“The authorship appears central to these politics and it would be nice if the reports somewhere note who the author is.”
Mike, unless there has been a change of staff or an outside consultant hired for this particular Crisis Group report, which I do not think is the case, I believe the author is Morton B. Pedersen, a senior analyst on Burma for the International Crisis Group and currently a research fellow at United Nations University in Tokyo. A general summary of his views on Burma can be found in this July 2008 article, which reports that Pedersen “believes that a democratic transition must be gradual, buttressed by extensive nation-building aimed at addressing across-the-board institutional capacity deficits.”
Personally, I prefer that New Mandala can continue to laugh and sneer at SE than the world’s poorest suffering…
I can’t speak for Andrew, but from what I see, he’s not sneering at the concept of Sufficiency Economics, per se; rather, he’s laughing and sneering at those proponents of Sufficiency Economics who seem to be saying ,”Do as I say, not as I do.”
For example, I don’t see too many criticisms of the economic thought of the Ven. Prayudh Payutto or of Ghandian swadeshi/swaraj.
jonfernquest: while this is the wrong place to discuss this, you have asserted a couple of times the following: “… there is not really very extensive research on the economic history and political economy of … Thailand either, although some important starts, the latest being Pasuk and Baker’s Thai Capital. If you look carefully there are huge gaps, like industrial development on the Eastern Seaboard, which I want to investigate further.”
This is not accurate. Where to begin. Political economy of development from various perspectives (and looking at just English-language materials): Skinner, Ingram (still useful), Suehiro, Hewison, Pasuk’s thesis at Cambridge, Deyo, Brown, Doner, Anek, Unger, Hirsch, Sakkarin, Bell, Ungpakorn, Glassman, and many more. Maybe you might be interested in Pasuk and Baker’s now dated syllabus from a couple of years ago: http://pioneer.netserv.chula.ac.th/~ppasuk/others.htm.
Damn all at NM – “you guys” – who gave Surayud a hard time and prevented him implementing new rules that make life easier for pedestrian sufficiency economy-ers. I wonder if ot was his fast cars and luxury watch collection that weighed him down just when he was about to do something.
The article gave more detail on HMK’s wealth such as of the USD35 billion worth of assets, USD31 – more than 88% – is in real estate holdings which appreciated significantly over the past decades. A quote from Paul Handley on the Crown Property Bureau’s approach to real estate management:
“It still has a below-market-rent mentality for long-term stability goals,” he says. “Or, look at it this way: They have no rate-of-return goals on some of their real estate, limited goals on others and nearly commercial on others.”
The article noted that lands held outside of Bangkok and those donated through the years have not been factored. It also noted criticisms (e.g. from NM) that recent investments seem to contradict HMK’s philosophy of “Sufficiency Economy”.
Fair enough, but then we should also keep things in context and perspective. SE was specifically highlighted by HMK during modern Thailand’s worse economic meltdown precipitated by the baht’s devaluation in 1997. It bought one of the world’s fastest growing economy then to a shocking halt and along with it trust and confidence in economic practices driven solely by greed and profit. SE’s moderation messages made sense for the less wealthy, the once-wealthy, and aspiring middle-classes. Let’s not live way beyond our means. For the poorest, small-scale farming (already practiced by many urban poor anyway) was practical basic survival – the fundamental fall-back plan for food security (interestingly another rising issue in sustainability literature – with effects of climate change hitting production leading to global food price inflation). Without food security, there would have been riots in 1997…
Naturally, SE message is lost in economic upswings – and greed was back in vogue over the past decade of strong global economic growth. That swing has recently hit a grinding halt, when the extreme-capitalist gods in Wall St dabbled with ethically questionable subprimes, which may precipitate in the worse recession in decades. It is at these times you hear messages on greed allied to SE coming from PMKevin Rudd to Alan Greenspan (who previously could do no wrong)…
Frankly I hope the recession does not eventuate and that this unprecedented concerted effort by governments and central banks worldwide (sadly, like what the Chuan Leekpai’s government had to do then, let the tax-payers absorb the risks) can help prevent the worse effects, which will always be felt most acutely by the poorest. Personally, I prefer that New Mandala can continue to laugh and sneer at SE than the world’s poorest suffering…
“What should we expect from an economy, expect from technology?
