Burma's lessons from history-Irrawaddy

CULTURE

The Despot and the Diplomat

Neil Lawrence

The Irrawaddy: September 2008

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=14152

The experiences of Capt Michael Symes, the first official British emissary to the Burmese court, offer lessons for diplomats dealing with the country’s current rulers.

MILITARY-ruled Burma is surely one of the world’s least rewarding assignments for a United Nations diplomat. Visiting envoys are routinely refused contact with the country’s dictator, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, in his remote capital of Naypyidaw, the “Royal Abode.” Months or years may pass with no signs of progress before an envoy finally abandons his mission in frustration—and the regime claims another victory in its war of wills against the outside world.

Much has been made of Than Shwe’s monarchical pretensions, and in his approach to diplomacy it is not difficult to see the influence of rulers of an earlier age, when Burmese kings believed they could keep the world at bay by treating foreign emissaries with studied disdain. Indeed, any diplomat who wishes to understand the mindset of Burma’s current rulers should probably go back at least as far as Bodawpaya, the king who perfected a brand of diplomacy still practiced in Burma today.

Bodawpaya (1745-1819) ruled Burma from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th. His father, Alaungpaya, had founded the Konbaung dynasty when Bodawpaya was 7 years old and died when he was 15. In 1782, at the age of 37, Bodawpaya deposed and executed his nephew to become the sixth king of his line.

A ruler of Napoleonic ambitions, Bodawpaya set out to retake Ayutthaya, the Siamese capital, where his father had died trying to re-establish Burmese rule. He failed repeatedly. “Nothing but the peaceful disposition of the Siamese monarch saved the Burmese empire from total subjection,” wrote Father San Germano, an Italian missionary who lived in Rangoon through 25 years of Bodawpaya’s 37-year reign.

He did, however, have greater success in vanquishing the coastal kingdom of Arakan, located on the Bay of Bengal southwest of his newly established capital of Amarapura, near Mandalay. This proved to be a fateful move, as it extended Burmese territory to the borders of British India, setting it on a collision course that would, a century later, see the complete dissolution of the Burmese monarchy.

Formal ties between the Burmese and the British had been suspended since the end of Alaunpaya’s reign, when the Burmese—at the instigation of French rivals for influence—carried out a massacre on a British trade settlement on the island of Negrais in 1759. But in 1795, with thousands of Arakanese fleeing into their territory and concerns about French ambitions in Burma still strong, the British decided to send a diplomatic mission to the court of Amarapura.

This decision set the stage for an episode that makes UN efforts to mitigate the egregious abuses of Burma’s current rulers seem almost productive by comparison. The chosen envoy, Capt Michael Symes, was confident that he would succeed in restoring amicable relations with the Burmese court; instead, he spent more than two months waiting for an audience with a king who would not deign to speak to him.

The British diplomat’s reception was “a strange mixture of friendly hospitality and studied rudeness,” according to historian D. G. E. Hall. Permitted to travel only as far as the opposite bank of the Irrawaddy River from Amarapura, he was informed that the king was “at a country residence named Meengoung, where he was erecting a magnificent temple to their divinity Gaudma [Gotama Buddha].”

Symes, who had arrived in mid-July, was told that he would have to wait until August 30 before he could cross the river to the royal capital. So he spent the next month and a half waiting for the Emperor who had “run away from Siam [to decide] whether it was consistent with his dignity to receive such a visitor or not,” as historian V. C. Scott O’Connor wrote in a memorable account of the incident.

In his own words, Symes described the Burmese court as “punctilious and haughty, even to insufferable arrogance.” But the real insult came when, on the assigned day, he (along with a delegation from a neighboring province of China) was permitted to cross the river and enter the palace, only to find that the king had not seen fit to make an appearance.

Dismayed, Symes penned a letter demanding, in firm yet diplomatic terms, a proper audience with the king. On September 30, his request was granted. “His Majesty … looked at us attentively, but did not honour us with any verbal notice, or speak at all,” he wrote of the hard-won encounter.

Unwilling to contemplate the possibility that his dignity had been further slighted, Symes persuaded himself that his efforts had paid off.

And so he returned to his superiors brimming with satisfaction at the success of his mission, which produced a list of trade concessions and permission to establish an official British presence in Rangoon to facilitate bilateral relations.

Capt Hiram Cox was duly sent to Burma as the English Resident the following year, only to find that the Burmese had in the meantime perfected what Hall called their “technique of humiliation.” He left his post in frustration in early 1798, and a year later he was dead—not of mortification at the hands of the Burmese, but of disease contracted while superintending relief measures for the 50,000 Arakanese refugees who had flooded into the Chittagong District of British-controlled Bengal.

Symes later returned to Amarapura for a second attempt to settle his country’s differences with the Burmese; but his hosts made it clear that they would accept nothing less than the complete expulsion of the Arakanese, who they regarded as their property. Symes abandoned his earlier false optimism and reported back to his superiors that war with the Burmese might be inevitable.

But war did not ensue, and Bodawpaya, who would live another 20 years, no doubt concluded that his policy of diplomatic obstruction had put the British in their place. This underestimation of British power led to his decision in the final years of his reign to invade Assam, and this emboldened his successor, Bagyidaw, to embark on adventures that would very soon culminate in the first Anglo-Burmese war—and the beginning of the end of Burmese independence.

Than Shwe may or may not be a modern-day Bodawpaya; but it is clear that the greatest threat facing Burma today is his belief that he can rule as he pleases, without regard for world opinion. Like Bodawpaya, he has come to this conclusion largely through his success in repelling diplomatic attempts to constrain his behavior. And he has done this by forcing a long line of envoys to either give up in disgust or—like Symes at the end of his first mission—to portray their efforts as a success rather than concede defeat.

The former response is forgivable; but the latter is a disservice to a country that is still struggling to emerge from the nightmare of its history because of the delusional dreams of a despot.

China's censorship 'absurd'-Telegraph

HELL ON EARTH

Neha Sahay, China Diary

Telegraph: May 14, 2009

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090514/jsp/opinion/story_10958219.jsp

Censorship here has reached absurd limits. A hit-and-run accident has now become the subject of a media ban. But thanks to the internet, everyone knows about it. In Hangzhou, a city known for its natural beauty, a young man crossing the road in a residential area was killed by a speeding Mitsubishi Evo sports car — a common enough incident in China. Then why has this one become the focus of such a storm?

There are many reasons for this — the conduct of the Mitsubishi driver, for one. He didn’t rush the victim to hospital; instead, he called up his friends. A photograph on the internet shows them lounging near the car, laughing as if nothing had happened. The accident took place while the driver was racing two other sports cars on the street. All three were modified cars. In fact, the Mitsubishi had two websites inscribed on its body. One of them read, “Here gather the country’s best drifting race car drivers.”

Second, the driver told the police that he was driving at 70 kilometres per hour. The speed limit there is 50 kmph. However, eye-witnesses state that he must have been driving at more than 100 kmph given the impact on the victim: his head hit the windshield, and then he was thrown very high up. His body somersaulted in the air before landing on the road, blood oozing from the nose and mouth.

Finally, the profile of the victim. A 25-year-old resident of another province known for its backwardness, he had studied in Hangzhou’s prestigious Zhejiang University. In China, as in India, this meant that he had worked very hard to make the grade against tremendous competition, and then succeeded in finding a job in the same city where he had studied. He was to get married soon.

Pointed questions

Within 48 hours of the incident, the university internet bulletin board was flashing the news, and “human flesh search engines’’ (netizens who hunt out personal details of people in the news) had begun unearthing details about the driver. An undergraduate with an indifferent academic record, son of a garment-factory owner, his pictures were posted on the net. There he was seen go-karting on the Great Wall. The pictures of his father, posing next to his Chrysler, were similar. The Mitsubishi was registered in the mother’s name. But the most significant revelation was two earlier traffic offences against him, in one of which, as recently as in December 2008, he had been caught driving at 210 kmph on the Hangzhou-Shanghai expressway, where the speed limit is 120 kmph. The law states that if one drives at double the speed limit, the licence is confiscated. Obviously that hadn’t happened here. Had the law been applied to this rich kid, the victim may have been alive.

With university students taking the initiative, Hangzhou’s citizens started gathering at the accident site, holding candle-light vigils, writing to the mayor for a thorough investigation. The police had declared that according to witnesses, the car was going at 70 kmph, and they weren’t sure that the victim was on the zebra crossing.

Pointed questions by the media revealed that the only two witnesses they’d spoken to were the two drivers racing their cars with the culprit. Immediately, a media ban was imposed; but who needs the print media today? Even newspaper reporters have started writing on the internet now. One netizen offered a way out for the police: “In the moment of hitting, the earth immediately lost gravity; so the culprit is the earth.’’ Another cautioned about protesting too much: “Should the country become chaotic, US imperialism will rush in and massacre us Chinese people!!!’’ But it was the well-known blogger, Hecaitou, who put it best: “Hangzhou has always been known as paradise. So the citizens should know whose paradise is this and whose hell is this.’’

How to unblock your website in Thailand

How to unblock your website in Thailand

[Note: The ICT ministry has just moved offices on May 11. All of these phone numbers have changed. We shall keep the numbers in this article updated as we verify them. Please check back.]

We have never before been privy to the mechanism of censorship in Thailand. If your website is blocked, here are some steps to follow.

Chances are, your website has been blocked by order of the Royal Thai Police High-Tech Crimes Centre. First contact HTCC’s chief, Yanaphon Yungyuen 02-913-6699 <htcc@police.go.th> and <yanaphon@dsi.go.th>. Your primary questions here are when and why your site was blocked.

The order to block a website then passes to the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology’s IT Regulation Bureau. The Bureau’s chief is Aree Jivorarak 02-505-6213 <aree.mict@yahoo.co.th>. Aree actually sends the blocklists to the ISPs.

Under the requirements of the Computer Crimes Act 2007, there must be a court order to block a website, unless government has declared martial law or is under the provisions of an emergency decree issued by the prime minister. Therefore, you may request a copy of this court order and the reasons for blocking. Court orders must be public. Be polite but firm. Remember, these are civil servants and you pay for their kids’ school and wife’s hair perm–you are the boss here.

If Khun Aree is unresponsive, his superior is Deputy Permanent Secretary Angsuman Sunarai <angsumal@mictmail.go.th>

02-505-0588. If the deputy permanent secretary does not offer you satisfaction, his superior at MICT is Su Lo-utai, Permanent Secretary 02-568-2521 <sue.l@mict.mail.go.th>. If you still have no success with the permanent secretary, you must appeal directly to the ICT Minister, Ranongruk Suwanachee <bowbo43@gmail.com> tel. 02-505-8888, 02-505-7370

The Ministry also has a handy complaint form for you to fill out: http://www.mict.go.th/main.php?filename=index_complaint

Internet censorship is only made possible with the cooperation of Thailand’s more than 100 ISPs. Your business is important to your ISP. Remember that many of the ISPs are publicly traded companies on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET); some are even subsidiaries of foreign companies trading on international stock exchanges. They will be inclined toward not offending their shareholders if you start to make a fuss. Use this as leverage when dealing with them. You only need buy a single share to be a shareholder; this is your ticket to ISPs’ annual general meetings to fight censorship policy. Private companies are also more easily sued for damages than government.

Always talk to the top person, someone who is capable of making decisions. CEOs and executive vice-presidents. Hassling office workers makes them feel bad because they can’t help, are afraid of losing their jobs, and a waste of your time. you pay these people’s salaries with your custom so remember who is in charge. Use these phone calls for patient education and consciousness-raising.

You will notice that some of the ISP censors are mobile telephone services, which provide access to GPRS and WiFi. Mobile phone companies are even more responsive than ISPs to losing your business.

Every ISP also has a helpdesk or other phone contact for technical support. Open a complaint with them, too. If your ISP is a university or other academic institution, call its computer centre and talk to the administrators.

Follows a list of the contacts MICT uses at each ISP to effect blocking. Your ISP should have a copy of the court order blocking your website to ensure it is acting legally, know the reasons for the block, and be able to tell you the exact date and time of MICT’s order and the precise date and time the ISP blocked.

