Memo to my comrades in the Army
(not to be disclosed to the navy, air force, or the stupid police):
The counter-coup to the May’92 people’s movement (and resulting 1997 constitution) is near complete.
Things are progressing to plan. Within the next seven months, we will have all our key people in the right locations, and we will have secured our budget and concessions for the next ten years (even before including our secret fund). By October, we will be ready to stage the elections. Be assured, my comrades in arms, this will not impact on your ability to carry out your sacred duties to the Nation and King (I don’t want to include “Religion” because yours are not the true religion).
Do not perceive the permitting of elections to be a sign of weakness from your leaders, my comrades. The elections are a neceesary evil we must endure. It is an opium of the masses (and certain to please a number of those annoying New Mandala bloggers). It is also necessary for our friends abroad to continue doing business with us (btw, wasn’t this year’s Cobra Gold just so much fun? I’m gonna order 20 of those new stealth battle tanks they showed us).
Uncle Surayud is proving most useful, as expected (nothing better than having a fall guy to take the blame for you – remember this is as a basic strategic tool for your future careers, my comrades). Mind you, Uncle Surayud seems to be getting too much attention lately. I hope it does not force us to change the timing of our plans.
And don’t worry about the referendum. We’ve already won it no matter which way the masses vote. They’ll either vote for our constitution, or they’ll be given one.
Stay the course, hold the line, my comrades in arms. The return of our glory days and rightful place in the National Hierarchy is near.
On the other hand — to Thitinand — perhaps everyone overestimated Pridiyathorn. Perhaps he is a crappy finance minister, just as he was a crappy central banker.
“These articles are in fact terribly disappointing: sloppily composed, devoid of quantitative data, and overhyped. ”
This reminds me of the criticism of Handley’s book. How can one obtain any quantitative data about the CPB without arising any kind of suspicion? Do you really think the writer of the piece would still be writing about such things if he paid a visit to the Ministry of Commerce’s office asking about the CPB? Lese Majeste carries a prison sentence.
Perhaps, you should ask, why doesn’t a Bangkok newspaper conduct an investigative report into the CPB like a real newspaper would do?
It is sort of funny to see all those comments that show concern for Surayudh, encourage him to show leadership, and demand policy performance from the cabinet. Has anybody forgotten that this is a military-appointed government? The more lousy its performance is, the better. Ideally, they should not do anything but the most unavoidable administrative tasks to keep the ship of state afloat–after all, these ministers have no legitimacy, only mass acquiescence. Important decisions must be left to an elected government. This is not an Anand-Panyarachun situation. Not performing well will also help the elected government in its work, because people will not negatively compare it with an appointed high-performing set of politically isolated technocrats.
The context of the Hewison list is: “To begin this assessment [of localism], attention will be given to the populism of the localism discourse. Despite being a most imprecise term in the social sciences, populism has been a major theme of development theory and practice (Kitching, 1982).”
So this discussion is of localism with a populist bent, not of the use of the term to describe Thaksin’s policies and political populism.
“Polo” has picked up the big story. Iit may be denied later by the CNS, but this is a trial balloon to see what they can do to re-establish Premocracy. You can bet that the royalist-military elite is hoping that they can spin this into reality. With this in place, electoral politics will be a sideshow.
I am afraid that “anonymous” needs to read more about the history of the monarchy in Thailand. The present king has faced far more severe criticism in the past and has come through. He may do that again… But why on earth have any faith in Surayud? He has always been a tool to be used by others. In fact, it is not Surayud who deserves criticism now, but his puppet masters in the palace.
But what about the real story today: that the military is going to effectively take charge of all provincial areas via military deputy governors. Now there’s a sign of what is really going on. Forget Dr. Thitinan’s little criticisms of a government that doesn’t matter! Look at what’s really going on. Thailand and Burma seem to have the same political model!
“We may have overestimated him. ”
The “we” here means only those “academics” like Thitinan himself who shamelessly support the coup .
(Comment 1) ” This latest mess raises doubts over his judgment in supporting the coup and the junta. I overestimated him.”
Well, you have simply forgotten or perhaps have no memory of another of His Majesty’s judgment, his choice of Mr. Thanin Kraiwichian as PM and the ‘mess’ under the latter’s administration.
Should we simply forget all this and boycott a conference that is being opened by a proncess, features the king at the top of their poster and is obviously trying to avoid the real issues in contemporary Thai/Tai studies? Then again, in 1984, some foreign academics did take up a call to protest the arrest of Acharn Sulak and others, and called on Prem to release them. Maybe this time the foreign scholars could call on Prem to lock himself out of the political driver’s seat. But maybe it won’t be necessary and those nice military men will have arranged an election by the time the conference comes around.
When the CPB had our beloved old Siam Intercontinental Hotel (a low-rise architectual gem with a green lung in a concrete jungle) destroyed to make way for this bad-taste monster of a shopping centre called Siam Paragon (not anywhere near “The Pride of Bangkok” as it is advertised), a Thai friend of mine sadly remarked, “Well, the royal familiy cost a lot of money.” By the way, isn’t MBK on Chula land (like Siam Square)? Anyway, no democracy can function when vital political-business areas are kept beyond scrutiny (as Sulak so correctly remarked in Fa Diew Kun, only to meet with the accusation of lese majeste). And true, it would be very important to investigate the CPB’s up-country landholdings and business dealings.
Oh dear, personal attack as political debate. I wish I had something to add or debate in this, but it is difficult to drag personalised attack into a rational debate. Lots of people in Thailand have burdens to bear from the coup. At least Dr. Pasuk did not accept appointment to the junta’s advisory committees after the coup. Dr. Baker might want to explain his reasons for doing the UN report and we might want him to do that, but the real targets in all of this are the nonsense “theory”, royalist hypocrits and the military-backed government’s use of the “theory” to mark out their difference from “Thaksinomics”. Seems to me that debate should focus on these issues.