If you expect very much high performance, excessive performance,
you bound to need a great amount of energy and materials.”
Not me. I walk everywhere.
Only a couple of safety requests as a pedestrian:
1. Not to get run over on sidewalk by motorcycle taxi.
2. Not to get run over by SUV while crossing street while holding the little flag provided as signal for SUV to stop.
3. Not to get hit by drunk driver or wild school girls on their motorcycle running red light.
4. Not to get whacked dead on the head by a public bus driving too close to sidewalk.
5. Not to get scorched and burnt alive accidentally by man drying pig’s head with blow torch on public sidewalk going through Klong Toey market from subway station to apartment at night.
6. Not to get hit by forklift using crowded Soi as convenient loading dock.
7. Not to get bitten by mangy looking but otherwise non-threatening looking Soi dog.
8. Not to fall through covered drain in disrepair and break leg.
9. Not to get pickpocketed again by ladyboy who jumps out, grabs your khai daeng, then wallet, then runs.
That’s all i ask for, please.
Then everything will be sufficient.
Surayud was going to do all this but you guys gave him a hard time.
I focused on the two paragraphs under “The Constitution and the Rule of Law” which readers can look up in the link provided. The following two paragraph is what I wrote then, which is directly relevant to this blog so there should be no further issues here. I also removed the last paragraph on “Sufficiency Economy” as it is now raised in the other blog…
In his two terms, PMThaksin has rendered the Thai parliament, and hence a critical democratic mechanism, irrelevant. Now he want to shamefully do the same on the Thai judiciary. His politically driven “blackest of programs”, the War on Drugs, did not give the ‘accused’ any chance to defend themselves in the courts of law, a chance the Thai courts gave him to defend himself on abuse of power and corruption cases. He not only jumped bail, he now accuses the courts (whose ruling on the first case did not, in fact, convict him of more serious charges due to lack of clear evidences) of being politically motivated. The very sad thing is, at the end of the day – and I think even the more fair-minded of Thaksin-apologists will grudgingly agree – this PMThaksin’s parliamentary and judiciary cretinism is all business motivated. It is greed and deregulation that bought extreme capitalism down as it is greed and ‘deregulation’ that bought Thai democracy to its knees…
Yes, it is odd how the ICG reports fall neatly into two categories, and one of these categories is anti-sanctions and rather sympathetic to the Burmese Junta. The authorship appears central to these politics and it would be nice if the reports somewhere note who the author is, since this gives much understanding to the politics behind them.
Sufficient economy is a new concept that I have heard only recently. I think it is a good concept. Everybody can decide to consume only what he needs. But the problem is that global economy relies on growth and if we stoped the growth by consuming less what will happen next?
You are absolutely right about justice depending on whose side one’s on. I, however am on nobody’s side.
What I have is a whole bunch of relatives, both rich and poor in Thailand. All of them ‘A-political’ and going about their lives like most ordinary Thais. The most telling difference in the Thai govt is that, my relatives were much better off during Thaksin’s time, better off than before Thaksin and after the coup. The rich ones are always OK, but the poorer ones are suffering. As far as they are concernall politicians are corrupt, but Thaksin at least make an effort to spread the wealth around a bit.
For the richer ones, Thaksin was a far better economic manager than all the previous govt combined.
For me, all these so call guilt attributable to Thaksin is simply a witch hunt by the “other” side, who are as guilty if not more so than Thaksin. They simply have the upper hand at the moment due to the entrenched elite power structure. having a military appointed “election commission”, court officials, pricy council etc etc also help.
Actually Jon, I purchased and read Pasuk and Baker’s Thai Capital book on your recommendation in an earlier New Mandala thread and agree that the nuanced inter-relations of economic development and political change need to be better understood and engaged with by those seeking to improve condition in Burma. This became clearer to me recently when I met a Burmese entrepreneur in Illinois who was on an academic fellowship in the US studying economic development. He quite openly acknowledged that he had a relatively successful business in Burma as well as fairly high level contacts in the SPDC; the latter being quite important for him to be able to carry out his work effectively. He was also involved, however, in Nargis relief efforts using his personal funds. To add to the nuances of political economy, his fellowship to study economic development (without any overt political agenda) was intended to strengthen his entrepreneurial ability and was funded by a foundation supported by the US State Department.
