All this talk of 1992 reminds me that we should not fall into the trap of seeing ‘the army’ as a monolithic institution. Remember that both Suchinda and Chamlong had been through Chulachomklao – they were just in different classes. I remember speaking (on the streets in ’92) to a Brigadier and a former Squadron Leader during the disturbances. Both had very different ideas about what might happen, as did a senior officer from 2nd Cavalry division.
I think it’s important to recognise that some of these fissures may have widened over the ensuing years.
Ralph, like Handley, you obviously don’t appreciate the subtleties involved.
Chambers does.
Your Bagehot line is a bit rich. Another of your sweeping generalisations.
I was there in May ’92. In Ratchadamonen, just by Nang Lerng police station, on the West side, when the first shots fired out. “The distinctive thump” of guns – the first, and only, time I’ve ever heard such a thing. An American journalist, working for one of the major networks, came rushing with the crowd, from the East side, to where I was standing. The demonstration at Fan Fa Bridge had been largely peaceful that night, until then – obviously in some shock, he blurted out to me that two men had come out of a building and with pistols – started firing directly into the crowd. I heard those shots – intermittently, for about twenty minutes. They achieved their aim : the crowd then exploded in anger. There were definitely agent provocateurs at work – through-out May ’92.
Handley did n’t do a good job of reporting these events. Like you – he seems to want to over-generalise, and is too quick to blame Bumiphol, without REALLY knowing the subtleties. Chambers does n’t make this mistake.
Just as one might think there is a consensus to a solution to Myanmar quagmire:
Through an internationally concerted effort of massive improvement in Health Care, Education and Economic well being, a sure fool proof betterment to ALL Myanmar Citizenry thus assuring eventual return to The Rule of Laws.
Out come more useless careless voices of yesteryear:
Sven #21
Rehabilitating the Military aside, the premises of SPDC legitimacy has ended decisively with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi participation in Hlutthaw.
Fondness for yesteryear useless careless policy has unequivocally shown to promote the hold of this Military government.
Ko Moe Aung #23
Quoting Maureen Aung-Thwin, an early ‘re-engagement’ advocator to back up your archaic “Si├кmpré Revoluci├│n” advocacy?
Besides Myanmar тЙа Mozambique in any respect. Anyone using Mozambique comparison is absolutely ‘out of their mind’.
Expenditure of any Military Budget has ALWAYS shown as % of GDP or GNP.
Only the growth in a country economy as a whole will made the military budget a lesser % as in the better examples of Asiatic China and Vietnam.
The fantasy of any reduction in absolute Military Expenditure belies the very characteristics of EVERY military government, in the history of the world, let alone this PARANOID regime’s ‘SINCERITY’.
Maureen Aung-Thwin will better serve Myanmar Citizenry by asking Soro’s to invest his bottomless wealth, in Education, Health Care and Economic Development in Myanmar.
Thus hastening the return to The Rule of Laws presently so lacking in Myanmar.
One of the issues with irrigation in the NE, is that most of the channels and so on constructed in the 1960s, with considerable assistance from USAID, were in areas that might have been excellent for irrigation but were in areas that have now been built upon as towns/cities expanded.
“the old name for the kingdom in the north, Chiang Mai, is Lanna, which translates to Land of a Million Rice Fields.”
Lanna (lan = million, na = rice field) is the current name for a kingdom that occupied present-day Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Lamphun provinces plus a large swathe of northern Laos, whose capital was the city of Chiang Mai.
Chris: the Bagehot line on reserve powers is one usually trotted out by monarchists when defending the king as being under the constitution. That it bears no relation to Thailand in this reign has been demonstrated in several English-language academic works, so I don’t think Handley is out of place there.
If the question is about 1992, then one might begin with the account in the new big book:
The coup and the king’s role is glossed; Suchinda’s role is whitewashed; and Chamlong is blamed for leading an “overwhelmingly peaceful crowd” on a march meant to take the demonstrators to Government House, “close to Chitralada Villa, King Bumibhol’s main residence” (p. 152). By “glossed” I mean that there is no mention of the king’s support for the coup and his attacks on Chatichai.
It gets worse, claiming that “[i]ll-equipped and poorly trained” police “attempted to hold back violent elements that had infiltrated the crowd” (p. 153). The city, it is claimed, “descended into anarchy.” The story becomes bizarre: first the demonstrators are peaceful ; then they are attacking the army. The troops are reported as only firing in the air, but the Royal Hotel becomes a “casualty ward as the dead and wounded were brought in…” (p. 153). Who was shooting them then? The crowd is said to have thinned and there are “[w]ell-trained arsonists with a more sinister agenda…” who are burning down government buildings. The royal “history” continues stating (p. 153): “The distinctive thump of heavy machine guns could be heard…. [no mention of who was using the guns] Just before first light, … the [Royal] hotel was stormed by veteran infantrymen who arrested everyone on the premises without firing a single shot.”