101 Global Co. Ltd. <support@101g.com>;

Advanced Datanetwork Communications [Buddy Broadband] <noc@adc.co.th>, <ktnrg@adc.co.th>, <nattapong@adc.co.th>, top kab <top.kab@hotmail.com>;

Advanced Info Service [AIS] <naruepoi@ais.co.th>, <krits@ais.co.th>;

Alltelecom Co. <cindy@alltelecom.co.th>, <BIOICE1981@hotmail.com>, <nocworldweb@hotmail.com>;

ANET Internet <psanti@anet.net.th>, <system@anet.net.th>, <uaichai@anet.net.th>, <premchai@anet.net.th>;

BB Broadband Co. Ltd. [Beenet Broadband Internet] <apinan_k@beenets.com>;

CAT Telecom (CAT Public Co. Ltd., CAT Internet Data Center) “kittipong m” <kittipong.m@cattelecom.com>, <admin-thix@cat.net.th>, <schaka@cat.net.th>, varin c <varin.c@cattelecom.com>, <noc@cat.net.th>, <bkriengsak@cat.net.th>, <suchok@cat.net.th>, <suchok@bulbul.cat.net.th>, suttiporn y <suttiporn.y@cattelecom.com>, wasan s <wasan.s@cattelecom.com>, <support@idc.cattelecom.com>;

CS Loxinfo <webblacklist@csloxinfo.net>, <phup@csloxinfo.net>;

Far East Internet Co. Ltd. <admin@fareast.net.th>, <surasak@fareast.net.th>;

Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia Ltd. [formerly Tawan Mobile Telephone Co.] <sariya.s@hcwml.com>, rommuk p <rommuk.p@hcwml.com>;

Infonet Thailand <sarayuth@infonetthailand.com>;

Internet Thailand <chakrit@inet.co.th>, <noc@inet.co.th>;

Inter University Network [UniNet–are these the people responsible for the censorship at Kasetsart University, Mahidol University and others?] <noc@uni.net.th>;

ISP-Thailand (Internet Solution & Service Provider Co. Ltd.) <thaweesak@isp-thailand.com>, <support@isp-thailand.com>, <csupport@isp-thailand.com>, admin issp <admin_issp@isp-thailand.com>, <helpdesk@isp-thailand.com>, <chatree@isp-thailand.com>, <EAK@ISP-THAILAND.COM>;

IT.co.th <kung@it.co.th>;

Jasmine International Net [JI-net] (Jasmine International Public Co. Ltd.) <sathinut@ji-net.com>, <boonma1222@yahoo.com>, <nprattha@jasmine.com>, <noc@ji-net.com>, <taewa.k@jasmine.com>, duangjai s <duangjai.s@jasmine.com>, jirawan c <jirawan.c@jasmine.com>, Nongluck p <Nongluck.p@jasmine.com>, <tsutee@jasmine.com>, <uraiporn.s@jasmine.com>, <mubooh@gmail.com>;

Kirz Communications <thana@kirz.com>, <sarayut@kirz.com>;

KSC Commercial Internet <ictcensor@ksc.net>;

Milcom Systems [WLANNet] <patcharabuls@milcom.co.th>, <tomesiam@hotmail.com>;

NTT Communications (Thailand) Co. Ltd. <channira.no@ntt.co.th>, <kalant@ntt.co.th>, <uthai@ntt.co.th>, <jaroonchai@ntt.co.th>;

Otaro Internet [you may remember they were the first company to delete the website of Same Sky Books/Fah Diew Kan] <noc@otaro.com>;

Pacnet Thailand <noc@pacific.net.th>, <noc.th@pacnet.com>, neeyada sirisampandh <neeyada.sirisampandh@pacnet.com>;

Proen Internet <noc@proen.co.th>, <suvinit@proen.co.th>, <mars2551@yahoo.com>;

Samart Infonet Co. Ltd. [Samtel] prasitchai v <prasitchai.v@samtel.samartcorp.com>, <se@samart.co.th>;

SIPphone Unlimited Communication <info@sipphone.co.th>;

Telephone Organisation of Thailand [TOT] Public Co. Ltd. (TOT ISP, TOT International Gateway) <boonmak@tot.co.th>, <totnoc@tot.co.th>, <noc@totisp.net>, <blockweb@totisp.net>, sittiraj tot <sittiraj.tot@gmail.com>, <noc@totiig.net>;

Total Access [DTAC] <Parinyar@dtac.co.th>;

True Internet ictcensor@trueinternet.co.th, network@trueinternet.co.th, watanyu chu <watanyu_chu@trueinternet.co.th>, Surparsorn Run <Surparsorn_Run@truecorp.co.th>;

TT&T Public Co. Ltd. [Maxnet] narits ss <narits_ss@ttt.co.th>, ekkarachu ss <ekkarachu_ss@ttt.co.th>, surachaiji ss <surachaiji_ss@ttt.co.th>, <matisa@ttt.co.th>, issn ss <issn_ss@ttt.co.th>, <ict@tttmaxnet.com>;

Upload Today, True Corporation Public Co. Ltd. <info@uploadtoday.com>,

World Internetwork Co. Ltd. [INTERNET Thai] <support@internetthai.com>;

Be patient–jai yen yen! But be persistent. Expect this process to take some time.

FIGHT BACK! Take back the power! Freedom NOW!

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT)

http://facthai.wordpress.com

FACT has further questions for MICT over censorship

Follows my email to MICT below, updates in brackets. FACT readers will find my questions and suggestions eminently sensible, reasonable and non-confrontational. MICT is not the enemy.

What is the enemy is the concept adopted by Thai government that censorship serves the public good. Censorship does not create good citizens, a thinking, questioning public. Quite the opposite.

Censorship tells Thai people “You’re too stupid to look at this. Let us do your thinking for you.”

There can never be real democracy in Thailand under the shadow of government censorship.

———————————————————————————————

Most of my earlier questions have been resolved by the ISPs themselves so there is no need for you to reply to my last email. However, more concerns and questions have come to my attention.

Have you yourself looked at FACT’s website? If so, you can see that our goals are not at odds with MICT’s.

One can readily see that FACT is completely non-partisan and non-political. All we try to do is raise public awareness of censorship issues worldwide and in Thailand but viewed from the Thai context, making things better for everyone in a truly democratic society.

Unlike many Thai websites, FACT has never been anonymous. I am the registered owner of FACT’s website. Accordingly, it would far better serve both citizens and government were MICT to request websites, including mine, to simply remove illegal content first, rather than immediately blocking or, worse, arresting website owners. A lot of these problems could be solved by prompt discussion between government and citizens.

I am scrupulously careful not to host or post illegal content or comments, including lese majeste. However, in two and a half years, I have only had to edit three comments and one post! [Obviously, the problem of illegal opinion is not as severe as government would have us believe!] FACT does not promote censored content but simply defends citizens’ rights to express their opinions.

I can accept that there may be a need for some level of censorship. But Internet censorship always overblocks. The censorship of FACT’s website is a perfect example.

FACT wants to encourage transparency and accountability in the censorship process. Censorship should not be kept secret because, for one thing, this makes censored information far more attractive.

One of FACT’s goals is publication of Thailand’s blocklists of banned websites. Were this to happen, I think initially a lot of people would try to access these sites out of curiosity not out of malice. But that initial curiosity would die down quickly and Thailand would take the moral high ground with transparency in government, a novel concept!

MICT should redirect Internet users trying to access a blocked website to a blockpage telling the user who ordered the blocking, why the site is blocked and containing clear and easy instructions for requesting unblocking, anonymously so citizens don’t feel threatened with repercussions. After all, if MICT thinks it’s doing the right thing, a public service, by censorship, it should be open about it.

FACT’s goal was not merely to have MICT unblock our website. The goal is to understand the whole process of Internet censorship.

I have some pertinent questions regarding Internet censorship in Thailand.

1) Do the block orders always come from the Police High-Tech Crimes Centre or does MICT also compile its own lists?

2) Why do the Police not send the block orders to ISPs themselves but forward them to MICT to send to the ISPs?

3) In fact, why does MICT involve the ISPs at all? Why does MICT not order direct blocking at the international Internet gateways?

4) Are the block emails from MICT to the ISPs, government to private companies, official documents, even though they are sent from free, cloudmail services like Yahoo or Hotmail? Are they secret or confidential? (See 9 below).

5) Does MICT review the block orders from Police before sending them to ISPs to ensure that all sites really contain illegal content? This is a crucial point which MICT should implement. If this were done, FACT’s website would never have been blocked.

6) Will you please tell me the precise dates and times of the recent Emergency Decree? If FACT’s website was blocked under the Decree, MICT did not need to seek a court order under the Computer Crimes Act.

7) Why does MICT not make the court orders public, removing the list of blocked websites, if they desire?

8) May an Internet user contact MICT to inquire if a website is blocked?

9) Lastly, why do Thai government email addresses never function? There was some talk of government banning civil servants using cloud email but almost everyone in government uses Hotmail or Yahoo (even to send out block orders, which is extremely insecure, to say the least!) I think MICT might make it a goal making government computers, servers and email actually work.

I have opposed Internet censorship in Thailand since 1997 when the first such law was proposed by Dr. Charmonman Srisakdi. The proposal was quietly dropped.

[UPDATE: Dr. Charmonman did not come up with this idea on his own. He was advised by an international charity, ECPAT International (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) <http://www.ecpat.net/EI/index.asp>, which raised the spectre of child pornography on the Internet. ECPAT, of course, owes its budget to the public purse and support of governments in many countries.

At this time, there was much media discussion over the trafficking of women and children, underage prostitution and the sale of Thai village girls, particularly in the North, to brothels.

Economist and former senator Mechai Viravaidya, “The Condom King”, singlehandedly and at great personal risk in stratified Thai society, taught AIDS awareness to sex workers and their customers in Thailand.

The practical result was that poor farmers became aware of the dangers to their daughters and the waiting “AIDS explosion” never materialised here.

Dr. Charmonman styles himself the “Father of the Thai Internet”. FACT readers will enjoy his homepages at <http://www.charm.au.edu/index.htm>, especially the photos of his home <http://www.charm.au.edu/PhotoRes/picture.asp>.]

I am making MICT an offer. I would like to consult with MICT officially to develop a process by which Internet users could request unblocking of MICT. I would also be eager to help MICT make the censorship process more equitable and transparent to serve everyone’s best interests.

Please forward me a copy of the email MICT sent to the ISPs to order UNblocking of FACT’s website.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Best wishes,

CJ Hinke

087-976-1880

How Thailand Censors the Internet

How Thailand Censors the Internet

No. 72  – Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT)

The details of FACT’s website censorship have finally become clear as Thai ISPs have provided FACT with concrete data, including the email requests from both Royal Thai Police and the ICT Ministry. This is the Thai public’s first real look at the implementation of Internet censorship in Thailand which is usually accomplished by  government-in-secret.

On April 22, 2009 at 16:45:47 from IP address 124.108.115.147 (ESMTP id 25FD7274C64F) email was sent from the Royal Thai Police High-Tech Crime Center <htcc@police.go.th> to Aree Jivorarak, Chief of MICT’s IT Regulation Bureau <aree.mict@yahoo.co.th>. It is certain that a blocklist of banned websites was attached to this email.

On April 23, 2009 06:49:43 Aree forwarded the Police email to 94 ICT contacts at 38 of Thailand’s more than 100 ISPs and mobile telephone providers–CAT Telecom, Pacnet Thailand, ISP-Thailand, Internet Thailand, Advanced Datanetwork Communications [Buddy Broadband], KSC Commercial Internet, True Internet, CS Loxinfo, Telephone Organisation of Thailand [TOT] Public Co. Ltd., Jasmine International Net [JI-net], ANET Internet, Far East Internet Co. Ltd., Milcom Systems [WLANNet], World Internetwork Co. Ltd. [INTERNET Thai], Otaro [you may remember they were the first company to delete the website of Same Sky Books/Fah Diew Kan], 101 Global Co. Ltd., Kirz Communications, TT&T Public Co. Ltd. [Maxnet], Proen Internet, Jasmine International Public Co. Ltd., IT.co.th, Infonet Thailand, Inter University Network [UniNet–are these the people responsible for the censorship at Kasetsart University, Mahidol University and others?], Alltelecom Co., SIPphone Unlimited Communication, TOT ISP, TOT International Gateway, Internet Solution & Service Provider Co. Ltd. [ISP-Thailand], NTT Communications (Thailand) Co., Ltd., BB Broadband Co. Ltd. [Beenet Broadband Internet], CAT Public Co. Ltd., Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia Ltd. [formerly Tawan Mobile Telephone Co.], Upload Today, True Corporation Public Co. Ltd., Samart Infonet Co. Ltd. [Samtel], Total Access [DTAC], Advanced Info Service [AIS], CAT Internet Data Center–with a the subject “ส่งต่อ: ขอส่งรายชื่อเว็บไซต์ที่มีผลกระทบต่อความมั่นคง”  (” Fwd: We send a list of sites that affect security”). The email’s message was ”เรียนผู้ isp และผู้เกี่ยวข้อง เพื่อโปรดดำเนินการ อารีย์ จิวรรักษ์ ”  (“to ISPs and whom it may concern to take action”) followed by ”หมายเหตุ: แนบจดหมายที่จะส่งต่อแล้ว” (“Remarks: Forwarded mail attached”) which is obviously the original Police email. (Full details below.) This message may well have been truncated before it was sent to FACT. Why did Aree send this email before seven a.m.? To take advantage of the government’s Emergency Decree?

