Downgrading the disgraceful NHRC

Regular readers will know that PPT has no time for the failed National Human Rights Commission. It is irrelevant to human rights, is led by a military-royalist flunkey, and most of its members have no qualifications for the job. Worse, this misnamed organization has done damage to persons and their human rights in Thailand. It is, quite simply, a disgrace led by disgraceful persons.

According to a report in Khaosod, the Sub-Committee on Accreditation of the “International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (ICC), Thailand’s Office of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) should be downgraded from its current status of ‘A’ to ‘B’.”

B? Is there a Z?

The report on this is available as a PDF. The recommendation is:

Recommendation: The SCA recommends that the NHRCT be downgraded to B status. In accordance with Article 18.1 of the ICC statute, a recommendation to downgrade does not take effect for a period of one year. This allows an opportunity for the NHRCT to provide the documentary evidence necessary to establish its continued conformity with the Paris Principles. The SCA notes that the NHRCT maintains A status for the one year period.

The reasons for the proposed downgrade are: serious concerns about the selection process for Commissioners; concerns about whether members are immune from prosecution for actions taken in good faith in the course of their official duties; concerns that the NHRCT has not been addressing serious human rights violations in a timely manner; and concerns that staff members of the NHRCT were displaying publicly their political affiliations whilst undertaking official functions.

A related Prachatai report states that the consequences of being downgraded are:

• Not being able to express opinions or send documents during the UN’s Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Conference, including, not being able to send the yearly report on human rights situation in Thailand for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the UNHRC. The next round of Thailand UPR is in 2016.
• Thailand’s NHRC would be considered merely as an observer of the regional and international human rights conferences organized by the UNHRC.
• Thailand’s NHRC would not be able to vote in any of the ICC’s decision or apply for the ICC membership.

 

NHRC defends dictators

PPT has lost count of the times that National Human Right Commission boss Amara Pongsapich has trashed human rights.

PPT and many others have long pointed to the failure of the NHRC. Its political makeup and position is royalist and militarist, which means that it protects the “rights” of abusers and the “rights” of the state.

The Nation reports that an “award” ceremony organized by the morally bankrupt NHRC was meant to honor several activists with Outstanding Human Rights awards to mark Human Rights Day.

Several groups of students showed up to protest and “to condemn the NHRC’s work and the ongoing martial law.” The NHRC tried to silence them. In addition, a representative of one of the awardees, the Dao Din Group, “tried to speak out of turn onstage had to be dragged away.”

The speaker didn’t “have” to be dragged away, but the NHRC did it to silence a person exercising their rights.

As usual, the head of the NHRC supported the restriction of human rights: Amara said:

Some people may think the martial law violates human rights, but we need to understand that martial law needs to be in place while the country’s reform road map is being implemented…. In such circumstances, you need to find a balance.

We can’t think of a more ridiculous and laughable claim by someone who is meant to have some conception of human rights.

Amara is a disgrace. Her organization has failed and is a laughing stock. Amara takes the money and does the military dictatorship’s bidding.

Ji on theories of democratization

As we often do, here is a reproduction of Ji Ungpakorn’s most recent post:

Thailand’s Crisis and Shattered Political Theories

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

The present political crisis in Thailand has shattered a number of “democratisation” myths created over the years by mainstream political science academics.

The first myth is about “civil society”, as defined by the middle-class or the “chattering classes” and Non-Government Organisations. After the end of the Cold War we were told that a well-developed civil society and a large middle class was the key to a free and democratic society. Yet we have seen the middle-classes and the NGOs take part in many anti-democratic protests and we have seen them welcome two military coups. The middle classes have organised to protect their privileges and prevent the urban workers and rural farmers from having a say in politics. The NGOs have also behaved in a similar manner for slightly different reasons.

Middle-class academics, lawyers and doctors have joined the whistle blowing anti-democrats led by Sutep Tueksuban and his henchmen.

Marxists have always seen the middle classes as being a potential base for fascism and dictatorship. We saw this in the 1930s. They can also join pro-democracy movements at other times and support working class demands. But the middle classes are too fragmented and weak to set their own class agenda. They flip flop between the interests of the business and bureaucratic elites and the interests of the working class.