It as if the machine guns were disembodied and as if the horrible video images of “veteran infantrymen” kicking men and women, smashing them with rifle butts and stomping on their semi-naked bodies with heavy boots simply doesn’t exist.
The next night is described as “outright criminality and opportunistic score settling” (p. 154).
This section of the book is a travesty, but it undoubtedly reflects the palace’s view of this event and implicitly supports the long-held view that the palace and king supported the military-police crackdown. On the king’s role, the palace’s story is: “… in Bangkok observers were asking about King Bumibhol’s whereabouts.” It repeats rumours that the king didn’t know what was happening and even that he might have been a “prisoner.” There’s no explanation as to his whereabouts until the video of him meeting Suchinda and Chamlong on their knees. The king refers to the protesters and not the military when he says: “… when people get in a state of blind fury and act in uncontrolled violence…”. He worried that the situation would “lead the country to complete ruin” (p. 154).
The king’s collusion with the House Speaker in appointing the next prime minister is glossed over as a victory. The man who became PM, Anand Panyarachun explains that this extraordinary appointment was necessary because “there was complete chaos” (p. 155). Of course, there’s no evidence for this. It is just the palace meddling, a bit like 2008 and the judicial coup then.
Anand finds it necessary to affirm that the king’s action was not in breach of the constitution. Of course, it was a clear breach. The book is forced to refer to “reserve power, prestige and moral authority to pull the country back from the brink of calamity…” (p. 156). Of course, this is also a royalist interpretation of the king’s partisan political interventions in 1992 and at other times. Notice the addition of “prestige and moral authority.” That helps the ideologues explain the interventions.
Molle, F.; Floch, P. 2008. The “Desert bloom” syndrome: Irrigation development, politics, and ideology in the Northeast of Thailand. Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience, IRD/IWMI. (link)
Floch, P.; Molle, F. 2007. Marshalling water resources: A Chronology of irrigation development in the Chi-Mun river basin, Northeast Thailand. Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience, IRD/IWMI. (link)
Ron Torrence: “Allan, the old name for the kingdom in the north, Chiang Mai, is Lanna, which translates to Land of a Million Rice Fields.”
That is not very relevant to modern rice economies but the late Hans Penth’s paper just now available online since the Siam Society just put its journal online is worth reading on this subject:
On Rice and Rice Fields in Old Lan Na, Hans Penth JSS VOL 91 (2003) (link)
[Note: My ultimate objective is to understand the premodern political economy of irrigation in mainland Southeast Asia, so I can finish my research work: The Ecology of Burman-Mon warfare and the Pre-modern Agrarian State (1383-1425) (link)]
David Blake: “I was talking about public irrigation infrastructure projects and that has failed, as far as I understand, in the TKRH region as much of elsewhere in Isaan.”
I’m no hydrologist, yet I have spent time in the Isarn region, including Tung Kula Rong Hai – i don’t need to look at it from Google Earth thanks!
I was just wanted to provide some cultural background on this region – it’s regarded as a huge success story in Thailand – their folklore makes it sound like there weren’t two fertile villages within a day’s walking distance from each other before it was irrigated. I imagine they’re referring to a period well before the Australians arrived.
“I just tried looking at it from a Google Earth satellite image … scars on the ground visible from several miles high in the air”
Before I open Google Earth … there must be an irrigation scheme in Isarn that’s actually working, so could you provide me two coordinates: one showing the ‘scars’ and one showing a working system? Thanks
I’ll leave it for others to describe, in qualitative terms, how wet the summers were in Tung Kula Rong Hai in days of yore. A running theme in this thread is that numbers don’t necessarily tell the story.
BTW I don’t think dry season irrigated cropping, Tung Kula Rong Hai or wherever, is the Holy Grail. Doesn’t the best rice come form regions where they don’t do that? We come back to the value proposition …
Get rid of the stumbling block: IGNORANCE. It breeds HATE. With this in your hearts as a majority, you can’t open your hearts and minds to any inter-faith discussion as your Noble Book requires of you if you submit to Him. All infidels you open your hearts and minds will know that your God is Great. And peace will prevail.
Your home will be a good place to begin to have open hearts and minds. This is a long shot at it: PEACE.
