Thailand’s deteriorating political situation has made the “Land of Smiles” into an object of curiosity for my friends and colleagues in Britain. The country has started to “trend” online.
Thailand has become a topic of discussion in the international press that is equal in popularity to the New York bomb plot and Greek fiscal crisis. A person has to only pick up a copy of The Economist before realizing that the magazine has started to publish articles on the Thai crisis every week.
The government of Thailand, dominated by the Democrat Party, has jumped into the information fray. It is slugging it out with the world media.
Thai diplomats from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur have been writing letters to newspapers that insist that the situation in Thailand is peaceful.
However, the public — especially those who have closely followed Thai politics — know that the situation is far from a settlement. Astute observers realize that Thailand is still very much in the middle of a crisis.
Some media and political observer treat the crisis as a spectator sport. They overlook the crisis’ repercussions and the ways that it has transformed Thailand.
There are many reports of body counts that are accompanied by surreal music and footage from the protest sites. However, there is not enough coverage of the government’s role in managing the crisis.
While we are reading, observing, and reporting, a culture of fear and violence in Thailand is growing.
There is an emerging concern about the government’s excessive use of authority and its abuse of power.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva ordered a series of actions against the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD, also known as the “red shirts”) after antigovernment demonstrations began in March.
These actions, which are considered unacceptable under international standards, include bloody crackdowns on the UDD on April 10 (26 protestors killed, 850 injured) and April 14 (eight killed, 101 injured).
The government has attempted to justify the crackdowns by branding protesters as “terrorists”. This label was rejected by the US.
In a press statement, the State Department said that the demonstrations “[had appeared] to be motivated by domestic politics and did not appear to be acts of […] terrorism.”
The international community has continued to express its grave concern about the violence through visits by members of Bangkok’s diplomatic corps to the protest sites.
International rights groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International have said that the government’s excessive use of force contradicted the UN’s Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which require that police use non-violent methods to resolve conflicts before resorting to force.
The government has also used an emergency decree to close “subversive” Internet websites and radio stations in the name of “national unity”.
Last week, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology shut down at least 1,032 political websites at the order of the Center for Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES).
HRW has also raised concern about the use of the emergency decree as a pretext to summon hundreds of politicians, former government officials, academics, student activists and community radio operators to military barracks for investigation.
Last week, Suluck Lamubol, a member of the Student Federation of Thailand, and two of her friends, also student activists, were greeted at Suluck’s home by a half-dozen police officers. The police were ordered by the CRES to bring Suluck to the 11th Infantry Regiment.
The action is worrisome. Student activists in Bangkok were not threatened directly by the governments of Thaksin Shinawatra or General Surayud. The government’s treatment of protestors in the provinces or southern Thailand is a different story.
In August 2005, Abhisit railed against the emergency decree and said that it “violated the spirit of the Constitution”.
The emergency degree was vaguely written, gave excessive power to the prime minister and so would give prime ministers an opportunity to abuse power.
Abhisit had raised concern “over the fate of the country’s free press” in 2005, after the emergency decree gave the prime minister absolute authority to censor news that the government deemed a threat to national security. Ironically, now we see Abhisit has embraced use of the decree.
Abhisit’s actions have continued to distress international rights groups.
Friday, the New Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) warned that the prime minister could be held responsible by the International Criminal Court in Rome for ordering the April 10 crackdown.
Abhisit had promised a probe of last month’s violence, just as he promised to investigate allegations of violence against Rohingya refugees in 2009. One month later, people are still wondering if action will replace those empty words.
On May 11, 2010, David Dadge, director of Vienna-based International Press Institute, called for a full-and-transparent investigation of the killing of Hiro Muramoto, the Reuters journalist who was shot dead while covering the April 10 crackdown.
Dadge said that “the failure to identify the killer [will] create an environment” which promotes impunity.
Former senator Jon Ungpakorn previously established Prachatai.com, a news website, to counter Thaksin’s repression of the mainstream media. The website is funded by money Jon received after accepting the Magsaysay Award in 2005 and was blocked in Thailand after April 10.
Jon, a staunch critic of Thaksin, wrote an essay for Prachatai.com that compared the killing of the Muslim protesters at Tak Bai under Thaksin’s administration with the April 10 crackdown.
In both cases, he said, “there was absolutely no offer to take responsibility — either personally or collectively as a government — for the consequences.
“Every time Abhisit looks in the mirror, he will see the face of Thaksin,” he said.
When in the opposition, Abhisit was a critic of Thaksin’s hard-fisted style of government. He opposed Thaksin’s draconian laws, policies and abuse of power. Abhisit must now ask himself if power has transformed him into the type of person he most loathes.
This article first appeared in the Jakarta Post, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/05/18/abhisit’s-violence-and-thaksin’s-abuse-power.html