Although FACT was not made privy to the ICT Ministry’s blocklist itself, as FACT’s website started to be blocked by some ISPs around noon April 25, 2009 and diverted to MICT’s blockpage at http://w3.mict.go.th, it is safe to assume we were on it!

Further information from another ISP states that FACT’s website was included on the list of 71-plus alleged “Red-shirt” websites blocked.

Of course, FACT is not a Red-shirt (nor any-shirt) front nor do we play partisan politics. One can readily see how easily any website can be swept up by government paranoia. This is the first time FACT’s website has been blocked since our inception on November 15, 2006. We are proud to join the ranks of our colleagues at Midnight University, Sept19,org, Same Sky and Prachatai; we wear our censorship as a badge of honour.

FACT will defend anyone censored in Thailand because the public has a basic human right to freedom of information. We will continue to expose secret censorship in Thailand and provide circumvention strategies and software to enable Internet users to ignore the censorship.

When these 71-plus websites were unblocked by MICT on April 26, why was FACT not included in the list? FACT was finally unblocked by at least one ISP by request of MICT at 01:29 on April 28, 2009. We have yet to receive of copy of MICT’s email to ISPs or order FACT unblocked but we know there to be one.

The email exchange also raises further interesting questions. Who surfs the Internet looking for illegal content? Does Internet censorship always start with the Police or are there censors in other agencies such as the ICT ministry and Ministry of Culture? How many people are employed to censor?

This gives a real glimpse into the shadowy, clandestine world of censorship in Thailand. And it shows that F/freedom is under police scrutiny in Thailand.

Nothing has changed at Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT). We didn’t change, edit, alter or deleted any information, postings or comments on our website before, during or after MICT’s censorship.

So why did they censor FACT in the first place and why did they unblock us so rapidly?

The Prime Minister’s Emergency Decree was in effect April 12 – April 23, so it would appear that legally MICT was not required to seek a court order for blocking under the provisions of the Computer Crimes Act 2007 as normal laws were suspended. For those FACT supporters who were hoping FACT would be the first to challenge MICT in court over Internet censorship, it appears MICT acted legally. We’re saving that fight for next time!

The moral of this story: FIGHT BACK! Take back the power! Freedom NOW!

This has been an interesting and valuable exercise because now we know who the censors are and how they operate. If your website in blocked, notify FACT, call all media you can think of (FACT will help with this) and get in touch with MICT at 02-505-6213 <aree.mict@yahoo.co.th> to request immediate unblocking.

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT)

http://facthai.wordpress.com

—– Forwarded Message —–

From: aree jivorarak <aree.mict@yahoo.co.th>

To: kittipong m <kittipong.m@cattelecom.com>, admin-thix@cat.net.th, schaka@cat.net.th, varin c <varin.c@cattelecom.com>, noc@pacific.net.th, thaweesak@isp-thailand.com, support@isp-thailand.com, csupport@isp-thailand.com, noc@adc.co.th, ktnrg@adc.co.th, nattapong@adc.co.th, top kab <top.kab@hotmail.com>, noc@cat.net.th, noc th <noc.th@pacnet.com>, chakrit@inet.co.th, noc@inet.co.th, ictcensor@ksc.net, ictcensor@trueinternet.co.th, webblacklist@csloxinfo.net, network@trueinternet.co.th, watanyu chu <watanyu_chu@trueinternet.co.th>, boonmak@tot.co.th, sathinut@ji-net.com, boonma1222@yahoo.com, nprattha@jasmine.com, noc@ji-net.com, psanti@anet.net.th, system@anet.net.th, admin@fareast.net.th, surasak@fareast.net.th, patcharabuls@milcom.co.th, tomesiam@hotmail.com, support@internetthai.com, noc@otaro.com, support@101g.com, thana@kirz.com, narits ss <narits_ss@ttt.co.th>, ekkarachu ss <ekkarachu_ss@ttt.co.th>, noc@proen.co.th, taewa k <taewa.k@jasmine.com>, kung@it.co.th, sarayuth@infonetthailand.com, noc@uni.net.th, cindy@alltelecom.co.th, BIOICE1981@hotmail.com, nocworldweb@hotmail.com, info@sipphone.co.th, noc@totisp.net, blockweb@totisp.net, sittiraj tot <sittiraj.tot@gmail.com>, neeyada sirisampandh <neeyada.sirisampandh@pacnet.com>, duangjai s <duangjai.s@jasmine.com>, noc@totiig.net, bkriengsak@cat.net.th, chaiwat@isp-thailand.com, admin issp <admin_issp@isp-thailand.com>, surachaiji ss <surachaiji_ss@ttt.co.th>, matisa@ttt.co.th, issn ss <issn_ss@ttt.co.th>, totnoc@tot.co.th, sarayut@kirz.com, channira no <channira.no@ntt.co.th>, apinan k <apinan_k@beenets.com>, suchok@cat.net.th, suchok@bulbul.cat.net.th, helpdesk@isp-thailand.com, suttiporn y <suttiporn.y@cattelecom.com>, wasan s <wasan.s@cattelecom.com>, chatree@isp-thailand.com, sariya s <sariya.s@hcwml.com>, rommuk p <rommuk.p@hcwml.com>, jirawan c <jirawan.c@jasmine.com>, info@uploadtoday.com, Surparsorn Run <Surparsorn_Run@truecorp.co.th>, EAK@ISP-THAILAND.COM, ict@tttmaxnet.com, Nongluck p <Nongluck.p@jasmine.com>, prasitchai v <prasitchai.v@samtel.samartcorp.com>, se@samart.co.th, tsutee@jasmine.com, suvinit@proen.co.th, mars2551@yahoo.com, kalant@ntt.co.th, uthai@ntt.co.th, jaroonchai@ntt.co.th, uaichai@anet.net.th, Parinyar@dtac.co.th, uraiporn s <uraiporn.s@jasmine.com>, mubooh@gmail.com, naruepoi@ais.co.th, krits@ais.co.th, premchai@anet.net.th, support@idc.cattelecom.com, phup@csloxinfo.net, aree mict <aree.mict@yahoo.co.th>

Sent: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:49:43 +0700 (ICT)

Subject: ส่งต่อ: ขอส่งรายชื่อเว็บไซต์ที่มีผลกระทบต่อความมั่นคง

เรียนผู้ isp และผู้เกี่ยวข้อง เพื่อโปรดดำเนินการ

อารีย์ จิวรรักษ์

หมายเหตุ: แนบจดหมายที่จะส่งต่อแล้ว

______________________________________________

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Censorship Thai-style: The FACT Story

FACT blocked in Cambodia!

I live in Bangkok and my server is TRUE but currently I am in Ratanakiri, Cambodia, and I tried to access your website but could not and I contacted the Cambodian IP server (CAMSHIN) and they told me that all internet communications from their platform are routed via Thailand and perhaps this is the reason I am denied access.

Kind regards,

Shane Tarr, PhD

FACT blocked in Shanghai!

In answer to recent tlc posting, I cannot access your site in China (Shanghai). There is quite often a problem with wordpress sites here, even in Shanghai.

Professor Nicholas Tapp

Censorship Thai-style: The FACT story

How easy to censor, how difficult to unblock!

Monday, April 27, six calls to the ICT ministry. Permanent Secretary Su Lo-uthai refused to take my call. I found this rather typical, insulting abuse of government power considering I had petitioned him personally on behalf of FACT. Su referred me to Deputy Permanent Secretary Angsuman Sunarai. I was given two numbers for him but he did not work at the first office and the second did not answer. I was given his mobile and it was turned off. Angsuman’s secretary didn’t answer hers. Angsuman was reported to be in Khon Kaen so I was given two numbers at the ministry for his deputy, Aree Jivorarak, chief of MICT’s IT Regulation Bureau. Neither number was answered and so I was given his mobile number. He asked for details by email, copied below:

Further to our telephone conversation, it has been brought to my attention that my website, Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) has been blocked by around noon Saturday by at least six ISPs.

The URL is http://facthai.wordpress.com. Internet users trying to access the FACT website are redirected to http://w3.mict.go.th.

I have been the registered owner of this website since November 15, 2006. We definitely do not host, post or tolerate any illegal content on FACT’s website and we have never been blocked before.

Please investigate this matter thoroughly and report your results to me

immediately.

I hope the results of your investigation are such that you will immediately

unblock my website.

However, if MICT wishes for some reason to continue to block access to FACT, I require your reasons in full for so doing and a copy of the court order authorising you to do so under the requirements of the Computer-Related Crimes Act 2007.

My mobile telephone number is below my name.

Thank you.

Two followup calls to Aree but he could not deal with this matter because he was in a meeting. He gave me a mobile number for Nut Payongsri, IT Specialist. Nut replied he would read my email and get back to me today. Nut called back to advise me that he found FACT’s website accessible from his office using TOT ISP (wouldn’t one expect all MICT computers not to be blocked?) and that FACT’s website does not appear on the blocklist for April 24 but this is the latest blocklist he had available.

He promised to contact his superior, Aree, for copies of the MICT blocklists for April 25, 26, and today and to call another office to check using a different ISP.

MICT, at 2 pm April 27, denied blocking FACT’s website despite the fact that users are redirected to http://w3.mict.go.th. This is, of course, simply not credible! Meanwhile, FACT’s website is still inaccessible for me on CAT Hi-net ISP.

All administrative functions for FACT’s WordPress site using https are now blocked. Furthermore, the latest post in which I advised users to switch to HTTPS for access had been modified so the URLs read only HTTP on FACT’s public front page but, on editing, return to HTTPS. Hackers or MICT?

TOT unblocked FACT’s website (“sorry for your inconvenient”) around four PM April 27; CAT unblocked around six PM April 28. (True never implemented blocking.) I have insisted to both ISPs that they provide detailed information on the MICT “request” and the dates of blocking. If this was accomplished during the Emergency Decree, it’s legal; otherwise, MICT needed a court order to comply with the Computer Crimes Act. It is likely smaller ISPs will be slower to unblock.

The very least FACT expects from the ICT minister, Ranongruk Suwanachee, is a formal and public apology. None of the information on FACT has been deleted or altered from the time of blocking to the time of unblocking. This means there never was any illegal content on FACTsite.

This has been a valuable lesson for FACT and shows how completely arbitrary Internet censorship really is, in Thailand and everywhere.

FACT wishes to work with MICT and the ISPs to create a clear and simple procedure for website owners to appeal blocking.

Very few have fought or would fight as hard as I did. Next time, FACT hopes to see them in court!

CJ Hinke

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT)

'Incendiary' media content banned-Bangkok Post

Politically incendiary TV, radio content to be banned

Bangkok Post: May 14, 2009

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/16629/politically-incendiary-tv-radio-content-to-be-banned

Incendiary political content on community radio and satellite TV stations will be banned under proposed regulations issued by the National Telecommunications Commission.

The government said it would enforce the changes evenly against any broadcaster which offends, including the red shirt-run DStation and yellow shirt-owned ASTV satellite TV stations.

Prime Minister’s Office Minister Sathit Wongnongtoey said the regulations would allow the NTC to take action against community radio and satellite TV stations which air content deemed to undermine democracy.

The regulations require cable TV and satellite TV channels to seek permission for each programme being aired, Mr Sathit said.

”Once the regulations take effect, any broadcast station airing content deemed to be politically incendiary won’t be allowed to operate.”

An NTC sub-committee has held public hearings on the regulations for community radio stations, and would soon hold hearings for satellite TV stations.

The sub-committee is taking into account suggestions from the public. Revised regulations are expected in June.

He said a decision on whether to allow DStation, the TV channel run by the pro-Thaksin United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, to resume broadcasting would depend on the station’s programme content. ”The station would be allowed to resume operations, if it wants to run general news reports.

”The regulations will be enforced even-handedly against all satellite stations.”

Meanwhile, a group of UDD supporters yesterday demanded clarification of a report that the Nakhon Ratchasima Transport Office had barred public buses from carrying passengers outside the province last Sunday, upsetting the travel plans of its supporters.

A bus driver forced 50 UDD supporters heading to a rally in Bangkok to get off the bus in Sikhiu district.

Wattana Phattharachon, director of the Nakhon Ratchasima Transport Office, denied issuing such an order.

The driver refused to take the 50 UDD supporters to Bangkok because the bus owner was concerned about the vehicle’s security.

Respect for King…and the rest of us-UPI

Respecting the Thai king – and others too

Frank G. Anderson, Thai Traditions

United Press International: May 08, 2009

http://www.upiasia.com/Politics/2009/05/08/respecting_the_thai_king_and_others_too/6212/

Finally someone has begun a detailed compilation of lèse majesté – insulting the monarchy – cases in Thailand. The importance of this work cannot be overstated because the subject matter, the protection of the Thai monarchy and political reform, lie at the heart of the nation’s concerns and will prescribe what shape the future takes.