Perhaps what we can recue from the “civil society” theory of democratisation is the importance of “social movements”, but not the so-called “new social movements” which were widely touted by right-wing academics after the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe. We were told then that social movements were no longer class based and were about life-style politics and single issues, not about challenging state power. In Thailand the largest social movement in history is the red shirt movement. The red shirts are more or less classed based and have wide political aims involving democratisation and challenging the old state.

The second myth is about “independent bodies” and the need to create political structures which act as “checks and balances” on elected governments as part of the “democratic” process. This is very fashionable among Western liberals, who favour non-elected Central Banks and a non-elected, supposedly neutral, judiciary. In Thailand we have seen these so-called independent bodies, such as the Election Commission, the National Human Rights Commission, the Anti-Corruption Commission and the courts, subverted and used by the conservative elites in order to destroy freedom and the democratic process. These bodies have place anti-democratic fetters upon elected governments. In the European Union the European Central Bank has also played a key role in trying to place restrictions on government policies in countries like Greece.

Marxists have always maintained that no group of people in society is ever neutral or independent of class interests. It is not so-called independent bodies which check and balance elected governments. It is opposition political parties, social movements, trade unions and opposition or alternative media which perform this function.

The third myth is that democracy can only become stable and well-developed if there is a political culture of democracy among the people and if political parties and political structures are mature. But what we have seen in Thailand is that the vast majority of the population have a democratic political culture while the conservative elites do not. The army is then used by the elites to frustrate the wish for democracy. We have also seen a long established political party; the Democrat Party, stand clearly against the democratic process along with various state structures and bodies.

The fourth myth is that developing globalised capitalism and the free-market somehow encourage the growth of democracy. This has not happened at all. The globalised Thai big businesses have supported the conservative elites and the junta and its friends are extreme advocates of neo-liberal free-market policies. So is the King with his “sufficiency economy” ideology. They all have a laissez faire mind-set. In contrast, it is Taksin Shinawat and his various parties which have used a mixture of state funded development and welfare (grass-roots Keynesianism) alongside neo-liberal market forces. The conservatives have attacked this as “dangerous populism”.

The bottom line in reality is that the present crisis is a result of increased political empowerment of workers and small farmers, a phenomenon that was seized upon and encouraged by Taksin and his allies for their own interests. It is a crisis of class society with the conservative elites and middle-classes resenting the rise of the working class and the small farmers.

And what this crisis clearly shows is that strong social movements from below are the critical key to building and fighting for democracy. Every inch of the democratic space will have to be fought for and taken from the elites in this struggle. Democracy will not be crafted by committees of “wise men”, lawyers and academics who are appointed by the junta.

It is a fair bet that despite all this, Thai academics at universities and in the Prachatipok Institute will still carry on spouting these shattered and discredited democratisation theories and in a climate where the questioning of authority is discouraged, they will mainly go unchallenged.

The failures

We again reproduce one of Ji Ungpakorn’s observations on the decayed and stinking body that is the National Human Rights Commission and NGOs that have abandoned the rights of the people they once claimed to defend. His comments on the UDD reflect a deepening disquiet with its political quiescence:

Total silence from the Human Rights Commission and NGOs as hundreds of pro-democracy academics and activists arrested

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

As hundreds of pro-democracy academics and activists are arrested by the Thai military junta, it is obvious to anyone with half a brain that this is a coup to destroy the redshirts and the democracy movement as a whole. Yellow shirts and anti-democratic mobsters who used violence to wreck the elections have been allowed to go free and have been photographing themselves in army uniforms as part of their celebrations.

There has been total silence from National Human Rights Commission and the mainstream academics, both about the coup and about these gross abuses of human rights.

I have surveyed the various declarations published on the “Prachatai” web newspaper since the coup and we can see a clear pattern.

While brave activists defy the junta by taking part in flash mobs and some mass protests in Bangkok and other cities, a number of organisations have made declarations which unconditionally condemn the coup. These organisations include The Assembly for the Defence of Democracy, The Assembly of the Poor, The 24th June Democracy Group (set up by Somyot), The 4 Regions Slum Dwellers, The Common People’s Party, The Group of 91 academics and students from the deep south, The Students Federation of Isarn, P-Move & YPD, The Community Network for Reform in Society and Politics, The Non-Violent activists around Kotom Araya and the Volunteer Graduates for the Defence of Democracy. Other groups, including left wing groups and street activists have not issued declarations but have opposed the coup by their actions.