JW: “I planned to remind you of the Tung Kula Rong Hai region and was somewhat surprised you mentioned it right at the end. Tung Kula Rong Hai – to paraphrase: the region that made the Kula people cry (the Kula were travellers renowned for their toughness) – was known for its high salinity and desert-like conditions until it was irrigated and is now known as the rice basket of Isarn. I don’t know which budget the work came out of, or if the work was done back in the days when projects depended on effort more than money but you can’t consider this to have been a failure.”
It rather depends on what you consider to be “a failure”? I was talking about public irrigation infrastructure projects and that has failed, as far as I understand, in the TKRH region as much of elsewhere in Isaan. There is an extensive literature in English and Thai on the history of failure of state irrigation projects, from Green Isaan, through the Khong-Chi-Mun, through the pumped irrigation projects of various govts, etc, etc, if you care to look. Try googling “Molle, Floch, Thailand, irrigation” for some of the English language papers.
Just to confirm that TKRH hadn’t suddenly become an irrigation success story, since I last visited it several years ago, I just tried looking at it from a Google Earth satellite image and sure enough, there was no evidence of dry season irrigated cropping wherever I looked in the Buriram-Surin-Roi-Et-Mahasarakham floodplain lowlands of the River Mun, but LOTS of evidence of abandoned irrigation infrastructure. Please check it out for yourself. Much of the infrastructure was built under the K-C-M project mentioned above, but there was more added under the Thaksin regime, as a prelude to his Water Grid fantasy. Bear in mind that millions of dollars have been spent on trying to irrigate this area year round, yet there appears to be nothing to show for it, bar scars on the ground visible from several miles high in the air.
What rice is grown on TKRH, I strongly suspect, is mostly either wet season “rainfed” (a misnomer, but I don’t want to go into the reasons here) and flood irrigated, or is irrigated by farmers’ own pumps during periods of water scarcity. It is possible some may be irrigated by communal state-provided pumps, but from my experience, such projects do not last very long and are inherently unsustainable due to a host of issues. Gravity-fed irrigation, as I am sure you are aware, is unfeasible on such flat landscapes that lack both water storage reservoirs and, well, slopes to deliver the water. Pumped irrigation, meanwhile, has a host of problems associated with it, which can be researched in one of Floch and Molle’s papers, if you are interested.
My final point concerns the characterisation of the TKRH region as “desert-like”, which actually is a terrible (but all to common) exaggeration, but often universalised construction across the “arid” Northeast, which ignores the fact it was formerly a flooded grassland for 4-6 months of the year (i.e. a wetland), and has rainfall in the region of 1,200 – 1,500 mm per year. The Aussie “experts” who descended en masse in the 80s and 90s to “develop” it (upsetting its natural fertility and ecology in the process), had to introduce eucalyptus trees to lower the water table and put some salt-tolerant trees on the landscape, thereby setting off a trend of eucalypt-ophilia in the Forestry Dept and other actors, that still resounds around Isaan today. Again, a look at a map will show plenty of water sources on and around the plain. Hardly very desert-like, in my book.
Ralph – all monarch’s, and possibly all Heads of State, are ultimately interventionist – to some extent. This is called the “Reserve Powers of The Crown”.
The UK – and Australia’s – Queen Elizabeth undoubtedly has them, and Thailand’s Sovereign even more so. But obviously they have to be exercised with care, caution and circumspection – they are, after all : “reserve”.
It does seem to me that Chambers does a better job appreciating the subtleties involved, than Handley.
banphai: “yet Thailand’s rice yield per hectare, for example, has been one of the poorest in the world”
But it’s pretty good rice isn’t it? For perspective, Thailand’s yield is about half the average, and this is an average pumped up by the huge quantities produced in the US, Australia and Europe – the top Asian country is China at #8. On that same website check fertilizer usage (figures supplied are total, not just rice). As two commenters above have reminded us: don’t just dwell on the bare numbers – check out the value side.
David Blake: “Isaan has had vast sums of money spent on developing irrigation infrastructure, at small, medium and large scales, but the trouble is, most of it has failed or been abandoned”
I planned to remind you of the Tung Kula Rong Hai region and was somewhat surprised you mentioned it right at the end. Tung Kula Rong Hai – to paraphrase: the region that made the Kula people cry (the Kula were travellers renowned for their toughness) – was known for its high salinity and desert-like conditions until it was irrigated and is now known as the rice basket of Isarn. I don’t know which budget the work came out of, or if the work was done back in the days when projects depended on effort more than money but you can’t consider this to have been a failure.
