Myawaddy was owned and published by the army since its inception till 1962 when all the Newspapers and Magazines were nationalized and placed under the News and Periodical Corporation of the Ministry of Information.
The name came from Myawaddy Mingyi U Sa the lord of Myawaddy and a famous warrior poet in early 19th century.
Thanks for your many comments especially this compliment.
his foreign readers who undoubtedly find his work a different and refreshing departure from the mainstream Burmese?
This “Burma in Limbo” essay both part 1 and 2 is now ow the pages of Burma Digest, the oldest Burmese Democracy Site. I don’t even know how they got there.
Do the King’s words actually count for anything? “If they get sent to prison, I pardon them. If they don’t go to prison, I won’t sue them, because those who violate the King and are punished are not the ones who are in trouble. It would be the King who was in trouble. It is strange, but the lawyers like to send people to prison (for allegedly violating the King).” http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2005/12/05/headlines/data/headlines_19334288.html
A prosecution and verdict such as this does put a burden on the Palace. It seems to me more concretely troublesome to the King, given his own words- “If we hold that the King cannot be criticised or violated, then the King ends up in a difficult situation”- than any allegations made by a rabble-rouser possibly could. To even suggest that a beloved King requires the protection of such a petty, harsh, thought-stifling law is in itself disrespectful.
maratjp: Obviously there are philosophical differences about the role of reporters that can’t be resolved. But for the record, I’d like to clarify that in your comment #65 you are making a generalization when you say: “The government’s action was not violent and cruel. There were armed protestors who lobbed grenades at them. Up until that point the soldiers fell back, shot blanks, shot in the air, and threw tear gas at protesters…”
Referring again to Chaiwat’s account in the RSF report: “Tell us how you came to be injured?
I was on Rajaprarob Road at around 3 pm on 15 April covering a Red Shirt demonstration. I was with about 50 demonstrators who tried to approach the soldiers. The Red Shirts were using tyres as protection but they were not armed.
The soldiers suddenly fired live rounds! At first I thought they were warning shots. But they kept firing incessantly with their automatic weapons. I began running for a place to hide but I was hit when I was just a few centimetres from reaching shelter. A bone in my right leg shattered and I fell to the ground. I could no longer move and the soldiers were still shooting….”
I’m not suggesting any conspiracy, just a complicated situation. I am a bit puzzled by your blaming-the-victim position, though. Consider that it seems likely that on April 10, Col. Romklao suffered mortal injuries because, as I understand it, he took off his helmet just before the grenade came in. I don’t recall many comments about that saying “This is not courage, it’s stupidity…”
Asking an obvious “yellow” shirt for an election is like saying their demands for a feudal, selected govt (by whom I do not know) is wrong. One never gets anywhere with logical reasoning. Of course, nay sayers can always say that “logic” in the moral sense is wrong in the first place, since moral rights and wrongs are generally more governed by cultural norms, then scientific logic.
The following is a statement from one of the Lao resistance groups that explains the situation in more detail. Again, this has not been widely publicized.
March, 27, 2006,
An Open Letter to the World Community
This is a great honor for us to present to you our open letter to the world community.
The Lao government declared, late in the year 1999, that they intend to eliminate all resistance within its borders of Lao and Thailand. They indicated that they were committed to destroying all resistance by 2003. This began a campaign of murder, kidnap, torture, unjust imprisonment, and the imprisonment of all those who were suspected to be involved in the Freedom Fighter’s struggle. The Lao government also engaged Secret Services, which paid Thai police to eliminate all Lao resistance members in Thailand. This “cleansing” campaign started with an initial funding of twenty thousand baht per head. Funding than increased up to five hundred thousand baht, which applied to a bounty that was either dead or alive. The names of suspected targets were indicated on a blacklist which was supplied to the Thai police. Thank God we are still standing, and through our struggles, we have become stronger than before.
Early in February of 2001 the Thai government began its own campaign against freedom fighters and anyone providing aid to the resistance. Mostly targeting those who lived alongside the Laos-Thai borders, parts of this campaign had eliminated laws previously established against communism in Thailand. This campaign was meant to cover up the eradication of freedom loving people. Before this occurred our people jointly worked conscientiously side by side with the Thai military and the Thai National Security Organization. Together, we exchanged information, secured and patrolled the borders to end drug trafficking, and defended against the incursion of the communist regime attempting to reach inside Thailand. This information can be found in Thai military intelligence records.
A Thai telecommunications satellite, placed in service in Laos to benefit businesses between Thailand and Laos, was subsequently released to the military for the sole purpose of securing an agreement of assistance to destroy all Lao resistance between both countries’ borders. To the detriment of the Lao people, Lao began selling cheap electricity to Thailand. An agreement also struck to allow Thailand to participate in building dams in Laos that would ultimately destroy the lands of the people living there. It was agreed that Thailand would clear-cut all timber out of the proposed dam area before the water was raised, thereby taking one of the few natural resources of our country. As part of this agreement, the Thai military would also train all Lao communist military officers in Thailand.