A second group of people have criticised the coup, but have justified it at the same time. They argue that “both sides of the political divide” were responsible for the crisis and must make amends. In practical terms this implies that those who won elections and those who wanted to protect the democratic process were “as guilty” as those who used violence on the streets to wreck elections or used their illegitimate roles in the courts to frustrate democracy. This is a mealy-mouthed way of trying to look democratic while supporting the coup. This is the position of the National NGO Coordinating Committee and also 11 NGO figures from organisations such as FTA watch, Bio Thai, Women & Men Progressive Movement Foundation, Friends of the People, The Consumers Association and The Foundation for Labour and Employment Promotion. They call for a return to democracy at the “earliest opportunity”, something which General Prayut would easily agree, because no time frame is demanded. Also the National NGO Coordinating Committee seems to be more concerned to stop the junta from proposing any large scale infrastructure projects than to care about abuses of democratic rights.

A third group of people accept the coup and try to give the junta advice. This includes the Thailand Development Research Institute, Political Science academics from Thammasart and the Society to Prevent Global Warming.

After the 2006 coup a number most NGOs accepted the coup and took part in the junta’s sham “reform” committees. Some “NGO academics” even sat in the junta’s appointed parliament.

For the last decade Thai NGOs have ceased to be advocates or activists for freedom and democracy and have treated the majority of citizens with contempt. To read more detail about this, go to: “Why have most Thai NGOs sided with the conservative royalists against democracy and the poor” at http://www.scribd.com/doc/221530131/Why-have-most-Thai-NGOs-chosen-to-side-with-the-conservative-royalists-against-democracy-and-the-poor

The true activists for freedom and democracy can be found in the flash mobs and street demonstrations, in the junta’s jails, or among the red shirts. However, the UDD red shirt leadership and the top politicians from Pua Thai Party, including Yingluk, have thrown in the towel. The UDD leaders are calling for calm and they have been trying to demobilise the movement since Yingluk’s election in 2011. Pictures of Yingluk obediently going to report to the junta are in stark contrast with the actions of those who have refused to report to this illegitimate body. Chaturon Chaisang, a former Minister of Education, was arrested at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club and is now facing a military court and two years in jail. Others are trying to cross the border to seek asylum. The UDD leaders could easily have done something like this in an attempt to lead the fight for democracy from abroad or while in hiding. But they have failed. New leadership must now come from grass roots activists.

Blocked in Thailand, schools targeted

A reader tells us that a visit to a regular Bangkok Post story is producing the junta’ blocked notification, so we reproduce the story below.

A brave 15 year-old in a Northeastern province wrote to a friend of PPT to tell of the experience at the student’s school post-coup. School, closed for a couple of days, was said to now be nothing but pro-coup propaganda only broken by monarchist treacle. The student states that the children feel bored and angry.

Journos, activists offer support to media

Published: 29/05/2014 at 07:54 AM
Newspaper section: News

Thailand’s media is receiving support from friends in the region and human rights agencies after receiving orders to refrain from criticising coup-makers.

The Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) created a Facebook page called “Message for Thai Media” yesterday to show its support for the Thai press.

Netizens are asked to write in comments, essays, or poems; post drawings, photos, selfies, or videos; share notes, experiences, and links to show concern and boost journalists’ morale.

Messages in English or native Asean languages were encouraged.

The Thai media is expected to respond to the tributes.

“This thread will be moderated, to guard against hate speech, discrimination, racism, xenophobia, or incitement to violence,” the SEAPA said.

The SEAPA encouraged journalists and non-journalists to share the campaign with friends and encourage them to post something.

The Myanmar Journalists Association yesterday expressed deep concern about restrictions on the Thai press, referring to “the infringement of the freedom of the press following the military coup in Thailand”.

The association also appealed to the Thai military to restore freedom of the press by lifting restrictions on Thai journalists and ceasing arbitrary arrests.

The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission also expressed concern, saying human rights protections have fallen away since the coup.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), a legal aid centre, was also launched yesterday.

It aims to provide legal advice, and increase legal and human rights knowledge — including understanding of orders issued under the declaration of martial law — nationwide.