Has any attempt been made to analyse within the agricultural sector, where most of the investment is made? For example, how much is spent on crop price subsidies, R & D, general agricultural infrastructure and specifically, irrigation development? I was under the impression that until a few years ago, 50 % of the Min of Ag and Coop’s budget was devoted to the Royal Irrigation Dept, which a reliable source in FAO told me, spent the vast proportion (80 % +) of its budget on infrastructure.
Contrary to popular opinion, Isaan has had vast sums of money spent on developing irrigation infrastructure, at small, medium and large scales, but the trouble is, most of it has failed or been abandoned by potential users (i.e. the semi-mythical Isaan “farmer”). Just building infrastructure is not a guarantee it will be used, or indeed, that it was really wanted in the first place. Of course, if one is discursively, constructed as a farmer, and a “poor rice farmer” in a “dryland” at that, then it is inevitable that the state’s and allied strategic groups top priority is going to be “water provision”, and no expense will be spared to provide it in unlimited quantity, or at least create a utopian dream that it is possible, with enough votes and budget spent on developing out of basin sources (as in-basin sources are now mostly over-developed already), and so the American West-style hydraulic mission proceeds relentlessly.
This is why a breakdown of the figures within the “agricultural expenditure” sector, are really quite crucial.
PS: Allan, “water” per se is not a problem in Isaan, but water resources management is. And vast quantities of jasmine rice are grown in the central provinces of Isaan, focused on the Tung Kula Rong Hai area.
Given AI’s vast experience of dealing with political prisoners and its experience in Thailand, wouldn’t you consider that they would know about international law and which prisoners of conscience should be in their arena? After all, most of these prisoners have been in jail for more than 2 years, so surely the AI office in Bangkok is not that incompetent? Perhaps they are. That they haven’t visited them may be the reason, and that seemed one of the points of the letter.
I’m not sure I am getting this Chris. You seem to say that Handley suggests an interventionist king should have intervened earlier while Chambers believes the king was not interventionist because that his his legal role. I don’t have either book at hand just now (I’m holidaying on a river), so can’t check, but it seems that if Chambers is claiming the king is not interventionist, then a question is raised? Sorry if I am misunderstanding.
Today Dr Plodprasop Suraswadi, Minister of Science and Technology, is quoted in a Thai language interview with Thai Publica online media as saying that the revocation has no impact on SL’s job as he did not use his PhD to apply for his job as NIA Director.
When asked about the impact on the image of MOST, he replied that this was a matter for Supachai to consider… MOST could not set up an investigating panel as he had not filed any false qualifications to the Ministry.
Thanks for the reality check, aiontay. That’s why “PEACE, LAND and FOOD!” is as relevant a slogan for today’s Burma as the 1917 Bolshevik one “Peace, Land and Bread!”.
Whilst we may be ahead of ourselves in engaging in this discussion, it isn’t premature as we seem to be rushing headlong to join the New World Order.
Admittedly we are making some big assumptions here:
a. that the reforms are irreversible, regardless of the real agenda, and
b. those movers and shakers will have the vision and be receptive of an alternative view of a new society in contrast to the New World Order.
Maureen Aung-Thwin was spot on in the article The Race for Rangoon in Bloomberg Businessweek.
There’s a team from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, which recently established an office in Yangon. The Open Society is promoting economic reform while pressing the government, quietly, for progress on human rights. The regime still has about 400 political prisoners locked up in its jails, and its military is engaged in a brutal war with the Kachin minority in Myanmar’s far north. The fighting has led to a new refugee crisis on the border with India and Bangladesh.
Team Soros is joined by Robert Conrad, a Duke University economist who has just arrived from Durham, N.C., to advise the Ministry of Finance on reforming its tax code to make it friendlier to foreign businesses. Beside them at the bar is a delegation of Australian businessmen and academics. They’ve come here under the auspices of Asialink, a University of Melbourne-based organization dedicated to strengthening economic and cultural ties between Australia and Asia. Michael Gill, a publishing czar, rubs shoulders with Sydney Myer, Asialink’s chief sponsor and the chairman of the family-run Myer empire, an Australian conglomerate that in addition to its department store chain (some call it the Down Under Wal-Mart) has agribusinesses and vineyards. Myer is press-shy, but Maureen Aung-Thwin, director of the Open Society’s Burma Project/Southeast Asia Initiative, says the Australian tycoon recently asked her: “‘Is the government sincere about these reforms?’ I said, ‘One true test, as in Mozambique, is if the government reduces its military budget.’” It’s too soon to tell, she says. (Myers’s press agent did not respond to interview requests.)
