Abhisit’s violence and Thaksin’s abuse of power

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

Human Rights Under Thai Democrat Party: Dirty shame, Mr Clean

Unlike any other political party in Thailand, the Democrat Party has a reputation of having a more liberal stance towards human rights. It was, in fact, one of the founding members of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, a network of Asian political parties known to promote social justice, democracy, and human rights.

After Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva assumed office in December 2008, he highlighted in a parliamentary speech that one priority of his government would be to promote the "respect of human rights". Known as Mr Clean for his incorruptible image, Mr Abhisit has been in power for more than a year now, and one is at a stage where one questions whether we are seeing any real progress in the advancement of human rights under Thailand's Democrat Party.

The 2010 World Human Rights Report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has drawn defensive opposition from the PM and cabinet members. They have attempted to dismiss the report as being biased and inconsistent with facts.

What the government did not take into consideration is that this report was written by one of the most internationally respected human rights NGOs in the world when it comes to its integrity and standards. Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the UN, in his speech to the UN General Assembly in June 2006 referred to HRW as: "An admirable NGO we all know [...] which played a significant part in the effort to bring about the creation of the [UN] Human Rights Council."

It is easy for any government to dismiss human rights reports from the UN and NGOs without thoroughly assessing the reports. Yet, to assess whether the human rights situation in Thailand has improved or not, the government needs to address the questions raised by HRW (and other human rights NGOs).

While the government pledges to reverse the policy of the hawkish approach to human rights under ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, there has not been any real substantial improvement. This is the key point that HRW is portraying and is being overlooked by the government.

Unresolved cases of impunity under Thaksin's regime such as the extra-judicial executions of more than 2,500 alleged drug traffickers in 2002-03 or the Tak Bai massacre in Narathiwat province which caused the deaths of 85 unarmed protesters have not been seriously addressed under the Democrat rule.

While the Mr Abhisit highlighted - in his meeting with Angkana Neelaphaijit of the Working Group on Justice for Peace in 2008 - that the situation of the unrest in southern Thailand, including the case of the forced disappearance of Mrs Angkana's husband Somchai Neelaphaijit, a respected Muslim human rights lawyer, will be his government's priority, there is not yet any development regarding Somchai's whereabouts and who is behind his disappearance. It is the same for the continuing and worsening unrest in southern Thailand.

This government has received outcries of protest from Mr Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees twice in 2009. The first was regarding the deportation of Rohingya refugees in January 2009 and the latter was about the deportation of 4,600 Hmong refugees late last month. There was no report made to the public regarding the promise made by PM Abhisit to set up an impartial investigating team to look into the alleged torture committed by the Thai navy on the Rohingya.

In January 2009, foreign media outlets reported that hundreds of Rohingya refugees were towed out to sea in boats without engines, with little or no food and water provided.

The call last month by Mr Gueterres to halt the forced return of Lao Hmong, "some of whom have international protection needs" was not answered by the Thai government.

In both cases, the UNHCR was denied access to the refugees. Sadly, Mr Abhisit, during his chairmanship of Asean, also missed the opportunity of addressing the problem of Rohingya refugees at the regional level, when Bangkok served as the Asean chair from July 2008 to December 2009.

There are still a lot of glaring issues that this government must address. These include the scores of violations of freedom of expression, including infringement on internet freedom.

These concerns have been raised not only by HRW, but other prominent human rights NGOs such as Amnesty International, Reporters without Border (RSF), Article 19, and Southeast Asian Press Alliance.

Thailand's Press Freedom Index 2009 - a yearly research published by Paris based-RSF - is currently at number 130 from the overall 175 countries, making the country "under surveillance" by the organisation. Thailand's ranking lags behind other Asean members: Indonesia at 100, Cambodia at 117, and the Philippines at 122. In 2004, Thailand's ranking was at 59.

The arbitrariness on the use of the lese majeste law in violating freedom of expression is still in question.

In March 2009, more than 150 international dignitaries, world leaders and scholars called on PM Abhisit to amend the law to prevent abuses and damage to the reputation of Thailand and the monarchy and to consider withdrawing the lese majeste charges.

These signatories, who are concerned with the deteriorating situation of civil liberties, included Professor Noam Chomsky, an American intellectual; Lord Eric Avebury, the Vice Chair of UK Parliamentary Human Rights Group; Professor Walden Bello of the University of the Philippines; Dr Caroline Lucas, member of the European Parliament; Senator Francesco Martone of Italy, and others.

These concerns reflect that there is a valid case that human rights in Thailand is deteriorating and it warrants genuine attention by the government. This shall not be something to be dismissed or sidelined.

If the Thai government wishes to run for membership of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2010, it must make sure that all of these concerns are adequately addressed before its application, as it is stated that all HRC candidates need to "uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights".

If Thailand fails to have any concrete improvement, it would have to prepare itself to be ready to be under criticism and scrutiny at the international level, not only by Human Rights Watch, but also by hundreds of NGOs, the United Nations, and the international governments at the UN.

And Thailand must know that the criticism and scrutiny will be at a more severe and intense level.

This article first appeared in the Bangkok Post, http://www.bangkokpost.com/print/31749/