“As more orders are issued, including lists of summoned persons that need to report [to the coup-makers] at designated times and places, and a number of persons were deprived of their liberty by being arrested, searched and detained under martial law, these operations have caused confusion, misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

“Ordinary persons might not understand their human rights and the complicated legal procedures under martial law and coup orders,” said TLHR.

Those affected should contact TLHR using their hotline and email address to send complaints and ask questions.

TLHR also intends to compile a list of notable cases and trends, and to observe trials if possible.

The National Human Rights Commission has also assigned the sub-committee on civil and political rights chaired by Niran Pitakwatchara to work with related agencies.

The NHRC will continue to work to ensure its article 15 law on protecting the rights of the people is being upheld.

“It’s not an investigation or examination of how the military is carrying out its job, it’s just communication as the NHRC has not been dissolved and we still have to do our job and abide by international human rights treaties,” said Dr Niran. [PPT: that would be quite an innovation for the NHRC!!]

He said there were three issues now — the detention of those who might think differently or are implicated in lese majeste cases; the detention of those who violate the martial law; and the detention of those who are summoned to report to NCPO headquarters.

Dr Niran said initial requests submitted by the NHRC to the NCPO were to inform relatives of the whereabouts of detainees, to set up a centre to dispense information about detentions, and to provide medical care for those with health conditions or disabilities.

Also, if detainees are held under martial law beyond the seven-day limit, the NCPO must release or charge them, according to the Criminal Code.

 

Protecting thugs

Many readers will have already seen the Khaosod story regarding the family of an army colonel assaulted by anti-democrat guards taking legal action against the attackers. PPT only wishes to draw attention to a couple of points.

First, Buddha Issara “offered an apology and 50,000 baht to Col. Witthawat’s family to help pay for his medical costs.” That money has been returned and the family has lodged a police complaint, “urging authorities to arrest and prosecute the guards who assaulted Col. Witthawat.”

Witthawat’s mother Bang-onrat Wattanakul said her son’s life “cannot be bought with money.” She also “refused to accept the PCAD’s apology and would only settle the matter through formal legal procedures.”

Bang-onrat also “called on Buddha Issara to identify and send the perpetrators who assaulted her son to the police.”

She rightly observes that the monk, in his yellow robes, is protecting thugs who have broken several laws.

She also and justifiably “expressed outrage at the National Human Rights Commission’s silence over the incident.” She asked why the NHRC wasn’t doing anything.

Of course, the politically-biased nature of the NHRC is well proven.

Finally, she stated:

I would like to thank the PCAD for merely beating up my son instead of murdering him and dumping his body into a river. It’s already such a great mercy on their part. And I would like to warn all citizens not to go near PCAD-occupied areas unless they absolutely have to.

She makes several excellent points.

Challenging double standards

A couple of news news stories caught PPT’s attention while we we were looking around at the very limited coverage of the rather small anti-democrat rally yesterday. Certainly, they were more interesting than rally coverage.

The first story is from a few days ago and reports:

[Phayao Akkahad], who lost her daughter on the last day of the unrest said today that it is unacceptable that Mr Tharit Pengdit, the DSI chief, is pursuing those charges against Mr. Abhisit [Vejajjiva] and Mr. Suthep [Thaugsuban]while exempting himself from the legal action, since Mr. Tharit [Pengdit] was also a member of the Centre for Resolution of Emergency Situation (CRES) which oversaw the crackdown.

Readers will recall that, a few days ago, PPT posted on the impunity of military chiefs involved in giving orders that led to murderous attacks on red shirt protesters. We see no reason why Tharit shouldn’t also be investigated for his role in those days when CRES was ordering the crackdowns.

The second story is a report of an distraught daughter of a paralyzed red shirt protester against the irretrievably biased and hopeless National Human Rights Commission.

Euangfah Saelew’s 71 year-old father was shot at Laksi just before the now junked election.  She says the NHRC sent one official to see her father in hospital. She says the official made no “meaningful inquiry about the incident which left Mr. Arkaew in severe condition.”

She contrasts this lack of concern and interest:

with the its enthusiasm in other cases related to anti-government protesters, such as the NHRC’s recent announcement that they will investigate the claims that one of the alleged gunmen who participated in the gunbattle which wounded her father had been tortured by the police.