Subsequently, the Thai government removed the military presence along its borders and replaced it with Thai police who were offered bounties on the heads of members of Lao Freedom Fighters. Every month, we unfortunately hear of innocent people and families being arrested, shot dead, or kidnapped by undercover Thai police officers who received payment to maintain that activity. Some of our people were sent back to Laos as a result of a bounty placed on their heads set by Lao government Secret Services to be imprisoned or killed by government authority.
The Thai government has signed many similar agreements to empower and decreased the security patrols between the Lao and Thai borders. This was in exchange for assistance in eliminating the resistance movement throughout the country. The last agreement clearly indicates cooperation between Bangkok and Vientiane to crack down on all resistances and movement fighting against Lao communists lead by Thai Defense Minister Gen. Thammarak Isarangura Na Ayutthaya and was signed in Vientiane the 14th session on July 16th, 2005.
Because all of this agreement, 8 American citizens were shot dead, and two others are missing in Thailand. This is in addition to some 21 other people shot dead and 47 missing members of the resistance movement who lived in Thailand. This was an act that was covered up by Thai police who claimed that those deaths “may have involved drug traffickers or arms dealers.” It was not until January 18th, 2006 that the Thai police began a formal investigation into the deaths of two more American citizens. According to Thai authorities, their deaths were caused by Thai police who claimed they were paid by the Lao government to execute anyone suspected to be connected to, or directly involved with the resistance movement. Many more people, including businessmen and prominent citizens, were also blacklisted by Thai immigration and Laos.
We are asking the world community to help stop this secret network of Lao government and please help us by placing this current Thai authority and their policy of murder and destruction under world scrutiny so we can stop these harmful actions immediately.
On behalf of the Lao Liberal Democratic Party, which has always supported the struggle for peaceful change in Laos, I highly urge you to persuade the Lao government to recognize that the Lao Liberal Democratic and Freedom Fighters do not fight against the current government and their members. We fight to unite all of the Lao peoples and to liberate the democracy leading to guarantee all of the basic human rights and dignity for all Lao peoples.
Hopefully, democracy and both human and civil rights, will be once again be given back to the Lao people with an agreement to solve problems in a peaceful way.
Respectfully yours,
Central Committee of Lao Liberal Democratic Party Office Representative,
Here is another article that sheds a bit more light on the killings of Lao dissidents in Thailand during the Thaksin era:
Soldier a prime suspect in killing of American couple
Published on Jan 21, 2006
During their investigation into the recent slaying of two Lao-American social activists, a special police task force zeroed in on a Thai military sergeant as a prime suspect. The group of senior police officers headed by Major Aswin Kwang-muang, deputy commander of the Central Investigation Bureau, held a meeting with local police officers and US Embassy officials in Nong Khai to discuss the murder on Wednesday.
US citizens Anouvong Sethathi-rath and his wife Oulayvanh Set-hathirath, both of whom claimed descent from the kings of Lan Xang, were shot dead on Wednesday in a Buddhist monastery in the
North-eastern province.
The couple arrived in Thailand the week before to attend a conference in neighbouring Udon Thani province to promote Lao identity and culture.
Witnesses said two men had walked into the monastery and executed the husband and wife at close range at about 10am as they were about to pray.
Police believe the gunmen were Thai nationals, one of whom may be a military officer with the rank of sergeant who had previously met a senior Lao military officer on the Lao side of the Mekong
River. Police gave no further details about the identity of the suspected soldier but noted that political motives might have been behind the apparently targeted assassination of the couple.
Despite their claims, it seems the couple were not directly related to the Lan Xang White Parasol Dynasty, which reigned in Luang Prabang before the takeover of Laos by the Communist Pathet Lao
forces in 1975. Anouvong, who lived in the US state of North Carolina under the name of Philip McRowan, said he was a descendant of Xay Sethathi-rath, who founded Vientiane. He moved to the US in 1985 from Cuba, where he was studying. His wife Oulayvanh, who went by the name of Ashley McRowan, said she had been born in Laos and moved to Nong Khai’s Sri Chiang Mai district when she was six years old before moving to North Carolina in 1984 to be with her brother.
Their associates told The Nation that the couple had been advocating a return of the monarchy to the communist-ruled country. Despite their monarchist leanings, they seemed to have maintained no close contacts with political movements or armed groups hoping to overthrow the government in Laos.
A Lao official, however, said that monarchist feelings and claims of royal descent were very sensitive issues politically in the country.
The couple are not the first Lao activists to have been killed in Thailand.
Several Lao dissidents have died in Thailand since late 2003, when Sisouk Sayaseng, the suspected leader of an attack on the Vang Tao checkpoint in Laos’s Champassak province in July 2000, was shot
dead in Ubon Ratchathani.
Phra Uthai Thammasopit, an elderly Buddhist monk who was a former captain in the Laotian Royal Army, was shot dead in Bangkok last October following the death of many fellow royalist military officers who fled from Laos after the communist takeover of 1975. None of the cases has been solved.
As you might imagine, this sort of thing has not frequently made it to the mainstream press. However, I have been conducting research on this matter for a few years now, and there seems little doubt that a large number of Lao resistance people living in Thailand along the Lao border were killed between 2001 and 2006. To be clear, I have considerable sympathies towards the Red Shirts and their cause, but that doesn’t mean that I am going to deny the dark side of Thaksin’s period in power. The following is one story that represents but the tip of the iceberg in relation to what happened.
