CFR on Thailand’s democratic failure

Some choice quotes from Joshua Kurlantzick, a Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. The article is worth a read in full:

Thailand boasted a large, educated middle class, one of the best-performing economies in the world, and a relatively robust civil society. By the late 1990s, Thailand had held several free elections and passed a reformist constitution that enshrined greater protections for civil liberties and created a wealth of new institutions designed to root out graft and ensure civil rights. In its 1999 report on freedom in the world, monitoring organization Freedom House ranked Thailand a “free” nation.

Today, however, Thailand looks less like a success story and more like an example of how democracy can fail. Since a 2006 military coup, Thailand has reverted to a kind of soft authoritarianism: the military plays an enormous role in determining politics; the Thai middle class has become increasingly anti-democratic; and security forces have used threats, online filtering, arrests, and killings to intimidate opponents of a government sanctioned by the armed forces and Thailand’s monarchy. Freedom House recently ranked Thailand as only “partly free,” and the country has sunk near the bottom of all developing nations in rankings of press freedom.

Critical of Thaksin Shinawatra’s period in power and his authoritarian tendencies, the author adds:

By 2005, when Thaksin was re-elected, again with massive support from the poor, he dominated the country’s political landscape. And yet Thailand had not become Equatorial Guinea or Libya; the Thai middle classes, who had led the democratic revolution before, could have fought back against Thaksin at the ballot box, through the remaining independent news outlets or in the courts. But instead, like middle classes in many emerging democracies today, they had grown disillusioned with democracy, believing that it had delivered only elected autocracy and that it would empower the poor at their expense.

They supported the 2006 coup. Kurlantzick says: “The Thai coup, unfortunately, only triggered a total meltdown. Thaksin might have damaged the country’s weak democracy, but the military ruined it.” Indeed.

Updated: More internet censorship likely

There had been some hopes, harbored by the more optimistic, that the draconian provisions of the post-2006 coup Computer Crimes Act might be liberalized. That hope seems to have turned to despair, according to a long report in the Bangkok Post. The conservatives are well out in front on this.

The story now seems bleaker than ever. More cyber-snooping, more censorship, less attention to human rights, more charges and, potentially, more people in the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime’s prisons.

Supinya Klangnarong, secretary-general of the Campaign for Popular Media Reform, says that conservatives want “more severe punitive measures against so-called national security threats…”. She adds: “We believe that pushing for amendments to the law in parliament now means risking it being changed in the opposite direction, leaning towards harsher punishment for violation by internet users…”.

Conservatives like the prime minister have “thrown … support behind a so-called ‘online scout project’ to monitor improper content on the internet which poses a threat to national security and the highest institution.” This is a vigilante movement for the monarchy, being the middle class and internet generation’s equivalent of the right-wing Village Scouts.

Within the Senate, a panel dominated by the appointed senators “has been formed for the specific task of protecting the monarchy and monitoring anti-monarchy movements…”. Meanwhile, the “police are also setting up a special force to monitor online actions deemed in violation of the act…”.

Things can only to worsen as this government continues to be led and dominated by conservatives and royalists.

Update: 2bangkok.com has a picture posted (scroll down to the second picture for 31 July) that adds considerable visual weight to the idea that the conservatives are fully in command of internet censorship and that things are likely get worse. In the picture of a huge billboard, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is pictured apparently reporting an inappropriate web site. The billboard calls for Thais to come together in reporting inappropriate web sites. This could refer to all kinds of sites but the fact is that most sites the regime blocks have to do with the monarchy. Most people know the message means “protect the monarchy.” Abhisit has thrown his weight behind this task and encourages vigilantes.

Disingenuous regime maintains totalizing control of politics

Yesterday the Democrat Party candidate for the upcoming Bangkok by-election disingenuously claimed to a Channel 7 TV reporter that he had no advantage from his Puea Thai Party opponent being in jail. That was followed by the Democrat Party and Abhisit Vejjajiva’s personal spokesman Thepthai Senapong making seemingly stupid but actually considered statements that labeled the opposition Puea Thai Party candidate Korkaew Pikulthong’s campaign slogan should be “Vote for Korkaew, Troublemaker, Terrorist, Number 4.”