2. Anonymous, putting figures on this stuff is very difficult because the CPB is not transparent. Your other comments are right on, and the vignette on the Silom Club is lovely,
These articles are not bad, based on what is available in English. The tone is sensationalist, and there are a couple of slips, but given the sources, well….
But the Thai sources now go a bit deeper. In the last few years, there have been a couple of MA theses, and a handful of good archive-based academic articles.
All of this is now summarized in Thai in one of the chapters of Pasuk’s two-volume Thun Thai. We are now working on an English version, but it’s going to take a bit of time because we are trying to go a bit deeper.
The sensationalist tone of the Asia Sentinel articles is predictable (My God! The king is rich! Rich people exploit others!), but the real importance of the Thai monarchy’s wealth is much more interesting.
The investments made in the fifth reign mean that the Thai monarchy is not dependent on landed estates (like most European monarchies) or on the year-to-year tax revenue. In the European case, landed wealth was vulnerable to peasant discontent, and tax revenues were resented by businessmen and the middle class. But the CPB does not have these problems. Sure, it’s the biggest slum landlord, but it’s very careful to keep these rents way below market value. The very special nature of this monarchy has a lot to do with its financial base.
The important fact is that is that it is probably the biggest corporate group in the Thai economy. That means its interests are by and large the same as other corporate groups. So…
During the Cold War, it may have been easier to give him a pass.
But since 1980, why shouldn’t he have nudged Thailand towards liberal democracy and the rule of law?
I don’t know if anybody will agree with me here, but if you go way back in history, all of Thailand’s power arrangements have been based on a network monarchy, as McCargo put it.
It is a myth that Thailand was ever a stable polity. 17 coups in 75 years? A long history of regicide.
When you think about it, HMTK really had no choice but to ally with the military. They have the guns.
I think every Thai monarach has learned the hard lesson that it is better to have the guns pointing out rather than pointing in.
Regardless, any political scientist with half a brain cell should be a able to point out that running a country based upon charismatic personality, God/King propaganda, ad hoc personal relationships based upon rubbing each others back, and a incompetent bureaucracy and a corrupt military is a recipe for disaster.
Here is the most recent update – below the anti-Thaksin arguments:
No coup can change your legacy.
‘Honest Mistakes’
You began your political legacy Mr. Thaksin, with ‘honest mistakes’ of assets concealed in names of driver, cook and maids that were believed, in an 8-7 split acquittal decision, by a corrupt Constitution Court in 2001. And from then on Mr. Thaksin you went on a rampage of even more outrageous more honest mistakes, some you tearily admitted but mostly angrily denied, but mistakes just the same that poked the country in the eyes.
But the mistakes were on our part, not yours. First, we believed and elected you content with your assurance that being already wealthy would preclude you yielding to corrupt temptations while in power. Second, we believed that with your years of service as a law enforcement officer and your further doctorate in criminal justice, you would uphold the rule of law . Third, we believed that with your business acumen, you would apply management prudence to calm the Southern unrest. And fourth, we also believed you would protect and strengthen our institutions, uphold constitutional etiquette and principles thereby nurturing Thai democracy during your rule. We are now pained to admit that we were all honestly mistaken on all four above.
Values
Perhaps the most resounding legacy you’ll leave for the Thai people is the sense that accumulation of wealth and power are the most important things in life – and to get more wealth and power, it’s ok to cheat and lie. For six long years, young people had such a twisted role model to look up to.
The Asset Examination Committee, an army of committed royally-approved investigators with all the resources the government can throw at it, will eventually find clear cut evidence of your corruption. They just need more time. Everybody knows that you’re corrupt. Since you’ve hid evidence of it so well, it will take several more months until we find it. But we’ll find something eventually. Already there are signs. In 1998 under the Chuan government, your wife and brother exchanged shares and the government turned a blind eye. You thought you could do the same thing in 2006, but this time the people had their eyes on you. Then there is the purchase, at a lower than fair valuation, of land by your wife Potjaman in Rajadipisek, with the countersignatures of you and Pridiyathorn. Don’t think that he’ll be able to protect you this time. Khun Ying Jaruvan abhors your graft, is honest, and fears absolutely no one.
Another example is the airport. Everybody knows it is a problem. It has forced PM Surayud to reopen Don Muang and already several airlines have threatened to stop services to Thailand. It is clear that no Thai institution is safe from your claws.
To hide your immense wealth, you knew that simply lying was not enough. You transferred large chunks of money to your maid and chauffer to hide them.
You refused to pay taxes on your sale of stocks in the stock market, using loopholes in Thai laws without concern that the Thai people look upon their elected leader to be ethical in his conduct. By doing so, you set an example that it’s ok to circumvent the law to avoid taxes – regardless of whether it ultimately cheats the Thai people.
The Thaksin Personality Cult
Thaksin, you have succeeded to create a personality cult around Thaksin, the Beloved Leader with many who will follow and worship you refusing to hear or believe you have committed any wrong doings. During the height of your reign, you had large billboards erected along major highways depicting imposing images of yourself dressed in regal robes and holding auspicious icons. The robes you wore looked identical to robes worn by the royal family. Many suspected that you wanted to overthrow the monarchy and make yourself Beloved Leader for life.
Thaksin you succeeded to convince many that you alone but only you were solely responsible for the economic resurgence of Thailand after the 1997 Thai Financial Crisis. But wasn’t it you who was the Deputy Prime Minister under then Prime Minister Chavalit’s government watch when that 1997 crisis struck? And wasn’t it you Thaksin Shinawatra who obscenely profited with a devaluation windfall that same year being privy to insider information? It was PM Chuan and FM Tarrin who carried out all hard thankless financial rehabilitation work that paved the recovery from the 1997 Financial Crisis. But you Thaksin were very astute to take all the credit. But with all those mega-projects corruption, cronyism and nepotism at work during your rule, should I believe instead that Thailand prospered despite Thaksin?