A Lao dissident shot dead in Ubon
31 may 2006. The Nation
Ubon Ratchathani. A Lao dissident who was said to have a connection to a raid on the Lao southern custom checkpoint of Vang Tao in 2000 has been shot dead in the northeastern province of Ubon Ratchathani, police said on Wednesday.
Paitoon Malavan, 61, a resident of Ubon Ratchathani’s Sirindhorn district, was killed in a gun attack at 8pm on Tuesday while cooking in his house.
Two gunmen sneaked into his backyard and shot at him, accordр╕Мing to his wife Bualean Malavan. She said Paitoon fled from the house and ran across the road to his sister’s house where he collapsed and died. A spent AK47 bullet was found at the scene.
Paitoon, who was hit in the neck, was a close associate of Sisouk Sayaseng, a suspected leader of the attack on the Vang Tao checkpoint in Laos’ Champasak province in July 2000. Sisouk was shot by two masked gunmen at his home in Ubon’s Sirindhorn district in November 2003.
Previously, Sukan Techakampu, an excaptain in the former Lao regime, and his wife Chantorn were killed in the province on May 11. He was also a close friend of Sisouk.
Bualean said Paitoon knew his life was in danger after the death of Sukan as he realised a group of killers were on the loose with instructions to eradicate all Lao dissidents. His name was on a death list next to Sukan’s, she said.
Police arrested two suspects, Arthit Klinchan and Suwat Suthang, last week in connection with Sukan’s murder and disclosed that the two were also involved in the assassination of LaoAmerican social activists Anouvong and Oulayvanh Sethathirath in Nong Khai on January 18. The couple, from North Carolina, claimed to be descendants of a Lao king.
Police said the two gunmen were hired to kill all Lao dissidents in the kingdom and had murdered 17 people so far.
I’d be interested to know what was said in Matichon about Hiroyuki.
I was there in the same area as Hiroyuki at Democracy Monument and Dinsa for the greater part of the afternoon and into the early evening on April 10th. Early that day on Phadung Krung Kasem, a street connected to Ratchadamnoen, I was with protesters as they breached perimeter after perimeter of the soldiers after soldiers threw tear gas, shot blanks/shot in the air, and then fell back. Eventually the protesters overran the soldiers and I heard there were “tanks” down the street. What I saw were three APCs at the end of Dinsa facing towards Democracy Monument with soldiers at a standoff with protesters. Later helicopters dropped tear gas. This is where Hiroyuki was and I know that he was probably thinking that there was little real danger as soldiers up until that point had not shot at protesters.
A BBC cameraman that I met later on during the protests in May mentioned that he knew Hiroyuki and he said that Hiroyuki was not experienced in covering war zones. But you wouldn’t need a lot of experience with war to know that something ugly was going to go down that night. I was convinced that the government was going to make their move that night or early morning with a blitzkrieg. I got that eerie feeling in my stomach so I went home.
Turns out that these MIB had thrown a grenade at soldiers and that’s when it all became lethal. By this time Hiroyuki was 50 meters give or take, on Dinsa well behind those APCs. He got caught out in the open with, I’m assuming, no helmet or bulletproof vest, with bullets flying everywhere.
When I learned that he had been killed I asked myself why he was where he was, at night, that unprotected.
It’s an utter lack of common sense. A horrific naivete of the world.
And no man with a wife and kids should ever take such risks.
You hit it. Because the elite says that there is nothing else needed as good men to rule the land, constitutions had been changed and destroyed so often.
Also the king mentioned in 1991, that it is not necessary to stick to the law or theoretical ideas, more important is the will to do “the good for the people”. He mentioned that in order to backup the constitution without knowing details of it, while the activists were fighting for certain rules.
So what the elite claims is that Constitution, law and rules are less important. More important is that “good people” rule the country.
There is only one good man that everybody MUST agree on. I think that this is the problem for Thailand. Debate on it if you must, but only if you are not on this land’s soil.
Sorry to make references without links, but I got inspired to send this out before I could find the relevant articles.
Saichol Sattayanurak of Chiang Mai University has written about the “goodness” issue as a constituent of the ideology of Thainess. A translation of his magisterial analysis of Kukrit’s role in this propagada campaign was posted on New Mandala maybe 18 months ago.
I have been reading a lot lately about the 1932 group, wondering why there was nobody advocating pure republicanism at the time. I found reference to another article by Saichol about another “useful idiot” in the cementing of dictatorial power via the concepts of Thainess and goodness, Luang Wichit Wathakan.
In sum, he indicates that doctrines of “goodness” are assertions free of criticism or analysis that serve to keep the powers behind the ideology (Sarit with Kukrit, Phibun with Wichit) unencumbered by accountability. So, is Abhisit doing this for a retired general?
Duncan McCargo traces out this concept of virtuous legitimacy in the introduction to “Tearing Apart the Land”. He says that the idea that politicians and other leaders can be divided into “good” and “bad” people is a pervasive one in Thailand and has been framed by the moralistic tutelary discourse that characterizes speeches by a certain eminent person and his network.
