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A fascinating interview with General Prem conducted by the Far Eastern Economic Review just hours before the coup.
One extract:
[FEER]: On the issue of the book The King Never Smiles, by Paul Handley, isn’t the type of discussion that the book can promote–namely open debate on the role of the monarchy–good for Thailand?General Prem: I don’t like it. The nation doesn’t like it. It’s a hearsay book and is not based on the fact. We are worried [about] the foreigners who read it. My suggestion is–please ignore that book. It’s useless.
“According to the Guinness Book of Records, King Bhumipol of Thailand has received no fewer than 136 honorary degrees”; “Worthy degrees?” BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/features/mike_baker/1710522.stm Saturday, 15 December, 2001.
A very quick Google search revealed that this includes the University of North Texas, the University of Hawaii, the University of Victoria, Griffith University, and the University of Nottingham (I have no time to find the other 131 institutions – if someone can find a complete list please post it for the benefit of New Mandala readers).
What this shows is that over the last 30 years Western academic institutions have played a major role in credentially the knowledge of the King of Thailand, and indeed of other members of the royal family.
In Thailand this credentialization of the knowledge of the royal family plays an extremely important role in legitimating the power of the monarchy and also their involvement in various fields, especially development and education. It is well known that the king has over two thousand royal projects. Knowledge is power, as they say, and the PhD is one of the ways in which the holder of this knowledge is “empowered” – especially in developing countries.
This raises two issues. Firstly, as has been noted already on New Mandala, in Thailand it is forbidden by law to criticise the monarchy, and in turn the public works in which members of the family involve themselves, such as development, education, etc. As has also been raised on this website, there have been serious problems with a number of royal projects that have not been made public because of the ban on criticism of the monarchy. However freedom of speech and freedom to debate and criticize are the hallmarks of Western universities and the academic methodology used in these institutions. Surely these principles should be embodied by the recipients of honorary doctorates. Why do these universities make an exception in the case of honorary doctorates awarded to members of the Thai royal family?
Secondly, I am wondering what is the position of these Western academic institutions on the king’s endorsement of the recent coup d’etat against a democratically elected government. Do they agree with the king’s endorsement of the overthrow of a democratically elected government, and if they do not, do they still stand by their award of the honorary degree? If the latter, does this mean that democratic principles are no longer a requirement for recipients of honorary doctorates?
I am particularly interested in getting a response from international relations offices in Western universities that deal with the awarding of honorary doctorates.
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‘credentialization of the knowledge’ – Is that what a honorary does?
Some ‘academics’ seem to be rather petty minded when it comes to the King.
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Actually, most of those PhDs came from Thai universities. Kaset University once gave him 10 honorary PhDs in one day. The tradition is that every time a new academic department is established, it’s first order of business is to give an honorary degree to the King or member of the royal family.
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Handley’s book is actually very well written and extremely well researched. I have yet to have found a single major factual error in it, which is quite shocking considering the myriad errors often found in Thai history books.
Its coverage of the history of Thai constitutionalism is unrivaled in a mass market book. Its description of the complex relationship between the King, Marshal Plaek, and Sarit is excellent. His description of the various theories behind the death of King Ananda is comprehensive and very fair. He’s very open about the issues surrounding the Crown Prince, but he seems fairly sympathetic to the man.
Little negative information in the book is hearsay. One of them is that the King unsuccessfully lobbied to get a Nobel Prize for Princess Chulabhorn. Another is criticism he made of Aung San Su Kyi in front of a bunch of Nobel laureates who were visiting him. Handley claims confidential diplomatic sources for both.
When he makes use of questionable sources, e.g., communist propaganda, he makes it very clear that the sources might be biased. He does this at least three times: first referring to the child of the Queen’s little sister and second referring to expenses incurred during one of the Queen’s trips abroad. He also quotes from open letters attacking one of the Crown Prince’s women, presumably written by another one of his women.
But the book is a lot more than a collection of negative information; the analysis of political development in Thailand is very sharp. Anybody interested in Thai history can’t really skip this book.