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FACT’s plea for Joe Gordon
Joe , Welcome Home!!!
FACT’s plea for Joe Gordon
Joe Gordon has been released.
From the BBC today
Thai king pardons US man jailed for royal insult
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18792430
Thailand’s benevolent army
All this talk of 1992 reminds me that we should not fall into the trap of seeing ‘the army’ as a monolithic institution. Remember that both Suchinda and Chamlong had been through Chulachomklao – they were just in different classes. I remember speaking (on the streets in ’92) to a Brigadier and a former Squadron Leader during the disturbances. Both had very different ideas about what might happen, as did a senior officer from 2nd Cavalry division.
I think it’s important to recognise that some of these fissures may have widened over the ensuing years.
Thailand’s benevolent army
Ralph, like Handley, you obviously don’t appreciate the subtleties involved.
Chambers does.
Your Bagehot line is a bit rich. Another of your sweeping generalisations.
I was there in May ’92. In Ratchadamonen, just by Nang Lerng police station, on the West side, when the first shots fired out. “The distinctive thump” of guns – the first, and only, time I’ve ever heard such a thing. An American journalist, working for one of the major networks, came rushing with the crowd, from the East side, to where I was standing. The demonstration at Fan Fa Bridge had been largely peaceful that night, until then – obviously in some shock, he blurted out to me that two men had come out of a building and with pistols – started firing directly into the crowd. I heard those shots – intermittently, for about twenty minutes. They achieved their aim : the crowd then exploded in anger. There were definitely agent provocateurs at work – through-out May ’92.
Handley did n’t do a good job of reporting these events. Like you – he seems to want to over-generalise, and is too quick to blame Bumiphol, without REALLY knowing the subtleties. Chambers does n’t make this mistake.
Myanmar’s new political-economic contours
Slip Slinding Away ┬о
Just as one might think there is a consensus to a solution to Myanmar quagmire:
Through an internationally concerted effort of massive improvement in Health Care, Education and Economic well being, a sure fool proof betterment to ALL Myanmar Citizenry thus assuring eventual return to The Rule of Laws.
Out come more useless careless voices of yesteryear:
Sven #21
Rehabilitating the Military aside, the premises of SPDC legitimacy has ended decisively with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi participation in Hlutthaw.
Fondness for yesteryear useless careless policy has unequivocally shown to promote the hold of this Military government.
Ko Moe Aung #23
Quoting Maureen Aung-Thwin, an early ‘re-engagement’ advocator to back up your archaic “Si├кmpré Revoluci├│n” advocacy?
Besides Myanmar тЙа Mozambique in any respect. Anyone using Mozambique comparison is absolutely ‘out of their mind’.
Expenditure of any Military Budget has ALWAYS shown as % of GDP or GNP.
Only the growth in a country economy as a whole will made the military budget a lesser % as in the better examples of Asiatic China and Vietnam.
The fantasy of any reduction in absolute Military Expenditure belies the very characteristics of EVERY military government, in the history of the world, let alone this PARANOID regime’s ‘SINCERITY’.
Maureen Aung-Thwin will better serve Myanmar Citizenry by asking Soro’s to invest his bottomless wealth, in Education, Health Care and Economic Development in Myanmar.
Thus hastening the return to The Rule of Laws presently so lacking in Myanmar.
Peasants and the state
One of the issues with irrigation in the NE, is that most of the channels and so on constructed in the 1960s, with considerable assistance from USAID, were in areas that might have been excellent for irrigation but were in areas that have now been built upon as towns/cities expanded.
Peasants and the state
“the old name for the kingdom in the north, Chiang Mai, is Lanna, which translates to Land of a Million Rice Fields.”
Lanna (lan = million, na = rice field) is the current name for a kingdom that occupied present-day Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Lamphun provinces plus a large swathe of northern Laos, whose capital was the city of Chiang Mai.
Thailand’s benevolent army
Chris: the Bagehot line on reserve powers is one usually trotted out by monarchists when defending the king as being under the constitution. That it bears no relation to Thailand in this reign has been demonstrated in several English-language academic works, so I don’t think Handley is out of place there.
If the question is about 1992, then one might begin with the account in the new big book:
The coup and the king’s role is glossed; Suchinda’s role is whitewashed; and Chamlong is blamed for leading an “overwhelmingly peaceful crowd” on a march meant to take the demonstrators to Government House, “close to Chitralada Villa, King Bumibhol’s main residence” (p. 152). By “glossed” I mean that there is no mention of the king’s support for the coup and his attacks on Chatichai.