The statement was meant to influence middle-class voters. At the same time, it accused a candidate alleged but not proven to have committed any crime. We know Thepthai meant the comment because he later stated that he’d say “terrorist suspect” in future. Expect more such dirty politics from the so-called Democrats as they cannot afford to lose this by-election when the opposition candidate is locked-up, can’t campaign, and has been prevented from engaging in even basic requirements of the Election Commission.

Recall that Abhisit has threatened the Puea Thai Party with all kinds of legal trouble if they say the government did anything wrong in April and May. In fact, having demanded this of Puea Thai, Abhisit should now sack Thepthai, but the usual double standards are at work.

This dirty work was followed by the prime minister launching a phone-in to get ideas about reconciliation. It seems that the Abhisit regime is interested in short ideas. Recent meetings have allowed 2-minute comments and now a phone-in, lending itself to short and unverifiable interpretation. A phone-in at least means that Democrat leaders don’t have to come face-to-face with their opponents.

Meanwhile, and as expected, the Bangkok Post reports that the “Criminal Court on Friday rejected a request for the release on bail of political activist Sombat Boonngamanong who has been charged with violating the emergency decree.” Recall that he was arrested while engaged in the heinous act of tying ribbons of remembrance at the Rajaprasong intersection but on a charge of gathering with other red shirts at Lat Phrao following the government’s bloody crackdown on red shirt protesters.

No release, no bail and further detention at the Region 1 Border Patrol Police headquarters in Pathum Thani province.

Of course, all other red shirts were also refused bail again. Keeping opponents locked up remains important to the authoritarian but still shaken regime.

In amongst all the nonsense, this is worth a read. Suranand Vejjajiva TELLS the Democrat Party what they should know but aren’t prepared to understand.

Fighting the working class

Patrick Winn in the Global Post has a useful take on recent events in Thailand. He notes that the Abhisit Vejjajiva government is “now struggling — and failing — to find common ground with a mobilized, largely working-class faction that detests them.”

That government has worked hard to argue that there has been no class basis to recent political events, not least because the huge demonstration of working class support for the red shirt protesters scared the pants off the capitalist and middle class supporters of the government. Those classes are more used to ordering the working class about and exploiting their labor than facing rebellion.

The organization of the working class has been prevented, smashed and demeaned by a string of governments for decades. Whenever the working class shows any militancy, the ruling class moves quickly to squash it, and they have done it again in 2010.

Journalist Winn has been talking with Peter Warr, an economics professor at the Australian National University. Warr is a pretty much straight up and down neoclassical economist with an interest in poverty reduction. He’s done considerable work for the World Bank on Thailand, including studies of incomes and poverty. A recent publication by Warr on poverty in Asia can be downloaded here.

Winn says that Warr believes the Thai government and its opponents have “overlooked” the impact of the “U.S.-born global economic crisis has played … in prodding disaffected Thais to join anti-government demonstrations…”.

Warr argues that the Thai economy is remarkably reliant on exports. Most of these are now manufactured goods, and “in recent years these have been hit “by dwindling foreign demand.” This has resulted in “waves of layoffs and slashed hours” for the country’s workers. He believes that it is the workers in export-oriented industries who are mostly “unskilled and semi-skilled people from the north and northeast,” who are the “very people who are the support base for the ‘Red Shirts’.”

Government data confirms this general assessment, with economists showing that there has been a sharp deterioration for workers and a shift of income to capital. All of the productivity gains made by workers have essentially gone to business owners through very high rates of profit. The share of income now accruing to workers is at an unprecedented low rate.

The red shirt rhetoric was attractive to the workers who see, feel and know that they are worse off. The call to join a fight against the “governing ‘aristocrats’ who’ve long shafted ‘the commoners’,” was eagerly taken up.

Warr sees the protests as “… attractive to those wounded by the economy and seeking a vehicle for their frustration…”. Under the Abhisit government, Warr asserts, “they’ve lost out. And they’re right…. They don’t know why. But it’s easy to portray their deteriorating circumstances as being caused by the government.”

