarchy.

The problem is that this old regime is under attack and it is the monarchy that is the “tool to destroy the opposition.”

Charvit is correct to note that “people don’t accept their fate anymore.” Like others, he points out that the “rural poor are not without resources or knowledge and they no longer accept injustice.”

The current political struggles seem to be, as Charnvit has it, between:

the absolute power of the monarch, the so-called “Devaraja” as practised in Ayutthaya and the first half of the Chakri dynasty or the democratic principles espoused by Khanarassadorn who toppled the monarch in 1932.

We do not think that this is the case. Charnvit is essentially speaking of ideology. PPT thinks that the struggle is about the rights and voice that are limited and controlled by a class that rules through violence, threat of violence and its great wealth. The monarchy is not just the ideological hub of the current regime of power but is the country’s largest Sino-Thai conglomerate.

Hence, when Charnvit speaks of the need to “amend the constitution resulting from the 2006 coup … [and] amending the lese majeste law,” he is concentrating on important nodes that are part of a broader struggle. He gets to that struggle when he says the “problem is about inequality…”. He asks, “why can’t political parties solve it?”

The answer, Charnvit said:

politicians are not the people’s representatives – they represent their own social class. The class that Yingluck and Thaksin Shinawatra belongs to is no different from that of Abhisit Vejjajiva or Korn Chatikavanij.

For him, this means that the red shirts must split from Thaksin once they “realise that Thaksin’s group is not theirs.” The link between the masses and Thaksin is not of his own making and has never been entirely stable.

Thaksin has been electorally popular because he provided – probably unintentionally – an  opportunity for people to have some voice. They realized that elections could have an impact. If the backward-looking elite, including Yingluck and Thaksin, can’t maintain that, then they are politically useless and electoral democracy is lost to them as a means of broad political compromise.

Government and red shirts

Headline writers at the Bangkok Post’s website have deliberately and politically misrepresented an important story that deserves attention.

At the front page of the site, the Post has a story headlined, “Voters’ remorse surfaces,” while the story itself has the headline, “Pheu Thai failed us, say red shirts.” The story itself begins:

Despite their loyalty to the Pheu Thai Party-led government, red shirts in the northeastern provinces are increasingly grumbling about low commodity prices, high production costs and the rising cost of living which are making their lives increasingly miserable.

Leaving aside the manipulation of the story by the headline writers, the story is one that should not be ignored, not least by the bosses of the Puea Thai government.

One point that comes out clearly is that some villagers in the Northeast feel forgotten:

The villagers also felt neglected as they were waiting for the populist policies promised by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra during her political campaign.

They believe that the policies being implemented are being directed to urbanites.

These villagers haven’t ditched the government, but their support cannot be taken for granted:

Our morale is diminishing. We supported Pheu Thai and put up banners of Thaksin Shinawatra with love but we are suffering as no one has reached out their hand to us….

That is the point that the Puea Thai Party and its government need to understand. The government was elected by voters with affinities for the red shirt movement.

Yingluck’s government cannot take this support for granted and nor can it trample over the issues that were significant for red shirts: inequality, double standards, injustice. Cosying up to the amart, keeping red shirts in prison and ignoring rural concerns is not the way to repay the enormous support provided to Thaksin and his parties through years of repression and conflict.

Love lese majeste or get out

The lese majeste law is like a rotting political carrion being fought over by right-wing royalists. The battle has hotted up as royalists have been frightened by that other death of another “great leader” fawned over by the power hungry and given personal credit for all that is “good.”

Prayuth with his protection

In the Bangkok Post, Army boss and self-proclaimed chief protector of the monarchy has made his feelings abundantly clear: “People should not be calling on the authorities to amend Section 112 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the lese majeste law…”. He is wants this draconian law  left as is and unamended in order protect the monarchy, its royalist state and the military’s political position.

In the usual manner of the royalist, authoritarian right wing, he helpfully advises: “Personally, I feel we should not talk about this…. If people think Thai law is unjust or too harsh, they can go live abroad.”  He might be attacking foreigners. However, this bully-boy tactic is a warning to Thais, drawing on old claims of “Thainess.”

He is joined in this right-wing feeding frenzy by the contemptible Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung. He comes up with the usual royalist tripe: “Thailand has prospered because of the main institution. Without the main institution, where would the country be?… Because of His Majesty’s compassion and graciousness in all areas, Thailand has gone from poverty to prosperity, from being an underdeveloped country to a developing country.”