Oh yeah, it also says that Prem is gay. Not in a bigoted way though. He just states it as a fact and then moves on.
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This is all well and good but don’t overlook the national, political and personal agendas that sit behind awarding degrees and what is gained through doing so…they are more than mere recognition of “good deeds”.
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I think Prem, his approach to defending the state, and the structure of the Thai state he defends are the keys to understanding this coup.
I’ve been thinking about the Coup and how it’s been discussed and I think there is a missing historical and structural perspective. While it’s good that New Mandala has been free to discuss the role of the network monarchy (to use Duncan McCargo’s useful term) in the coup, I think the way it has been discussed has tended to focus too much on the personal and the proximate (the conflict between HM King Bhumibol and PM Thaksin) rather than ultimate causes. This leads us into a couple of traps – the “Mr Thaksin is a bad man” trap, and the wrath of the network monarchy as the discussion forum becomes swamped by the “we love our King” mob. Indeed, despite Nick’s prudent action in censoring some comments, this is a demonstration of the sort of thing Duncan is talking about – no monarch told these people to log on and flood the board with ad hominem attacks. Rather, the institution of the monarchy has become such that it catches nearly all Thais in its net and influences them to drown out criticism.
Let me offer up some hypotheses. First, I don’t believe that the king had anything much to do with the coup. In the first place, HM King Bhumibol is a 79 year old man, who had just been through some probably very tiring jubilee celebrations, and then fallen over and fractured a rib. I doubt he is in condition for manufacturing elaborate plots. In the second, it would not fit with HM’s previous behaviour. The king has always ridden coups out rather than actively supporting them. His acts of intervention in 1973, 1992 and 2006 have all been efforts to prevent “counter coups” by sections of the populace from destroying the structure of Thai society. During military coups he has always kept his head down.
Rather, as someone remarked earlier, this coup has Papa Prem’s fingerprints all over it. It is worth remembering that Prem came up under Kriengsak, who deposed PM Thanom in 77 despite the more or less explicit support that Thanom had been receiving from both the King and the Queen. This is an indication of the actual respect that the military has for the monarchy as a central decision maker rather than a central symbol. I would guess that this coup, and probably all previous coups, was presented to the King as a fait accompli, and his choice was either to graciously acquiece or suffer the fate of Rama VII at the hands of Phibulsongkram
.
Assuming that Prem is the driving force behind this coup (which means that Thaksin’s unwise rantings about “extra constitutional charismatic figures” were entirely correct), it is worth examining his motives. The last time Prem took control in 1980, his overriding motive, to which the economic boom of the time was simply a means to an end, was to defeat the communist insurgency. The CPT was booming at the time. Having Vietnamese troops on 2 borders (Cambodia and Laos) was a clear danger to Thailand that the corrupt military was completely unprepared to deal with, especially after losing American bases, air support, etc post 73 (let’s remember that the Vietnamese conquered Cambodia in a matter of weeks, and then beat off an attack by the PRC for good measure. They could have gone through 1980 Thailand like a hot knife through butter). With the CPT as a potential 5th column, especially given the (as it turned out, never utilised) potential for urban infiltration and uprising by the “october generation” (some of whom explicitly blamed the monarchy for the 76 massacre), the fall of the Kingdom was a real possibility.
Prem and the “Democratic Soldiers” dealt with the CPT through an ingenious counter-insurgency campaign, partly borrowed from Gen Slim’s suppression of the CPM during the Malayan emergency, and with the external threat by professionalising the military (where puppet PM Surayut got his big break). He was aided, as it turned out, by the CPT’s own Maoist ineptitude. The connection to current events is that the civilian-police-military counter-insurgency methods he established (including intensive pro-royal propaganda) were the same ones that were used, up until Thaksin’s election, to keep the south under control. Thaksin saw that many aspects of the CPM infrastructure had become patronage networks for the Democrats and so dismantled them for political advantage. This led to the flare ups which Thaksin’s ham-fisted suppression approach only worsened.
