Academic articles on Thailand II

Here’s the second set of academic journals written on politics, economy, and society in Thailand over the last year and a half.

Some papers are free to download while others are behind a paywall. We have always found authors generous in providing copies if they are contacted.

Here’s the rest of what we found:

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Sinae Hyunm “Disenchanted: Thailand’s indigenisation of the American Cold War, seen through the experience of Gordon Young“

Samson Lim, “Bangkok electric“

Ian Baird  and Urai Yangcheepsutjarit, “Hmong women’s rights and the Communist Party of Thailand“

Journal of Contemporary Asia

Chyatat Supachalasaim, “Thai Youth Liberation as a Politico-Economic Force: A Critique of Hierarchical Capitalism and the Authoritarian State“

Pavin Chachavalpongpun, “On His Majesty’s Service: Why is the Thai Foreign Ministry Royalist?“

Eli Elinoff and Vanessa Lamb, “Environmentalisms in Twenty-First Century Thailand: Continuities, Discontinuities, and Emerging Trajectories“

Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, “Buddhist Majoritarian Nationalism in Thailand: Ideological Contestation, Narratives, and Activism“

Benedicte Chambon, Pierre-Marie Bosc, Cedric Gaillard and Uraiwan Tongkaemkaew, “Using Labour to Characterise Forms of Agriculture: A Thai Family Rubber Farming Case Study“

Tomas Larsson, “Royal Succession and the Politics of Religious Purification in Contemporary Thailand“

Asian Economic Policy Review

Veerayooth Kanchoochat, “Siamese Twin Troubles: Structural and Regulatory Transformations in Unequal Thailand” (tother with comments by Richard Doner and Pasuk Phongpaichit

Lese majeste indictment

Saharat at a 2020 rally. Clipped from Prachatai

Prachatai reports that former novice monk “Saharat Sukkhamla, 21, has been indicted on a royal defamation charge resulting from a speech he gave during a protest organized by the students’ rights group Bad Student on 21 November 2020.”

The complaint against Saharat was filed by Ratthanaphak Suwannarat. After Saharat reported to police, it was “more than 5 months before the public prosecutor decided to indict him.”

The public prosecutor decided that Saharat’s speech insults the king:

The indictment gave examples of the offending parts, such as when Saharat ask[ed] why we can only discuss the King’s good deeds but cannot discuss his bad side, and when he said that Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha’s statement that the authorities will use every law against the protesters, even the royal defamation charge, will make the King break his promise, since the King said that the royal defamation law will not be used against citizens.

The public prosecutor said that Saharat’s speech could cause misunderstanding concerning the King, such as making him seem like someone who could harm the country or someone who is dishonest and does not keep his promise or that he will intervene in law enforcement. The public prosecutor also claimed that Saharat intended to harm the monarchy and cause a loss of respect for the monarchy.

It is reported that “Saharat left monkhood in November 2021, saying that he faced pressure from both the Buddhist order and state authorities.”

He has been allowed bail: “The South Bangkok Criminal Court granted Saharat bail on a 200,000-baht security and set the conditions that he may not join a gathering which may cause public disorder, participate in activities which can harm the monarchy, or leave the country without permission.”

Monk gets 112 summons

Via Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) , Prachatai reports that novice monk Saharat Sukkhamla, seen at some protest rallies, “has received a summons from Pathumwan Police Station on a[n Article 112, lese majeste] charge] … relating to a speech he gave at a protest on 21 November 2020.”

Saharat at a 2020 rally. Clipped from Prachatai

That summons was received on 5 July 2021. The summons states “the complaint against him was filed by Ratthanaphak Suwannarat, and that Saharat must report to Pathumwan Police Station on 12 July at 10.00.” Ratthanaphak’s complaint was about a “speech Saharat gave at a protest organized by the students’ rights group Bad Student on 21 November 2020.”

Earlier, “on 25 February 2021, special branch police officers tried to disrobe Saharat, claiming a consensus of the Sangha Supreme Council of Thailand … and an announcement from the National Office of Buddhism” that permitted him to be disrobed. At that time, the police “claimed that Saharat’s actions insulted the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand … and that he caused conflict within the order.” However, they were unable to locate Saharat.