Winn observes that: “Many among the Red Shirts faithful claim grievances that run deeper than electoral or economic cycles. They insist they’re shut out of a hierarchy of strings and connections that keeps nearly 70 percent of Thailand’s assets in the hands of its wealthiest 20 percent.” His article cites several examples of grim tales from the laid-off in a faltering export and consumer economy.

In fact, inequality is worse than this, for wealth, income, assets and property are all highly skewed to the richest.

Economist Warr is no fan of Thaksin and tends to view him as a populist who came to power in an expanding economy – albeit slower than before the economic crisis of 1997-98 – and discounts the political aspects of Thaksin’s economic policies targeting the poor.

Poor rich boy and finance minister, Korn Chatikavanij, makes the now well-rehearsed Democrat Party lament that claims the red shirts “have distorted economic facts to rile up followers.” He says the current regime has advanced “Thailand’s largest-ever stimulus package, a $44-billion bundle of infrastructure and social welfare projects aimed in large part at Thailand’s poor.” He claims that the government “hasn’t received enough credit…”. In the northeast, the Democrat Party has “very little popularity, very little understanding…”.

Like most in his party, born of privilege and wealth, Korn finds it impossible to conceive that Thaksin somehow found and released a political groundswell of support that relies more on political opportunity than on money spent. There’s an ideological block, because yellow shirts like Korn believe that Thaksin’s support is all bought.

While Korn might have been educated in the elite schools and universities of the U.K., it is unlikely that he understands the full historical and contemporary significance of the comparison he makes to relatively poorer Scotland and voting patterns in the U.K.

Arguments by the government that portray the red shirt uprising as anything but a class struggle are seriously misguided. But that’s what one would expect of the government of those who benefit most from the current ownership of the country. Despite everything, in relative terms, they are doing better than ever. The rich exploiters can continue while their government, backed by the military, remains in power. All they have to do is to continue to come up with ways to keep it in office.

Ji Ungpakorn on academic silence

PPT reproduces the latest article we have seen from Ji Ungpakorn, from University World News:

THAILAND: Silence of the academic community

Giles Ji Ungpakorn
13 June 2010
Issue: 128

Universities in Bangkok will be opening now. Because the anti-government Red Shirts were crushed with violence last month and 80 or so people killed, I don’t think there will be any immediate activity by the students.

People will be discussing very heatedly among themselves. Students will be worried about writing an essay criticising the status quo and any academic who thought they might encourage argument and debate will keep quiet.

If you’re not particularly politically active, you won’t notice any difference. There will still be university seminars but they won’t be discussing why the King did not come out and say something about the killings.

They will not be discussing if the government of Abhisit Vejjajiva was genuinely democratically elected. And they will not be discussing what kind of society Thailand should be in the future.

In the department of political science and in the department of history you can’t really function unless you discuss things of this nature. So academics have avoided discussing some of the fundamental issues in Thailand. There is a long tradition of avoiding and stifling free thinking and debate.

I had to leave Thailand in 2009 because I wrote a book criticising the 2006 military coup. I said the coup received legitimacy from the King. In my opinion it is impossible to write a book criticising the coup without trying to discuss the role of the monarchy in protecting or not protecting democracy in Thailand.

I was charged with lese-majesty for insulting the King which I didn’t do but this law is being used by various elites to try to silence the opposition. You can go to prison for up to 15 years for lese-majesty but if you write two separate sentences in one book you might be sentenced to 30 years.

The trials are held in secret and no one is allowed to publish what the person said so there is no transparency in this process. I am in exile but I have not committed what would be internationally regarded as a criminal offence.

I only wrote a book defending democracy! Chulalongkorn University, where I was an assistant professor in the department of political science, started out by refusing to sell my book in the university bookshop even though they have sold numerous other books of mine in the past.

The university actually gave my book to [Thailand's] Special Branch: this shows there is no real academic freedom. The bookshop is part of the university; its management committee is made up of university officials and the deputy rector was chair of the management committee.

More recently, Professor Suthachai Yomprasert in the history department at Chulalongkorn was accused by the military command of plotting to overthrow the monarchy. (see University World News)

Last month, just after the crackdown, Suthachai was summoned to report to the army and was detained without charge. Many others are still in detention but, because of a big campaign within Thailand and abroad, the authorities were forced to release him on 31 May.