I suspect the gurus live the kind of life contrary to sufficiency economy. That’s usually the rule: the people who keep harping on sufficiency economy rarely rarely practice sufficiency. At heart, they would miss all those luxuries. Even while they hold a seminar, it’s got to be at a fancy place.
For sufficiency economy, how about the royal sister’s funeral and all its trappings. In a way, it can be taken to illustrate sufficiency economy, as the country and the people finance it. So if you can get out of spending on something, it’s sufficiency economy for you.
[…] economy for a while (at least not since its principle architect was identified by Forbes as the world’s wealthiest royal) so I was very pleased yesterday when a colleague passed me information about a scheme to take […]
Thank you Stephen. I didn’t know about the Sean Turnell book on Burma’s financial sector. The economic overview paper was part of that ANU conference that was an exceptional shining light as far as being informative goes. There is also:
Kyaw Yin Hlaing. “The Politics of State-Business Relations in Post-Colonial Burma.” Ph.D. Dissertation. Cornell University. 2001.
And also the following paper being expanded into a book I hear:
WPS 86 Sino-Myanmar Economic Relations Since 1988
Dr MAUNG Aung Myoe
To be fair, there is not really very extensive research on the economic history and political economy of neighboring Thailand either, although some important starts, the latest being Pasuk and Baker’s Thai Capital. If you look carefully there are huge gaps, like industrial development on the Eastern Seaboard, which I want to investigate further. Thanks.
When you look at Thaksin and Surayudh, you can’t help thinking that this is a matter of whose side you are on. In Thailand, justice is but lip service.
Thankyou Bounme for your great questions, which I wish I could answer! I do not think that there is any clear, consistent relationship between the market economy and uncertainty. And I am certainly not proposing that subsistence-oriented livelihoods are intrinsically ‘better’ than the alternatives. Perhaps more important is the extent of the shift in livelihoods, rather than where exactly livelihoods are shifting from or to. Also, I realised after writing this piece that what bugged me was how uncertainty was not a common theme of official discourses about NT2 during planning – the necessities of marketing a large project to diverse audiences means that uncertainty is often downplayed. So an improvement would be to make sure that the inevitable uncertainties of resettlement are clearly communicated to all involved. This will not address your final question by ensuring villagers’ control over their lives, but it may at least provide a more balanced perspective of the positive and negative changes that large development projects can bring.
And, while on Surayudh, what of his Patek Philippe watch collection and his penchant for expensive cars. Small things perhaps compared with others, but still important in the context of the Samak decision. On the value of watches, see, for example, http://www.gemnation.com/base?processor=viewWatchDetails&watch_id=1502
Well put. I had similar concerns when reading these reports. Regarding the ICG report (did Pedersen write this one as well?) it was interesting to see that they did not interview any villagers from the affected area (I’m not even sure they ever left Rangoon) and yet were quite dismissive of the allegations of abuse that arose in the Nargis aftermath. I recommend the report An Alternative Assessment of the Humanitarian Assistance in the Irrawaddy Delta that was put out by the Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) in July and which is based on interviews conducted with local villagers and relief groups in eighteen villages in Laputta and Ngeputaw townships.
Furthermore, as Square Circle has aptly noted, pretty much everyone agrees that there needs to be more aid to Burma, but the question is over process; whether local organisation are more efficient than INGOs, what are the risks of delivering aid through SPDC-controlled channels, which official restrictions and regulations are permissible and which are unacceptable and should be challenged, what ways can aid agencies mitigate abuse by State authorities, etc.
I do think, however, that ICG did well in recommending that aid be a “process that emphasises protection and empowerment of the country’s citizens” (p.2). Unfortunately, by dismissing much of the increasingly well documented abuses in the area (see the COHRE report) and thus missing the ways that locals have been dealing with and resisting such abuse, ICG was unable to provide any concrete recommendations on how to operationalise concepts like “protection”. One example is the problem of evictions and land confiscation in the Delta. On this issue the COHRE report is much more assertive, stating that “International humanitarian assistance must be provided in a way which respects and protects the fundamental rights to housing of those displaced… The international community must influence the reconstruction policy in Burma to reflect these rights wherever possible.”
HC Lau, please read my reply carefully before commenting. I agreed with Fonzi and these cases should be investigated.