The total number of people now charged since last November is claimed by TLHR to be at least 103, eight of them minors. Saharat seems to be the first monk charged under Article 112.

Further updated: The monk and lese majeste

Many readers will know that the regime has banned monks from protesting. It did this after increasing numbers of monks were showing up at protests.

As one report has it:

Thailand’s National Office of Buddhism (NOB) ordered Buddhist monks to abstain from participating in anti-government protests, adding to rules prohibiting monks from political activity, Buddhistdoor Global reported. The announcement was prompted by photographs of Buddhist monks at ongoing protests….

The NOB has threatened that monks who continue to participate in the protests could be defrocked.

Clipped from Khaosod

But not many – including PPT – will have heard of a monk who has fled into exile, first in December 2019 until May 2020 and again more recently, fearing a lese majeste charge. The story begins:

Phra Panya Seesun glanced at the police summons that had been delivered to his temple outside Bangkok. Within seconds, he grasped that he was being accused of defaming the powerful monarchy, which can carry up to 15 years in prison. It was the start of a painful process that would see him flee Thailand and seek asylum in an undisclosed country, a rare collision of politics and religion in the Buddhist-majority kingdom.

“They’re trying to put me in jail,” Panya told VICE News from the undisclosed location abroad. “If they don’t shut my mouth, there could be a second, a third, ten, or a thousand monks.”

The monk claims it was his “Facebook posts from last year that first attracted attention from the police.” In these posts he shared information about King Vajiralongkorn’s controlling shareholding in Siam Cement. This was and is public knowledge and available in the SCG’s annual reports. But he also pointed out that “some monks were rising through the ranks because they were affiliated and personally selected by the monarchy,” and he “criticized links between the royals and the military-backed government…”. He was especially “outspoken over the fact that Vajiralongkorn has the authority to appoint the Supreme Patriarch, the top position in the Sangha, or Buddhist clergy. The change was adopted in 2017 to keep rules in line with a ‘long tradition’ where the monarch has been responsible for picking the candidate.”

VICE News says that “Panya’s case is unusual,” but insists that it sighted “the original summons for royal defamation.” However, when the monk “reported to the police station, he was told that the charges had changed to violating the country’s computer crimes act…”.

Panya states that the response from royalists to his posts was rabid as they bombarded “him hate messages and physical threats.” He adds that:

Many of the messages came from hugely popular royalists groups led by Thai celebrities. His name spread rapidly online from page to page. Panya estimates that there could have been thousands of hateful comments directed at him from numerous pages.

The monk is now in limbo and seeking asylum. His situation is uncertain. He says returning to Thailand is too dangerous: “I’ve seen that many people are missing. Some have been abducted, some were killed…”.

Update 1: Related, an article by Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang at New Mandala on monks supporting contemporary protest rallies, is well worth reading. He argues that:

The activism of young monks is impressive. Contrary to the conventional view that monks are detached from worldly sufferance, these progressive monks are aware of the Sangha’s role in upholding the status quo and injustice. They want to reinterpret the role of the Sangha anew to serve the people and be the voice of public morality.

Update 2: Khaosod has now covered this story. It says the monk “left the country a month ago.” He states that his decision to flee was because “he stood little chance to prove his innocence…”. Panya stated:

From what I saw on the news, no one won lese majeste cases, no matter how nonsensical the charges may be…. The rulings were mostly abnormal and the interpretation ever more vague.

He won’t say where he is residing, “citing fears that he could end up like so many other exiles marked as critics of the monarchy who ended up dead or missing.”

Phra Panya “is now trying to travel to Europe and seek political asylum status; he believes he is the first Buddhist monk in political exile in recent history…”.