The compilation can currently be found in Thai only at Lèse Majesté Watch at http://lmwatch.blogspot.com/. Currently the English language link is not operating, probably because most of the material has yet to be processed. This blog currently indicates 32 lèse majesté cases either active or already adjudicated.

The most recent such case is that of Papatchanan Chingin, an FM radio program hostess in Nakhonratchasima. On Thursday she led a small group of Red Shirts – supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra – in burning a coffin in effigy on which was written, “His Majesty General Prem (president of the Privy Council); People’s Alliance for Democracy; government of crooks; Born … Died April 8, 2009.”

The use of the honorific “his majesty,” according to local sources and Chingin herself, was a parody of the same expression that anti-Thaksin media baron Sondhi Limthongkul used on ASTV when he called General Prem Tinsulanonda “his majesty,” in what was most likely an unintentional error.

The crux of the matter in Chingin’s case is whether the Thai courts will view parody and mimicry as legitimate methods of expression when combined with the king’s unique title. She will have a chance to find out, since two days after the coffin burning a group of Yellow Shirts and Thai military, upset with the demonstration, dropped by police headquarters and filed lèse majesté charges against her.

Currently out on bail after using a relative’s government position as guarantee, Chingin has denied all charges and insisted that “I was not the first” to use “his majesty” to describe General Prem.

Hopefully “someone” will also put together a well-organized compilation of Thailand’s human rights record, complete with historical details and identifying bottlenecks by name.

Although many agencies and nongovernmental organizations have already been active in documenting individual human rights cases, two major failings have persisted.

First, there is little to no protection from continued human rights abuses up to and including kidnapping, political harassment and murder. Secondly, the process for “closure” is too prolonged, with cases generally going on for years before they are concluded, if ever. At the heart of this process is the very institution that protects the Thai monarchy, the Royal Thai Police.

Thailand’s police have so far escaped major consequences arising from their many past failures. The most recent was their failure to protect the country’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva when he attempted to act as host for the 14th ASEAN summit in the resort town of Pattaya last month. The prime minister’s car was lanced with Thai flag poles and his driver was severely injured as Red Shirt supporters blocked his car and attempted to manhandle him. The summit was canceled.

While many in Thailand are asking where the police were at the time, many also know the answer – in accordance with Thaksin’s wishes, they were letting mobs set fire to the country’s image – again for political reasons.

Hopefully next month in Phuket there will not be a replay of the mayhem that hit Pattaya, wreaking havoc on its reputation and image as a safe recreational area. The resort island is booked for a renewed ASEAN meeting and security measures are said to be in place. The police and the army, as well as the provincial governor, have indicated their preparedness for the new summit.

Thailand has understandably embarked on another public relations campaign, both locally and internationally, to help rectify its image and prevent further deterioration of its credibility.

Abroad, the kingdom is disseminating “the truth” about what has been occurring in the country so that foreign diplomats and commercial partners “understand” Thailand’s situation. Internally, the state machinery, comprising the army and a special Protect the King committee, police, Privy Council, government, hard-line traditionalists and a few well-meaning but ineffectual democracy activists, are clamping down on “undesirable” dissent and “potentially damaging” media reports.

This method – fighting freedom of speech in order to preserve it – is not unique to Asian countries. Rationalized most visibly under the guise of protecting national security and safeguarding the nation, echoes of Italian wartime dictator Benito Mussolini and Japanese Emperor Hirohoto reverberate around the globe, but are seemingly unheard in the Land of Smiles.

Whether Thailand’s concerted campaign of containing the damage, preserving the country’s image and “educating” others to “understand” what is really going on will work is moot – it won’t. It only satisfies those who are going through the motions and provides them with more justification for carrying on as in the past.

It is no wonder that University of North Carolina Professor Kevin Hewison, whose detailed discussion on General Prem appears online at http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/1200, has indicated a considerable degree of pessimism regarding Thailand’s political future. The only optimists seem to be those who think that things will soon return to “normal.”

—

(Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development. A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand’s first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post – http://www.thekoratpost.com – he has spent over eight years in Thailand “embedded” with the local media. He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology. ©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)

Call for universal human rights against conflict-Junya Yimprasert

[FACT comments: FACT’s signer Junya’s current political analysis is groundbreaking here. Every Thai and expat should read this essay in full.]

The ‘Voter’s Uprising’ that is changing perceptions in THAILAND

Junya Yimprasert

TimeUpThailand: April 2009

http://timeupthailand.blogspot.com/2009/05/voters-uprising-that-is-changing.html

This article was first distributed at a Consultation on ‘Gender, Development and Decent Work: Building a Common Agenda’,
OECD Headquarters, Paris, 27th April 2009.

Some errors in the initial draft have been corrected. A fully accurate account of the chaos and turmoil of the recent weeks, months and years in Thailand is not possible.

FOREWORD

After the September 2006 military coup that deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra we pointed-out that whatever the justifications used to legitimise the Coup, the action of the military was as disloyal as always to the legitimate demands of the people, and we made a simple observation: “. . if there is going to be anything resembling sustainable development in Thailand, the emphasis in Thai politics must be on making sure that the political demands of the new, urban classes are satisfied without further undermining the livelihoods and life-styles of the agrarian community upon which the future of Thailand depends.”.

Part One

80 years of struggle for democracy

End of absolute monarchy 1932

At dawn on 24 June 1932, the tiny People’s Party Khana Ratsadon carried-out a lightning and bloodess coup d’état that abruptly ended 150 years of absolute monarchy under the Chakri Dynasty, and opened the way to democracy for Siam (Thailand), but the road has been painful.

Khana Ratsadon consisted of an elite group of civilians, government officials, aristocrats and military officers. The coup was led by Pridi Phanomyong with Lieutenant Colonel Pibulsongkhram in charge of the military wing. Completely unknown to the people of Siam, within the space of a few hours Siam was changed from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. The new but military-dominated Government introduced a Charter which did at least aim at some kind of democracy.

Khana Ratsadon came into power with the announcement of six primary tasks:
v To maintain absolute national independence in all aspects, including political, judicial and economic…
v To maintain national cohesion and security…
v To promote economic well-being by creating full employment and by launching a national economic plan…
v To guarantee equality for all…
v To grant complete liberty and freedom to the people, provided that this does not contradict the afore-mentioned principles and…
v To provide education for the people.

Royalist opposition to the coup was strong and the Permanent Constitution that was adopted in December 1932 returned some authority to the Monarchy, but in 1935 King Prajadhipok, tired of the power-play, decided to abdicate.

Thailand’s first ‘democratic’ elections were held in 1933 – for half of the 156-seat so-called People’s Assembly, the other half being appointed. This was the first time that women were given the right to vote and stand for election. (It took until 1949 for Thailand to actually elect a woman MP.)

The 1932 Constitution stated that sovereign power was held by the people of Siam (Thailand), but in practice, after 77 years, such times have still not yet arrived.

Pridi v. Pibun

Pridi Phanomyong is none-the-less regarded as the founder of Thailand’s still nascent democracy. Pridi was born in Ayutthaya in 1900 to a family of well-off rice farmers. He was an exceptionally bright student and completed law school studies in Thailand at the age of 19 and, with the help of a Thai government scholarship, completed doctoral studies in law, economics and politics at the Sorbonne in 1926. In Paris he founded the Khana Ratsadon with a group of Thai that included a young officer called Plaek Pibulsongkhram. In 1927 Pridi returned to Thailand and began a fast rise through the hierarchy.

Plaek Pibulsongkhram, known commonly as ‘Pibun’, was a graduate of the Royal Military Academy in Thailand and in France for advanced military tuition. After the 1932 coup d’état he fashioned himself into the first of a long string of Thai generalissimos, functioning as Thailand’s war-time Prime Minister from 1938 to 1944 and as an acting-Prime Minister or Dictator between 1948 and 1957.

Pridi worked assiduously for the six objectives of the Khana Ratsadon, and in 1934 he and others founded the University of Moral and Political Science, known today as Thammasat University.

Between 1933 and 1946 Pridi served as Minister of Interior, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Finance, as Regent and as Prime Minister. As Minister of Foreign Affairs (1935 – 38) he oversaw the signing of the treaties that revoked the extra-territorial rights of 12 countries, thus returning Thailand to (almost) complete independence for the first time since the Bowring Treaty with Great Britain in 1855.

In 1938, as Prime Minister, the strongly anti-Chinese Pibun, opposed by Pridi, changed the name of Siam to Thailand.

When the Japanese invaded Thailand in December 1941 and pro-Japan Pibun saw how easily they pushed the British out of Malaysia, Pibun declared war on the Western Allies – in January 1942.

Pridi refused to sign the declaration of war and was removed from Government. With Thailand’s still un-crowned King Ananda Mahidol being schooled abroad, Pridi was given the symbolic rank of Regent, and it was as Regent that the thoroughly anti-Japan Pridi turned to building the underground Free Thai Movement (Seri Thai).

With the war coming to a close the out-of-favour Pibun was ousted by the Seri Thai Movement, and Pridi became Thailand’s 7th Prime Minister in March 1946 – for a few months.

In September 1945 an exhausted Thailand was glad of a visit from their young King-to-be, who was studying law in Switzerland, and in May 1946 they also welcomed-in Pridi’s new Constitution, this time with a fully-elected 176-member House of Representatives.

On 9 June 1946 young Mahidol, still only 21, was found in bed in the Grand Palace in Bangkok with a bullet through his head. Pibun the Dictator accused Pridi the idealist of being involved in the regicide, and Thailand descended into chaos. (The truth behind the death of the King has remained shrouded in mystery. The execution, on grounds of complicity in suspected murder, of two of the King’s servants and a Senator in 1955 satisfied nobody.)

In November 1947 a powerful group of officers (including Sarit Thanarat and Thanom Kittikachorn, both dictators-to-be) staged a coup. Armoured vehicles were dispatched to storm Pridi’s residence, but Pridi was already on his way to Singapore. Pibun, now a self-appointed Field Marshal, tore-up the 1946 Constitution and took-on the role of Prime Minister.

To neutralise the House of Representatives, Pibun replaced Pridi’s 1946 Constitution with a Charter that gave the Monarch a Supreme State Council, a 100-member Senate and many other powers, including the right to declare martial law.

After a failed attempt at a come-back in February 1949, Pridi fled alone to China, leaving behind his pregnant wife, Phoonsuk. This so-called ‘Palace Rebellion’, during which Pridi occupied the Grand Palace, was easily crushed by Pibun, but not without some hours of heavy, street-fighting between Pibun’s military and Pridi’s supporters – who included the Royal Thai Navy. Immediately after the Rebellion four socialist MPs (ex-Cabinet ministers) and many other leaders were caught and executed without trial.

In China, Pridi was well-received by Zhou Enlai. In November 1952 Phoonsuk and her eldest son Pal were charged with offences against the internal and external security of the Kingdom. During 84 days in detention, Phoonsuk slept on the floor of a small cell with two other women, but never requested bail. When freed in February 1953 she went in search of her husband, who she knew was somewhere in China. In December 1953 she joined him with 2 of their six children. Pal joined them in 1957, after his release from prison. In China the family was more than well-provided for, but, to be able to better connect with the world and with Thailand, in 1969 the family moved to a small house in the Paris suburbs, where Pridi died peacefully in May 1983. His passing was totally ignored by the Thai State. After years of work to clear accusations, eventually, in 1999, the UNESCO General Conference added the name of Professor Dr. Pridi Phanomyong to the list of the world’s Great Personalities, the third Thai commoner to receive that honour. In 2005, on International Women’s Day, Than Phuying Phoonsuk Phanomyong, President of the Pridi Phanomyong Foundation in Bangkok, received the ‘Outstanding Women in Buddhism Award’ for her peaceful courage in the face of grave personal hardship and political crises.

Pibun’s 1949 Constitution turned the Supreme State Council into the King’s own Privy Council, gave the King the sole right to appoint all members of the Senate and ruled that the House of Representatives required a 2/3 majority to over-rule a royal veto.

In short the model of royalist-military control over the political life of the people of Thailand was cast for the next 60 years.

At the age of 23, Bhumibol Adulyadej, younger brother of the deceased Ananda Mahidol, was crowned King on 5 May 1950.