Fonzi also agreed with me “Thaksin being married to Pojaman (in essence, that was the crime)”. While both Fonzi and Ralph refuse to answer my very simple question directly, I have lived in Australia long enough to believe that this contitutes a “conflict of interests” – which is a crime that should be harshly punished especially for political office holders…
Again, I will argue, as Portman has reinforced above, PMThaksin and KYPotjaman got of lightly. He wasn’t accused of the more serious crime of corruption, the Ratchada land and the money paid was not seized (I wonder why – the same reason PMSurayud’s land case was not investigated deeper?). Look HC Lau, he (and his wife) was even ‘allowed’ to flee bail!
PMThaksin got two years for breaking the anti-corruption law of 1999 (long BEFORE the coup) that disallows office holders to do business with the government (interestingly something he could have easily circumnavigate by buying the land in his kid’s, his driver’s or servant’s name). “… the situation in Thailand is what it is…” because Thaksin refuses to accept the ruling.
PMThaksin’s refusal is ‘business-driven’ and not for the betterment of Thai Democracy as I have argued in a yet to be published post on “More from a parliamentary cretin”. I might have to self-censor and rewrite that post to appease New Mandala’s sensitive ears???
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Two new reports on Nargis relief disappoint
“The authorship appears central to these politics and it would be nice if the reports somewhere note who the author is.”
Mike, unless there has been a change of staff or an outside consultant hired for this particular Crisis Group report, which I do not think is the case, I believe the author is Morton B. Pedersen, a senior analyst on Burma for the International Crisis Group and currently a research fellow at United Nations University in Tokyo. A general summary of his views on Burma can be found in this July 2008 article, which reports that Pedersen “believes that a democratic transition must be gradual, buttressed by extensive nation-building aimed at addressing across-the-board institutional capacity deficits.”
Pedersen’s publications include:
“Burma’s Ethnic Minorities: Charting Their Own Path to Peace,” Critical Asian Studies, March 2008.
Promoting Human Rights in Burma: A Critique of Western Sanctions Policy 2007.
“The Challenges of Transition in Myanmar,” in Myanmar: Beyond Politics to Societal Imperatives, 2005.
“The Crisis in Burma/Myanmar: Foreign Aid as a Tool for Democratization,” in Reconciling Burma/Myanmar: Essays on US Relations with Burma, 2004.
Sufficiency economy gurus
Re: Sidh
I can’t speak for Andrew, but from what I see, he’s not sneering at the concept of Sufficiency Economics, per se; rather, he’s laughing and sneering at those proponents of Sufficiency Economics who seem to be saying ,”Do as I say, not as I do.”
For example, I don’t see too many criticisms of the economic thought of the Ven. Prayudh Payutto or of Ghandian swadeshi/swaraj.
Ashley South on liberal-democratic interventions
jonfernquest: while this is the wrong place to discuss this, you have asserted a couple of times the following: “… there is not really very extensive research on the economic history and political economy of … Thailand either, although some important starts, the latest being Pasuk and Baker’s Thai Capital. If you look carefully there are huge gaps, like industrial development on the Eastern Seaboard, which I want to investigate further.”
This is not accurate. Where to begin. Political economy of development from various perspectives (and looking at just English-language materials): Skinner, Ingram (still useful), Suehiro, Hewison, Pasuk’s thesis at Cambridge, Deyo, Brown, Doner, Anek, Unger, Hirsch, Sakkarin, Bell, Ungpakorn, Glassman, and many more. Maybe you might be interested in Pasuk and Baker’s now dated syllabus from a couple of years ago: http://pioneer.netserv.chula.ac.th/~ppasuk/others.htm.
On the Eastern Seaboard, there are some things available in English: see Doner’s work (at http://polisci.emory.edu/Curriculum%20Vita/DonerVITA8-08.pdf). Could also look at TDRI and its catalog of theses (http://www.tdri.or.th/library/quarterly/thesis/thes_con.htm).
Sufficiency economy gurus
Damn all at NM – “you guys” – who gave Surayud a hard time and prevented him implementing new rules that make life easier for pedestrian sufficiency economy-ers. I wonder if ot was his fast cars and luxury watch collection that weighed him down just when he was about to do something.