I am going to venture further out on the limb and speculate that the Hat Yai bombings may have been a turning point in the way Prem thought about the results of abandoning his CPM methodology. They marked the first time that the Islamists turned to Al Quaeda tactics of large-scale terrorist attacks against targets frequented by westerners, as opposed to attacking the Thai state in its various forms (army bases, schools, etc), one-on-one terror, and leaving the tourist trade alone. They may indicate that the southern insurgents are in contact with AQ, Jemaa Islamiya, or other international groups with a pan-islamist, anti-western, mass terror agenda and the resources to back it up. I can’t think of any other reason why Gen Sonthi is taking an approach of trying to open negotiations with the insurgents within weeks of such an atrocity (for which he was rebuked publicly by Thaksin, just a day or two before the coup – note that there were sufficient troops in Bangkok for a coup because they were in transit from the north “to deal with the southern insurgency” – perhaps they were used for just that). Just as Prem’s amnesties to CPT fighters broke the back of the Party, removing its urban 5th column potential and helping split it off from the Vietnamese threat, so I suspect Sonthi and Prem wish to split the southern insurgents off from Al Quaeda et al before they help AQ or JI attack Bangkok. While the southerners may be smaller than the CPT they have a far better ideological grip on their followers and now, an express willingness to attack urban infrastructure (banks, tourist spots, etc) which the CPT could never get it together to do. Prem may see them as just as big a threat to the centre, and thus justify the seizure of power in order to deal with a new external/internal combination threat. I see analogies with Musharref which could also be drawn, enabling him to believe that as long as he is tough on “terrorists” then the US would support the coup (note that although “military aid” was automatically cut by the US after the coup, anti-terrorist military aid was exempt from this).
It would be interesting to observe what the business families, networks, etc historically linked to Prem are doing at this time. While Thaksin is often analysed as the embodiment of a capitalist ruling class, it is worth remembering that capitalists, like other classes, only act as a “class” in response to external challenge – the rest of the time they fight amongst themselves. I am inclined to wonder who is moving in to the vacuum left by Shin Corp, and what their history of links to the military-commercial complex would reveal.
So much for my guesses at the historical background to the coup. On to the structural, and the reasons Prem has gotten away with it twice. Thailand is inherently vulnerable to coups. As explained by Luttwak in his classic Coup d’Etat, Coups rely on the concentration of power in the centre, since only by concentrating power in the centre does a decapitation attack become possible. Having seized the power in the centre, the coup-maker must keep it concentrated lest his control over it slip away – thus creating the circumstances for the next coup. Imagine if the australian army suddenly took it into its head to seize canberra. In a very real sense, they could not control the country – Canberra has only a fraction of Australia’s money and population, the army would be isolated, other parts of the country would rise against them, and they would fail.
Thailand, by contrast, is massively overconcentrated in its capital, as countries with royal histories tend to be (eg England and london; france and paris vs Australia/canberra and America/washington). Thailand is like this because it is a south-east asian monarchy – that is to say, it is a mandala, in which control of the people at the centre is important and control of the periphery is unimportant as long as it is kept subordinated. Thus economic development has been overconcentrated in Bangkok since the sack of Vientiane, and the rural areas have received railroads for troops rather than irrigation, and in general propaganda designed to ensure the loyalty of persons rather than money to ensure the productivity of places. The mandala state, the network monarchy, the traffic congestion, the history of coups and the attitude of elite groups towards rural areas are all part of an all but inseparable matrix which shapes and binds the relationship of core and periphery within Thailand. I am not arguing for complete structural determinism here; but it is a matrix which makes a coup more likely to be an option whenever there is some form of crisis.