Chalerm

Such nonsense is regularly trotted out by royal posterior polishers who deliberately belittle every other Thai who has worked tirelessly in a  long process of social and economic changes that not person with an ounce of sense could ascribe to a single person or institution. It also pays obeisance to the ruling class of owners and royals who have grown fat on the the fruits of massive environmental destruction and Latin American levels of inequality.

Chalerm says: “Why change Section 112 since it’s good already? Don’t they [people who want Section 112 amended] have jobs to go to?” Another classic royalist and ruling class rant. Has this man not a single original thought?

Chalerm is now off on a crusade to have True Corp,  TOT, CAT Telecom and 3BB block all websites with lese majeste content. In fact, PPT is already blocked by most of these providers and most of those in Thailand who read us have to use Cooloo or other work-arounds.

Updated: Tax

According to a report in the Bangkok Post, “For personal taxes, only 9 million people file an annual tax return, representing less than one-third of the labour force. Just 2.5 million actually pay income tax after deductions, and only 18,000 people are estimated to pay tax at the 37% maximum rate.” That means that roughly 0.067% of those who are economically-active pay the relatively low top rate.

No wonder the rich don’t want change in Thailand.

Update: A reader rightly chastises PPT for not pointing out that part of the People’s Alliance for Democracy rhetoric on voting was to claim that farmers who were allegedly subject to vote-buying and, hence, should be excluded from the PAD’s new system of political (non-) democracy, did not pay taxes. In fact, most of the supporters and backers of the PAD apparently don’t pay income taxes. Like farmers, they do pay consumption taxes and probably evade a bunch of other taxes.

Income inequality

This graph is from The Economist. It explains:

“The ratio of the share of national income going to the richest 20% of households in a country to the share of the poorest 20% is a useful measure of inequality. Figures from the World Bank show that by this indicator many of the world’s most unequal countries are in Latin America. In Colombia the incomes of the top fifth are nearly 25 times those of the bottom fifth. Most emerging Asian countries are less unequal: the incomes of the richest 20% of Chinese are about eight times those of the poorest 20%. In Thailand, one of Asia’s most unequal countries, the ratio is 15:1.”

Of course, inequality is reflected more broadly in society than simply income. The consequences of deepening inequality can often be political.

Any justice?

It may come as a surprise for some to see the Bangkok Post reporting criticism of the judiciary. After all, those who criticize the  judiciary have been warned that they face jail. The critics reported in the Post maintain, with PPT, that “injustice and inequality remain the norm in Thai society…”. Of course, the Ministry of Justice thinks things are not so grim.

Somkiat (Bangkok Post)

One of the critics is an orthodox economist. Somkiat Tangkitvanich, the vice president of the Thailand Development Research Institute, who says the “justice system but it was inefficient.” He also referred to the fact  that “people did not have equal access to the justice system…”.

Goodness, could this be even lead to a view that double standards are common? Partly, it seems, as he adds that: “The cases in which the poor are wrongdoers are judged quickly while those of the rich proceed slowly…”.

Somkiat also refers to another important issue: Thailand’s judicial system is “overloaded.” True, but judges have been under-worked as well, mainly because they have been lazy and corrupt.

Somchai

Secretary-general of the Human Rights and Development Foundation Somchai Hormlaor does go to double standards, when he observes that “criticism of double standards in the justice system reflected injustice in Thailand.” He added that the justice system and law “did not bring about fairness and well-being for ordinary people.”

Somchai is moving quite a distance in political terms and deserves credit for this. He adds: “If justice existed, the courts would not accept a coup and any law that coup makers issued because that severely violates the constitution which is the highest law.” In the report, he also notes that “the prisons were occupied by the poor who had no access to justice…”.

For the first time in several years, we have to agree with Somchai and congratulate him for his willingness to identify real and long-standing issues and problems.

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Divisive politics, dumb perspective

PPT ‘s attention was caught by a recent East Asia Forum post, written by Chalongphob Sussangkarn, listed as “Distinguished Fellow,” but in fact an economist at the Thailand Development Research Institute. East Asia Forum is a usually pretty conservative blog that claims to be a “platform for the best in East Asian analysis, research and policy comment on the Asia-Pacific region and world affairs.” It is from the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific.