Sufficiency economy gurus
As Andrew referred to the Forbes ranking, it’s also worth reading the complementing article, specifically on the CPB, also from Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/magazines/global/2008/0901/032.html
The article gave more detail on HMK’s wealth such as of the USD35 billion worth of assets, USD31 – more than 88% – is in real estate holdings which appreciated significantly over the past decades. A quote from Paul Handley on the Crown Property Bureau’s approach to real estate management:
“It still has a below-market-rent mentality for long-term stability goals,” he says. “Or, look at it this way: They have no rate-of-return goals on some of their real estate, limited goals on others and nearly commercial on others.”
The article noted that lands held outside of Bangkok and those donated through the years have not been factored. It also noted criticisms (e.g. from NM) that recent investments seem to contradict HMK’s philosophy of “Sufficiency Economy”.
Fair enough, but then we should also keep things in context and perspective. SE was specifically highlighted by HMK during modern Thailand’s worse economic meltdown precipitated by the baht’s devaluation in 1997. It bought one of the world’s fastest growing economy then to a shocking halt and along with it trust and confidence in economic practices driven solely by greed and profit. SE’s moderation messages made sense for the less wealthy, the once-wealthy, and aspiring middle-classes. Let’s not live way beyond our means. For the poorest, small-scale farming (already practiced by many urban poor anyway) was practical basic survival – the fundamental fall-back plan for food security (interestingly another rising issue in sustainability literature – with effects of climate change hitting production leading to global food price inflation). Without food security, there would have been riots in 1997…
Naturally, SE message is lost in economic upswings – and greed was back in vogue over the past decade of strong global economic growth. That swing has recently hit a grinding halt, when the extreme-capitalist gods in Wall St dabbled with ethically questionable subprimes, which may precipitate in the worse recession in decades. It is at these times you hear messages on greed allied to SE coming from PMKevin Rudd to Alan Greenspan (who previously could do no wrong)…
Frankly I hope the recession does not eventuate and that this unprecedented concerted effort by governments and central banks worldwide (sadly, like what the Chuan Leekpai’s government had to do then, let the tax-payers absorb the risks) can help prevent the worse effects, which will always be felt most acutely by the poorest. Personally, I prefer that New Mandala can continue to laugh and sneer at SE than the world’s poorest suffering…
Sufficiency economy gurus
“What should we expect from an economy, expect from technology?
If you expect very much high performance, excessive performance,
you bound to need a great amount of energy and materials.”
Not me. I walk everywhere.
Only a couple of safety requests as a pedestrian:
1. Not to get run over on sidewalk by motorcycle taxi.
2. Not to get run over by SUV while crossing street while holding the little flag provided as signal for SUV to stop.
3. Not to get hit by drunk driver or wild school girls on their motorcycle running red light.
4. Not to get whacked dead on the head by a public bus driving too close to sidewalk.
5. Not to get scorched and burnt alive accidentally by man drying pig’s head with blow torch on public sidewalk going through Klong Toey market from subway station to apartment at night.
6. Not to get hit by forklift using crowded Soi as convenient loading dock.
7. Not to get bitten by mangy looking but otherwise non-threatening looking Soi dog.
8. Not to fall through covered drain in disrepair and break leg.
9. Not to get pickpocketed again by ladyboy who jumps out, grabs your khai daeng, then wallet, then runs.
That’s all i ask for, please.
Then everything will be sufficient.
Surayud was going to do all this but you guys gave him a hard time.
More from a parliamentary cretin
On the Saturday 25th October, I posted a comment that was not published by NM. I have edited it and posted it again here.
Basically, I drew parallels between PMThaksin and George W. Bush’s reign as synthesized in New York Times editorial:
“Barack Obama for President”
in
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/opinion/24fri1.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin
I focused on the two paragraphs under “The Constitution and the Rule of Law” which readers can look up in the link provided. The following two paragraph is what I wrote then, which is directly relevant to this blog so there should be no further issues here. I also removed the last paragraph on “Sufficiency Economy” as it is now raised in the other blog…
In his two terms, PMThaksin has rendered the Thai parliament, and hence a critical democratic mechanism, irrelevant. Now he want to shamefully do the same on the Thai judiciary. His politically driven “blackest of programs”, the War on Drugs, did not give the ‘accused’ any chance to defend themselves in the courts of law, a chance the Thai courts gave him to defend himself on abuse of power and corruption cases. He not only jumped bail, he now accuses the courts (whose ruling on the first case did not, in fact, convict him of more serious charges due to lack of clear evidences) of being politically motivated. The very sad thing is, at the end of the day – and I think even the more fair-minded of Thaksin-apologists will grudgingly agree – this PMThaksin’s parliamentary and judiciary cretinism is all business motivated. It is greed and deregulation that bought extreme capitalism down as it is greed and ‘deregulation’ that bought Thai democracy to its knees…
Two new reports on Nargis relief disappoint
Yes, it is odd how the ICG reports fall neatly into two categories, and one of these categories is anti-sanctions and rather sympathetic to the Burmese Junta. The authorship appears central to these politics and it would be nice if the reports somewhere note who the author is, since this gives much understanding to the politics behind them.