No coup can undo the hold you still exercise on people’s imagination. Still you circle Thailand like a vulture, with every one of your squawks sending panic through the CNS and a chill into the hearts of your erstwhile underlings, who procrastinate and delay corruption probes for fear that you could one day return to swoop. Your hold on the poor of the Northeast, whom you bought and seduced where others had neglected and ignored them, remains strong. Your habit of selectively handing out cash (from lottery proceeds) to boost your popularity was a potent poison that remains in the bloodstream of a people who have now been addicted to a culture of mendicancy and dependency.
Plan to Destroy the Thai Monarchy
The overthrow of the Thai monarchy was your plan all along, to replace it with a semi-communist system where Thaksin would be president for life (according to your “Finland Plan” written in a 1999 meeting in Finland with former members of the Communist Party of Thailand).
Divisive Politics
You leave behind a legacy of divisive politics that could encourage malicious elements to exploit to the detriment of the Kingdom. Your declared policy early on – was that those districts which did not vote for your Thai Rak Thai Party in past elections – would get a lower share of the national budget. And during the heights of the nearly three-month protests by hundreds of thousands against your rule, you responded with intimidation and thuggery against The Nation and The Manager, newspapers which were uncowed in their criticisms of your regime. But your divisive politics reached a danger point when, instead of appealing to national reconciliation, you held elections (subsequently ruled illegal by the Constitution Court) and encouraged hundreds of thousands of your village followers and a so-called ‘Caravan of the Poor’ to confront the citizens protesting in Bangkok. Your legacy of divisiveness still reverberates through the Kingdom. There can be no reconciliation for you now.
The Demise of Checks and Balances
Although you professed – and to some appeared – to raise the hopes of the people of Thailand, you lead many others to disappointment. The hopes of the 1997 constitution to obstruct Thai corruption with the creation of NCCC and watchdog agencies, an independent senate to increase checks and balances were soon compromised. Before long, the NCCC stalled or rejected any complaints against your party. Even the AEC and Miss Jaruvan were being stonewalled by your network of abettors who succeeded to ‘legalize’ your wrongdoings. You promised to volunteer a house debate on any topic, but when the sale of AIS caused huge uproar, you sat by as the opposition waved their hands because they didn’t have enough votes for a no-confidence motion. Besides, anyone who dared to expose your questionable practices was hit with defamation lawsuits or outright censorship. You took our dreams and shattered them. Now we don’t even have the 1997 Constitution to rely on, and your bad example of censorship is being followed by the military government.
Southern Thailand
The Royal Thai Army executed two mass killings of young Muslim men in the southern provinces happened on your watch. After the first one, you declared in effect; “from now on, anytime there’s a similar stand-off, I will be in charge and will be personally responsible for whatever happens.” However, at the second event, when over 80 young men were murdered while in the custody of your militia, no one even got reprimanded. You should have investigated the murders and harshly punished all the Army and ISOC officers who were involved, no matter how senior they were.
You employed harsh policies in your dealings with the Southern Muslims. Your hard-line extra-judicial approach (so brutally in evidence in the war on drugs) was even more savagely applied in the Southern unrest thus exacerbating the on-going Southern imbroglio. You declared martial law and deployed over 30,000 troops and security personnel in all the sensitive provinces of Thailand’s deep South. By directing the Army, who were primarily Buddhists to respond indiscriminately with savage force to deal with these complex problems, you, Mr. Thaksin, seriously expanded the unrest into a wider and bigger conflagration. Your harsh approach led to a deterioration of the fragile peace established by Prem between the Buddhist minority and the Muslim majority in the area.
Your arrogant personality also contributed to the problems. With you gone, things wil be getting better. Thailand has a newfound confidence that the Fire in the South can be put out.
But already the international community are concerned that external extremist elements might enter to complicate the unrest even further. Good thing you appointed General Sonthi as Army Commander. As a Muslim, he is uniquely suited to solving the problem.
The War on Drugs
Mr. Thaksin you were a Police Lt. Colonel officer of the law, and you had masters and PhD. in criminal justice from an American school and yet, by some dark whim you went on to play god by directing the extra-judicial killings of thousands, without due process, during your anti-yaa baa campaign of 2003 thus breaking your contract with the people who elected you Prime Minister to uphold the law.
Nobody can bring back the thousands you ordered killed during your so-called war on drugs. Your brutal attempt at drug eradication in early 2003 killed some 2,500 of the country’s poorest drug dealers and users. Their executions were ordered, reliable sources say, from the very top. Those sources will tell the truth to the courts, eventually. It netted not a single big fish. Known to the outside world as ‘extra-judicial killings’, your drug campaign attracted worldwide condemnation. Extrajudicial killing is evil. No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency, not even the Prime Minister of Thailand.
PM Surayud’s government will provide a good example on good governance by eventually investigating all those 2,500 killings, if only to bring justice to the thousands of victims and their families. Failure by PM Surayud’s or succeeding governments to put a closure to the extra-judicial killings through an independent public inquiry into the matter, would give credence to misgivings of many Thais and foreigners, that the rule of law is deeply flawed and almost meaningless in the Kingdom of Thailand.
The Thai Rak Thai Party
The TRT party you founded is now in disarray with your ouster, thanks to your over weaning with your wife’s generous largesse of unlimited financial support during elections. Mister Thaksin, you have proved a point that a political party can be created with the purpose of having members blindly follow your every dictate – with the peoples’ interest on the sidelines. The issue of poverty was given a lot of lip service and photo-ops, but scant little was done. The reason poverty fell by half during your government wasn’t because of the TRT, but because of the global economic boom starting in 2001.