He goes on to point out that Michael K Connors has theorized the implications of this stand in Journal of Contemporary Asia 38, 1 (2008), 150.
Non-ngong Na Malai #17 :
did Abhisit “shine” @Oxford ?
I define “shine as gaining something like that rarity :
a double First Honours – like Lee Kwan Yew got, in a difficult subject, such as Law.
Or the demonstrated linguistic ability in Etemology, to spell your name bakcwards, in Thai !!!!!!!!
I did n’t know I had a fetish about Burmese women’s legs, until I saw this. Thank you NM, for enlightening me !
Is any of this on-line : unfortunately I’ve been unable to find anything quite like this.
This isn’t philosophical issue, in fact it is a political issue. Apisit knows that he can never win an election, he is aware of the fact that the road to power is to defend the interests of those groups that have more wealth and social resources. That group, in turn, considers him as being “good” because Apisit uses State as an instrument to ride on top of other groups. The Thai monarchy and the Thai military consider Apisit good because he was willing to use massive violent tools against the red shirts with whom the monarchy and the military perceived as threats to their interests. However, Apisit fails to understand that repressive measures such as the army, police, courts, and prisons would lead to more discontent and instability.
Richy, you’re confused about two different historical periods, that’s why you mixed up facts and issues. We are talking about the Killing Fields in Cambodia during the period 1975-1979.
1. 1955: Under Sukarno Indonesia was in alliance with the Non-Aligned Movement.
Bandung Conference, the meeting of representatives of 29 African and Asian nations, held at Bandung, Indonesia, ultimately led to the establishment of the Nonaligned Movement, in 1955. The aim was to promote economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism. During the height of the Cold War, the aim developed to become the organized movement of nations that attempted to form a third world force through a policy of nonalignment with the United States and Soviet Union. In later years, conflicts between the nonaligned nations eroded the solidarity expressed at Bandung.
2. 1965: Under Soeharto Indonesia was in alliance with the U.S.
By the late 1965, the Indonesian army was divided between a left-wing faction allied with the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and a right-wing faction that was being courted by the United States. Soeharto came to power in 1965. In contrast to the liberal parliamentary democracy of the 1950s, Soeharto headed an authoritarian, military-dominated government similar to other developing countries under the U.S. sphere of influence during the Cold War. In 1967, Indonesia joined the SEATO. In my opinion, ASEAN is simply the continuity of SEATO without the major powers.
3. 1977: SEATO was officially ended in 1977 because France decided to stop contributing its share of the budget after losing its Indochina colonies: Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam.
In conclusion, during the killings fields period 1975-1979, Indonesia was not a non-aligned member. Indonesia was in alliance with the US.
Apisit is a living proof that Oxford could be mediocre. If someone like him could shine at Oxford, it shows that the university is not so good as it appears to be. Appearance can deceive. In fact, the university may be just a cow-track (place of fording for oxen) institution.
“6. Lastly, Lee Jones and Benny Widyono, during the Cold War period, the organization was still SEATO not ASEAN because the bloc at the time had only 5 original members… Here’s the short summary of SEATO became ASEAN…”
I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. ASEAN was founded in 1967 and included three members who were not part of SEATO (Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand), which was basically defunct by then. SEATO was a completely different organisation. It was essentially wound up in the 1970s.
“The possibility of invasion (Vietnam + Cambodia) was prominent from the Thai military perspectives and thinking”
As I demonstrate in my research this is basically nonsense. Top Thai generals and foreign policy officials were on record, at the time, as saying that Vietnam had no intention to invade Thailand. The threat wasn’t conventional in nature; the fear was that Vietnam had started to promote revolutionary activity in mainland SE Asia after a lull in the 1975-78 period.
To Chris Beale :
One reason is that from the beggining Hiroyuki’s family asked that nothing about the forensic study is made public.
Another reason is that a group of people, who were with Fabio on the 19th of May decided to try to put some light on the circonstances of his death. These people had first hand knowledge of the situation in which Fabio was killed, but most of them were not near Hiroyuki when he was killed on the 10th of April.
But the interest of the medias is growing also on Hiroyuki’s case, both from Thai and International medias. See the cover story of Matichon Weely this week : Who killed Hiroyuki ?
Last thing is that Shawn Crispin has extensively investigated the circumstances of Hiro’s death and reported his findings in a recent Committee to Protect Journalists Report.
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Burmese women’s legs in the media
Myawaddy was owned and published by the army since its inception till 1962 when all the Newspapers and Magazines were nationalized and placed under the News and Periodical Corporation of the Ministry of Information.
The name came from Myawaddy Mingyi U Sa the lord of Myawaddy and a famous warrior poet in early 19th century.
Burma in Limbo, Part 2
Moe Aung,
Thanks for your many comments especially this compliment.
his foreign readers who undoubtedly find his work a different and refreshing departure from the mainstream Burmese?