It gets worse, claiming that “[i]ll-equipped and poorly trained” police “attempted to hold back violent elements that had infiltrated the crowd” (p. 153). The city, it is claimed, “descended into anarchy.” The story becomes bizarre: first the demonstrators are peaceful ; then they are attacking the army. The troops are reported as only firing in the air, but the Royal Hotel becomes a “casualty ward as the dead and wounded were brought in…” (p. 153). Who was shooting them then? The crowd is said to have thinned and there are “[w]ell-trained arsonists with a more sinister agenda…” who are burning down government buildings. The royal “history” continues stating (p. 153): “The distinctive thump of heavy machine guns could be heard…. [no mention of who was using the guns] Just before first light, … the [Royal] hotel was stormed by veteran infantrymen who arrested everyone on the premises without firing a single shot.”
It as if the machine guns were disembodied and as if the horrible video images of “veteran infantrymen” kicking men and women, smashing them with rifle butts and stomping on their semi-naked bodies with heavy boots simply doesn’t exist.
The next night is described as “outright criminality and opportunistic score settling” (p. 154).
This section of the book is a travesty, but it undoubtedly reflects the palace’s view of this event and implicitly supports the long-held view that the palace and king supported the military-police crackdown. On the king’s role, the palace’s story is: “… in Bangkok observers were asking about King Bumibhol’s whereabouts.” It repeats rumours that the king didn’t know what was happening and even that he might have been a “prisoner.” There’s no explanation as to his whereabouts until the video of him meeting Suchinda and Chamlong on their knees. The king refers to the protesters and not the military when he says: “… when people get in a state of blind fury and act in uncontrolled violence…”. He worried that the situation would “lead the country to complete ruin” (p. 154).
The king’s collusion with the House Speaker in appointing the next prime minister is glossed over as a victory. The man who became PM, Anand Panyarachun explains that this extraordinary appointment was necessary because “there was complete chaos” (p. 155). Of course, there’s no evidence for this. It is just the palace meddling, a bit like 2008 and the judicial coup then.
Anand finds it necessary to affirm that the king’s action was not in breach of the constitution. Of course, it was a clear breach. The book is forced to refer to “reserve power, prestige and moral authority to pull the country back from the brink of calamity…” (p. 156). Of course, this is also a royalist interpretation of the king’s partisan political interventions in 1992 and at other times. Notice the addition of “prestige and moral authority.” That helps the ideologues explain the interventions.
Believe it if you must.
Peasants and the state
David Blake: “Try googling “Molle, Floch, Thailand, irrigation” for some of the English language papers.”
That is the magic key which unlocks a treasure trove of knowledge. Thanks.
Bibliography for Fran├зois Molle (link).
Two great papers:
Molle, F.; Floch, P. 2008. The “Desert bloom” syndrome: Irrigation development, politics, and ideology in the Northeast of Thailand. Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience, IRD/IWMI. (link)
Floch, P.; Molle, F. 2007. Marshalling water resources: A Chronology of irrigation development in the Chi-Mun river basin, Northeast Thailand. Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience, IRD/IWMI. (link)
Ron Torrence: “Allan, the old name for the kingdom in the north, Chiang Mai, is Lanna, which translates to Land of a Million Rice Fields.”
That is not very relevant to modern rice economies but the late Hans Penth’s paper just now available online since the Siam Society just put its journal online is worth reading on this subject:
On Rice and Rice Fields in Old Lan Na, Hans Penth JSS VOL 91 (2003) (link)
[Note: My ultimate objective is to understand the premodern political economy of irrigation in mainland Southeast Asia, so I can finish my research work: The Ecology of Burman-Mon warfare and the Pre-modern Agrarian State (1383-1425) (link)]
Peasants and the state
David Blake: “I was talking about public irrigation infrastructure projects and that has failed, as far as I understand, in the TKRH region as much of elsewhere in Isaan.”
I’m no hydrologist, yet I have spent time in the Isarn region, including Tung Kula Rong Hai – i don’t need to look at it from Google Earth thanks!
I was just wanted to provide some cultural background on this region – it’s regarded as a huge success story in Thailand – their folklore makes it sound like there weren’t two fertile villages within a day’s walking distance from each other before it was irrigated. I imagine they’re referring to a period well before the Australians arrived.