Suthachai will be facing charges, probably terrorism. He is an open supporter of the Red Shirts but anyone who knows him knows he is not a terrorist. He uses his brains and his writing to support democracy.

The vast majority of the academics in Thailand have sided with the military and the royalist Yellow Shirts. Ordinary people have been protesting on the side of the (pro-democracy) Red Shirts and their strength of numbers has given some academics encouragement.

But university lecturers who side with the Red Shirts have become targets of the military whereas academics who side with the Yellow Shirts do not face punishment even though they closed down the international airport. It is the Red Shirts who are facing charges of terrorism and sanctions for attempting to overthrow the monarchy.

When the universities were completely bound by the state there was at least a feeling that academics had a degree of freedom. So-called university autonomy, basically the introduction of market forces, was resisted for a long time in Thai universities.

It was only after the 2006 coup, during the 2006-07 military junta, that university autonomy was pushed through a military-appointed parliament. The rectors of all the main universities were part of this parliament.

Academics who sympathised with the Red Shirts may find they have difficulty getting their contracts renewed, if they are on short-term contracts brought in as part of the new university autonomy.

But I doubt we will see mass firings because most of them have either kept their heads down or they support the royalists and the 2006 coup d’etat.

It was shocking for me that the majority of my colleagues in the faculty of political science, people who teach subjects such as democratisation, sided with the coup d’etat that overthrew the elected government. There is no debate over whether or not you should oppose a government you don’t like through democratic means.

But it is not because they are afraid for their jobs the majority of academics have chosen to side with the Yellow Shirts. I think it is a middle-class thing. The middle classes in Bangkok may be irritated from time to time by corruption and authoritarianism, but in general they are doing quite well and they see the Red Shirts as a bunch of ignorant poor workers and farmers.

They are afraid this movement will challenge their wellbeing and result in a redistribution of wealth.

The military and the government have won this particular round and the struggle for democracy has taken a setback. The Red Shirts are regrouping at grass-roots level but it is the status quo that now prevails.

Still protecting the monarchy

The Christian Science Monitor (8 June 2010) has a report that links the Abhisit Vejjajiva government and the military in a campaign to protect the monarchy. Nothing much new in this, and PPT has said a similar thing several times. However, it is useful to consider context.

The story begins by recounting the fact that two weeks after the 10 April clashes with red-shirt protesters, the military’s spokesman produced the imfamous chart linking “more than 20 opposition figures, including three former prime ministers, key protest leaders, several exiled activists, and a Thai restaurant owner in California” in a plot to overthrow the monarchy.

These charges are said to “carry a sting: Royal defamation is punishable with jail time, and closet republicans live in fear of exposure. The claims also stirred dark memories of 1976, when a royalist militia massacred Thai students accused of similar disloyalty.”

Accusing the red shirts and anyone vaguely associated with them of republican tendencies just served to fan the hatred of the red shirts amongst royalist yellow shirts and much of Bangkok’s middle class: “the royalist fears stirred by the demonstrations – and repackaged by the military for media consumption – remain a potent force.”

The government continues to talk of threats against the nation and “the institution” and has used the fear of further red shirt action to extend emergency rule for a further month. “Human rights groups say hundreds of activists have been detained without trial, including several accused by the military of plotting against the crown.”

Interestingly, the CSM claims that there is a “backlash against the king.” It notes that “red-shirt leaders repeatedly criticized Thailand’s aristocracy as a brake on democracy and development, a message that resonated with rural and working-class supporters. In private, some activists go further, saying the royal family must butt out of politics or face the consequences if their allies lose power.”

A businesman is cited: “They think they own the country. They think they own us…”. PPt thinks that’s a pretty accurate assessment. It means that Abhisit is but a footman for the palace.

The palace’s foot soldiers are the military and they are also threatened by the “backlash against royal tutelage.”

The CSM says that Abhisit has thus had to back “the military’s campaign to root out republican plots and claimed that red-shirt protests had a ‘higher purpose’ than forcing new elections.” Well, yes, but he also believes that the monarchy is the bedrock of Thai society and for his class’s rule.