It is worth noting that even the 1997 constitution was written to accomodate this dynamic. As Ji Giles Ungpakorn has pointed out, despite the constitution’s democratic base, the combination of University degree requirements for MPs and the restrictive voter registration rules meaning that urban-rural migrants stayed registered in the countryside rather than Bangkok, their place of residence and work, meant that any aspiration for labour-based parties which would (as Isaan and Northern MPs have historically done) demand redistribution of the wealth or that power move down the ladder was ruled out of court before entering the game. Thaksin’s political strategy flew directly in the face of this structure by drawing power from the diffuse rural vote. In one sense the coup was justified because the 97 constitution failed in its purpose. Its drafters believed in the power of mass, middle class, urban demonstration a la the PAD as the best way to preserve an elite democracy which kept a civilian version of the centralised structure above intact. After all, had they not seen the power of such demonstrations in 1992, despite the fact that the 91 elections featured massive rural vote buying by the “devil” parties (see Ruth McVey’s Money and Power in Provincial Thailand). When repeating the 92 gambit inexplicably failed to deliver governmental change away from a government out of the elite democracy’s control, the middle class blamed the same cause – rural vote buying and election rigging, despite lack of any particular evidence for such a thing this time around – and have now resorted to supporting the very process that they opposed the first time, the military coup, in order to preserve the deeper structure of power.
I apologise if these ideas are still incoherently formed and clumsily worded.
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Your ideas are insightful and well worded, but I take issue to several of them, particularly regarding the South as a key factor behind the coup.
The key reason is that the post-coup policy to the South has not really changed. Has the military government shown a greater willingness to negotiate? In public yes, but there’s nothing really new about that. It’s been suggested at various times in the previous government, but ultimately failed, not because Thaksin didn’t support it (which he did, and then didn’t, and then did, and then didn’t…), but because military intel never figured out who to negotiate with. Up until the coup, they still admitted that they had no idea who was behind the insurgency.
The military government has suggested bringing back the ISOC’s Southern Command. ISOC was one of Prem’s babies, so it sort of makes sense. But I really don’t see how bringing the ISOC back to the South would help bring peace back there. Remember, the ISOC Deputy Director Pallop Pinmanee gave the “attack” order at Krue Sae Mosque.
I also think your analysis under-estimates the active role of the King. He’s been called a tired old man since the 1980’s, when there were also rumors that he might retire/abdicate. But he’s never been one to lie back and just let things happen to him. Witness his high level of activity in the 1980’s over those controversial water management projects (Pa Sak, Pak Panang, Bajoh) and his vigorous advocacy in the 1990’s for the self-sufficient economy. He may be old but he will not fade away. A good thing for those who think he’s a stabilizing or progressive figure – a bad thing for those who think he’s a reactionary.
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Nice post James – could I add the breakdown of ‘traditional’ notions of the ‘client patron relationship’ to your list of possible reasons for the coup? Or if as a reason for the coup is a bit too fanciful perhaps as a possible reason for the non-government parties boycotting the election earlier this year.
The ‘client patron relationship’ implies that, amongst other things, the client gains some benefit from the relationship – it’s a two-way thing. If the benefit is reduced or disappears then the relationship weakens. I know that surface appearances suggest that this relationship is alive and well – I see people happily perform and act it out all the time (I have lots of great stories to tell). However, as some of the observations and discussion around ‘vote buying’ suggest, relying on ‘traditional’ structural relationships like these do not always lead to electoral success. Therefore, if relying on the ‘client patron relationship’ is the only electoral strategy that you can come up with, and from hard experience you know that it is going to fail, why bother contesting the elections at all?
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Thanks for your comments Patiwat.
I don’t know if bringing back ISOC would help either – but the point I was trying to make is that I think Prem thinks it would.
I don’t think the King is inactive generally – as you point out, he has been very active in terms of rural development and other causes close to his heart. I think that the particular circumstances of the moment (his fractured rib, etc) combined with the fact that he has usually been in a position of passive acquiescence to coups in the past (since a confrontation between King and Army would probably lead to civil war) means that he is unlikely to have played any active role in this one. It was enough that he was known to dislike Thaksin especially after Thaksin tried to upstage him during the Jubilee.
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James, I’m not sure if “passive acquiescence” to coups is the right way of describing his position.
He seemed passive in 1991, although Paul Handley describes some pretty intricate behind-the-scenes stuff concerning conflicts of economic interest between the palace and Chatichai’s business cronies as well as the Queen’s active support for Suchinda.