As she well knows, the “NHRC pays more attention to the perpetrators than the victims,” when the perpetrators are anti-democrats. The NHRC has become another of the “independent” agencies that work for the royalists.

The third story is an interesting contrast. It reports police arresting red shirts in Nonthaburi and seized weapons the group had. These red shirts appear to have been involved in some recent attacks, perhaps including on the office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

Deputy Prime Minister Surapong Towijakchaikul said:

authorities will not provide any privilege to the Redshirts suspects, and insisted that the police will investigate any crimes committed by all political sides equally without prejudice….

“But whoever commits a crime must be punished,” Mr. Surapong said, “No exception”.

Now there’s an innovation that seems quite different from the double standards that characterizes “neutral” institutions.

 

The gang of six

In yet another of those reports where the reader is left wondering why an interviewee at the Bangkok Post has protested just a little too much, Election Commissioner Somchai Srisuttiyakorn makes a case for the gang of six “independent” agencies and political “compromise.”

Said to be an interview about “what the independent agencies, including the Election Commission, are doing to help mend shattered national unity, and the downsides of his job,” Somchai immediately trumpets that there is “[n]o plot to attack government” by the “six independent [sic.] agencies.” Confirming that the “independent” agencies are anything but, Somchai states:

… I think the various independent agencies are just acting within the scope of their responsibilities [sic.]. In the beginning, they did not meet or set a common agenda to work together. It was a spontaneous decision to pursue the matter. The decision by the organisations to come together looks like it was planned and pre-arranged. But it wasn’t.

No timeline was discussed or fixed. For example, we didn’t talk to the National Anti-Corruption Commission over when they should issue which case rulings on what cases. No one told the ombudsman which petition it should accept for referral to any agency. The EC is organising the election and carrying out certain tasks in place of the caretaker government.

Many events occur around the same time and this convinces some people it’s all staged when, in fact, there is no connection.

Is it just a stage-managed ploy? Somchai is asked: “The country has been split for quite some time. Why did the independent [sic.] agencies wait so long to act?” (Perhaps the interviewer might have asked why the gang of six are acting outside the roles allocated to them under the military junta-tutored 2007 constitution?) The answer is breathtaking: “The heads of the agencies said they have worked on the issue for a long time. But their work was carried out covertly with efforts made to involve respected figures.”

On the perception of bias amongst the Election Commission, the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the National Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Ombudsman, the State Audit Commission, and the National Economic and Social Advisory Council, Somchai explains the anti-democrats are supportive of them (and he lumps in the courts as well in his response) because:

The issue here is some independent agencies are being threatened by people who hold different views. This drove many people to rise up and try to defend the agencies. What’s unfair is when the independent agencies hand a ruling that is favourable to one group of people, there is no opposition to it. But when another group loses out from the ruling, they react aggressively, giving the impression of a threat being issued. Threats on the life of NACC members or members of other agencies are unacceptable. The protesters are not providing us with security.

The issue is that these agencies have demonstrated, time and again, double standards. They do this on an almost daily basis. The Election Commission has become the anti-election commission, the NHRC only trumpets the human rights of a few, the Constitutional Court makes decisions that defy the constitution, and so on. Their “compromise” is a group of “neutral people who will broker peace talks.” That sounds a bit like “respected figures” coming together and deciding on a “Thai-style compromise.”

The government is unlikely to trust this group of biased agencies who work against them. The more radical anti-democrats, including boss Suthep Thaugsuban reject the proposed “compromise” saying:

With respect to the independent agencies, it’s not that I don’t want to cooperate but I don’t believe it would be possible to find a mediator between Yingluck’s side and ours. The reality is that Yingluck and Thaksin [Shinawatra, ousted prime minister] are desperate to hold on to power and want to maintain their grip on Thailand.

Suthep seems to prefer that the courts and “independent” agencies just proceed with the judicial coup and then deal with the political fallout. That requires the military to be prepared too.

Women and political civility

It was International Women’s Day on Friday, a day observed since the early 20th century.

Of course, in Thailand, this year’s observance was somewhat overshadowed by political conflicts between those who support Thailand’s first-ever woman prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, and anti-democrats who are trying to bring down her elected government and to prevent elections that she has called.