In his post, Chalongphob, a nearly invisible Minister of Finance in Privy Councilor General Surayud Chulanont’s military junta-appointed government in 2007, says:

The Red Shirts’ protracted occupation of a central Bangkok area and the eventual violent and deadly end in May 2010 reiterated the highly divisive situation in Thai politics.

This protest, like the Yellow Shirts’ closure of the Bangkok airport toward the end of 2008, had the potential to have extended negative impacts on the broader economy, particularly on foreigners’ confidence. Luckily, the impacts have so far been short-term, partly because these protests and the associated violence were not directly targeted at foreign interests.

To be fair to his readers, Chalongphob might explain that this was not his (politically-motivated) claim at the time of the protests. Back then, TDRI and Chalongphob warned that the red shirt protest would “cause a cut in economic growth of more than 0.5-1 percentage point…” and “Tourism, retail trade and part of transportation have already been hard hit by the political crisis.” Chalongphob himself said: “persistent conflict could suffocate both exports and foreign direct investment. The government has to get rid of the violence initiated by underground armed forces. If violence drags on, foreign investors will move their target to other countries and orders of goods from abroad could dry up…”.

So, at that critical time,  Chalongphob could be considered to be calling for a crackdown. He was also off target on the economic impacts . Long-time readers of PPT will know that, at the time, PPT questioned the dire economic warnings (here, here and here). Yesterday, we also commented on some of the reasons why foreign investors like Thailand.

In his recent article he also states this:

Many have tried to link the political divisiveness to socio-economic disparities. This is highly misleading. The divisiveness is really only around one person, Mr. Thaksin Shinawatra, the currently fugitive former Prime Minister.

Apart from sounding like he is an op-ed writer for The Nation, Chalongphob is simply wrong on both counts. The view that the red shirts are only about Thaksin is one that was common amongst yellow shirts, the army leadership, and the Democrat Party-led government. It seems they learn nothing from the resilience of the red shirt movement and the huge support it has.

More puzzling is the claim that socio-economic disparities are meaningless for politics. PPT would have thought that the government’s own “populist” policies, handouts, and other actions had debunked this view.The various reconciliation committees,set up by the government, also appear to confirm the political salience of inequality.

We wonder about Chalongphob’s politics and assume that he is an unreconstructed supporter of the regime when he says:

Talks of reconciliation are just red herrings. How can one reconcile black and white?

PPT has never been much encouraged by the Abhisit-directed PR exercise in “reconciliation.” However, Chalongphob seems to think that there can be no political peace. We think that’s a pretty accurate reflection of the establishment’s unwillingness to make the historic compromise demanded of it. The establishment seems to have no conception of compromise for it sees it as a loss of its privilege, power and wealth.

Then there is this odd comment:

Fortunately, there will be a general election in 2011. This should reduce the risk of another major protracted street protest….

Now isn’t that exactly what the opposition called for, time and again, since this government was placed in its present position? Why now and not then? Clearly because Chalongphob and his ilk didn’t think their party had a chance back then.

PPT was provocative in our headline because Chalongphob’s political perspective is not so much dumb as revealing of his ideology and that of so many in his one-tenth of the population who are very privileged.

For a more interesting perspective in the same forum see Nicholas Farrelly’s contribution.

Updated: Monarchy essential to life as we know it

In a follow-up to PPT’s earlier post on Army boss General Prayuth Chan-ocha’s statement that fighting red shirts and Thaksin Shinawatra is the army’s major task, we can now add his comment in The Nation: “”Everyone is obligated, in an act of loyalty, to root out certain individuals from offending the country’s revered institution because without the monarchy, we may live but things will never be the same…”.

In our earlier post we commented that the fear of Thaksin has reached absurd levels amongst the royalist elite, where Prayuth seems to have been promoted to chief busker. In this most recent quote, Prayuth is establishing the basis for this absurdity. The elite feels that the monarchy is at the heart of all that is good, for them, in Thailand: inequality and exploitation,  the dominance of Sino-Thai capital, fabulous wealth for a few, all welded together as economic and political power based on the political exploitation of the masses, double standards and the repression of all opposition.

And, threateningly, he is also making the case for even greater political repression.

Update: In The Nation, Prayuth is reported to have said: “It’s not right to attack anyone in the shadows. If you want to express your views, you should come out in the open to speak and explain.” Right, criticize the monarchy and get arrested, thrown in jail and be left to rot. PPT think Prayuth wasn’t serious.