The Economist on the king

The Economist’s story on Thailand this week will be banned in Thailand. It deserves to be widely read, so we reproduce it in full:

A royal pain

As the army and politicians bicker, Thailand’s king amasses more power
He appoints generals, patriarchs and executives, and disposes of crown property as he pleases

3 Jan 2019

IT HAPPENED IN the dead of night, without warning. In late December security forces showed up with a crane at a crossroads in Bangkok and whisked away the monument that stood there. No one admitted to knowing who had ordered the removal, or why. Police stopped an activist from filming it. The memorial itself, which marked the defeat in 1933 of putschists hoping to turn Thailand back into a royal dictatorship, has vanished. It is the second monument to constitutional monarchy to disappear under the military junta that has run Thailand since 2014: in 2017 a plaque celebrating the abolition of absolute monarchy in 1932 was mysteriously replaced with one extolling loyalty to the king.

Making hard men humble

The current king, Maha Vajiralongkorn, has been on the throne for two years. He has unnerved his 69m subjects from the start. When his father, King Bhumibol, died in 2016, he refused to take the throne for nine weeks—despite having waited for it for decades. The delay was intended as a mark of respect, but it was also a way of signalling to the military junta that runs the country that he was determined to make his own decisions. It was only this week that a date was set for his coronation: May 4th. King Vajiralongkorn spends most of his time abroad, in a sumptuous residence near Munich. He even insisted on tweaking the new constitution, after it had already been approved in a referendum, to make it easier to reign from a distance.

King Bhumibol was on the throne for 70 years. Partly because of his clear devotion to the job, and partly because military regimes inculcated respect for the monarchy as a way of bolstering their own legitimacy, he was widely revered. Official adulation for the monarchy endures, but in private King Vajiralongkorn is widely reviled. His personal life is messy: he has churned through a series of consorts, disowning children and even imprisoning relatives of one jilted partner. He has firm ideas about the decorum he should be shown—the picture above shows the prime minister prostrating himself before him—but little sense of the respect he might owe anyone else: his cosseted poodle, elevated to the rank of Air Chief Marshal, used to jump up onto tables to drink from the glasses of visiting dignitaries. The tedious tasks expected of Thai monarchs, such as cutting ribbons and doling out university degrees, he palms off on his more popular sister.

Writing about such things in Thailand is dangerous. The country’s fierce lèse-majesté law promises between three and 15 years in prison for insulting “the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent”. In practice, it has been used to suppress anything that could be construed as damaging to the monarchy, whether true or not, including novels that feature venal princes and academic research that casts doubt on the glorious deeds of the kings of yore.

As his critics are cowed, the king has focused on accumulating personal power. In 2017 the government gave him full control of the Crown Property Bureau (CPB), an agency that has managed royal land and investments for decades and whose holdings are thought to be worth more than $40bn. In 2018 the CPB announced that all its assets would henceforth be considered the king’s personal property (he did, however, agree to pay taxes on them). That makes the king the biggest shareholder in Thailand’s third-biggest bank and one of its biggest industrial conglomerates, among other firms.

With the help of the CPB the king is reshaping an area of central Bangkok adjacent to the main royal palace. The bureau declined to renew the lease of the city’s oldest horse-racing track, the Royal Turf Club, leading to its closure in September after 102 years. An 80-year-old zoo next door closed the same month. The fate of two nearby universities that are also royal tenants remains uncertain. The CPB has not revealed the purpose of the upheaval; Thais assume the king just wants an even bigger palace.

King Vajiralongkorn has also put his stamp on the privy council, a body which has a role in naming the heir to the throne, among other things. It once contained individuals who opposed his becoming king at all. Now it is stuffed with loyal military men. The royal court is ruled with “iron discipline”, according to one local businessman. Leaks about the king’s disturbing conduct have dried up. Some former favourites have found themselves in prison. Hangers-on who traded on their royal connections have been shown the door.

The king’s authority over religious orders has also grown. In 2016 the government granted him the power to appoint members of the Sangha Supreme Council—in effect, Thai Buddhism’s governing body—and to choose the next chief monk, known as the Supreme Patriarch. He did so in 2017, elevating a respected monk from the smaller and more conservative of Thailand’s two main Buddhist orders.

The army, too, is receiving a royal makeover. The commander-in-chief appointed in September, Apirat Kongsompong, is the king’s man. Over the next two years he will supervise the relocation of a regiment and a battalion out of Bangkok, ostensibly to relieve crowding. Security in the city will fall instead to the elite Royal Guard Command, which is directly under the king’s control.