The Nation reports that the Woman’s Voice group, led by Puea Thai Party MP Laddawan Wongsriwong, made a call for an end to “[rights] violation[s] and insults directed at the country’s women leaders.” She might have added threats of violence to them and their families. These threats and insults have been directed at women on both sides of the political divide.

Most notably, because it has been so high profile, the misogynist attacks on Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra have been savage. Laddawan pointed out that Yingluck had suffered “rights violations, insults and threats” and yet the National Human Right Commission (NHRC) had done nothing. Woman’s Voice called for the NHRC members to resign.

They are unlikely to heed the call at the NHRC, which PPT has long described as a hopeless cabal of politicized flunkies with little interest in their mandated tasks.

Woman’s Voice “wanted all agencies to ensure justice to all sides and all women to be united and co-exist despite differences in opinion.” That would seem reasonable.

Meanwhile, the fabulously wealthy Democrat Party member and anti-democrat protest high-profiler Chitpas Bhirombhakdi, who has been using the family name Kridakorn (sometimes with that royalist-linked “na Ayutthaya” added), led another event. She led women anti-democrat protesters in an appropriately feudal rally that went to Wat Phra Kaew “to vow to join fellow anti-government protesters in fearlessly defending the motherland from offences or bids to divide the country.” Apparently she “gave a speech slamming caretaker PM Yingluck Shinawatra for damaging the country over the past two years and accused Yingluck for causing injury to protesters who rallied peacefully without weapons, which had lead to deaths and injuries.”

That’s about what would be expected from Chitpas. An attack on Yingluck bolstered by the lie about “peaceful” and “unarmed” demonstrators.

Both sides made the expected political claims and both were focused on Yingluck. Women’s Voice attempted some conciliation. Chitpas spewed vitriol.

Promoting anti-democrats

The Bangkok Post has managed to produce two major articles that promote anti-democracy in Thailand. One asks a reasonable question but ends up lauding of murder by anti-democrats and the other is an intervention and strategy document by a regular commentator on Thailand’s politics who usually paints himself as a “democrat,” but does nothing more than support the anti-democrats. The two pieces are mutually reinforcing and are surrounded by a series of other op-eds and articles that seldom as critical questions.

The first story has a headline “Who’s popping the popcorn?” In using this headline, the story is immediately adopting the rhetoric of the anti-democrat stage that has hailed the armed men, operating in military-like coordination, providing much of the firepower for the anti-democrat extremists, and apparently responsible for most of the deaths to date in this 3-month long “protest” to bring down the elected government.

But let’s begin with the one useful section of the report, where the possibility that soldiers are the shooters is raised:

While army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha has maintained his neutrality during the political conflict, he has bluntly spoken out against hard-core red-shirt supporters such as Ko Tee, or Wutthipong Kotchathammakhun, who accused the military of trying to hunt him down and assassinate him.

It should be noted that Gen Prayuth also sent a company of troops from the Burapha Phayak regiment at the 2nd Infantry Division of the King’s Guard based in Prachin Buri to maintain order at Phan Fa Bridge following the deadly clash.

Also, the army recently told its legal experts to look into the possibility of taking action against Thammasat University history lecturer Somsak Jeamthirasakul for allegedly posting inappropriate messages about the monarchy on Facebook. The academic’s house was recently hit by gunshots.

Piling one paragraph on another is suggestive of the military’s deep involvement. That is a question that needs to be raise again and again.

But the story is marred by a continual repetition of anti-democrat stage propaganda: “Who the unidentified forces are protecting the anti-government protesters of late is anyone’s guess,” the report says. For PPT this is simply a fabricated statement. It repeats the line propagated by Suthep Thaugsuban and others to protect themselves from further murder charges. It is a disingenuous claim that is meant to portray murderers as angels of mercy, to portray evil as good. As we have noted previously, Suthep has a track record of using brute and lethal force to get his way. That the Post lauds his actions (as it did in 2010) says a considerable amount about the newspaper’s politics.

The next line in the story reproduce a “theory” which is actually a rumor: “Some groups, including the protesters themselves, believe the armed forces are secretly providing protection for the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC).” It continues: “The theory holds that these so-called ‘popcorn warriors’ are soldiers safeguarding protesters from ‘foreign forces’ or “men in black” who clashed with soldiers during the 2010 violence and may have come back again to target the protesters.”