The Media
The media is still reeling from your legacy of fear, instilled by ordering journalists removed, radio stations shut and defamation suits slapped on reporters who dared question your conduct.
It doesn’t take a genius to make a vibrant media. Look at the situation today. All the low quality community radio stations that you bought have been shut down. The quality of the internet in Thailand has been improved substantially because of the pornography and views against the monarchy that you blatantly allowed. Thai television is no longer polluted by people in polo-shirts reading out headlines – their shows were cancelled right after the coup. And we no longer have to be suspicious about communists selling us Finland Plan propaganda, because soldiers loyal to the King now guard the television studios.
You tried buying the Bangkok Post by proxy, but your ruse was uncovered and you retreated on that hare-brained idea.
Dark Forces
Your past educational, business and political credentials on paper appear solid, trust-inspiring and country-welfare motivated which no doubt led many to believe (and voted you in) you seemed to be in politics to return service to the Kingdom in gratitude for the billions-wealth earned from the land. The dark forces have consumed you Thaksin Shinawatra and the people can only conclude that your excessive devotion to Khmer voodoo worships and belief in Myanmar shamans led you to violate the Buddhist Five Precepts that sparked your malevolent rule.
But even your mighty Khmer voodoo was powerless to prevent the indictment of your abettors, which included three Election Commissioners and several Revenue Dept. officials including the Tax Chief, for malfeasance.
You joked once about the influence of Pluto in your horoscope preventing you from conversing with the Press Corps. Now that Pluto has been demoted (officially ending our Plutonic relationship) – what other hocus pocus would keep you from answering the tough questions?
The Protector of Thailand’s Poor
It is your genius Thaksin Shinawatra that despite the billions in taxes your family evaded and the many billions more in graft and corruption that were siphoned off by your crooked legions, billions that could have been employed for social welfare and rural empowerment projects, you have convinced the millions of Thai village poor that you are Thailand’s champion to eradicate their poverty. What hypocrisy! And it is my belief that this particular Thaksin legacy of hypocrisy will be unequalled for many years to come.
You tried to point out how you reduced poverty by half during your government. But you didn’t mention how that was unsustainable, and that any long-term development program has to be rooted in self-sufficiency, not greed and upward mobility.
Aftermath
Then there are your more insidious legacies, mostly from overreactions to your corrupt schemes. Because of a law passed to allow foreign investors to hold more than 25 percent in a telecom company just a week before you sold your empire to Temasek, many foreigners now have to endure another wave of xenophobic sentiment and more draconian enforcement of nominee laws as the new government tries to rectify your abuses, and the resulting laws also shake the confidence of big foreign investors.
Finally, there is the coup itself. Thanks to your venal abuse of the democratic process, another generation of the country’s power-hungry military have become convinced that they are needed to run the place, putting democracy in the back seat for another decade or two. All the bad things that have happened since are really all your fault.
No Mr. Thaksin, you cannot be wiped out by a coup. We can only hope that justice will prevail and before your memory starts to fade, you will be brought before the courts to face true justice.
IS THERE A SILVER LINING?
Perhaps there is a way to partially redeem yourself. You could volunteer to pay those family taxes without protest! And you categorically stated after the sale of Shincorp that you would make a large charity donation. You and your family could donate a generous portion of your ill-gotten wealth to programs that would truly help Thailand and its people. You’d need to find non-corrupt organizations to channel funds (though a ‘non-corrupt organization’ may be hard to find in Thailand). Suggestions: donate to help the King’s charities or assist the downtrodden – and those other Maew who live within Thailand’s borders.
I have a sad suspicion that King Bhumibol will eventually share the same fate as his privy councilor. The King has faced more criticism over these past 6 months than he ever has over the past 60 years.
This latest mess raises doubts over his judgment in supporting the coup and the junta. I overestimated him. It is a sad reflection for a man with such a distinguished track record that he should end his life knowing that his heir is hated by his people, his Kingdom is being torn apart in civil war, and that the public has no institutional or legal framework to rely upon to provide political stability or continuity.
21 Jan: No doubt that there are great disparities. One might also point to disparities between the many urban areas throughout Thailand and their respective rural hinterlands, to the disparities among urban areas of various sizes, and of all those urban areas and Bangkok: Chiang Mai, Suphanburi, Phitsanulok, Pattya, Khon Kaen, and Hat Yai, etc. need their BTS! (just joking)
There are strong parallels between the view of the military in Thailand and in Turkey – in Turkey the army is seen as the guardian of laizism and the ideals of Atat├╝rk – and in Thailand the military is/was seen as the protector of King, Nation and religion (with the 1992 setback). If Erdogan overacts his islamism, I think the military will quickly step in.
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
Puppet on a string
Memo to my comrades in the Army
(not to be disclosed to the navy, air force, or the stupid police):
The counter-coup to the May’92 people’s movement (and resulting 1997 constitution) is near complete.
Things are progressing to plan. Within the next seven months, we will have all our key people in the right locations, and we will have secured our budget and concessions for the next ten years (even before including our secret fund). By October, we will be ready to stage the elections. Be assured, my comrades in arms, this will not impact on your ability to carry out your sacred duties to the Nation and King (I don’t want to include “Religion” because yours are not the true religion).
Do not perceive the permitting of elections to be a sign of weakness from your leaders, my comrades. The elections are a neceesary evil we must endure. It is an opium of the masses (and certain to please a number of those annoying New Mandala bloggers). It is also necessary for our friends abroad to continue doing business with us (btw, wasn’t this year’s Cobra Gold just so much fun? I’m gonna order 20 of those new stealth battle tanks they showed us).