1985 was settled by force of arms in a short but bloody manner rather than through royal approval or disapproval. It was probably the most bloody coup attempt since the Boworadej Rebellion in 1933, which led directly to the abdication of R.7. Prem was visiting Indonesia at the time while the King was in the South.
He was certainly not passive in 1981, when rebels took over Bangkok and Prem and the royal family fled to Khorat. His continued support of Prem was pivotal.
He passively accepted Kriangsak’s 1977 coup against Tanin, but still let the world know his disapproval to it by immediately appointing Tanin to his Privy Council.
And his role in the 1976 coup and the 6 October massacre is still debated today. The King was passively supportive to the coups of the Three Tyrants in the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s. But that’s because he had actively supported of Sarit’s 1957 coup. The Three Tyrants were Sarit’s cronies, so it could be argued that he had no need to be particularly active.
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Mr. Haughton, your analysis is very well written and it depict balance views of a nation under crisis. Though, I may not agree in some parts but most of what you have wrtten clearly justify what should be said of Thailand at this moment. You help justify HM the king’s role in the coup by analyzing past history. This is what I have been waiting for. I am not someone with words in explaining what my country is going through but she is trying to the best she can to survive as a nation.
About the south, it may be beyond trouble-free, but it wouldn’t hurt to try to bring back peace to the people of the three provinces.
I think you are a true man of integrity in sharing your knowledge with everyone here. I personally thank you for a very informative piece.
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We have to understand Prem as the front man, the fall guy, or more accurately, the “spirit medium”. Prem, and his patronage network, is nothing without that spirit flowing into him and talking through him. So I think paragraph 2 is a little naive. It is necessary that coups have Prem’s fingerprints over them, because that deflects attention from the true source of the action – even if that source can not be confirmed by a direct order that appears in the government gazette. Obviously it is an unspeakable thing for a king to carry out a coup, so it is handled in another, much more subtle way.
Yes, the king is 79, but Prem is 87! And I’m not sure whether I believe all that soap opera about the poor health.
“The king has always ridden coups out rather than actively supporting them “. That’s a big statement and would be very hard, if not impossible to prove. But it does fit very nicely into the dominant royalist discourse of a king with the best interests of the nation at heart sitting above the cut and thrust of everyday politics – rather than doing what kings are there to do (especially in countries with no history of true constitutionalism), that is, rule. We need to separate spectacle and theatre from what is really happening, which is an extremely difficult thing to do.
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Don’t know how anyone could assume that Prem, as the king’s right hand man for more than a quarter-century, is not working for the king and the throne. One really has to strain logic and information to conclude he is an independent actor: he is the absolutely loyal king of the front palace and would not do anything that would hurt the institution.
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James: Great comment. I disagree on a few points
I am going to venture further out on the limb and speculate that the Hat Yai bombings may have been a turning point in the way Prem thought about the results of abandoning his CPM methodology. They marked the first time that the Islamists turned to Al Quaeda tactics of large-scale terrorist attacks against targets frequented by westerners, as opposed to attacking the Thai state in its various forms (army bases, schools, etc), one-on-one terror, and leaving the tourist trade alone.
I am not sure that the Hat Yai bombings were really aimed at attacking westerners. I see them as aimed at the economy – they came in the aftermath of the coordinated bank bombings in Yala. Since 2004, nothing has been sacred, monks, temples, teachers have all been attacked – see here. You might be right that Prem, Sonthi etc believe that the Hat Yai bombings took things to a new level, but I don’t believe they actually did. Now, if there was a suicide bombing or an attack outside of the 5 southern provinces this to me would indicate a new level since January 2004.
I can’t think of any other reason why Gen Sonthi is taking an approach of trying to open negotiations with the insurgents within weeks of such an atrocity (for which he was rebuked publicly by Thaksin, just a day or two before the coup – note that there were sufficient troops in Bangkok for a coup because they were in transit from the north “to deal with the southern insurgency” – perhaps they were used for just that).