Sufficiency economy gurus
Sufficient economy is a new concept that I have heard only recently. I think it is a good concept. Everybody can decide to consume only what he needs. But the problem is that global economy relies on growth and if we stoped the growth by consuming less what will happen next?
One verdict on Thaksin
songtham,
You are absolutely right about justice depending on whose side one’s on. I, however am on nobody’s side.
What I have is a whole bunch of relatives, both rich and poor in Thailand. All of them ‘A-political’ and going about their lives like most ordinary Thais. The most telling difference in the Thai govt is that, my relatives were much better off during Thaksin’s time, better off than before Thaksin and after the coup. The rich ones are always OK, but the poorer ones are suffering. As far as they are concernall politicians are corrupt, but Thaksin at least make an effort to spread the wealth around a bit.
For the richer ones, Thaksin was a far better economic manager than all the previous govt combined.
For me, all these so call guilt attributable to Thaksin is simply a witch hunt by the “other” side, who are as guilty if not more so than Thaksin. They simply have the upper hand at the moment due to the entrenched elite power structure. having a military appointed “election commission”, court officials, pricy council etc etc also help.
Ashley South on liberal-democratic interventions
Actually Jon, I purchased and read Pasuk and Baker’s Thai Capital book on your recommendation in an earlier New Mandala thread and agree that the nuanced inter-relations of economic development and political change need to be better understood and engaged with by those seeking to improve condition in Burma. This became clearer to me recently when I met a Burmese entrepreneur in Illinois who was on an academic fellowship in the US studying economic development. He quite openly acknowledged that he had a relatively successful business in Burma as well as fairly high level contacts in the SPDC; the latter being quite important for him to be able to carry out his work effectively. He was also involved, however, in Nargis relief efforts using his personal funds. To add to the nuances of political economy, his fellowship to study economic development (without any overt political agenda) was intended to strengthen his entrepreneurial ability and was funded by a foundation supported by the US State Department.
Sufficiency economy gurus
I suspect the gurus live the kind of life contrary to sufficiency economy. That’s usually the rule: the people who keep harping on sufficiency economy rarely rarely practice sufficiency. At heart, they would miss all those luxuries. Even while they hold a seminar, it’s got to be at a fancy place.
Sufficiency economy gurus
For sufficiency economy, how about the royal sister’s funeral and all its trappings. In a way, it can be taken to illustrate sufficiency economy, as the country and the people finance it. So if you can get out of spending on something, it’s sufficiency economy for you.
Sufficient discipline, sufficient wealth
[…] economy for a while (at least not since its principle architect was identified by Forbes as the world’s wealthiest royal) so I was very pleased yesterday when a colleague passed me information about a scheme to take […]
Ashley South on liberal-democratic interventions
Thank you Stephen. I didn’t know about the Sean Turnell book on Burma’s financial sector. The economic overview paper was part of that ANU conference that was an exceptional shining light as far as being informative goes. There is also:
Kyaw Yin Hlaing. “The Politics of State-Business Relations in Post-Colonial Burma.” Ph.D. Dissertation. Cornell University. 2001.
And also the following paper being expanded into a book I hear:
WPS 86 Sino-Myanmar Economic Relations Since 1988
Dr MAUNG Aung Myoe
To be fair, there is not really very extensive research on the economic history and political economy of neighboring Thailand either, although some important starts, the latest being Pasuk and Baker’s Thai Capital. If you look carefully there are huge gaps, like industrial development on the Eastern Seaboard, which I want to investigate further. Thanks.
One verdict on Thaksin
When you look at Thaksin and Surayudh, you can’t help thinking that this is a matter of whose side you are on. In Thailand, justice is but lip service.