Coups, rebellions and popular revolts (incomplete):
1912 Palace Revolt (First movement for democracy)
1932 Coup d’État (end of absolute monarchy)
1933 Royalist coup (June)
1933 Royalist coup (‘Boworadet Rebellion’, October)
1935 Rebellion of the Sergeants
1939 Songsuradet Rebellion (royalists)
1947 Military coup
1948 Army General Staff Plot (anti-Pridi)
1949 Palace Rebellion (Pridi’s attempted come-back)
1951 Manhattan Rebellion (Navy rebellion, June)
1951 Military coup (‘Silent Coup’, November)
1953-55 Peace Rebellion (Uprising and crack-down)
1957 Military coup
1958 Military coup
1964 Air force Rebellion
1971 Military coup
1973 Uprising (October)
1976 Uprising and crack-down (October)
1976 Military coup (October)
1977 Military Rebellion (March)
1977 Military coup (October)
1981 Military rebellion (Young Turks)
1985 Military rebellion (Young Turks)
1991 Military coup
1992 Uprising (‘Bloody May’)
2006 Military coup
2009 Uprising (‘Voter’s Uprising’, April)

During the years of Pibun’s dictatorship, King Bhumibol remained a ceremonial figure, but as Pibun’s power waned and social unrest grew, Pibun was challenged by the man who had defeated Pridi’s coup – General Sarit Thanarat. In 1957 Pibun went to the King for support. The King refused him and asked Pibun to resign. When Pibun refused, Sarit seized power in a US-backed, pro-royalist military coup. The King imposed martial law and declared Sarit ‘Military Defender of the Capital’. Pibun fled to Japan, where he died in 1964.

Cold War and the ‘People’s War’

Since 1932 the people of Thailand have had to face more than 20 attempted or successful military coups. The people have had to deal with 18 constitutions and 27 Prime Ministers, most of them military generals. In the 77 years since 1932 only one elected Prime Minister has managed to complete the full 4-year term (the now self-exiled, convicted, embattled Thaksin Shinawatra).

In 1954 the Vietminh pushed the French out of Vietnam and fear of communist insurgency took hold in Thailand.

The dictatorship of Field Marshal Sarit, and of those that followed him, concentrated on building-up and promoting the role of the monarchy – mainly to legitimise their oppression of the poor (and their personal corruption). The military re-introduced palace ceremonies to the Affairs of State and used billions of public money to build palaces and royal projects all over the country, especially in the north, north-east and south where they faced strong opposition from local populations e.g. in the Phupan Mountains (1975) and in Songkla Province (1975) and in the Khaokao Mountains (1985).

In this civil war, sometimes called the ‘People’s War’, which raged on into the 1980ies, hundreds of thousands of poor people were mindlessly classified as ‘communists’ and a threat to monarchy. Thousands went ‘missing’, were imprisoned without trial and/or murdered.

Sarit the monarchy-builder died in 1963 and received a royal cremation. His death revealed the full depth of his personal corruption. Besides the 50 or so mistresses he retained, the squabbles over his fortune exposed the existence of wealth in terms of thousands of hectares of land, dozens of houses and hundreds of millions in cash. He was replaced immediately by General Thanom Kittikachorn, his long-time stand-in-dictator. In a public show against corruption Thanom confiscated 600 million Baht from Sarit’s ‘estate’ and returned it to Government use. Thanom then appointed himself Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Field Marshal, Admiral of the Fleet and Marshal of the Royal Thai Air Force etc., and continued Sarit’s pro-American, anti-Communist politics, thus ensuring himself massive US economic and financial aid during the Vietnam War.

Between 1950 and 1987 the US provided Thailand with more than 2 billion USD in military assistance.

From the early 1960ies Thai society was exposed, for the first time, to the full onslaught of mainstream western culture, especially American culture. The growing communist insurgencies in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia coupled with demands to modernise Thai society placed the people of Thailand under enormous new pressures. Huge amounts of foreign capital flowed into the country to support not only the military build-up but the development of new infra-structure – the roads, dams, irrigation schemes and administrative centres required to tame and control the provinces and promote the so-called Green Revolution. As well, to sustain itself as an independent nation-state, Thailand needed hospitals, schools and universities. Forest cover was reduced from 53% to a mere 28% between 1961 and 1989. During the same period the population doubled, from just over 26 million in 1960 to 54.5 million in 1990.

Millions of small farmers found themselves unable to cope with the Green Revolution’s cash crop imperatives and the rising cost of living. Millions left the land in search of money in the increasingly export-oriented industrial sprawl of Bangkok. The Cold War years in Thailand, dominated by Thai militarism, American military bases, Green Revolution and export-oriented industrialisation, introduced Thai society to the idea that – there’s nothing money can’t buy (50 000 GIs = 50 000 ‘GI-women’).

Extreme exploitation of cheap labour led to increasing industrial unrest and, as the level of education rose, increasing numbers of young people became increasingly critical of the Vietnam War, Thailand’s deep involvement with US imperialism and the immensely corrupt, autocratic character of the Thai state.

Uprising and crack-down – October ’73 & ’76

By October 1973, general public unrest reached a climax. Hundreds of thousands of students, workers, farmers and new middle-class intellectuals gathered in demonstrations on the streets of Bangkok – demanding an end to 10-years of despotic rule under Thanom.

On 14 October 1973, the students faced hand-grenades and machine-gun fire – from the ground and from a helicopter in which the son of Field Marshal Thanom (Lt-Colonel Narong Kittikachorn) manned the machine-gun. Around one hundred students died in the confrontation with the military on the campus of Thammasat University.

The King was forced to step into the open. Thanom was requested to leave the country and the King appointed a new Prime Minister. However, the pride of the Thai military, well-stuffed by the US and others, remained irked by the constantly increasing public unrest. By 1976 the military-controlled mass-media was letting it be known that killing ‘communists’ was OK – like ‘making merit’, and political assassinations became commonplace.

On 6 October 1976, in the name of “Nation, Religion and King”, a large force of military and para-military thugs (New Force, Village Scouts, Red Gaurs etc.) moved against students at Thammasat University who were protesting the return of Thanom. (Thanom, in the robes of a monk, had been welcomed back to Thailand by the royal family.)

According to official figures, on campus and in the adjacent Royal Grounds of the Grand Palace, 41 students were shot, burnt alive or beaten to death in an orgy of violence, with over 700 wounded. Unofficial figures say many more.

Many of the students not imprisoned on that day fled to the ranks of the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) in the jungle and villages, and hundreds of student leaders from universities all over Thailand followed them. They became known as the ‘October People’.

Three decades of fearfully destructive civil war led eventually to the issuing of an Amnesty by Prime Minister Prem in 1982. The CPT disappeared from the stage and many of the October People returned to political life – as university lecturers, human-rights activists, NGO leaders and entrepreneurs, to the Democrat Party and some eventually to Thaksin’s party. Thanom himself lived-out his life in luxury and was given a royal cremation.

Prem’s era

General Prem Tinsulanonda, Thailand’s current ‘Master-of-military-coups’, Prime Minister from 1980 – 1988, member of the Privy Council since 1988 and Chairman since 1998, loves to play middle-man between the Monarchy and the Government and the general public. He himself survived two attempted military coups – by the Young Turks – during his time as PM. (Note: All of the 18-member Privy Council are appointed by the King. About half are Army Chiefs of Staff and the remainder former Chief Justices, Prime Ministers etc.)

Prem managed the military coup of 1991 and the crushing of the May 1992 uprising, and enjoyed architecting the military coup that ousted Thaksin in 2006, for which purpose he went around preaching (effectively it seems) that military and civil service personnel are ‘Servants of the King’.

In fact Prem stands accused of kicking-out four elected Prime Ministers – Chatchai Choonhawan in 1991, Thaksin in 2006, Samak in 2008 and Somchai in 2008. Immediately after he had Abhisit, the current Prime Minister, in place in April 2009 he made a public address to explain what a good PM he will be.

After 40 years in politics ‘Pappa Prem’ continues to wield much power in Thailand.

For the tens of millions of people beaten-down by decades of military dictatorship, it required yet another bloody uprising in May 1992 to crack the walls so carefully built to exclude them from participation in governance.

The Bloody May massacre of 1992 saw 48 citizens shot dead in the streets of Bangkok.

In a by-that-time standard procedure, the King stepped-out (after the massacre) to mediate the uproar and appoint a new Prime Minister.

It took another 5 years of struggle after the Bloody May massacre to establish a so-called People’s Constitution in 1997, and another 8 years before an elected Prime Minister was able to complete a full 4-year term (in 2004).

Rise and fall of Thaksin (1994 – 2006)

Thaksin Shinawatra (59), of Chinese descent, was born into a wealthy merchant family in Northern Thailand, from Chiang Mai. He graduated from the Thai Police Cadet Academy in 1973, studied criminal justice in the US, and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel in the metropolitan police (in Thailand) before moving openly into business in 1987 and politics in 1994. Thaksin seemed to enjoy being on the front-line and, enormously ambitious, succeeded in becoming Thailand’s first-ever elected PM to complete a 4-year term in office (2001 – 2004).

Thaksin did not appear strongly anti-Royalist. He did his best to buy the acceptance and support of the monarchy, but no matter how many billions of private and public money he pushed in that direction it was never sufficient. His style and approach to governance was that of the corporate CEO, welcomed by some but alien and somewhat abhorrent to much of the hierarchy that perceived him as a threat to the established order. He ran fast over, around and under the Establishment when partnership did not suite his purpose.

On the domestic front he managed a ‘rural-poor populist strategy’ which gave him his solid majority in the electorate. In 2001 he kick-started Thailand’s first ever universal health-care scheme – the ‘30 Baht Scheme’. He oversaw the implementation of a ‘0ne Million Baht Village Fund’, a scheme that provided every village in Thailand with a one million cash bonus to be administered at will. He attempted to promote village productivity and assisted farmers in managing their debt burden. He introduced cheap loan programmes for low-income people to buy houses and even taxis. How much of all this was political opportunism and how much genuine concern is largely irrelevant. The rural poor, in the villages of Thailand, yearned to be respectfully acknowledged. They were grateful and gave him their support. He also promoted a vision of Thailand as the ‘Kitchen of the World’, not an especially flattering title, but one that did underscore the importance of the agricultural sector in Thailand’s future.

His ‘War on Drugs’ he did pursue with the most reactionary elements of the Establishment. The countryside was cleaned-up – for a while, but some 2 500 people, innocent and otherwise, lost their lives, often mercilessly. This brought him many enemies, especially amongst the NGOs and, needless-to-say, the drug trade is flourishing again.

With regard to foreign policy, his over-enthusiasm for neo-liberal globalisation and the right he bestowed upon himself to negotiate as well as sign Free Trade Agreements with less than minimal or zero consultation with those affected, was much less than welcome. The immediate and long-term damage caused by Thaksin’s megalomanic manoeuvring on the global stage will take years to repair.

Also, without reserve, Thaksin channelled money to his own family. He was perhaps no more crooked than the others, he just out-manipulated them at their own game – in business and politics. In other words, in the mind of the Establishment, Thaksin had to be got rid of. He has only his own super-ego to blame for his downfall.

In February 2005 Thaksin won a landslide victory with 67% of the vote (19 million votes), but in Thailand that still means next to nothing. His best enemies had already decided that he had to go. A military coup was staged for September 2006 – when Thaksin was in New York attending a meeting of the UN General Assembly. Despite the usual tanks-in-the-streets phenomenon, the coup that deposed Thaksin’s government turned out to be bloodless. Convicted in-absentia for violating political ethics Thaksin has yet to return to Thailand.

The King approved the military junta that replaced Thaksin’s government, and thus also the restoration of Thailand’s customary feudal order – for a few more months.

The 2006 junta began as the ‘Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy’ but, a little too obvious, the name was soon changed to the Council for National Security.

Part Two

3 years of PAD chaos

The People’s Alliance for Democracy, the PAD, was founded by the Bangkok media tycoon Sonthi Limthongkul in February 2006, for the purpose of bringing-down Thaksin.

Sonthi had been an ally of Thaksin – declaring at one time that Thaksin was the best PM that Thailand had experienced, but they parted company and, in mid-2005, with accusations of corruption and disloyalty to the Crown, Sonthi turned against Thaksin. When Thaksin shut-down Sonthi’s TV programme, Sonthi launched his own 24-hour Asia Satellite TV.

With ASTV increasingly effective as a tool for spreading negative gossip about Thaksin, Sonthi was able to ally the State Enterprise Labour Relation Confederation with members of the Democrat Party and with a wide assortment of NGOs, celebrities, intellectuals and civil servants. Decked-out in yellow, this assortment of mainly middle-class Bangkokians called itself the People’s Alliance for Democracy.

Claiming that Thaksin was the sole cause of Thailand’s innumerable problems, and completely ignoring the fact that, whatever Thaksin was not, he was a legally elected PM with a huge electoral majority, the PAD conjured-up some ‘new politics’ which included replacing most elected politicians with appointed “good people”. Appointed by who was left to imagination.

The Democrat Party boycotted the 2006 election and refused to acknowledge that 16 million Thai had voted for Thaksin. The PAD slandered Thaksin’s voters, mainly small farmers, as illiterate morons too ignorant to participate in democracy. The Democrat Party and PAD let it be known that they wanted the King to intervene and appoint a new PM, but the King considered that proposal out-of-order.