Do you have any reference from Thaksin rebuking Sonthi? I have followed the idea of talks/negotiations closely and only know of Chidchai and Kongsak disagreeing with Sonthi. Thaksin was quiet on the issue – or at least it was not well publicised.
You also have to remember there have been talks since 2005. On whether Thaksin knew of the talks, here is what Dr Mahathir has to say:
“Although, I believe Thaksin and Chidchai were aware of this. They didn’t say no and they were quite willing to, but I think they wanted to wait and see or something like that”
An SMH report quoting an unamed source also says the peace plan proposals were sent to Chidchai. A Nation report also states that in 2005 when Defence Minister Thammarak said insurgents were using Langkawi to plan attacks was his annoyance at being sidelined by Thaksin about the talks who gave the authority to Chidchai.
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I should say I am in Laos at the moment – I don’t have access to a library, so I write from memory or quick checks on the internet. I could easily have got specific details wrong. So I am grateful for the checks on who did what in previous coups.
Polo: I am sure that Prem is the king of the front palace, and would do anything to protect the institution. Including taking unilateral action, and informing the king (who is the symbol of the institution, not the institution itself) later. If I remember my Ayutthayan history, the front palace king role came about because the King himself was so sacred (and so vulnerable to coups) that he didn’t dare leave the palace…
Bangkok Pundit: Monks, temples and teachers are all symbols of the thai state in muslim, non-thai speaking southern areas. Ditto thai banks which always act as money pumps to the centre (Does anyone know if the CPT ever targeted banks, compradors, etc?). Hence why I think attacking Hat Yai is qualatitively different.
I thought I had read something about Thaksin slapping down suggestions of negotiating in the Bangkok post just before the coup, it could well have been one of his ministers as you say. I seem to recall it lead to Sonthi making that rather extraordinary public statement along the lines of of “just give the army a completely free hand and stop political meddling and we will sort it out” – which I take as evidence for my suggestion that the situation there had a lot to do with the coup.
Curious is of course correct that I may be falling for the “royalist” discourse – but I think seeing the king’s PERSONAL, ACTIVE role in everything is falling for it in a different way; as opposed to the king being a figurehead for the “monarchical institution” which may take decisions which he might personally disagree with. If the king had personally wanted to get rid of Thaksin that badly, surely he could have just done what he did in 1992 – called Thaksin and Sondhi on the carpet and told them to back down. A coup is overkill for personal royal authority, but par for the course for an over-centralised state with the king as its symbol.
As for Prem being 89, the saying is that old generals are always ready to refight the previous war.
Nice idea about the democrats patron-client breakdown Chris – shows why they would consider rural populism such a threat.
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Sonthi’s original request for negotiations was made on 1 September 2006, right after the Yala bank bombings. His idea met immediate opposition.
The next day, he made his ”Free the military and let it do the job. And when things happen, everyone must give them moral support. I’d like to say this to state officials, people and politicians,” quote. However, this was before the Had Yai bombings.
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James, nice attempt for your analysis which, contrary to what many people here say, I have to admit, is rather long and confusing.
I also admit that I agree with Patiwat, Ananymous Thai, and Curious, not trying to make myself sound like falling for a different way of seeing the king as a so-called monarchical institutiton.
As someone who was trained to adopt critical thinking and analytical reasoning as a mantra in my profession, I couldn’t help but see that many aspects if not all of possible reasons behind the coup need to be taken into consideration. Thus, taking the “institutional role” of the king for granted and failing to perhaps realize his “behind-the-scene potential power” may be prohibitive of truly recognizing the current status of the situation in Thailand. One thing I believe for sure is any institutions for which there are no effictive and thorough means of inspection and scrutiny cannot be 100% trusted.
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James: On Prem, I agree.
Monks, temples and teachers are all symbols of the thai state in muslim, non-thai speaking southern areas. Ditto thai banks which always act as money pumps to the centre (Does anyone know if the CPT ever targeted banks, compradors, etc?). Hence why I think attacking Hat Yai is qualatitively different.