Many contend that it is the king who has pushed the army to hold the oft-delayed election that has at last been called for February 24th. This is not to suggest that the king is a democrat (his actions suggest anything but). Rather, the contest is likely to lead to a weak, chaotic government, which probably suits him well. The constitution the army designed makes it hard for elected politicians to achieve a parliamentary majority. But even if the army retains power behind the scenes, it will have surrendered absolute authority. Either pro-army types or democrats would probably seek royal support to govern, strengthening the king’s position however the vote turns out.

King, sangha and returning royal power

Some time ago, the BBC’s Jonathan Head reported on Wat Dhammakaya that skillfully weaved a story that ended with this:

Thailand is in the midst of a complex and potentially dangerous, triple transition; a delicate royal succession, a battle over the future of Buddhism and a still uncertain political transition to a military-guided democracy.

More than a year later, the dictatorship and the king have again come together in defining the future of the Buddhist sangha.

In 2016, the puppet National Legislative Assembly passed an amendment to the 1962 Sangha Act. The amendment was designed to delay the appointment of Somdet Phra Maha Ratchamangalacharn, known as Somdet Chuang, after he was nominated by the Sangha Supreme Council to be Supreme Patriarch. He was considered by the military junta and palace to be too close to Wat Dhammakaya.

The amendment gave great power to the king as it was he who “selects and appoints a supreme patriarch while the prime minister countersigns the appointment.”

Apparently, though, this was not sufficient. It is now reported that the junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly on Thursday “endorsed the Monk Act, which will enable the [k]ing to appoint or remove senior monks and members of the supreme council of monks.”

“Voting” in the puppet NLA

Speaking to the puppet Assembly, Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said that the king “is recognized in the constitution as the patron of Buddhism and other religions. He said it would be fitting for the [k]ing to appoint or strip senior monks and members of the Sangha Supreme Council of Thailand of their titles, as stipulated in Article 3 of the act.”

Wissanu essentially explained this as a throwback act: “… such royal prerogative was practiced between the reign of King Rama V to King Rama VIII. King Rama VIII’s reign ended in 1939.”

This might be poor reporting as Rama VIII’s reign ended in 1946 when he was found dead by gunshot. What was meant, we think, was that the Act was amended in 1941. We are not sure why 1939 is stated, but perhaps there are readers who know more on this.

The linked article cites Buddhist scholar Surapot Thaweesak on the most recent junta-sponsored amendment.

He stated that the amendment “is tantamount to returning royal power relations between the King and the Sangha to those of King Rama V’s time…”.

Surapot added that “this is a return of royal power.” He concluded: “Thinking from the standpoint of the … state, there will be greater control of the Sangha… But from a democratic standpoint, [Thailand] should be a secular state…”. Surapot correctly claimed that “the act in general will make Buddhism and the Sangha a mechanism to support conservative ideology.”

Pious king

King Vajiralongkorn has a particular interest in Buddhism and has engaged politically on the sangha several times as crown prince and now as king.

Cleansing and coronation

Some PPT readers may know more about these stories than we do. We’d appreciate and advice at our email: politicalprisonersinthailand@hushmail.com.

Our guess is that the stories we discuss below are probably linked with the big “cleansing” at senior levels of the Buddhist sangha that began with the crackdown on the Dhammakaya sect, then saw senior monks jailed or fleeing the country, and also saw fascist, royal amulet making monk Buddha Issara jailed.

We noticed a further cleansing trend in some rather cryptic media reports that can be seen in the tone of reports at The Nation.

The Nation reported the case of the Lawyers Council of Thailand criticizing police for their violent and forcible detention of a lawyer acting for a client. The client was “a self-proclaimed spirit medium [seeking] to file a defamation complaint against another person…”.

Amid the chaos, the 49-year-old medium, Saengsuriyathep Phramahasuriya, slipped out of the precinct without filing the complaint against Atchariya Ruangratanapong, a lawyer and chairman of the Facebook group for assisting crime victims. She later returned with a new lawyer to file the complaint. That complaint was about accusations that the medium was “insulting the monarchy [by claiming to be a medium of past kings’ spirits] and promoting false information to the public – both accusations denied by her [the medium].”