Citing judicial statistics collated by David Streckfuss, the CSM talks of a clampdown and says the statistics “show a wave of court judgments that have gone unnoticed, possibly because of social stigma. Between 2005 and 2009, the number of Thais prosecuted under the law rose from 33 a year to 164…”.

Some analysts – PPT would also agree – “argue that the intimidation of opponents using draconian laws may become the norm as long as the military and the palace perceive an existential threat.”

Abhisit dissembles

PPT has mentioned the Wat Pathum Wanaram temple beginning with this post and including pictures and video in this page. We do not proposed to re-state the information posted there.

However, PPT was surprised to know that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who has ultimate responsibility for the officially-reported 88 deaths and almost 2,000 injuries, has used exactly the same excuse for deaths and injuries during the Rajaprasong crackdown as for the 10 April failed crackdown on Rajadamnoen Avenue.

Well, to be honest, we are not surprised, for we have come to know Abhisit as a stubborn political animal who knows exactly who is audience is. Because he panders to the yellow shirts, royalists, the elite and the trembling middle class, he can get away with all kinds of spin. They believe him and he cares little for opposition views of any kind.

When Puea Thai Party “parliamentarian Anudith Nakornthap showed a photograph of marksmen in army uniform pointing rifles in the direction of the temple from an elevated train track, saying that troops shot at unarmed protesters within. Abhisit rejected the evidence out of hand.

His Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban had said that the “photo may have been taken the day after troops had secured the area.” Abhisit declared that “autopsies showed that four of the six people found dead at the temple were shot on level ground and not from a higher trajectory.” For Abhisit this means there were no soldiers on the train tracks firing on those in the temple. Forget all of the evidence including numerous reports from the international media.

Abhisit also raises the government’s other story on this. He says that the “preliminary investigations also showed the victims were shot in the back, chest and arms, in some cases as many as three times.” The government is claiming that “unknown gunmen may have been firing from the back of the temple.” This is the army’s story as well. Red shirts shooting red shirts….

This line has been maintained since the failed 10 April crackdown, with Abhisit claiming that the use of deadly force was entirely responsive. As he puts it, “The government and army had no intention to attack people…. What had happened was there was a militia group which attacked the military and that led to clashes. We will explain this fact and we show our sincerity by allowing an independent committee to investigate…”.

In another report in the Bangkok Post, Abhisit is quoted as saying that “the government [n]ever used any force to clear protesters from the main rally venue at Ratchaprasong intersection…”. Oddly, he adds: “I admit that force was used during the crackdown to solve people’s troubles…”. What he means, it seems, is that the actual stage site was not cleared by the army and permits claims that a “mystery” group of renegade red shirts killed their brothers and sisters.

Abhisit knows that his preferred audience will believe this even when media reports provide no support for the government’s position. Again, we urge readers to examine the similarities between this statement and the Israeli government’s claims in recent days. There is an astounding resonance. Is the Abhisit government using Israeli advisers?

Finally, Abhisit shifts blame and responsibility to everyone but his own government: “… we cannot deny that recent violence has occurred, sparked by people instilling hatred and spreading misinformation…”.

PPT suggests readers go back to the events of 10 April for accounts of the initial use of force and the government’s development of this argument and, as we have said many times, look at the weight of death and injury tolls.

PPT doubts that any truly independent investigation will ever seek the answers. The government will simply dissemble and appoint its own people to investigate such as the highly politicized Department of Special Investigation or the entirely compromised and ineffective National Human Rights Commission.

Many on the government side once pointed to Thaksin Shinawatra’s failures on human rights when he was prime minister and how he avoided scrutiny. The situation is worse now. At present, the Abhisit government essentially has no legal or other scrutiny.

Yellow shirts opposed to negotiations

The Nation (30 March 2010) reports on a press conference held Monday by the yellow-shirted People’s Alliance For Democracy (PAD) which “opposed political talks about a parliamentary dissolution. It said the solution proposed by the red-shirt protesters had a hidden agenda to help fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.”

Making the claim that the “red shirts were not qualified to negotiate with the government as they were not representatives of a majority, but just Thaksin’s proxy,” PAD coordinator and secretary-general of the New Politics Party Suriyasai Katasila said must have forgotten the time that PAD demonstrated against three governments or has somehow convinced himself that PAD represents “the majority.”