Uncle Surayud is proving most useful, as expected (nothing better than having a fall guy to take the blame for you – remember this is as a basic strategic tool for your future careers, my comrades). Mind you, Uncle Surayud seems to be getting too much attention lately. I hope it does not force us to change the timing of our plans.
And don’t worry about the referendum. We’ve already won it no matter which way the masses vote. They’ll either vote for our constitution, or they’ll be given one.
Stay the course, hold the line, my comrades in arms. The return of our glory days and rightful place in the National Hierarchy is near.
S.
cc. Uncle Prem.
Tourist casualties mounting
“the heat on the beach, several shots of hard liquor, a Viagra and then vigorous sex with a bar girl”
You’ve been warned!
Heck, I will take that warning as an unintended compliment! Alas, Hades will freeze over sooner than the above shall happen.
Surayud regime: crisis, disarray, morass, doubts, sad reflection
On the other hand — to Thitinand — perhaps everyone overestimated Pridiyathorn. Perhaps he is a crappy finance minister, just as he was a crappy central banker.
The tawdry cloak of sufficiency
“These articles are in fact terribly disappointing: sloppily composed, devoid of quantitative data, and overhyped. ”
This reminds me of the criticism of Handley’s book. How can one obtain any quantitative data about the CPB without arising any kind of suspicion? Do you really think the writer of the piece would still be writing about such things if he paid a visit to the Ministry of Commerce’s office asking about the CPB? Lese Majeste carries a prison sentence.
Perhaps, you should ask, why doesn’t a Bangkok newspaper conduct an investigative report into the CPB like a real newspaper would do?
Surayud regime: crisis, disarray, morass, doubts, sad reflection
It is sort of funny to see all those comments that show concern for Surayudh, encourage him to show leadership, and demand policy performance from the cabinet. Has anybody forgotten that this is a military-appointed government? The more lousy its performance is, the better. Ideally, they should not do anything but the most unavoidable administrative tasks to keep the ship of state afloat–after all, these ministers have no legitimacy, only mass acquiescence. Important decisions must be left to an elected government. This is not an Anand-Panyarachun situation. Not performing well will also help the elected government in its work, because people will not negatively compare it with an appointed high-performing set of politically isolated technocrats.
Populism
The context of the Hewison list is: “To begin this assessment [of localism], attention will be given to the populism of the localism discourse. Despite being a most imprecise term in the social sciences, populism has been a major theme of development theory and practice (Kitching, 1982).”
So this discussion is of localism with a populist bent, not of the use of the term to describe Thaksin’s policies and political populism.
Puppet on a string
“Polo” has picked up the big story. Iit may be denied later by the CNS, but this is a trial balloon to see what they can do to re-establish Premocracy. You can bet that the royalist-military elite is hoping that they can spin this into reality. With this in place, electoral politics will be a sideshow.
Surayud regime: crisis, disarray, morass, doubts, sad reflection
I am afraid that “anonymous” needs to read more about the history of the monarchy in Thailand. The present king has faced far more severe criticism in the past and has come through. He may do that again… But why on earth have any faith in Surayud? He has always been a tool to be used by others. In fact, it is not Surayud who deserves criticism now, but his puppet masters in the palace.
But what about the real story today: that the military is going to effectively take charge of all provincial areas via military deputy governors. Now there’s a sign of what is really going on. Forget Dr. Thitinan’s little criticisms of a government that doesn’t matter! Look at what’s really going on. Thailand and Burma seem to have the same political model!
Surayud regime: crisis, disarray, morass, doubts, sad reflection
“We may have overestimated him. ”
The “we” here means only those “academics” like Thitinan himself who shamelessly support the coup .
(Comment 1) ” This latest mess raises doubts over his judgment in supporting the coup and the junta. I overestimated him.”
Well, you have simply forgotten or perhaps have no memory of another of His Majesty’s judgment, his choice of Mr. Thanin Kraiwichian as PM and the ‘mess’ under the latter’s administration.
Thai Studies Conference, Bangkok, 2008
Should we simply forget all this and boycott a conference that is being opened by a proncess, features the king at the top of their poster and is obviously trying to avoid the real issues in contemporary Thai/Tai studies? Then again, in 1984, some foreign academics did take up a call to protest the arrest of Acharn Sulak and others, and called on Prem to release them. Maybe this time the foreign scholars could call on Prem to lock himself out of the political driver’s seat. But maybe it won’t be necessary and those nice military men will have arranged an election by the time the conference comes around.
The tawdry cloak of sufficiency
When the CPB had our beloved old Siam Intercontinental Hotel (a low-rise architectual gem with a green lung in a concrete jungle) destroyed to make way for this bad-taste monster of a shopping centre called Siam Paragon (not anywhere near “The Pride of Bangkok” as it is advertised), a Thai friend of mine sadly remarked, “Well, the royal familiy cost a lot of money.” By the way, isn’t MBK on Chula land (like Siam Square)? Anyway, no democracy can function when vital political-business areas are kept beyond scrutiny (as Sulak so correctly remarked in Fa Diew Kun, only to meet with the accusation of lese majeste). And true, it would be very important to investigate the CPB’s up-country landholdings and business dealings.
“The silence of the intellectual lambs”
Oh dear, personal attack as political debate. I wish I had something to add or debate in this, but it is difficult to drag personalised attack into a rational debate. Lots of people in Thailand have burdens to bear from the coup. At least Dr. Pasuk did not accept appointment to the junta’s advisory committees after the coup. Dr. Baker might want to explain his reasons for doing the UN report and we might want him to do that, but the real targets in all of this are the nonsense “theory”, royalist hypocrits and the military-backed government’s use of the “theory” to mark out their difference from “Thaksinomics”. Seems to me that debate should focus on these issues.