This is such a cobbled together pile of nonsense that it is difficult to know where to begin. The “foreign forces” –  Cambodians – claim is horse manure, and has been refuted time and again. That the protest leaders make this stuff up for hyper-nationalists in their crowd is simply evidence of the fascism of those leaders. To reproduce manufactured fertilizer as a “theory” is base journalism.

Making the claim about “men-in-black” reproduces Democrat Party claims – mainly made by Suthep in 2010 – that there were such men operating “amongst red shirts.” Even if PPT were to think there were some MIBs amongst the red shirts, we have yet to see convincing evidence. Suthep has never produced any evidence for these claims and when in government, he and his cronies were unable to explain how it was that allegedly large numbers of MIB were simply able to disappear. Now, he claims that MIBs are with him, raising questions regarding 2010 and who the MIB belonged to then!

Yet in the current situation, there is very clear evidence, including photographs from which some of the killers identified by police. Why is the Post not getting at this? Why is it insisting that these identified killers are “unknowns”? Is it because the story is meant to create a myth and a situation where known killers have impunity because they support anti-democrats?

This line of myth-making continues: “The ‘popcorn warriors’ were thought to have returned on Tuesday…”. The Post itself has reported this, so why is it “thought”? It is a verifiable fact, and the earlier report in the Post is then reproduced. “Thought”? What is this nonsense?

And what does the Post say about the killers?: “Their exploits have drawn praise and admiration from the protesters.” While this does tell readers that the anti-democrats are fully engaged in murder and mayhem, it does little to ask why the anti-democrats have taken this violent route from the very first incident in late November.

Where is the critical journalism that would ask questions, seek evidence and draw conclusions? Why rumor, innuendo and propaganda?

The second story at the Bangkok Post, Thitinan Pongsudhirak has another op-ed that provides some strategy advice seemingly drawn from the old men who think they run Thailand. Thitinan seems to position himself as an old man in the making. He certainly and quite suddenly seems to have become a spokesperson internationally for a grand coalition of the old (royalist) men:

As caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra comes under mounting pressure from the gathering forces arrayed against her self-exiled and convicted brother, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, something will soon have to give. Thailand’s prolonged political standoff has crippled Bangkok’s central business district and placed Thailand in an economic free fall. At issue going forward is how much longer Ms Yingluck will last, how she is dislodged, what comes after, and whether a grand realignment takes place to marginalise Thaksin and move Thailand beyond him.

That is the old men’s line, propagated behind closed doors, worked out by the real ruling elite, in opaque ways that reject electoral democracy just as surely as the anti-democrats do. Think for a moment. The electorate got over a coup and went beyond it. The electorate made a clear choice in 2001, 2005, 2008 and 2011. It is a minority that now worries about an “economic free fall” they have created by their support of the anti-democrats. Why is it considered useful for a shadowy clique of royalists to come up with a nonsense notion of a “grand realignment” when they are the only political victors from such a hastily cobbled together political sham?

Thitinan provides some of the evidence of this opaque group’s machinations when he says the “latest judicial ruling by the civil court to uphold the emergency decree while prohibiting the government from using force to disperse protesters … was unsurprising. It fell in line with other decisions by the Constitution Court that have been more supportive of the PDRC than the Yingluck government, including the rejection of arrest warrants against protest leaders.”

Exactly, it is a conspiracy of the elite. Why doesn’t Thitinan explain that the very same courts made decisions to support Abhisit Vejjajiva’s government in 2010 that were diametrically opposed to this one. Why doesn’t he point out the double standard? Presumably he supports it in the interests of the old men lurking in the shadows.

He mentions a string of decisions by legal and pseudo-legal organizations in Thailand that have extended the double standards: the “Election Commission’s … foot-dragging” and politicized decisions by the National Anti-Corruption Commission and the ridiculously biased National Human Rights Commission. Where’s the criticism of this blatant creeping coup?