The PAD placed itself in a win-or-lose situation and, with slogans like ‘Thaksin out no matter what’, began to court the assistance of like-minded military.

The September 2006 military coup was sprung, as said, when Thaksin was in New York – a bloodless Coup with press pictures of pretty Bangkokians posing with flowers as chums of soldiers and tanks.

Immediately after the Coup many of the intellectual elite, whose feathers Thaksin had ruffled for one reason or other, came forward with the usual platitudes ‘. . although the Coup was wrong we could do nothing about it.’ . . ‘For the sake of the nation it is best for all to allow the Junta to arrange a new election’. Etc.

The Junta’s first step was to annul the hard-won People’s Constitution of 1997. The second step was to give General Surayud Chulanont, a member of the Privy Council, a list of tasks that included forming a new Government, writing a new Constitution, dissolving Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT), arranging a General Election, and increasing the military budget by 33%.

General Surayud became Thailand’s 24th Prime Minister in October 2006 and scheduled a General Election for December 2007.

Thaksin, wrongly or rightly accused of rigging the 2006 General Election, saw his TRT Party dissolved by the Constitutional Court on 13 May 2007.

Of the 377 elected Members of Parliament in the TRT Party, 111 of the leading MPs were banned from politics for 5 years. Those not banned had just enough time for a re-mould before the December election and stood for re-election as the People Power Party (PPP). The Thai Parliament has 480 seats.

The election of December 2007 was the third electoral contest between ‘Thaksin’s people’ and the Democrat Party.

With Thaksin in self-imposed exile and 111 of his leading MPs banned from politics, the way seemed clear for the Democrat Party and, with the eager support of the PAD, the Democrat Party campaigned vigorously with high hopes of victory.

But, alas alack, Thaksin’s people won the day, with the PPP taking 233 seats (with 14 million votes), leaving the Democrat Party with 164 seats.

Again the PAD leadership, which included a Democrat Party MP, refused to accept the result, and resumed their agitation: all traces of ‘Thaksin cronyism’ and his ‘family business’ must be wiped from the pure face of Thai politics.

Short on leaders, the PPP set up government under the large frame of Samak Suntornvej, best known for his interest in cooking.

By this time the PAD leaders were on their way to losing their cool altogether, clarifying their new democracy model with a proposal that 70% of MPs should be good people appointed by good people and only 30% elected.

The PAD’s actions became increasingly wild and lawless.

In May 2008 yellow-clad PAD demonstrators laid siege to Government House. The Royal Thai Army and Royal Thai Police informed PM Samak that they were unable to clear Government House. Reason, law and order began to disintegrate. After 3 months of siege, on August 26 the PAD mob (yellow-shirts) occupied Government House. It seems that the State Enterprise Labour Relations Confederation had promised a General Strike, but in the event only some sectors of the Confederation responded.

For three months Thailand’s Cabinet was chased around Bangkok by the PAD until the Chiefs of the Army and Police suggested to Samak that he dissolve the Parliament, but this didn’t suit the Democrat Party – who had no chance of winning an election. The PAD ‘strategy’ worked better with ‘Samak out’, but Samak was in no mind to give in easily, so he gave the Premiership to Thaksin’s brother-in-law, Somchai Wongsawat, which did nothing to please the PAD. Somchai achieved the distinction of becoming the first PM in Thailand to have never seen the inside of Government House.

The PAD became increasingly provocative. At the start of October demonstrators attacked National Broadcasting TV, the Ministry of Finance and several other government buildings, cutting their water and electricity supplies.

On 7 October the PAD mob attacked the Parliament House – and what a fiasco. Under Government orders the Royal Thai Police attempted to defend the Parliament but (without military backing) found themselves in a sticky situation. The PAD mob fought magnificently with ping-pong bombs, catapults, bricks and metal pipes, stabbing at police with flagpoles and staves and attempting to run them over with pickup trucks. Democrat Party leaders were cheered out of the main entrance of the Parliament House while PM Somchai & Company had to escape by climbing over a fence. In clouds of tear gas the police were beaten back and ended-up defending their own Bangkok Police Headquarters. Five police received gunshot wounds, one front-line PAD woman died and one of the PAD‘s own para-military leaders (an ex-police lieutenant) died when the bombs he was carrying in his own car exploded outside Parliament House. In total, according to the Public Health Ministry, 443 people were wounded.

The PAD leadership had frequently indicated that they had support in the Palace. This claim seemed validated when the Queen, a princess, members of the Privy Council and the military high command and leaders of the Democrat Party, including Abhisit, showed-up for the cremation of the dead PAD woman. For the Thai public this was their ‘Eye-opening Day’.

Never-the-less, Somchai, with his Cabinet in retreat in the north of Thailand, was proving a tougher-than-expected cookie and showed no signs of capitulation. Increasingly desperate the PAD’s actions became increasingly desperate.

On 25 November the PAD mob descended in free-style on Bangkok’s ultra-modern international airport (a successful Thaksin project). With strong indications that the Palace was supporting the PAD, the Police and Army did no more than shuffle their feet, and the PAD mob had no problem in taking-over and completely shutting-down both of Bangkok’s international airports and four other important airports including Phuket. Their action stranded more than 80 aircraft and 300 000 tourists and stopped all international and domestic flights for over a week.

On 26 November the Commander in Chief of the Royal Thai Army proposed that Somchai dissolve his cabinet and that the PAD stop demonstrating, but nobody agreed. And so, on 2 December, the Constitutional Court stepped-in once again and ordered the dissolution of the PPP and also the two other main parties of Somchai’s governing coalition. On 3 December the PAD left the airports and ended their demonstrations.

At long last Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Eton and Oxford educated leader of the Democrat Party and active PAD supporter, was able to proffer himself to the exhausted and depleted Parliament. On 15 December Abhisit finally acquired his much awaited Premiership, and proceeded immediately to reward PAD leaders for their efforts, most notably with the portfolio of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the street fighting between May and December 2008 about 800 people were wounded and 8 people died. More than 160 legal cases have been filed against the PAD, but as yet no disciplinary action has been taken by any authority against any PAD leaders or supporters. (The Police are said to be investigating!)

All this has, naturally, contributed to a growing sense of disgust amongst the majority of the population, and also to a growing anger.

Already on 2 September 2008 there had been a street battle between PAD yellow-shirts and the red-shirts of the new United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) that was gathering strength to oppose them. In that battle 40 people were wounded and one red-shirt beaten to death.

Frustration boils over

After watching in sober amazement as the great and powerful Thai forces of law-and-order sat back and allowed the yellow-shirts and royalists to take their legally-elected Government hostage, wreck Government House, attack Parliament House, occupy both of Bangkok’s main airports and four other international airports, and after watching the blatant manipulations that brought Abhisit and his Democrat Party to power, the level of disgust felt by many sectors of the voting public in Thailand reached boiling-point.

When the UDD called for mass-mobilization a red wave of protest began rising over the landscape.

On 26 March 2009 people began to assemble outside Government House – this time in red shirts. By 8 April half a million protestors representing a wide spectrum of grass-root civil organizations were making their presence felt through peaceful assemblies, not only in Bangkok but also in about 40 of Thailand’s 77 provincial capitals.

After nearly 80 years of non-stop political corruption, uprisings, coups and violent oppression, it is obvious to most outsiders that the root cause of the failure of democratic procedure in Thailand stems from fear of the monarchist establishment’s carefully accumulated instruments of power, which, as each crisis of governance emerges, are used to execute whatever is required to ensure that the majority of Thai people cannot participate effectively in the political life of the country.

In Bangkok in April, the number of people protesting their frustration with the State administrators, in particular with the Privy Council, reached around 300 000, the largest number of protesters on the streets of Bangkok since 1973.

As usual, during times of direct confrontation between the people and their patrons, in April 2009 Thailand’s mainstream media failed to provide the public with accurate reportage on the scale or ferocity of either the uprising or crack-down, and, as usual, in the people’s hour of crisis, studiously side-stepped the real reasons why hundreds of thousands of people representing tens of millions of rural, urban and industrial workers, were demonstrating.

In this manner Thailand’s hamstrung mainstream media usually contributes to the confusion and, by default, to the deepening of social divisions.

ASEAN Summit violence

The eager-beaver Abhisit Government had planned an ASEAN Summit for 10 – 13 April in the east coast resort of Pattaya. Anti-Abhisit demonstrators went to Pattaya to deliver a statement to the ASEAN Secretary General – to underline the fact that Abhisit had no mandate from the people to represent Thailand.

The Statement was delivered to the ASEAN Secretary General in the Pattaya Hotel on 9 April, by about 1 000 people. However, some Abhisit aides had, foolishly, already given the green light to para-military royalist forces to disrupt the demonstration. As the protesters withdrew from the hotel they were attacked by about 500 thugs with ‘Protect the Monarchy’ across their shirts.

Thousands of people from Bangkok and Pattaya moved rapidly to support the anti-Abhisit protest in Pattaya. On the morning of 10 April several thousand descended on the Pattaya Hotel. The Summit was cancelled. Abhisit, his authority badly stung, fled the scene in a Blackhawk helicopter, vowing to restore law-and-order and declaring the red-shirts the “enemies of the nation”.

To this point in time the somewhat divided Police and Army had kept themselves out of the play, but some units did respond to Abhisit’s call for help in Pattaya. The leader of the protesters in Pattaya was arrested by police in the early hours of 11 April and then handed to the Army.

After the arrest of the Pattaya leader, a former TRT MP, the confrontation between the Government and the protesters passed out of all control.

The battle for D-Station

On 11 April Abhisit declared a state-of-emergency in and around Bangkok, and issued orders for demonstrators to be cleared from outside Government House within 4 days, and for all UDD communication channels to be cut, especially their on-line satellite TV, the so-called Democracy Station, ‘D-station’ or DTV, that had been set-up in January (2009) to counter the PAD’s ASTV.

For UDD leaders responsible for the demonstration at Government House it was essential to be able to maintain communication with the vast number of demonstrators in different parts of Bangkok, with their tens of millions of supporters across Thailand e.g. in the provincial capitals of Chiang Mai, Udon Thani and Khon Kaen, with the Thai public in general, as well as with the international community. In other words ‘D-station’, their only communication channel, had to be defended.

In the afternoon of 12 April army units with tanks and armoured vehicles started to appear on the streets in different parts of Bangkok, moving in on Government House where red-shirts had set-up road-blocks. Exactly who gave the orders remains unclear. The movement of the troops appears to have been somewhat un-coordinated, some units displaying more resolve than others, with some covering the name of their units to avoid being identified.

Violent confrontation broke-out at Din Daeng, an important inter-section just north of Government House, with the military resorting to tear gas and live ammunition.

A 500-strong column of regular soldiers, commandos with automatic weapons and a humvee mounting a 50mm machine gun advanced to take control of a ThaiCom building in north Bangkok, where several hundred demonstrators had gathered to guard ‘D-station’ transmission.

In the still dark hours of the morning of 13 April a wide area around Government House was turned into a war zone, with chaotic fighting between red-shirts, army units, para-military gangs and also local residents that formed gangs mainly to defend local people and property. The battles raged out-of-control for several hours. From Din Daeng violence spread to other parts of the city. Banks and even a mosque were set ablaze, and there are reports of ‘non-red’ people being paid to commit arson and so on. Many innocent people were caught-up in the ruckus.

Withdrawal

Din Daeng fell to the army at around 07.30, Victory Monument at around 12.30. Army units with tanks and heavy machine guns closed-in on Government House. With red-shirt numbers dwindling UDD leaders, with arrest warrants on their heads, surrendered on the morning of 14 April – to avoid further bloodshed. They were taken to different army camps, charged for a variety of crimes and later released on bail for sums in the region of 10 000 euro.

Amidst the lies, cover-ups and exaggerations, accurate casualty figures take time to emerge – in Thailand often months or years. Two people were shot dead. At least 100 people were wounded, some by gunfire. About 20 soldiers were wounded. Some reports say more than 150 people are missing. In military crack-downs in Thailand, the military usually take care to remove the dead or near-dead from the battlefield e.g. as in the May 1992 uprising, when about 20 of the 46 bodies known to have been removed by the military were never seen again.

Exactly who was responsible for what will never be acknowledged, but the people ask – and the ASEAN and the International Community must ask – what in the name of hell is the reason why tanks and heavy infantry keep appearing on the streets of Bangkok?