The tawdry cloak of sufficiency
2. Anonymous, putting figures on this stuff is very difficult because the CPB is not transparent. Your other comments are right on, and the vignette on the Silom Club is lovely,
These articles are not bad, based on what is available in English. The tone is sensationalist, and there are a couple of slips, but given the sources, well….
But the Thai sources now go a bit deeper. In the last few years, there have been a couple of MA theses, and a handful of good archive-based academic articles.
All of this is now summarized in Thai in one of the chapters of Pasuk’s two-volume Thun Thai. We are now working on an English version, but it’s going to take a bit of time because we are trying to go a bit deeper.
The sensationalist tone of the Asia Sentinel articles is predictable (My God! The king is rich! Rich people exploit others!), but the real importance of the Thai monarchy’s wealth is much more interesting.
The investments made in the fifth reign mean that the Thai monarchy is not dependent on landed estates (like most European monarchies) or on the year-to-year tax revenue. In the European case, landed wealth was vulnerable to peasant discontent, and tax revenues were resented by businessmen and the middle class. But the CPB does not have these problems. Sure, it’s the biggest slum landlord, but it’s very careful to keep these rents way below market value. The very special nature of this monarchy has a lot to do with its financial base.
The important fact is that is that it is probably the biggest corporate group in the Thai economy. That means its interests are by and large the same as other corporate groups. So…
Surayud regime: crisis, disarray, morass, doubts, sad reflection
anonymous-
And he has nobody to blame but himself.
During the Cold War, it may have been easier to give him a pass.
But since 1980, why shouldn’t he have nudged Thailand towards liberal democracy and the rule of law?
I don’t know if anybody will agree with me here, but if you go way back in history, all of Thailand’s power arrangements have been based on a network monarchy, as McCargo put it.
It is a myth that Thailand was ever a stable polity. 17 coups in 75 years? A long history of regicide.
When you think about it, HMTK really had no choice but to ally with the military. They have the guns.
I think every Thai monarach has learned the hard lesson that it is better to have the guns pointing out rather than pointing in.
Regardless, any political scientist with half a brain cell should be a able to point out that running a country based upon charismatic personality, God/King propaganda, ad hoc personal relationships based upon rubbing each others back, and a incompetent bureaucracy and a corrupt military is a recipe for disaster.
The Nation’s innovative Thaksin debate
Here is the most recent update – below the anti-Thaksin arguments:
No coup can change your legacy.
‘Honest Mistakes’
You began your political legacy Mr. Thaksin, with ‘honest mistakes’ of assets concealed in names of driver, cook and maids that were believed, in an 8-7 split acquittal decision, by a corrupt Constitution Court in 2001. And from then on Mr. Thaksin you went on a rampage of even more outrageous more honest mistakes, some you tearily admitted but mostly angrily denied, but mistakes just the same that poked the country in the eyes.
But the mistakes were on our part, not yours. First, we believed and elected you content with your assurance that being already wealthy would preclude you yielding to corrupt temptations while in power. Second, we believed that with your years of service as a law enforcement officer and your further doctorate in criminal justice, you would uphold the rule of law . Third, we believed that with your business acumen, you would apply management prudence to calm the Southern unrest. And fourth, we also believed you would protect and strengthen our institutions, uphold constitutional etiquette and principles thereby nurturing Thai democracy during your rule. We are now pained to admit that we were all honestly mistaken on all four above.
Values
Perhaps the most resounding legacy you’ll leave for the Thai people is the sense that accumulation of wealth and power are the most important things in life – and to get more wealth and power, it’s ok to cheat and lie. For six long years, young people had such a twisted role model to look up to.
The Asset Examination Committee, an army of committed royally-approved investigators with all the resources the government can throw at it, will eventually find clear cut evidence of your corruption. They just need more time. Everybody knows that you’re corrupt. Since you’ve hid evidence of it so well, it will take several more months until we find it. But we’ll find something eventually. Already there are signs. In 1998 under the Chuan government, your wife and brother exchanged shares and the government turned a blind eye. You thought you could do the same thing in 2006, but this time the people had their eyes on you. Then there is the purchase, at a lower than fair valuation, of land by your wife Potjaman in Rajadipisek, with the countersignatures of you and Pridiyathorn. Don’t think that he’ll be able to protect you this time. Khun Ying Jaruvan abhors your graft, is honest, and fears absolutely no one.
Another example is the airport. Everybody knows it is a problem. It has forced PM Surayud to reopen Don Muang and already several airlines have threatened to stop services to Thailand. It is clear that no Thai institution is safe from your claws.
To hide your immense wealth, you knew that simply lying was not enough. You transferred large chunks of money to your maid and chauffer to hide them.
You refused to pay taxes on your sale of stocks in the stock market, using loopholes in Thai laws without concern that the Thai people look upon their elected leader to be ethical in his conduct. By doing so, you set an example that it’s ok to circumvent the law to avoid taxes – regardless of whether it ultimately cheats the Thai people.
The Thaksin Personality Cult
Thaksin, you have succeeded to create a personality cult around Thaksin, the Beloved Leader with many who will follow and worship you refusing to hear or believe you have committed any wrong doings. During the height of your reign, you had large billboards erected along major highways depicting imposing images of yourself dressed in regal robes and holding auspicious icons. The robes you wore looked identical to robes worn by the royal family. Many suspected that you wanted to overthrow the monarchy and make yourself Beloved Leader for life.
Thaksin you succeeded to convince many that you alone but only you were solely responsible for the economic resurgence of Thailand after the 1997 Thai Financial Crisis. But wasn’t it you who was the Deputy Prime Minister under then Prime Minister Chavalit’s government watch when that 1997 crisis struck? And wasn’t it you Thaksin Shinawatra who obscenely profited with a devaluation windfall that same year being privy to insider information? It was PM Chuan and FM Tarrin who carried out all hard thankless financial rehabilitation work that paved the recovery from the 1997 Financial Crisis. But you Thaksin were very astute to take all the credit. But with all those mega-projects corruption, cronyism and nepotism at work during your rule, should I believe instead that Thailand prospered despite Thaksin?
