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Democratic referendum?

Former Thai Rak Thai MP’s house raided in Kamphaeng Phet

A combined unit of 20 soldiers and 10 policemen Friday conducted a search on a home of a former Thai Rak Thai MP in Kamphaeng Phet and seized materials for the anticharter campaign.

“The search was deemed necessary following a tipoff that Waipoj Apornrat used his home as a base to sway referendum votes to defeat the charter,” Maj Narongchai Charoenchai of the Fourth Infantry Division said.

“I allowed the search as proof that I harbour no illintentions,” Waipoj said.

Authorities took Tshirts, documents, banners and recorded speeches opposing the new constitution and encouraging a “vote no” in the August 19 referendum.

Waipoj expressed hope that the materials would be returned to him once they were found to have no malicious contents.

The Nation 27 July 2007..

P.S.: It seems that the powers-that-be, surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) including the ECT, have resolved that the MoI, kamnan, phu yai ban, TAO etc. organizing transportation for villagers to the polling stations on referendum day would NOT break any law or ethical principle.

Thank you a lot for the great interview!

There is no doubt that a certain person has or had a medical crisis, to what extend – we don’t know. But it is fact that the Thais always gossip about some family. It’s really silly. Like little children they have to paint their world in black and white.

“Resettlement plans have been carefully drafted, but past experiences warn that they may not be sufficient to ensure adequate compensation as agreed-upon standards are rarely applied, regulation on land tenure and titling is unclear, and malpractice in disbursements is rampant.”

In the age of the blog software, RSS news feeds, and news aggregators, there should be someway of getting locals to monitor incidents locally, and have reports with photos feed into and be integrated with larger-scale world human rights news feeds, so people can see the injustice and exploitation going on, if and when it happens.

Given that the these incidents are documented and made publicly available, there seem to be other issues: First, authorities in Laos being sufficiently responsive to these incidents and issues when they arise, assuming that they can, assuming that it isn’t some local power lord mafia like figure that the government has cut a deal to keep law and order in exchange for autonomy. The center doesn’t necessarily have control of abusive peripheries.

All of Matthew McDaniel’s old material, journals, logs, drill pretty deep into what was going on in Chiang Rai’s hinterland and are a good case study.

In Burma, Soros funding makes sure incidents make it to the media, but media overload is the result. Have you ever tried to wade through and make sense of the massive amounts of information coming out of all these grassroots organisations?

Also media overload breeds authorities unwilling to respond because they see external NGO monitoring as a usurpation of sovereignty. Isn’t the World Bank funding the roads? I don’t suppose human rights impact issues are be channeled through them as they arise. Seems like road building should have convenants in this respect with the government receiving the funding. But on the other hand, I remember how long (and the abandoned projects) it took to get a successful road from Mae Sai to Keng Tung (oral history of that road building project worth recording), and that road used to look like the road you’ve shown in the photo in places. I wonder how comparable the before and after situations will be along this new road?

I don’t believe the rumour. Happy Birthday to our great prime minister, Thaksin Shinnawat

Great interview Nicholas, thanks

The crown Prince has a chronic illness that he receives treatment for Over Seas. Its incurable nature will see this as an ongoing scenario. If Prem were to appoint Sirindhorn as Queen in the event of the King being incapable of ruling or passing away there would be new trouble from the south for Bangkok.

Agree with Comment1