This “Burma in Limbo” essay both part 1 and 2 is now ow the pages of Burma Digest, the oldest Burmese Democracy Site. I don’t even know how they got there.
http://burmadigest.info/2010/08/22/burma-in-limbo/
Maybe they see something in my writings that you don’t see or just blindly refusing to see with hatred and anger burning inside of you.
And I pray for your soul!
Thailand’s royal disgrace
Do the King’s words actually count for anything? “If they get sent to prison, I pardon them. If they don’t go to prison, I won’t sue them, because those who violate the King and are punished are not the ones who are in trouble. It would be the King who was in trouble. It is strange, but the lawyers like to send people to prison (for allegedly violating the King).” http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2005/12/05/headlines/data/headlines_19334288.html
A prosecution and verdict such as this does put a burden on the Palace. It seems to me more concretely troublesome to the King, given his own words- “If we hold that the King cannot be criticised or violated, then the King ends up in a difficult situation”- than any allegations made by a rabble-rouser possibly could. To even suggest that a beloved King requires the protection of such a petty, harsh, thought-stifling law is in itself disrespectful.
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
maratjp: Obviously there are philosophical differences about the role of reporters that can’t be resolved. But for the record, I’d like to clarify that in your comment #65 you are making a generalization when you say: “The government’s action was not violent and cruel. There were armed protestors who lobbed grenades at them. Up until that point the soldiers fell back, shot blanks, shot in the air, and threw tear gas at protesters…”
Referring again to Chaiwat’s account in the RSF report: “Tell us how you came to be injured?
I was on Rajaprarob Road at around 3 pm on 15 April covering a Red Shirt demonstration. I was with about 50 demonstrators who tried to approach the soldiers. The Red Shirts were using tyres as protection but they were not armed.
The soldiers suddenly fired live rounds! At first I thought they were warning shots. But they kept firing incessantly with their automatic weapons. I began running for a place to hide but I was hit when I was just a few centimetres from reaching shelter. A bone in my right leg shattered and I fell to the ground. I could no longer move and the soldiers were still shooting….”
I’m not suggesting any conspiracy, just a complicated situation. I am a bit puzzled by your blaming-the-victim position, though. Consider that it seems likely that on April 10, Col. Romklao suffered mortal injuries because, as I understand it, he took off his helmet just before the grenade came in. I don’t recall many comments about that saying “This is not courage, it’s stupidity…”
Anyway, a reminder to readers that the whole RSF report is posted at: http://en.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/REPORT_RSF_THAILAND_Eng.pdf
Thai style reconciliation a recipe for further conflict
Asking an obvious “yellow” shirt for an election is like saying their demands for a feudal, selected govt (by whom I do not know) is wrong. One never gets anywhere with logical reasoning. Of course, nay sayers can always say that “logic” in the moral sense is wrong in the first place, since moral rights and wrongs are generally more governed by cultural norms, then scientific logic.
Thai style reconciliation a recipe for further conflict
For #8, Chris Beale
The following is a statement from one of the Lao resistance groups that explains the situation in more detail. Again, this has not been widely publicized.
March, 27, 2006,
An Open Letter to the World Community
This is a great honor for us to present to you our open letter to the world community.
The Lao government declared, late in the year 1999, that they intend to eliminate all resistance within its borders of Lao and Thailand. They indicated that they were committed to destroying all resistance by 2003. This began a campaign of murder, kidnap, torture, unjust imprisonment, and the imprisonment of all those who were suspected to be involved in the Freedom Fighter’s struggle. The Lao government also engaged Secret Services, which paid Thai police to eliminate all Lao resistance members in Thailand. This “cleansing” campaign started with an initial funding of twenty thousand baht per head. Funding than increased up to five hundred thousand baht, which applied to a bounty that was either dead or alive. The names of suspected targets were indicated on a blacklist which was supplied to the Thai police. Thank God we are still standing, and through our struggles, we have become stronger than before.
Early in February of 2001 the Thai government began its own campaign against freedom fighters and anyone providing aid to the resistance. Mostly targeting those who lived alongside the Laos-Thai borders, parts of this campaign had eliminated laws previously established against communism in Thailand. This campaign was meant to cover up the eradication of freedom loving people. Before this occurred our people jointly worked conscientiously side by side with the Thai military and the Thai National Security Organization. Together, we exchanged information, secured and patrolled the borders to end drug trafficking, and defended against the incursion of the communist regime attempting to reach inside Thailand. This information can be found in Thai military intelligence records.
A Thai telecommunications satellite, placed in service in Laos to benefit businesses between Thailand and Laos, was subsequently released to the military for the sole purpose of securing an agreement of assistance to destroy all Lao resistance between both countries’ borders. To the detriment of the Lao people, Lao began selling cheap electricity to Thailand. An agreement also struck to allow Thailand to participate in building dams in Laos that would ultimately destroy the lands of the people living there. It was agreed that Thailand would clear-cut all timber out of the proposed dam area before the water was raised, thereby taking one of the few natural resources of our country. As part of this agreement, the Thai military would also train all Lao communist military officers in Thailand.