“I just tried looking at it from a Google Earth satellite image … scars on the ground visible from several miles high in the air”
Before I open Google Earth … there must be an irrigation scheme in Isarn that’s actually working, so could you provide me two coordinates: one showing the ‘scars’ and one showing a working system? Thanks
I’ll leave it for others to describe, in qualitative terms, how wet the summers were in Tung Kula Rong Hai in days of yore. A running theme in this thread is that numbers don’t necessarily tell the story.
BTW I don’t think dry season irrigated cropping, Tung Kula Rong Hai or wherever, is the Holy Grail. Doesn’t the best rice come form regions where they don’t do that? We come back to the value proposition …
Is there a need for more interfaith dialogue in Malaysia? Part 1
Get rid of the stumbling block: IGNORANCE. It breeds HATE. With this in your hearts as a majority, you can’t open your hearts and minds to any inter-faith discussion as your Noble Book requires of you if you submit to Him. All infidels you open your hearts and minds will know that your God is Great. And peace will prevail.
Your home will be a good place to begin to have open hearts and minds. This is a long shot at it: PEACE.
Peasants and the state
JW: “I planned to remind you of the Tung Kula Rong Hai region and was somewhat surprised you mentioned it right at the end. Tung Kula Rong Hai – to paraphrase: the region that made the Kula people cry (the Kula were travellers renowned for their toughness) – was known for its high salinity and desert-like conditions until it was irrigated and is now known as the rice basket of Isarn. I don’t know which budget the work came out of, or if the work was done back in the days when projects depended on effort more than money but you can’t consider this to have been a failure.”
It rather depends on what you consider to be “a failure”? I was talking about public irrigation infrastructure projects and that has failed, as far as I understand, in the TKRH region as much of elsewhere in Isaan. There is an extensive literature in English and Thai on the history of failure of state irrigation projects, from Green Isaan, through the Khong-Chi-Mun, through the pumped irrigation projects of various govts, etc, etc, if you care to look. Try googling “Molle, Floch, Thailand, irrigation” for some of the English language papers.
Just to confirm that TKRH hadn’t suddenly become an irrigation success story, since I last visited it several years ago, I just tried looking at it from a Google Earth satellite image and sure enough, there was no evidence of dry season irrigated cropping wherever I looked in the Buriram-Surin-Roi-Et-Mahasarakham floodplain lowlands of the River Mun, but LOTS of evidence of abandoned irrigation infrastructure. Please check it out for yourself. Much of the infrastructure was built under the K-C-M project mentioned above, but there was more added under the Thaksin regime, as a prelude to his Water Grid fantasy. Bear in mind that millions of dollars have been spent on trying to irrigate this area year round, yet there appears to be nothing to show for it, bar scars on the ground visible from several miles high in the air.
What rice is grown on TKRH, I strongly suspect, is mostly either wet season “rainfed” (a misnomer, but I don’t want to go into the reasons here) and flood irrigated, or is irrigated by farmers’ own pumps during periods of water scarcity. It is possible some may be irrigated by communal state-provided pumps, but from my experience, such projects do not last very long and are inherently unsustainable due to a host of issues. Gravity-fed irrigation, as I am sure you are aware, is unfeasible on such flat landscapes that lack both water storage reservoirs and, well, slopes to deliver the water. Pumped irrigation, meanwhile, has a host of problems associated with it, which can be researched in one of Floch and Molle’s papers, if you are interested.
My final point concerns the characterisation of the TKRH region as “desert-like”, which actually is a terrible (but all to common) exaggeration, but often universalised construction across the “arid” Northeast, which ignores the fact it was formerly a flooded grassland for 4-6 months of the year (i.e. a wetland), and has rainfall in the region of 1,200 – 1,500 mm per year. The Aussie “experts” who descended en masse in the 80s and 90s to “develop” it (upsetting its natural fertility and ecology in the process), had to introduce eucalyptus trees to lower the water table and put some salt-tolerant trees on the landscape, thereby setting off a trend of eucalypt-ophilia in the Forestry Dept and other actors, that still resounds around Isaan today. Again, a look at a map will show plenty of water sources on and around the plain. Hardly very desert-like, in my book.
Thailand’s benevolent army
Ralph – all monarch’s, and possibly all Heads of State, are ultimately interventionist – to some extent. This is called the “Reserve Powers of The Crown”.
The UK – and Australia’s – Queen Elizabeth undoubtedly has them, and Thailand’s Sovereign even more so. But obviously they have to be exercised with care, caution and circumspection – they are, after all : “reserve”.
It does seem to me that Chambers does a better job appreciating the subtleties involved, than Handley.