Soon after, ThaiPBS reported that “Police of the Crime Suppression and Technology Crime Suppression divisions have been ordered to launch a nationwide clampdown on mediums, especially those who claim they have connections with members of the royalty.”

Central Investigation Bureau commissioner Pol Lt-Gen Thitirat Nongharnpitak “said the police had been instructed to first approach the mediums and to tell them to stop the practice…”. Police said “that people … should be told not to believe the mediums as the practice of mediumship is un-Buddhist.”

The police claim to have “nabbed at least three mediums who claimed to have supernatural powers.  One of them was removed of his strange hairstyle from which he claimed to derive his supernatural powers … adding that not one medium has faced criminal litigation.”

This report was confirmed in another at the Bangkok Post. That more detailed report states that many mediums “claimed to be possessed by the spirits of the past kings and their followers lost a huge amount of money to these psychics…”.

It added that the “crackdowns have been carried out secretly over the past two weeks with at least three mediums netted.” The report confirms that no charges had been laid by police.

Police said “the issue connected to people’s faith and belief can be sensitive…”. It was added that police “do not want people to see that police are intimidating these mediums…. However, if we let this situation go on any longer, the mediums could exploit their victims by asserting their claims they are vested with supernatural power, which is not real.”

Pol Lt Gen Thitirat Nonghanpitak, a police commissioner “said police were enforcing the law swiftly as some mediums were posing as the spirits of those in the high institutions ‘which is completely inappropriate’.” Well, harassing, warning, cutting hair….

Police say they “nabbed a couple who claimed to serve as a medium for King Rama IX in Nakhon Pathom after they organised a rite which was widely shared on YouTube.” Another in Chachoengsao claimed to be a “medium for King Rama V…. This person, who applied makeup and dressed like King Rama V, ran an unlicensed clinic which doubles as a fortune telling outlet.”

Yet another man “claimed to be the medium of Phra Sri Ariyametrai, who was the fifth life in the Lord Buddha’s past, police said. He claimed he could foretell people’s future and cleanse them of their sins.”

Some mediums went further and “claimed they could be possessed by the spirits of multiple kings.”

The mediums detained by police, who did not name them, were given a “talking to” and were released after they “agreed to stop the spiritual possession business.”

The Technology Crime Suppression Division is also being used “to track down the mediums who are operating businesses online. They would be summonsed for talks with the police.”

Such efforts do seem congruent with the broader cleansing that is taking place prior to the king’s coronation.

Perhaps surprising is the fact that, as with Buddha Issara, such use of royal names is not being treated as lese majeste. That might be a good thing and represent a change in “policy,” although there’s also the relationship between the mediums, their supposed powers and those in power.

Updated: Dumber than a bag of hammers I

Thailand’s police chief Pol Gen Chakthip Chaijinda, a junta man, has “returned to Bangkok from Frankfurt on Wednesday — without the fugitive former monk from Wat Samphanthawong he hoped to escort back to Thai soil from Germany.”

He trotted off to Frankfurt, presumably in a first class seat, on Sunday. Not just him. The Bangkok Post says three other senior police are in Germany for a few more days. Social media says a total of 13 or 14 of “Thailand’s finest” flitted over to arrest the monk.

They expected to be able to grab Phra Phrom Methee and escort him back to Thailand “to face charges connected with the temple fund embezzlement scandal.”

Perhaps they thought they could talk him into coming back. Maybe they thought they could abduct him. It might have been that they thought German police would hand him over.

Whatever they thought, they were dumber than a bag of hammers. The monk sought asylum on arrival in Germany. There’s no chance he’s heading back to Thailand until due process has been exhausted.

Of course, Thailand’s senior police know nothing of due process. They operate on the basis of who has power, money, influence and connections. They are willing to turn over alleged criminals or political opponents of other regimes at the drop of a hat and hang the notion of a justice system.

They have provided Chinese authorities with persons approved for political asylum and resettlement in third countries. They have allowed Chinese police and security agencies to operate on Thai soil and arrest and take “prisoners” back to China. Legal process? Not even a thought about that.