Subsequently, the Thai government removed the military presence along its borders and replaced it with Thai police who were offered bounties on the heads of members of Lao Freedom Fighters. Every month, we unfortunately hear of innocent people and families being arrested, shot dead, or kidnapped by undercover Thai police officers who received payment to maintain that activity. Some of our people were sent back to Laos as a result of a bounty placed on their heads set by Lao government Secret Services to be imprisoned or killed by government authority.
The Thai government has signed many similar agreements to empower and decreased the security patrols between the Lao and Thai borders. This was in exchange for assistance in eliminating the resistance movement throughout the country. The last agreement clearly indicates cooperation between Bangkok and Vientiane to crack down on all resistances and movement fighting against Lao communists lead by Thai Defense Minister Gen. Thammarak Isarangura Na Ayutthaya and was signed in Vientiane the 14th session on July 16th, 2005.
Because all of this agreement, 8 American citizens were shot dead, and two others are missing in Thailand. This is in addition to some 21 other people shot dead and 47 missing members of the resistance movement who lived in Thailand. This was an act that was covered up by Thai police who claimed that those deaths “may have involved drug traffickers or arms dealers.” It was not until January 18th, 2006 that the Thai police began a formal investigation into the deaths of two more American citizens. According to Thai authorities, their deaths were caused by Thai police who claimed they were paid by the Lao government to execute anyone suspected to be connected to, or directly involved with the resistance movement. Many more people, including businessmen and prominent citizens, were also blacklisted by Thai immigration and Laos.
We are asking the world community to help stop this secret network of Lao government and please help us by placing this current Thai authority and their policy of murder and destruction under world scrutiny so we can stop these harmful actions immediately.
On behalf of the Lao Liberal Democratic Party, which has always supported the struggle for peaceful change in Laos, I highly urge you to persuade the Lao government to recognize that the Lao Liberal Democratic and Freedom Fighters do not fight against the current government and their members. We fight to unite all of the Lao peoples and to liberate the democracy leading to guarantee all of the basic human rights and dignity for all Lao peoples.
Hopefully, democracy and both human and civil rights, will be once again be given back to the Lao people with an agreement to solve problems in a peaceful way.
Respectfully yours,
Central Committee of Lao Liberal Democratic Party Office Representative,
Somnuk Phongsouvanh
President of the Lao Liberal Democratic Party
Thai style reconciliation a recipe for further conflict
For #8, Chris Beale
Here is another article that sheds a bit more light on the killings of Lao dissidents in Thailand during the Thaksin era:
Soldier a prime suspect in killing of American couple
Published on Jan 21, 2006
During their investigation into the recent slaying of two Lao-American social activists, a special police task force zeroed in on a Thai military sergeant as a prime suspect. The group of senior police officers headed by Major Aswin Kwang-muang, deputy commander of the Central Investigation Bureau, held a meeting with local police officers and US Embassy officials in Nong Khai to discuss the murder on Wednesday.
US citizens Anouvong Sethathi-rath and his wife Oulayvanh Set-hathirath, both of whom claimed descent from the kings of Lan Xang, were shot dead on Wednesday in a Buddhist monastery in the
North-eastern province.
The couple arrived in Thailand the week before to attend a conference in neighbouring Udon Thani province to promote Lao identity and culture.
Witnesses said two men had walked into the monastery and executed the husband and wife at close range at about 10am as they were about to pray.
Police believe the gunmen were Thai nationals, one of whom may be a military officer with the rank of sergeant who had previously met a senior Lao military officer on the Lao side of the Mekong
River. Police gave no further details about the identity of the suspected soldier but noted that political motives might have been behind the apparently targeted assassination of the couple.
Despite their claims, it seems the couple were not directly related to the Lan Xang White Parasol Dynasty, which reigned in Luang Prabang before the takeover of Laos by the Communist Pathet Lao
forces in 1975. Anouvong, who lived in the US state of North Carolina under the name of Philip McRowan, said he was a descendant of Xay Sethathi-rath, who founded Vientiane. He moved to the US in 1985 from Cuba, where he was studying. His wife Oulayvanh, who went by the name of Ashley McRowan, said she had been born in Laos and moved to Nong Khai’s Sri Chiang Mai district when she was six years old before moving to North Carolina in 1984 to be with her brother.
Their associates told The Nation that the couple had been advocating a return of the monarchy to the communist-ruled country. Despite their monarchist leanings, they seemed to have maintained no close contacts with political movements or armed groups hoping to overthrow the government in Laos.
A Lao official, however, said that monarchist feelings and claims of royal descent were very sensitive issues politically in the country.
The couple are not the first Lao activists to have been killed in Thailand.
Several Lao dissidents have died in Thailand since late 2003, when Sisouk Sayaseng, the suspected leader of an attack on the Vang Tao checkpoint in Laos’s Champassak province in July 2000, was shot
dead in Ubon Ratchathani.
Phra Uthai Thammasopit, an elderly Buddhist monk who was a former captain in the Laotian Royal Army, was shot dead in Bangkok last October following the death of many fellow royalist military officers who fled from Laos after the communist takeover of 1975. None of the cases has been solved.
Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation
Thai style reconciliation a recipe for further conflict
For #9, Chris Beale
As you might imagine, this sort of thing has not frequently made it to the mainstream press. However, I have been conducting research on this matter for a few years now, and there seems little doubt that a large number of Lao resistance people living in Thailand along the Lao border were killed between 2001 and 2006. To be clear, I have considerable sympathies towards the Red Shirts and their cause, but that doesn’t mean that I am going to deny the dark side of Thaksin’s period in power. The following is one story that represents but the tip of the iceberg in relation to what happened.
A Lao dissident shot dead in Ubon
31 may 2006. The Nation
Ubon Ratchathani. A Lao dissident who was said to have a connection to a raid on the Lao southern custom checkpoint of Vang Tao in 2000 has been shot dead in the northeastern province of Ubon Ratchathani, police said on Wednesday.
Paitoon Malavan, 61, a resident of Ubon Ratchathani’s Sirindhorn district, was killed in a gun attack at 8pm on Tuesday while cooking in his house.
Two gunmen sneaked into his backyard and shot at him, accordр╕Мing to his wife Bualean Malavan. She said Paitoon fled from the house and ran across the road to his sister’s house where he collapsed and died. A spent AK47 bullet was found at the scene.
Paitoon, who was hit in the neck, was a close associate of Sisouk Sayaseng, a suspected leader of the attack on the Vang Tao checkpoint in Laos’ Champasak province in July 2000. Sisouk was shot by two masked gunmen at his home in Ubon’s Sirindhorn district in November 2003.
Previously, Sukan Techakampu, an excaptain in the former Lao regime, and his wife Chantorn were killed in the province on May 11. He was also a close friend of Sisouk.
Bualean said Paitoon knew his life was in danger after the death of Sukan as he realised a group of killers were on the loose with instructions to eradicate all Lao dissidents. His name was on a death list next to Sukan’s, she said.
Police arrested two suspects, Arthit Klinchan and Suwat Suthang, last week in connection with Sukan’s murder and disclosed that the two were also involved in the assassination of LaoAmerican social activists Anouvong and Oulayvanh Sethathirath in Nong Khai on January 18. The couple, from North Carolina, claimed to be descendants of a Lao king.
Police said the two gunmen were hired to kill all Lao dissidents in the kingdom and had murdered 17 people so far.
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
I’d be interested to know what was said in Matichon about Hiroyuki.
I was there in the same area as Hiroyuki at Democracy Monument and Dinsa for the greater part of the afternoon and into the early evening on April 10th. Early that day on Phadung Krung Kasem, a street connected to Ratchadamnoen, I was with protesters as they breached perimeter after perimeter of the soldiers after soldiers threw tear gas, shot blanks/shot in the air, and then fell back. Eventually the protesters overran the soldiers and I heard there were “tanks” down the street. What I saw were three APCs at the end of Dinsa facing towards Democracy Monument with soldiers at a standoff with protesters. Later helicopters dropped tear gas. This is where Hiroyuki was and I know that he was probably thinking that there was little real danger as soldiers up until that point had not shot at protesters.
A BBC cameraman that I met later on during the protests in May mentioned that he knew Hiroyuki and he said that Hiroyuki was not experienced in covering war zones. But you wouldn’t need a lot of experience with war to know that something ugly was going to go down that night. I was convinced that the government was going to make their move that night or early morning with a blitzkrieg. I got that eerie feeling in my stomach so I went home.
Turns out that these MIB had thrown a grenade at soldiers and that’s when it all became lethal. By this time Hiroyuki was 50 meters give or take, on Dinsa well behind those APCs. He got caught out in the open with, I’m assuming, no helmet or bulletproof vest, with bullets flying everywhere.
When I learned that he had been killed I asked myself why he was where he was, at night, that unprotected.
It’s an utter lack of common sense. A horrific naivete of the world.
And no man with a wife and kids should ever take such risks.
Abhisit and Thailand’s bad men
@ comment 14
You hit it. Because the elite says that there is nothing else needed as good men to rule the land, constitutions had been changed and destroyed so often.
Also the king mentioned in 1991, that it is not necessary to stick to the law or theoretical ideas, more important is the will to do “the good for the people”. He mentioned that in order to backup the constitution without knowing details of it, while the activists were fighting for certain rules.
So what the elite claims is that Constitution, law and rules are less important. More important is that “good people” rule the country.
Abhisit and Thailand’s bad men
There is only one good man that everybody MUST agree on. I think that this is the problem for Thailand. Debate on it if you must, but only if you are not on this land’s soil.
Abhisit and Thailand’s bad men
Sorry to make references without links, but I got inspired to send this out before I could find the relevant articles.
Saichol Sattayanurak of Chiang Mai University has written about the “goodness” issue as a constituent of the ideology of Thainess. A translation of his magisterial analysis of Kukrit’s role in this propagada campaign was posted on New Mandala maybe 18 months ago.
I have been reading a lot lately about the 1932 group, wondering why there was nobody advocating pure republicanism at the time. I found reference to another article by Saichol about another “useful idiot” in the cementing of dictatorial power via the concepts of Thainess and goodness, Luang Wichit Wathakan.