Suriyasai added that by talking to the red shirts, the government was recognizing the hated “Thaksin regime.”

Speaking for PAD, Suriyasai took the same line as the government, parroting Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s claim that parliamentary dissolutions are “a normal practice in the parliamentary system” but only so long as they are setting the agenda. Suriyasai claimed that the “red-shirt proposal aimed only to help Thaksin get amnesty…”.

Suriyasai engaged in double standards when he said that the red shirts “should not use street protests, violence and innocent people as bargaining chips to achieve their goals…”. Leaving aside allegations of violence, PPT has no doubt that every red shirt supporter who hears this will simply ask why PAD could demonstrate for months on end and occupy Government House and the airports with impunity, but refuse to allow other groups a constitutional right to demonstrate.

PAD actually goes further down the double-standards road in calling for the government to ditch the talks with the red shirts and, instead, throw them in jail: “enforce the laws to punish wrongdoers and end the illegal protest as well as bring peace to the country…”.

As usual, PAD also opposed “any move to rewrite the military-sponsored Constitution” that was not for a “public benefit.”That’s actually the government’s bargaining point with the red shirts, and shows how any process of rewriting would be stalled. PAD promised to “call a meeting of its network to seek a solution to lead the country out of crisis…”.

The Bangkok Post (www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/35256/pad-warns-govt-to-reject-red-demands) has a similar report. There Suriyasai is reported as claiming the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) are “nominees of Thaksin Shinawatra.”

The notion of PAD somehow becoming bellicose yet again will suit the government. PAD adds the political shove that the government finds helpful when dealing with opponents that claim popular mandates. PAD also allows a stage for the more right-wing and extreme elements of the ruling forces to be expressed. Scared by the size of red shirt rallying and by some of the class conflict rhetoric, PAD provide a potentially convenient point of counter-attack by the government’s middle class and elite supporters.

Talks

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva agreed to talk with the red shirt leaders. When they talked, however, it was little more than a statement of existing positions. This is not to deny that getting the government to the table was a remarkable feat given the intransigence displayed by Abhisit previously; indeed, earlier in the day. As PPT has long pointed out, what Abhisit says and does are often diametrically opposed. While he has often said he is open to negotiations, the conditions he sets mean that there will be none. So getting a change of political mind was a victory of sorts.

There are numerous versions of the reasons for the change of tactics by the government circulating on the blogs, involving the military and the monarchy, but no verifiable accounts.

PPT doesn’t propose to summarize the discussions that were broadcast live to a remarkably quiet Bangkok. PPT assumes that people were watching and listening. Bangkok Pundit has a summary of the talks and the positions taken, and also has a useful listing of the international press coverage.

Some brief observations: It was important to have a live broadcast as this was an opportunity for the red shirts to present their story to the audience that usually doesn’t hear much about their ideas and views via the mainstream media. This may make some difference, but many will continue to view them as uncouth, dark-skinned buffaloes who engage in violent and uncivil acts (see the comments by a yellow-shirted senator at Prachatai).

Abhisit attended with members of the Democrat Party, leaving out the coalition partners. The partner’s responses are yet to be clearly seen. Abhisit also made a play of being “the first prime minister to ever…”. He makes these claims regularly and often they are meaningless. This time, though, he’s right. It is not often that Thai prime ministers talk with opponents in such an open way.

The two sides are a long way apart and the issues revolve around elections, constitutions and the political role of the military. Dr. Weng made the point several times that Abhisit’s government is the result of a coup and extra-parliamentary maneuvering that means Thailand is not a real democracy. Abhisit and his colleagues were never likely to agree to this assessment. Most of Abhisit’s basic positions were no different from those he has made for weeks and these are well known to those accessing the mainstream media.

What was striking, however, was Abhisit’s insistence on constitutional change before an election. He has a patchy track record on this. There have been statements from him on constitutional reform, but these have all fallen into the usual traps. He has made no personal commitment to meaningful constitutional reform and has not personally been engaged with the agenda. It’s the talk but there is no action problem again.