They expect other governments to behave in the same corrupt and illegal ways they do. So we see a Cambodian transported to Bangkok for apparently having something to do with embarrassing The Dictator. We guess Thai hit squads have operated in neighboring countries, eliminating Wuthipong Kachathamakul or Ko Tee, a political opponent.

Fortunately, Germany’s police do act according to the law, This must astound Thailand’s police chief who now looks like a complete moron after his expensive, taxpayer-funded excursion. But, if he sticks with the required haircut maybe no one will officially notice his profound idiocy.

Update: Having caused himself to lose face, the police chiefs response is not unexpected. He’s going after others. The Nation reports that: “Investigators in the border province of Nakhon Phanom have requested a court to issue arrest warrants for the five suspects – three of them Thais and two Laos nationals…”. It is reported that they too have fled Thailand into Laos. The police will be hoping that the Lao authorities will send them back. That may ease a big red face.

Recycling an imagined past

The nationalist trilogy, put together by a king and used and misused ever since, most usually by fascist military dictatorships, and ground into people from school to shopping center, is in the news.

New king and a crackdown on unsound Buddhist bosses and the propaganda of the military dictatorship come together in a curious mix of police commando raids against monks, claimed to be corrupt  lawbreakers, and then apologies from The Dictator for the treatment of one fascist monk, assessments of state propaganda and the ill-timed royal launch of something called “Buddhism Promotion Week.”

The last report features mainly pictures of a jolly Princess Sirindhorn attending ceremonies with senior monks – presumably not the arrested lot – for Buddhism Promotion Week, coinciding with coincides with Visakha Bucha Day. It also shows Privy Councillor General Surayud Chulanont who was dispatched by King Vajiralongkorn to make merit on the absent king’s behalf for the deceased king and the now never seen queen from the last reign. The ceremony took place at the increasingly reclaimed area of the so-called Royal Plaza.

Bad timing when a bunch of senior monks are arrested, accused of all manner of crimes, but perhaps a part of the new reign’s “cleansing” of Buddhism. That “cleansing” has the possibility of assisting The Dictator’s electoral campaigning so long as the bad monks are not linked to him.

The Nation’s special report (linked above) on the military dictatorship’s throwback nationalist propaganda is worth reading. It covers Thai Niyom (Thai-ism) – an effort to promote the rightist concept of “Thainess,” the junta’s “patriotic” histories, the archaic costume party royalism, also promoted by the king, and crappy soaps that, as one academic says, are escapism:

“It shows the mental illness of our society…. Today we’re living in conflict, especially on the political front. Watching comical shows and fantasy soaps can temporarily heal people’s hearts. In reality we remain divided, and the fantasy is that we are united.”

The junta just craves devotion and adulation they imagine for earlier ages, located somewhere in the 1910s or late 1950s. As poorly educated, unthinking automaton royalists, the best they can do in this sphere is recycling.

Buddha Issara arrested II

We continue to be mystified regarding the motives for the arrest of Buddha Issara, now defrocked and held in jail, now known as Suwit Thongprasert.

We are not sure how his arrest relates to that of other senior monks, although such reorganizations or “cleaning” of the senior monkhood have previously occurred with a royal succession and/or a new political regime.

The story is now that he was arrested for actions by “a group of anti-Yingluck Shinawatra government demonstrators he led which robbed Special Branch police of guns during their protest on Feb 10, 2014.” We mentioned this yesterday.

It is added that the “case also involves using the initials of the names of the late King Rama IX and … the Queen … on the back of Buddhist amulets without royal permission.” This seems to relate to a case discussed some time ago as a lese majeste accusation.

At the time we stated that he may be a detestable person and worse but that does not mean the accusation of lese majeste is any less ridiculous.

It is also added that the arrest warrant for the monk, issued by the Criminal Court, involved both lese majeste and “charges of ang-yee (running an illegal secret organisation)…”. The latter is a law that’s been on the books probably longer than Article 112, and was initially enacted for the control of Chinese “secret societies” during the absolute monarchy.

Tell us this isn’t a mysterious case. That probably means big powers are involved.