Summation

It is not famine, poverty or money that is bringing the poor onto the streets in their hundred of thousands, nor a great love of Thaksin the business tycoon – although he did play a significant role with his ‘phone-ins’ urging revolution.
As poor people will do everywhere, the tens of millions of poor people in Thailand are rising in protest because they can no longer abide the autocratic double-standards of their patrons and administrators, a perfect example of which is provided by Abhisit, twice defeated in elections, active supporter of the long list of yellow-shirt major crimes, and now, as Prime Minister, himself throwing opposition leaders in jail.

The people came onto the streets demanding . .
– reinstatement of their hard-won People’s Constitution (1997);
– a General Election to bring back electoral justice;
– a stop to the non-stop interference of the King’s Privy Council under General Prem Tinsulanonda in the struggle of the Thai people for their democratic rights.

The military crack-down in April was all too familiar. Abhisit may have received some praise from above, but it will be the brave, grass-root women and men who stand firm for the democratic rights of the people who will be honoured in Thai history, not Oxford graduates who order tanks and commando units to confront the legitimate protests of the poorest citizens with live ammunition.

2009 is no longer 2006, no longer 1992 and no longer 1976. After 80 years of struggle and quasi-democracy, Thailand’s new generation pro-democracy activists have decided to stand their ground. As the new wave of democracy activists grows, the autocrats will find it harder and harder to paint their strategies with yellow and gold.

The UDD leaders were arrested and charged. The PAD leaders that vandalised Government House, attacked Parliament House and attacked and occupied international airports now sit smug in a royalist government.

How come the International Community finds playing-along with the sick games of the Thai power-elite so easy? How come it is still talking and wheeling and dealing with Thailand? Is the body-count too low? It would not be difficult for the International Community to condemn the forms of suppression and oppression practiced in Thailand. It would be so refreshing for all if they would.

Beneath the marketed image of Thailand, tens of millions of poor people are being actively, cruelly, and also artfully, prevented from realising their potential as citizens of the 21st century.

The ‘surrender’ of the people’s leaders in April 2009 marks not the end but the beginning of a new phase in the struggle of the poor to remove the corrupt hierarchies that block their road to equal rights, democracy, sustainable development and peace.

Part Three

The specter of civil war?

Besides the loss of just a dozen or so lives and a few hundred injured here and there, what has three years of PAD-inspired, Palace-supported, political chaos produced?

The September 2006 military coup had several objectives: to destroy the 1997 People’s Constitution, to weaken the power of elected Government and to strengthen the power of bureaucracy in the name of the Monarchy.

The recent years of political chaos have brought a raft of ugly, new legislation, for instance: Section 17 of the Emergency Decree of 2005 (introduced by Thaksin) exempts, in very loosely defined ‘emergency situations’, high-ranking persons, state officials and police from civil, criminal or disciplinary liability provided that their actions are ‘performed in good faith, non-discriminatory and not unreasonable in the circumstances’. In other words the decree openly breeches Thailand’s international obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Thailand’s archaic Lès Majesté laws (from the Latin laesa maiestas ‘injury to majesty’) are being increasingly abused, and the Democrat Party is attempting to raise the penalty for alleged disrespect for Monarchy from 3 – 15 years to 5 – 20 years imprisonment.

In Thailand today there is growing a miserable kind of sickness around Lès Majesté, as people have started to sneak information to the authorities about whom they think is being disrespectful, or not respectful enough. It is a sickness than can wipe the last real shine from the smile of the Thai – a very debilitating sickness.

With regard to international trade, after ousting Thaksin the military Junta just jumped straight into his shoes, adopting exactly the same non-democratic approach to negotiating Free Trade Agreements. (In April 2007 General Surayad signed a wide-ranging, far-reaching FTA with Japan that was already in force by November.)

When Abhisit finally reached power he distributed 2000 Baht (40 euro) to 8 million employed people as some kind of ‘stimulus package’, but somehow forgot the 23 million informal sector workers (small farmers, self-employed and un-employed).

The 2006 military coup and last 3-years of chaos have been thoroughly successful in increasing distrust of the state machinery and Monarchy, and in deepening the divide between rich and poor.

On the positive side the chaos has served to shake-up the grass-root sectors and the more enlightened sectors of the middle-class. Thailand is experiencing a new wave of farmers, factory workers, students, academics and grass-root movements that are determined to resist being bottled-up as pawns, fodder and bell-boys for the benefit of Thailand’s image, own greedy elite and multi-national corporations.

New wave fighters for democracy

During the 19 September Coup in 2006, Nuamtong Praiwan, a 60 year-old taxi-driver and life-long human rights activist, rammed his taxi into a military tank. He survived the impact but decided to complete his protest by hanging himself on 31 October 2006. His decision sent a shock-wave through Thailand’s grass-root communities, and a warning to Thailand’s increasingly self-indulgent middle-class that the ‘un-educated’ know and care about the meaning of democracy.

The name of Nuamtong has been raised again and again in the pro-democracy movement. Bangkok has over 100 000 taxi-drivers. On 8 April 2009 taxi-drivers came in large numbers to assist the red-shirt protest outside Government House. On 9 April many took action to jam the streets of Bangkok. On 10 April several hundred taxis were engaged in transporting people from Bangkok to the protest against Abhisit’s ASEAN Summit in Pattaya. When the Army brought tanks onto the streets of Bangkok on 12 April, taxi-drivers risked their taxis and their lives to block the tanks and protect the people.

New wave cyber army

When all media channels were cut or tightly censored in the May 1992 Uprising, it was telephones and fax machines that mobilised people and kept them informed. In April 2009 it was the people’s cyber army that kept information flowing.

Calling for the Government to crush the red-shirts, the chat boards of conservative reactionaries showed their concern for the image of Thailand in relation to economic stability, foreign investment and tourism.

With Abhisit doing all possible to control the media, the cyber chat boards supporting the people’s protest played an important role in countering the absurd accusation that the red-shirts were wreaking havoc with Thailand’s fragile ‘stability’.

With little or no space in Thailand’s mainstream media for airing their thoughts and feelings, the new wave of people’s representatives in cyber space are working hard to by-pass censorship, and inform and warn their sisters and brothers of the dangers they face and why.

Through cyber space the irony of the military crack-down in April is identified as a clone of the 1976 crack-down – 33 years ago. Through cyber space the absurdity of needing mass demonstrations in the 21st century to oppose institutions of monarchy is discussed and analysed. Through cyber space people across the nation are being brought closer to discussion about why, when it comes to welfare and services, civil servants, academics and white collar workers receive preferential treatment.

How come the poor are accused of being a threat to ‘stability’?

The regular citizenry needs little help to understand that it is not they who have sent Thailand into recession, and it is not they who are the reason why Abhisit is now begging for 23 billion USD.

The poor know that it will be they who suffer in the struggle to pay-back Abhisit’s loans – the debts of the elite. The Thai know only too well that the wealth, privileges and splendour of the high echelons of Thai society are entirely dependent on the schemes the ruling elite maintain to limit the participation of the tens of millions of poor people in genuine, democratic procedure.

After the ‘surrender’ of the red-shirt leaders in April, the chat boards became a source of comfort, a space where poor people could share events as they had experienced them, and their frustration at being confronted with yet another military crack-down.

The cyber army plays an important role in helping to track and inform on the health and whereabouts of arrested leaders, and in the search for the dead and missing. In countering government-controlled misinformation the chat-boards throw up important questions. What kind of government blocks discussion on real issues and permits statements like ‘red-shirts are not Thai, not human and should be shot on sight’? How come the Monarchy, Army, Police and the whole academic community do not actively condemn such incitement?

The poor are becoming increasingly conversant with understanding that the ‘stability’ they are being accused of disrupting is, in term of sustainable development, a false construct.

In speaking to the crowd, a co-ordinator of the Farmer’s Network said . . “Farmers have been classified as illiterate fools when it comes to democracy, but we have always participated in the people’s demonstrations against dictatorship – in 1973, 1976, 1992 and 2006. We were never strong enough, but if the military crack-down on demonstrations this time, the farmers will block every road to Bangkok..”

The anger of poor working women was in evidence throughout the April uprising. Women took a leading role in the action at the ASEAN Summit in Pattaya. After Abhisit declared a ‘state-of-emergency’ in Bangkok it was women who found and chased him. It was women who commandeered public buses to block the roads against military tanks. In our struggle for democracy the stories of these bold working-women will be cherished.

Love or fear of monarchy?

Thai people are educated to love their monarchy unconditionally and unquestionably. The problem is that people face the 21st Century, not the 19th Century. The Thai have no other option than to question the repetitiveness of military crack-downs on the legitimate interests of the majority of the population.

As citizens of a world that has now identified and agreed to stand-up for universal human rights, modern-day Thai are duty-bound to question the use of Lès Majesté laws which, with origins in Ancient Rome, have always been related to the bolstering of political power. All phenomena can be connected but most people agree that the connection between Lès Majesté laws and love is tenuous and, in today’s world, nothing less than highly suspect.

It would be extremely foolish for the Palace and the Army to ignore the extent to which people all across Thailand (and across the world) are questioning the relation between their Monarchy and their Parliament.

Largely silenced by fear of Lès Majesté laws, Bangkok-based media is no longer able to represent the majority of the people of Thailand and, consciously or not, tends to aggravate rather than mediate the growing divide between the interests of the rural community and those of the new urban middle-class.

Some observers avoid confrontation with the, at present, increasingly odorous application of Lès Majesté laws, by saying they will fade with time. That’s for sure, but in the meantime, in both passive and active form, they continue to protect the vast, capital wealth and business interests of the Monarchy (by far the richest Monarchy in the world). Thailand’s Lès Majesté laws are an effective tool for constructing the image of ‘the land of smiles’, a cruel instrument that diplomatic missions love to compliment and multi-national sharks love to exploit. For them Thailand is Paradise.

If in the 21st century the specter of civil war rises over the horizon of a country that is endowed with all the natural resources that any society could ever hope for, there must be some substantial reasons.

All analysis of Thailand’s current domestic crisis places the Monarchy at the epicentre of debate, that is to say – the Palace and Privy Council face real problems – surely not because of the poor people but because of what they do.

Thailand needs a Royal House and the Thai want to love their King and Queen, and so can it be, when the Royal House recognises that it must make way for democracy. It would make life much easier for the Royal Household if it did.

In the modern world, military Juntas are an anathema, a truly ugly phenomenon symbolising retarded governance.

Are the ASEAN peoples going to allow their future prospects to be over-ruled by a resurgent militarism?

Together for democracy

The growth of the Port of Bangkok was no accident, and nobody has benefited more than the Crown Property Bureau – the wealthiest landlord in the world.

Nobody wants a yellow-red confrontation in Bangkok to drag Thailand any further into the mud, let alone to civil war.

Thailand’s rural communities and urban poor are just saying that ‘We’ve had enough . . of seeing our lives degraded. We are no longer prepared to vote for the interests and well-being of the urban middle-class. Why should we?’.

Too many Bangkokian academics and journalists have become accustomed to imagining that their own voices are the only voices that matter.

Why should the rural people tolerate double-standards cooked in Bangkok – by Abhisit and his so-called Democrat Party? Because this party knows it cannot win at the ballot box?

Why should the small farmers, the rural blood of Thailand, and their children who slave in export-oriented Free Trade Zones, allow themselves to be manipulated out of existence in the name of ‘economic stability’? Who’s economic stability? The rural blood of Thailand is Thailand. Without healthy, productive, joyous rural communities Thailand is nothing – an empty soap-box tied-up with a yellow band.

We all need to protect ourselves from the excesses of the neo-liberal capitalist agenda, which by definition places economic stability above social welfare and is, beneath all propaganda about democracy and freedom, too frequently just waiting to party with privy councils and wink at military juntas.

The current, predicted, expected and necessary melt-down of the trans-national global finance institutions provides a moment for people across the planet to re-assess the politics of liberation – bottom-up. This is now happening in Thailand, but the people’s pro-democracy movement in Thailand needs to be recognised by people on the outside. This is important because the success of the pro-democracy movement in Thailand has great significance for the whole Indo-China Peninsula, for not just tens but for hundreds of millions of poor and displaced persons.

In the current economic depression nobody can know what the future will be, but in the name of peace, justice and human rights, in the name of sustainable development, challenging unjust ‘comparative advantage’ and the pyramids of capitalism is the sanctioned order of the day.

In fact Thaksin Shinawatra did his bit. He was responsible for his own downfall, but he can be thanked too, and will be well-remembered by the rural poor – for letting them know that they exist and are important in their own right, and for kick-starting a new wave of resistance against autocratic governance.

The current phase of struggle of the rural peoples of Thailand is extremely important, not just because they form the majority of the population, but because the future of the economy of the planet is all about food security and investment in organic productivity. What happens in Thailand with respect to rural cultures and traditions and to the hugely valuable knowledge of Thailand’s small farmers and fisher-folk has significant impact on what happens to cultural and biological diversity across the whole Indo-China Peninsula, and thus also, as one of the most productive and simultaneously bio-diverse areas of the planet, on the future of all humankind.