The government’s other line is to say that “elections will solve nothing” while also saying that dissolving parliament is not off the agenda. Many in the middle class and elite will agree with the rejection of elections because they fear the outcome will bring politicians they view as pro-Thaksin back to power. Abhisit may have angered some in his right-wing support base by talking, but nothing he said is going to immediately cause concern for his yellow-shirted supporters in the Democrat Party or more broadly.

By engaging in negotiations, the red shirts risk losing the momentum of the street, while the government might lose some face by its abrupt change of position on negotiations, the negotiations provide gains in terms of time, and the potential a declining/reducing red shirt rally. But the red shirts have come up with surprises in the past couple of weeks that have proven effective, so the political struggle continues even if the public terrain has changed.

It is interesting to note the appearance of a few stories that present a red shirt protesters perspective in some of the media today (see an example here). Where have they been for the past few weeks? There is also a report  of a petition by Thai and international professors calling for an election “in due course.” Perhaps this is a coincidence of timing, but like a similar petition on lese majeste, the report in the media makes it seem remarkably tepid.

Red/yellow differences and political tactics

PPT seldom cites Thanong Khanthong as an accurate source for anything other than the views that circulate in the yellow-shirt rumor mill or for opinions filched from the ASTV/Manager. He is one of those “opinion” page writers who thinks that any opinion, no matter how outlandish, deserves to matter, even when it is built on everything other than a verifiable source.

In The Nation (26 March 2010) opinion pages today, Thanong has his usual mix of old and new rumors, but he also reveals a strange irritation that the current red shirt rally has been non-violent. He seems to share the opinion of the horrid General Panlop Pinmanee who more than a week ago said the red-shirt rally was failing because it was more dramatic. Thanong concludes: “Without a dramatic physical clash, there is no way the red shirts have bargaining power over the government.”

He later blames all the little bombs going off on the red shirts, suggesting their “true” core, but doesn’t explain why he arrives at this position in the absence of any evidence.

Thanong also seems miffed by what he sees as the red shirts changing their demands and he lists a bunch of what he claims these are. PPT isn’t sure what he does with his time, but all the “demands” he lists have been a part of the red shirt discourse for some time. We get the feeling that Thanong is complaining that these red shirt positions on amart, inequality, double standards and so on have actually move the political discourse onto their turf.

Then he makes some quite accurate comments regarding the differences between the red shirt protest and the yellow-shirted People’s Alliance for Democracy. Thanong says the “red shirts do not enjoy the luxury of time as the yellow shirts did in 2008 when they staged a marathon rally before succeeding in seeing out the Samak and Somchai governments. Then, the military, the judiciary and the Bangkok middle-class appeared to play the same tune with the yellow shirts. Even so it took 193 days to unseat two governments.” In fact “appeared” is not a strong enough word. There’s no doubt that these three groups gave whole-hearted support to PAD and its mission. Sounding very much like a Democrat Party politician PPT heard, Thanong says the “red shirts are only getting support from the police.” He continues: “The Bangkok middle-class, the military and the judiciary are not on their side.”

Thanong’s conclusion is that “it is almost impossible for the red shirts to force out Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva through the normal game of Thai politics.” And adds, “Abhisit understands the game, so he is in no hurry to hold talks with the red shirts. In fact, it’s unlikely he would hold any formal talks with the protest leaders.” In any case, Thanong says that if the red shirts “want to talk about social injustice, Abhisit would be happy to dish out some populist policies in exchange crowd dispersal.”

PPT thinks Thanong is correct to observe the differences in the red shirt and yellow shirt rallying. He is also right to consider that Abhisit is unlikely to do anything serious about negotiating.

The government’s control of the media means that it can manage the messages and images projected. It seems the government is happy enough for its supporters to arrange small, media-oriented “demonstrations” of support from what the media portray as the “silent majority,” to promote huge displays of military “security” and to let the small bombs maintain “the fear” amongst the middle class and hope that the red shirt staying power declines.

Of course, in a volatile environment, things can change rapidly. Recall the boost PAD got when violence erupted on 7 October 2008. However, Thanong’s assessment of the red shirt need for violence seems misplaced in circumstances where the red shirt discourse on power remains relatively strong despite government media dominance. But it is tough going for them to maintain the rally and the enthusiasm of supporters.