We’ll have to agree to disagree. I don’t disagree that monks, temples, and teachers are symbols of the Thai State – I actually said the same thing the other day in regards to monks and temples, but also agree about teachers.
Since 2004, the insurgents have also attacked the economy. They have been able to slowly, but systematically, almost destroy (for want of a better word) the economy. They attack wet markets, threaten small shop owners, shrimp farms, rubber tappers, banks etc. These are not symbols of the Thai state, but part of the economic structure of the southern border provinces. If the economy is bad then blame can be put on the central government for not caring enough.* For me, the attacks on Hat Yai was just another attack albeit on a greater scale and I don’t see it as that different. I also think the coup had been planned weeks in advance and why they might want to use Hat Yai as an excuse, I think it is generally irrelevant to why the coup took place.
I seem to recall it lead to Sonthi making that rather extraordinary public statement along the lines of of “just give the army a completely free hand and stop political meddling and we will sort it out” – which I take as evidence for my suggestion that the situation there had a lot to do with the coup.
In private, the situation in southern Thailand has been stated as a reason for the coup, but I think this is more posturing. Lese majeste has also been stated as a reason for the coup, but again these are just excuses to justify the coup. I am sure Sonthi/Surayud/Prem et al have different ideas on the situation in southern Thailand, but I don’t think the coup played a major part in the decision to stage the coup. Yes, they want to restore the bureaucratic structures that Prem put in place, but they want to do this as they were Prem’s little toys which Thaksin had taken away.
It was after the Yala bombings that Sonthi for the first time publicly raised the idea of talks/negotiations. This seemed a new development and then after the coup this was downgraded to low-level talks. Subsequently, it was leaked (and then people went on record) that talks had been going on for almost a year already. I believe those within the government close to Thaksin leaked details of the talks to imply that talks had already happened under Thaksin and low-level talks were not a new development.
I also wanted to mention that one reason why the CPT fell was that the Thai government had established better bilateral relations with Beijing and negotiated with the Chinese government to cut off funding to CPT. With CPT’s patron disappearing and with an amnesty and other government policies (66/2523 etc) , the Thai government was able to succeed. The situation in Southern Thailand is different as the money behind the violence comes from a number of varied sources including criminal activities and foreign Muslim organisations. There is no patron for Southern Thailand that the Thai government can negotiate with.
*To be honest I have been long surprised on this focus on poverty in the southern border provinces as being a reason behind the violence. One reason why the economy is in such a bad state is precisely because of the violence. If you injure and kill people at random, workers and investors will not come. Government money tries to balance out the lack of private investment, but until the killings stop private investment won’t be flowing freely.
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Plot One: The southern violence had been the threat to ‘the Thai State’ for a century, un-or-fortunately, it had, in the past few years, been resurrected and become part of the national debates and therefore national secuirty and polity.
Plot Two: The Defeat of Thanksin Regime’, no matters whether this really existed, but it had already been existed in many Thai mental space, was in itself represented a real structural change in Thai society. It was a sign and symptom of a process of structuring a re-structured society. (see Thongchai W’ short note on a history of Thai Monarchy in Krungthep Turakit Online for your further idea if you like)
Plot Three: The Coup 19/09/49 was a juxtaposition of both.
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According to Saturday’s (21/10) Bangkok Post, PM Surayud has been talking to “former CPT leaders” in Isaan to help quell pro-Thaksin sentiment. Another example of Prem looking to the past to control the present?
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[…] Paul Handley, the author of this year’s most important book on Thailand, The King Never Smiles, has a short article in Asia Sentinel. In today’s contribution, Handley asks, “Who gets the kingdom’s sceptre when Bhumibol leaves the stage?” While not fully answering his own question, Handley does argue that: The coup was about Thaksin’s ambition and misrule, certainly, but what really got General Sonthi Boonyaratklin and his cohorts to move was the issue of succession to the throne. There was a clear meeting of minds between the crown and the military, through King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s number one aide Prem Tinsulanonda, that they did not want Thaksin in a position to exert influence on the passing of the Chakri Dynasty mantle to Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn. […]
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