For Thailand’s sake (and the Monarchy), it is absolutely necessary for the rural communities – the workers, the women and men of the land that are the true guardians of this great ‘garden of the world’ – to stand their ground and not stoop to the low practices of the PAD and Abhisit’s mis-named Democrat Party.

The red-shirts in Thailand, who have fought so many battles over the past 70-80 years, need the recognition, support and solidarity of worker and small farmer movements around the world.

The villages of Thailand still have honest women and men. New leaders will rise to throw-off the cobwebs of intrigue and the dross of Americanisation – to re-establish the dignity of the people of Thailand in the light of common struggle to rebuild the global economy on a sound, organic, sustainable, egalitarian foundation.

The days of compromising the fundamental principles of human rights in order to serve fabricated concepts of ‘economic stability’ designed to feed false concepts of progress are at an end.

The privileged civil servants and urban middle classes need to understand that they face a choice: share the profits of progress with the farmers and workers (upon the strength of whose backs our life-style depends) or face a civil war which cannot be won.

The common aim of all self-respecting Thai has to be the strengthening of parliamentary democracy. The half-baked, half-wit schemes the mess of Thai politics produces, like the PAD’s 70:30 (or was it 74:26?) proposal for appointed and elect MPs, must be placed where they belong – in the garbage can with the ice-cream wrappers.

One can note here that the People’s Constitution of 1997 was also far from perfect. For instance the worker’s movement is campaigning to remove an article – that appeared for the first time in 1997 – stipulating that only ‘bachelor degree people’ can stand for election to Parliament – and so on.

Democracy is not a ‘western invention’. In some form or other democracy has existed and been practiced throughout human history, to some degree or other, whenever and wherever people can experience life without dictatorship – from the Kalahari to the Amazon to Greenland to the Tibetan Plateau to the villages of Northern Thailand.

Democracy belongs to the natural process of the evolution of human consciousness. It is not a product of greed or capitalism. As a viable alternative to dictatorship, it evolves and emerges, through – and as result of people having to face the management of – population growth, increased literacy, diminishing non-renewable resources, increasing economic risk, and our common-sense demand for peace and establishment of social, egalitarian civilization.

There is no escape from democracy in the 21st century – and no need to avoid it.

In a world where all are literate, in contact with each other and looking at the future with hope, interest and honest, common concern, a ‘Parliament of the People’ cannot be evaded or avoided.

The symbolic Head of State, the Faith of the Land, and the Military, have nothing to fear from a ‘Parliament of the People’, if they have the moral courage, honesty and wisdom to respect the decisions of the majority.

Closing words

For more than 70 years parliamentary democracy in Thailand has been hopping around with it’s feet tied – one step forward one step back and down again, in some kind of a pathetic ‘dance with the generals’.

Today the people of Thailand are in the process of cutting the thongs that prevent them from growing-up into the 21st Century. Contemporary photos of civilian red-necks taking control of tanks in the streets (whatever the colour of their shirts) are symbolic of the fact that, in the world today, educated, regular, rank and file soldiers are loathe to act against civilians.

The people of Thailand are tired of divisive authority, of seeing and hearing oppressed fractions of the population beaten-down and crushed whenever and wherever they attempt to make themselves heard. Thailand as a society is tired of seeing legitimate human interests, whether those of the small farmers or the Muslims, or the hill tribes or the millions of Thai sweat-shop workers, or millions of Burmese migrant workers, seconded to preservation of the image of a glittering, hegemonic hierarchy.

There will be no peace or stability or maturity of mind and spirit in Thailand until the institutions of the Monarchy stop abusing power and wealth. The military generals that created Thailand’s post-war Monarchy – with billions in US ‘AID’, have totally failed to balance the two main, perfectly compatible requests of the Thai people – to have a Monarch they can love and a just, healthy, democratic order.

The extremes of behaviour seen in Thailand today are tearing the country into pieces. The threat of a protracted, messy, underground civil war, which could destabilise the whole region, is once again fouling the horizon.

By constantly appealing to the monarchy to settle their differences, Thailand’s intelligentsia is forever delaying the need to grow-up – to be responsible, to take responsibility for the on-going poverty of tens of millions of our own people, not to mention responsibility for scenes of tragic carnage in our streets.

Who is responsible for the on-going oppression of the hopes of the poor – for recognition and justice? Is it colonialism, the big-bad-outside-world, some secret inside mystical force? Or could it be the Thai people themselves who are responsible for their own suffering?

What kind of ‘Thai-ness’ is this that we practice now: this occasional, almost ritualistic granting of permission to occasionally kill a few dozen people on the pretext that this avoids a greater body-count?

Is this what Thailand calls democracy? Is this the Thai-ness with which we want to identify, with which we want to be identified?

The traditional state policy of allowing the state bureaucracy, at every level, to exploit the Monarchy for the purpose of legitimising suppression and oppression of poor people must be radically reversed – through the establishment of real parliamentary democracy. This is the only way Thai people can prevent themselves from becoming a joke on the global stage, if not a failed state.

The current Thai government has no democratic legitimacy.

Thailand needs a General Election now, but acting-Prime Minister Abhisit knows he cannot win. He will delay a General Election for as long as possible, in order to be able to take maximum advantage of state-controlled media and all the other subversive weapons that corrupt State administration has managed to accumulate during decades of corrupt power-building. In other words, Abhisit and the neo-liberal elitists are ‘banking’ on their own wishful thinking that time is on their side – that resistance to their collective hypocracy will fade!

Once again the Thai electorate, especially the poor and working classes, is, yet again, having to face the spectacle and phenomenon of gross, governmental corruption.

It is Thailand’s increasingly alienated masses, not their rotten government, that needs the support of the international community, of the movement of Global Unions and civil rights activists around the world – who probably also need to discard at least some of the dazzling image they may have of Thailand, and take more notice of ground-level realities in Thailand, and the relation between ground-level realities in Thailand and the political stability and welfare of the whole region.

The ASEAN has failed the people of Burma and cannot afford to repeat such incompetence.

With the Thai Monarchy at the centre of a potentially massive, violent furore, it is to be hoped that Thailand’s Royal Household will see the light of day and use their influence to instruct their Privy Council to revise itself, support the return of the People’s Constitution and permit a free and fair General Election before the yellow-red civil war, which the Privy Council has fostered, makes the situation impossible for all.

In the 21st century ‘stability’ resides on the other side of a door called universal human rights, and Abhisit’s cabinet cannot, as we say, ‘cover the sky with their hands’.

The people will not retreat, the red-shirts will not turn yellow and the world will not stop watching Thailand’s super-rich Monarchy and it’s bevy of generals in the Privy Council.

The Thai want to love their Monarchy, and may continue to do so if the generals would be the gracious gentlemen they would like to be, and let the people get on with the work of building democratic institutions, and let the Royal Household get on with the Royal Household’s work of setting a true example – in honesty, humility, tolerance, compassion and self-sufficiency, for which military assistance is not required.

I wish to say that this was a difficult article to start writing, because it talks about things which people in Thailand don’t dare talk about. Having written what I have written I feel a strong sense of release, and I know that I want to share this feeling with 60 million other people in Thailand, especially with women and with all our young, new wave democracy fighters.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Note of acknowledgement.

I could not write this article without assistance from a native English speaker who has a compassionate understanding of Thai history and the struggle of rural people to maintain their livelihoods, dignity and respect. I thank my friend Riku for his assistance with this article. JY.

Thailand's human rights compared to Indonesia's-SMH

[FACT comments: We have bracketed unsubstantiated opinions about the King in this article. However, the rest of the article calls our politics with complete accuracy. Indonesia, a Muslim state, has woven human rights into their society. Thailand only shows arrogance and impunity against our citizens.]

Thailand turns into Indonesia – and vice versa

Peter Hartcher

Sydney Morning Herald: May 12, 2009

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/thailand-turns-into-indonesia–and-vice-versa-20090511-b0ip.html?page=-1

Thailand likes to call itself The Land of Smiles. And for a while after the advent of democracy in 1992 this seemed to be unusually accurate for an official slogan.

Democracy seemed to flourish. Even during the traumatic Asian economic crisis of 1997 the generals stayed in their barracks. Growth quickly returned. The tourists flooded in. Foreign investors smiled on the Thais, who returned the favour.

In the parallel universe known as Indonesia, the picture was more ominous. Its slogan, Unity in Diversity, seemed an exercise in dark sarcasm. Diversity was hammered into frightened unity by its military dictator, Soeharto. When the Asian crisis forced Soeharto out of power in 1998 the outlook only seemed to darken.

A succession of simpletons and underperformers took the presidency. The economy was moribund. Islam woke from its long slumber under Soeharto and seemed to be asserting itself. Its diversity would now be repressed by the Muslim majority, it appeared.

Indonesia’s prospects seemed to go from bad to worse. Terrorists bombed tourists in the peaceful holiday destination of Bali. The Petri dish of Indonesian Islam seemed to be breeding a newly virulent form of violent extremism. Investors gave the country a wide berth.

If Thailand seemed to represent sunrise in South-East Asia, Indonesia appeared to be the region’s nightfall.

Today we see an extraordinary role reversal. Thailand is now a wreck, suffering a constitutional crisis, emergency rule and an investment strike.

As the Bangkok Post put it last month: “How could the Rice Bowl of Asia, a trade and transport hub of the Greater Mekong sub-region, an erstwhile Asian Tiger and ‘Amazing Thailand’ in tourism terms … come dangerously close to becoming a failed state?”

Indonesia, on the other hand, is stable and tolerant under a mature and clean president, with better growth prospects than any of the states in the region. The US think tank Freedom House has designated Indonesia for the first time as the only fully free and democratic country in South-East Asia.

As Andrew MacIntyre and Douglas Ramage put it in a paper for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute: “Indonesia in 2008 is a stable, competitive electoral democracy, with a highly decentralised system of governance, achieving solid rates of economic growth, under competent national leadership, and playing a constructive role in the regional and broader international community.”

While Indonesia glowed with the success of hosting 189 nations’ representatives at the Bali climate change conference in December 2007, Thailand was humiliated last month when it had to abort a summit of 16 national leaders for the East Asian summit.

With the Thai Army rendered impotent by surging red-shirted protesters in Pattaya, the leaders of China and Japan were evacuated by helicopter, and other leaders’ planes turned around in midair. It was a shocking blow to Thai credibility, unable to host a meeting, incapable of protecting world leaders on its soil.

Consider the same point and counterpoint last weekend.

While about 20,000 red-shirted protesters took to the streets of Bangkok to demonstrate against the violently repressive tactics of the unelected government, Indonesia announced the results of its peaceful parliamentary elections.

What happened? How did these two key states of South-East Asia come to trade places so dramatically?

Thailand’s trajectory changed with the decision to mount an unconstitutional coup against the prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, first elected in 2001 and resoundingly re-elected in 2005.

The billionaire businessman was a polarising leader. He was wildly popular with the rural poor and the working class, but bitterly opposed by the urban elites and the army.

[The decision to send the army to remove him came from the royal palace.]

The last time the king had intervened decisively in politics was to end a violent constitutional crisis. [This time he provoked one.]

The army and the palace imposed an unelected regime on the country, promising future elections. But Thaksin’s supporters wage an unending war of civil disobedience. Thaksin himself, running from a corruption charge, continues to foment protest from abroad. Thai analysts say it is hard to see any resolution. The two sets of opposing forces are roughly equal, and an election would be unlikely to solve the stand-off, they say.

Indonesia’s fortunes pivoted on the election of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, known universally in Indonesia as SBY. The former general has proved to be wise as well as popular since taking power in 2004. He is pro-business and pro-West, and also forcefully anti-terrorism and anti-corruption. Indeed, he has allowed the prosecution of his own brother-in-law on corruption charges.

Islamic political parties have moderated, not radicalised.

Indonesia now has a vibrant free press and a judiciary that is uneven but improving. Democracy has become solidly legitimised – generals and muftis alike compete for power at the ballot box, not in the streets. He is the easy favourite for the two-step presidential election due in July with a run-off in September, if required.

The region is suffering from the global financial crisis. But while the Asian Development Bank forecasts that Thai economic growth will fall from 2.6 per cent last year to minus 2 per cent this year, it expects Indonesia to suffer more mildly, slowing from 6.1 per cent to 3.6 per cent.

The essential difference is that Indonesian power elites universally respect the legitimising power of democracy. The Thais have not. [And the leading source of anti-democratic arrogance in Thailand has proved to be the king.] So Indonesia has emerged as a model state, a living rebuttal of the notion that Islam and democracy are incompatible. Its diversity has unified behind democracy. Thailand is turning into just another sad, broken autocracy. The smile has become a grimace.

Peter Hartcher is the Herald’s international editor.