No coup can undo the hold you still exercise on people’s imagination. Still you circle Thailand like a vulture, with every one of your squawks sending panic through the CNS and a chill into the hearts of your erstwhile underlings, who procrastinate and delay corruption probes for fear that you could one day return to swoop. Your hold on the poor of the Northeast, whom you bought and seduced where others had neglected and ignored them, remains strong. Your habit of selectively handing out cash (from lottery proceeds) to boost your popularity was a potent poison that remains in the bloodstream of a people who have now been addicted to a culture of mendicancy and dependency.
Plan to Destroy the Thai Monarchy
The overthrow of the Thai monarchy was your plan all along, to replace it with a semi-communist system where Thaksin would be president for life (according to your “Finland Plan” written in a 1999 meeting in Finland with former members of the Communist Party of Thailand).
Divisive Politics
You leave behind a legacy of divisive politics that could encourage malicious elements to exploit to the detriment of the Kingdom. Your declared policy early on – was that those districts which did not vote for your Thai Rak Thai Party in past elections – would get a lower share of the national budget. And during the heights of the nearly three-month protests by hundreds of thousands against your rule, you responded with intimidation and thuggery against The Nation and The Manager, newspapers which were uncowed in their criticisms of your regime. But your divisive politics reached a danger point when, instead of appealing to national reconciliation, you held elections (subsequently ruled illegal by the Constitution Court) and encouraged hundreds of thousands of your village followers and a so-called ‘Caravan of the Poor’ to confront the citizens protesting in Bangkok. Your legacy of divisiveness still reverberates through the Kingdom. There can be no reconciliation for you now.
The Demise of Checks and Balances
Although you professed – and to some appeared – to raise the hopes of the people of Thailand, you lead many others to disappointment. The hopes of the 1997 constitution to obstruct Thai corruption with the creation of NCCC and watchdog agencies, an independent senate to increase checks and balances were soon compromised. Before long, the NCCC stalled or rejected any complaints against your party. Even the AEC and Miss Jaruvan were being stonewalled by your network of abettors who succeeded to ‘legalize’ your wrongdoings. You promised to volunteer a house debate on any topic, but when the sale of AIS caused huge uproar, you sat by as the opposition waved their hands because they didn’t have enough votes for a no-confidence motion. Besides, anyone who dared to expose your questionable practices was hit with defamation lawsuits or outright censorship. You took our dreams and shattered them. Now we don’t even have the 1997 Constitution to rely on, and your bad example of censorship is being followed by the military government.
Southern Thailand
The Royal Thai Army executed two mass killings of young Muslim men in the southern provinces happened on your watch. After the first one, you declared in effect; “from now on, anytime there’s a similar stand-off, I will be in charge and will be personally responsible for whatever happens.” However, at the second event, when over 80 young men were murdered while in the custody of your militia, no one even got reprimanded. You should have investigated the murders and harshly punished all the Army and ISOC officers who were involved, no matter how senior they were.
You employed harsh policies in your dealings with the Southern Muslims. Your hard-line extra-judicial approach (so brutally in evidence in the war on drugs) was even more savagely applied in the Southern unrest thus exacerbating the on-going Southern imbroglio. You declared martial law and deployed over 30,000 troops and security personnel in all the sensitive provinces of Thailand’s deep South. By directing the Army, who were primarily Buddhists to respond indiscriminately with savage force to deal with these complex problems, you, Mr. Thaksin, seriously expanded the unrest into a wider and bigger conflagration. Your harsh approach led to a deterioration of the fragile peace established by Prem between the Buddhist minority and the Muslim majority in the area.
Your arrogant personality also contributed to the problems. With you gone, things wil be getting better. Thailand has a newfound confidence that the Fire in the South can be put out.
But already the international community are concerned that external extremist elements might enter to complicate the unrest even further. Good thing you appointed General Sonthi as Army Commander. As a Muslim, he is uniquely suited to solving the problem.
The War on Drugs
Mr. Thaksin you were a Police Lt. Colonel officer of the law, and you had masters and PhD. in criminal justice from an American school and yet, by some dark whim you went on to play god by directing the extra-judicial killings of thousands, without due process, during your anti-yaa baa campaign of 2003 thus breaking your contract with the people who elected you Prime Minister to uphold the law.
Nobody can bring back the thousands you ordered killed during your so-called war on drugs. Your brutal attempt at drug eradication in early 2003 killed some 2,500 of the country’s poorest drug dealers and users. Their executions were ordered, reliable sources say, from the very top. Those sources will tell the truth to the courts, eventually. It netted not a single big fish. Known to the outside world as ‘extra-judicial killings’, your drug campaign attracted worldwide condemnation. Extrajudicial killing is evil. No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency, not even the Prime Minister of Thailand.
PM Surayud’s government will provide a good example on good governance by eventually investigating all those 2,500 killings, if only to bring justice to the thousands of victims and their families. Failure by PM Surayud’s or succeeding governments to put a closure to the extra-judicial killings through an independent public inquiry into the matter, would give credence to misgivings of many Thais and foreigners, that the rule of law is deeply flawed and almost meaningless in the Kingdom of Thailand.
The Thai Rak Thai Party
The TRT party you founded is now in disarray with your ouster, thanks to your over weaning with your wife’s generous largesse of unlimited financial support during elections. Mister Thaksin, you have proved a point that a political party can be created with the purpose of having members blindly follow your every dictate – with the peoples’ interest on the sidelines. The issue of poverty was given a lot of lip service and photo-ops, but scant little was done. The reason poverty fell by half during your government wasn’t because of the TRT, but because of the global economic boom starting in 2001.