Nam Theun 2 resettlement: The uncertainties of livelihood change
Thankyou Bounme for your great questions, which I wish I could answer! I do not think that there is any clear, consistent relationship between the market economy and uncertainty. And I am certainly not proposing that subsistence-oriented livelihoods are intrinsically ‘better’ than the alternatives. Perhaps more important is the extent of the shift in livelihoods, rather than where exactly livelihoods are shifting from or to. Also, I realised after writing this piece that what bugged me was how uncertainty was not a common theme of official discourses about NT2 during planning – the necessities of marketing a large project to diverse audiences means that uncertainty is often downplayed. So an improvement would be to make sure that the inevitable uncertainties of resettlement are clearly communicated to all involved. This will not address your final question by ensuring villagers’ control over their lives, but it may at least provide a more balanced perspective of the positive and negative changes that large development projects can bring.
One verdict on Thaksin
And, while on Surayudh, what of his Patek Philippe watch collection and his penchant for expensive cars. Small things perhaps compared with others, but still important in the context of the Samak decision. On the value of watches, see, for example, http://www.gemnation.com/base?processor=viewWatchDetails&watch_id=1502
Two new reports on Nargis relief disappoint
Well put. I had similar concerns when reading these reports. Regarding the ICG report (did Pedersen write this one as well?) it was interesting to see that they did not interview any villagers from the affected area (I’m not even sure they ever left Rangoon) and yet were quite dismissive of the allegations of abuse that arose in the Nargis aftermath. I recommend the report An Alternative Assessment of the Humanitarian Assistance in the Irrawaddy Delta that was put out by the Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) in July and which is based on interviews conducted with local villagers and relief groups in eighteen villages in Laputta and Ngeputaw townships.
Furthermore, as Square Circle has aptly noted, pretty much everyone agrees that there needs to be more aid to Burma, but the question is over process; whether local organisation are more efficient than INGOs, what are the risks of delivering aid through SPDC-controlled channels, which official restrictions and regulations are permissible and which are unacceptable and should be challenged, what ways can aid agencies mitigate abuse by State authorities, etc.
I do think, however, that ICG did well in recommending that aid be a “process that emphasises protection and empowerment of the country’s citizens” (p.2). Unfortunately, by dismissing much of the increasingly well documented abuses in the area (see the COHRE report) and thus missing the ways that locals have been dealing with and resisting such abuse, ICG was unable to provide any concrete recommendations on how to operationalise concepts like “protection”. One example is the problem of evictions and land confiscation in the Delta. On this issue the COHRE report is much more assertive, stating that “International humanitarian assistance must be provided in a way which respects and protects the fundamental rights to housing of those displaced… The international community must influence the reconstruction policy in Burma to reflect these rights wherever possible.”
Also useful (although not about Nargis per se) is COHRE’s comprehensive 2007 report Displacement and Dispossession: Forced Migration and Land Rights in Burma.
One verdict on Thaksin
HC Lau, please read my reply carefully before commenting. I agreed with Fonzi and these cases should be investigated.
Fonzi also agreed with me “Thaksin being married to Pojaman (in essence, that was the crime)”. While both Fonzi and Ralph refuse to answer my very simple question directly, I have lived in Australia long enough to believe that this contitutes a “conflict of interests” – which is a crime that should be harshly punished especially for political office holders…
Again, I will argue, as Portman has reinforced above, PMThaksin and KYPotjaman got of lightly. He wasn’t accused of the more serious crime of corruption, the Ratchada land and the money paid was not seized (I wonder why – the same reason PMSurayud’s land case was not investigated deeper?). Look HC Lau, he (and his wife) was even ‘allowed’ to flee bail!
PMThaksin got two years for breaking the anti-corruption law of 1999 (long BEFORE the coup) that disallows office holders to do business with the government (interestingly something he could have easily circumnavigate by buying the land in his kid’s, his driver’s or servant’s name). “… the situation in Thailand is what it is…” because Thaksin refuses to accept the ruling.
PMThaksin’s refusal is ‘business-driven’ and not for the betterment of Thai Democracy as I have argued in a yet to be published post on “More from a parliamentary cretin”. I might have to self-censor and rewrite that post to appease New Mandala’s sensitive ears???