Yingluck might be a “lame duck” but Thitinan’s advice that “her caretaker administration … retake the offensive and start to look and feel like a functioning government again,” is about as useless as udders on a bull, and he knows that all of these agencies will pounce if she tries to “disburse budget funds, initiate policy directions, and reclaim occupied areas of Bangkok.” What kind of a political scientist makes such demands and then acknowledges that she “is now a sitting duck”? He says that the “writing is on the wall, and a déjà vu from 2008, when two proxy governments of Thaksin were ejected from office, suggests a similar fate for the caretaker Yingluck government.”

Of course that is correct, but what does Thitinan say? He advises the “watchdog agencies” to oust Yingluck’s government ousted without relatively persuasive legal and constitutional basis…”. Only relatively because this, he says, is the way to avoid a “post-Yingluck backlash from upcountry red-shirt supporters…”. So get rid of her and her elected government, but “a decent interval is needed for due process…”. Naturally, there is unlikely to be any “due process.” What he’s saying is essentially the anti-democrat stage line: the 2006 coup and the 2008 judicial coup failed; now we need to uproot the “Thaksin regime.” There’s unlikely to be little that is legal or constitutional about such a process.

Thitinan finally says that making these observations “does not condone the process.” Of course it does! His view is clear:

Thailand is now in a familiar conundrum. Another elected government from Thaksin’s power bases, haunted by corruption allegations and hounded by critical policy missteps, is being overthrown not in parliament, but in the streets and in the corridors of the judiciary and other watchdog agencies. The last time this happened, in December 2008, it begot the red-shirt demonstrators because Thaksin manipulated them and because they were effectively disenfranchised.

This time must be different.

And this is the old man line:

If Ms Yingluck is deposed in a similar fashion, the caretaker government that comes after her must be inclusive [the Anand Panyarachun technocratic solution perhaps?] Thailand does not lack human talent but it must come up with a broad-based, multi-partisan [sic.] government that features not only Thaksin’s opponents but also includes some of the more palatable members of the Thaksin side. [This is real elitist nonsense that can only come from the mouths of the old men]

Let’s get rid of Yingluck, the elected premier, and her elected government in an undemocratic manner, but let’s make it palatable.

Part of this elitist nonsense is the claim that the “rice scheme, in particular, has opened the eyes of PDRC protesters and all sorts of anti-Thaksin groups to the plight of the farm sector.” Revealingly, he states: “It is poignant to see the outpouring of sympathy for farmers from myriad rank-and-file PDRC supporters in their street rallies and in social media.”

Thitinan has probably never seen a real village except from the inside of an airconditioned car or on television. He probably has maids and other minions from the countryside, so he feels empathy for the servants too. He mistakes political convenience for “sympathy.” He seems to suffer memory loss as well. This is fake charity and false empathy from a bunch that has denigrated and exploited farmers for decades and in recent years has derided them as dolts and vote-sellers is simply swept aside and the racist and fascist anti-democrats have suddenly become the promise for “a grand realignment is premised on respecting and accepting rural voices into the mainstream fold…”

He wants these anti-democrats tio understand that “budding empathy” might be “broadened.” To what end? To wean these rural buffaloes off their Thaksin addiction: the upcountry lot “have toiled under Thaksin’s shadow for lack of a better alternative.” This is an updated Wikileaks version of the palace story from 2006, when Privy Council President Prem Tinsulanonda stated that Thaksin’s appeal to provincial people was doomed:

The people upcountry liked Thaksin and voted for him, but they didn’t revere him. After seeing the adoring crowds on June 9, a million people in their yellow shirts who waited for hours in the heat just to catch a glimpse of their King, Thaksin should understand that he cannot rival the King for the people’s affection, Prem concluded.

It seems that neither Thitinan nor Prem  before him are able to grasp the nature of the changes in attitudes and politics that had taken place since 2001. Politics in the current era is not about sympathy or empathy – only a few will remember Prem’s failed  “Year of the Farmer” that was devoid of any real policy? It is about getting policy right, appealing to a more informed electorate that is switched on to elections, connected by mobile and smart phones and far more aware of broader political interests than they were even a decade ago. No deal cobbled together in the shadows by wannabe kings is going to be able to change that. Those people beyond the airconditioning understand politics and are engaged by it. There’s almost no chance of winding this back.

Thitinan seems to be headed the same way as so many “academic” commentators in Thailand: they become the elite’s handmaidens. The handmaidens of the elite are anti-democrats.