The Media
The media is still reeling from your legacy of fear, instilled by ordering journalists removed, radio stations shut and defamation suits slapped on reporters who dared question your conduct.
It doesn’t take a genius to make a vibrant media. Look at the situation today. All the low quality community radio stations that you bought have been shut down. The quality of the internet in Thailand has been improved substantially because of the pornography and views against the monarchy that you blatantly allowed. Thai television is no longer polluted by people in polo-shirts reading out headlines – their shows were cancelled right after the coup. And we no longer have to be suspicious about communists selling us Finland Plan propaganda, because soldiers loyal to the King now guard the television studios.
You tried buying the Bangkok Post by proxy, but your ruse was uncovered and you retreated on that hare-brained idea.
Dark Forces
Your past educational, business and political credentials on paper appear solid, trust-inspiring and country-welfare motivated which no doubt led many to believe (and voted you in) you seemed to be in politics to return service to the Kingdom in gratitude for the billions-wealth earned from the land. The dark forces have consumed you Thaksin Shinawatra and the people can only conclude that your excessive devotion to Khmer voodoo worships and belief in Myanmar shamans led you to violate the Buddhist Five Precepts that sparked your malevolent rule.
But even your mighty Khmer voodoo was powerless to prevent the indictment of your abettors, which included three Election Commissioners and several Revenue Dept. officials including the Tax Chief, for malfeasance.
You joked once about the influence of Pluto in your horoscope preventing you from conversing with the Press Corps. Now that Pluto has been demoted (officially ending our Plutonic relationship) – what other hocus pocus would keep you from answering the tough questions?
The Protector of Thailand’s Poor
It is your genius Thaksin Shinawatra that despite the billions in taxes your family evaded and the many billions more in graft and corruption that were siphoned off by your crooked legions, billions that could have been employed for social welfare and rural empowerment projects, you have convinced the millions of Thai village poor that you are Thailand’s champion to eradicate their poverty. What hypocrisy! And it is my belief that this particular Thaksin legacy of hypocrisy will be unequalled for many years to come.
You tried to point out how you reduced poverty by half during your government. But you didn’t mention how that was unsustainable, and that any long-term development program has to be rooted in self-sufficiency, not greed and upward mobility.
Aftermath
Then there are your more insidious legacies, mostly from overreactions to your corrupt schemes. Because of a law passed to allow foreign investors to hold more than 25 percent in a telecom company just a week before you sold your empire to Temasek, many foreigners now have to endure another wave of xenophobic sentiment and more draconian enforcement of nominee laws as the new government tries to rectify your abuses, and the resulting laws also shake the confidence of big foreign investors.
Finally, there is the coup itself. Thanks to your venal abuse of the democratic process, another generation of the country’s power-hungry military have become convinced that they are needed to run the place, putting democracy in the back seat for another decade or two. All the bad things that have happened since are really all your fault.
No Mr. Thaksin, you cannot be wiped out by a coup. We can only hope that justice will prevail and before your memory starts to fade, you will be brought before the courts to face true justice.
IS THERE A SILVER LINING?
Perhaps there is a way to partially redeem yourself. You could volunteer to pay those family taxes without protest! And you categorically stated after the sale of Shincorp that you would make a large charity donation. You and your family could donate a generous portion of your ill-gotten wealth to programs that would truly help Thailand and its people. You’d need to find non-corrupt organizations to channel funds (though a ‘non-corrupt organization’ may be hard to find in Thailand). Suggestions: donate to help the King’s charities or assist the downtrodden – and those other Maew who live within Thailand’s borders.
Surayud regime: crisis, disarray, morass, doubts, sad reflection
See the “No to CNS Constitution” campaign, started a few days ago at http://www.thaisayno.com/ plus article on Prachatai at
http://www.prachatai.com/05web/th/home/page2.php?mod=mod_ptcms&ContentID=7135&SystemModuleKey=HilightNews&System_Session_Language=Thai
Surayud regime: crisis, disarray, morass, doubts, sad reflection
I have a sad suspicion that King Bhumibol will eventually share the same fate as his privy councilor. The King has faced more criticism over these past 6 months than he ever has over the past 60 years.
This latest mess raises doubts over his judgment in supporting the coup and the junta. I overestimated him. It is a sad reflection for a man with such a distinguished track record that he should end his life knowing that his heir is hated by his people, his Kingdom is being torn apart in civil war, and that the public has no institutional or legal framework to rely upon to provide political stability or continuity.
Sufficiency casualty
For some more context on the situation in Turkey, see an article from Newsweek of December 4, 2006 at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15894450/site/newsweek/
Agen Domino Online yg tidak sedikit Dicari Member
21 Jan: No doubt that there are great disparities. One might also point to disparities between the many urban areas throughout Thailand and their respective rural hinterlands, to the disparities among urban areas of various sizes, and of all those urban areas and Bangkok: Chiang Mai, Suphanburi, Phitsanulok, Pattya, Khon Kaen, and Hat Yai, etc. need their BTS! (just joking)
As for poverty reduction, this seem to have been a longer-term trend, not dependent on Thaksin’s policies. Some time ago, New Mandala featured the World Bank’s Economic Monitor of November 2006. It contains some useful data on poverty alleviation. The link is http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTTHAILAND/Resources/Economic-Monitor/2006nov_econ_monitor.pdf
Sufficiency casualty
There are strong parallels between the view of the military in Thailand and in Turkey – in Turkey the army is seen as the guardian of laizism and the ideals of Atat├╝rk – and in Thailand the military is/was seen as the protector of King, Nation and religion (with the 1992 setback). If Erdogan overacts his islamism, I think the military will quickly step in.