In sum, he indicates that doctrines of “goodness” are assertions free of criticism or analysis that serve to keep the powers behind the ideology (Sarit with Kukrit, Phibun with Wichit) unencumbered by accountability. So, is Abhisit doing this for a retired general?
If Saichol is online, would you care to post?
Abhisit and Thailand’s bad men
Duncan McCargo traces out this concept of virtuous legitimacy in the introduction to “Tearing Apart the Land”. He says that the idea that politicians and other leaders can be divided into “good” and “bad” people is a pervasive one in Thailand and has been framed by the moralistic tutelary discourse that characterizes speeches by a certain eminent person and his network.
He goes on to point out that Michael K Connors has theorized the implications of this stand in Journal of Contemporary Asia 38, 1 (2008), 150.
Abhisit and Thailand’s bad men
Non-ngong Na Malai #17 :
did Abhisit “shine” @Oxford ?
I define “shine as gaining something like that rarity :
a double First Honours – like Lee Kwan Yew got, in a difficult subject, such as Law.
Or the demonstrated linguistic ability in Etemology, to spell your name bakcwards, in Thai !!!!!!!!
Burmese women’s legs in the media
I did n’t know I had a fetish about Burmese women’s legs, until I saw this. Thank you NM, for enlightening me !
Is any of this on-line : unfortunately I’ve been unable to find anything quite like this.
Abhisit and Thailand’s bad men
This isn’t philosophical issue, in fact it is a political issue. Apisit knows that he can never win an election, he is aware of the fact that the road to power is to defend the interests of those groups that have more wealth and social resources. That group, in turn, considers him as being “good” because Apisit uses State as an instrument to ride on top of other groups. The Thai monarchy and the Thai military consider Apisit good because he was willing to use massive violent tools against the red shirts with whom the monarchy and the military perceived as threats to their interests. However, Apisit fails to understand that repressive measures such as the army, police, courts, and prisons would lead to more discontent and instability.
An alternative view of the Duch verdict in Cambodia
Richy, you’re confused about two different historical periods, that’s why you mixed up facts and issues. We are talking about the Killing Fields in Cambodia during the period 1975-1979.
1. 1955: Under Sukarno Indonesia was in alliance with the Non-Aligned Movement.
Bandung Conference, the meeting of representatives of 29 African and Asian nations, held at Bandung, Indonesia, ultimately led to the establishment of the Nonaligned Movement, in 1955. The aim was to promote economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism. During the height of the Cold War, the aim developed to become the organized movement of nations that attempted to form a third world force through a policy of nonalignment with the United States and Soviet Union. In later years, conflicts between the nonaligned nations eroded the solidarity expressed at Bandung.
2. 1965: Under Soeharto Indonesia was in alliance with the U.S.
By the late 1965, the Indonesian army was divided between a left-wing faction allied with the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and a right-wing faction that was being courted by the United States. Soeharto came to power in 1965. In contrast to the liberal parliamentary democracy of the 1950s, Soeharto headed an authoritarian, military-dominated government similar to other developing countries under the U.S. sphere of influence during the Cold War. In 1967, Indonesia joined the SEATO. In my opinion, ASEAN is simply the continuity of SEATO without the major powers.
3. 1977: SEATO was officially ended in 1977 because France decided to stop contributing its share of the budget after losing its Indochina colonies: Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam.
In conclusion, during the killings fields period 1975-1979, Indonesia was not a non-aligned member. Indonesia was in alliance with the US.
Abhisit and Thailand’s bad men
Apisit is a living proof that Oxford could be mediocre. If someone like him could shine at Oxford, it shows that the university is not so good as it appears to be. Appearance can deceive. In fact, the university may be just a cow-track (place of fording for oxen) institution.
An alternative view of the Duch verdict in Cambodia
“6. Lastly, Lee Jones and Benny Widyono, during the Cold War period, the organization was still SEATO not ASEAN because the bloc at the time had only 5 original members… Here’s the short summary of SEATO became ASEAN…”
I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. ASEAN was founded in 1967 and included three members who were not part of SEATO (Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand), which was basically defunct by then. SEATO was a completely different organisation. It was essentially wound up in the 1970s.
“The possibility of invasion (Vietnam + Cambodia) was prominent from the Thai military perspectives and thinking”
As I demonstrate in my research this is basically nonsense. Top Thai generals and foreign policy officials were on record, at the time, as saying that Vietnam had no intention to invade Thailand. The threat wasn’t conventional in nature; the fear was that Vietnam had started to promote revolutionary activity in mainland SE Asia after a lull in the 1975-78 period.
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
To Chris Beale :
One reason is that from the beggining Hiroyuki’s family asked that nothing about the forensic study is made public.
Another reason is that a group of people, who were with Fabio on the 19th of May decided to try to put some light on the circonstances of his death. These people had first hand knowledge of the situation in which Fabio was killed, but most of them were not near Hiroyuki when he was killed on the 10th of April.
But the interest of the medias is growing also on Hiroyuki’s case, both from Thai and International medias. See the cover story of Matichon Weely this week : Who killed Hiroyuki ?
Last thing is that Shawn Crispin has extensively investigated the circumstances of Hiro’s death and reported his findings in a recent Committee to Protect Journalists Report.