Peasants and the state
banphai: “yet Thailand’s rice yield per hectare, for example, has been one of the poorest in the world”
But it’s pretty good rice isn’t it? For perspective, Thailand’s yield is about half the average, and this is an average pumped up by the huge quantities produced in the US, Australia and Europe – the top Asian country is China at #8. On that same website check fertilizer usage (figures supplied are total, not just rice). As two commenters above have reminded us: don’t just dwell on the bare numbers – check out the value side.
David Blake: “Isaan has had vast sums of money spent on developing irrigation infrastructure, at small, medium and large scales, but the trouble is, most of it has failed or been abandoned”
I planned to remind you of the Tung Kula Rong Hai region and was somewhat surprised you mentioned it right at the end. Tung Kula Rong Hai – to paraphrase: the region that made the Kula people cry (the Kula were travellers renowned for their toughness) – was known for its high salinity and desert-like conditions until it was irrigated and is now known as the rice basket of Isarn. I don’t know which budget the work came out of, or if the work was done back in the days when projects depended on effort more than money but you can’t consider this to have been a failure.
Peasants and the state
Has any attempt been made to analyse within the agricultural sector, where most of the investment is made? For example, how much is spent on crop price subsidies, R & D, general agricultural infrastructure and specifically, irrigation development? I was under the impression that until a few years ago, 50 % of the Min of Ag and Coop’s budget was devoted to the Royal Irrigation Dept, which a reliable source in FAO told me, spent the vast proportion (80 % +) of its budget on infrastructure.
Contrary to popular opinion, Isaan has had vast sums of money spent on developing irrigation infrastructure, at small, medium and large scales, but the trouble is, most of it has failed or been abandoned by potential users (i.e. the semi-mythical Isaan “farmer”). Just building infrastructure is not a guarantee it will be used, or indeed, that it was really wanted in the first place. Of course, if one is discursively, constructed as a farmer, and a “poor rice farmer” in a “dryland” at that, then it is inevitable that the state’s and allied strategic groups top priority is going to be “water provision”, and no expense will be spared to provide it in unlimited quantity, or at least create a utopian dream that it is possible, with enough votes and budget spent on developing out of basin sources (as in-basin sources are now mostly over-developed already), and so the American West-style hydraulic mission proceeds relentlessly.
This is why a breakdown of the figures within the “agricultural expenditure” sector, are really quite crucial.
PS: Allan, “water” per se is not a problem in Isaan, but water resources management is. And vast quantities of jasmine rice are grown in the central provinces of Isaan, focused on the Tung Kula Rong Hai area.
Prisoner writes to Amnesty International
Given AI’s vast experience of dealing with political prisoners and its experience in Thailand, wouldn’t you consider that they would know about international law and which prisoners of conscience should be in their arena? After all, most of these prisoners have been in jail for more than 2 years, so surely the AI office in Bangkok is not that incompetent? Perhaps they are. That they haven’t visited them may be the reason, and that seemed one of the points of the letter.
Thailand’s benevolent army
I’m not sure I am getting this Chris. You seem to say that Handley suggests an interventionist king should have intervened earlier while Chambers believes the king was not interventionist because that his his legal role. I don’t have either book at hand just now (I’m holidaying on a river), so can’t check, but it seems that if Chambers is claiming the king is not interventionist, then a question is raised? Sorry if I am misunderstanding.
University rankings from Chula’s perspective
Today Dr Plodprasop Suraswadi, Minister of Science and Technology, is quoted in a Thai language interview with Thai Publica online media as saying that the revocation has no impact on SL’s job as he did not use his PhD to apply for his job as NIA Director.
When asked about the impact on the image of MOST, he replied that this was a matter for Supachai to consider… MOST could not set up an investigating panel as he had not filed any false qualifications to the Ministry.
Digging their heels in to the bitter end..
Peasants and the state
Allan, the old name for the kingdom in the north, Chiang Mai, is Lanna, which translates to Land of a Million Rice Fields.
Myanmar’s new political-economic contours
Thanks for the reality check, aiontay. That’s why “PEACE, LAND and FOOD!” is as relevant a slogan for today’s Burma as the 1917 Bolshevik one “Peace, Land and Bread!”.
Whilst we may be ahead of ourselves in engaging in this discussion, it isn’t premature as we seem to be rushing headlong to join the New World Order.
Admittedly we are making some big assumptions here:
a. that the reforms are irreversible, regardless of the real agenda, and
b. those movers and shakers will have the vision and be receptive of an alternative view of a new society in contrast to the New World Order.
Maureen Aung-Thwin was spot on in the article The Race for Rangoon in Bloomberg Businessweek.