1. Thailand doesn’t follow a basket any more. Besides, the appreciation of the USD hasn’t even been close to the appreciation of the THB.
2. In the months of 2006 prior to the coup, the THB had appreciated substantially, not depreciated. Things have just accelerated these past 3 months. With interest rates still high, the BOT sitting around doing nothing, and the junta giving the finger to exporters, there’s no sign that the Baht will be weakening soon.
Patiwat we’ll have to remember then that soldiers do and will protect their Kings and country. Maybe Patiwat we won’t get to see lese majeste scrapped during our lifetimes after all.
I told you before Patiwat that Thaksin was a fool. Maybe i was wrong . . . maybe Thaksin was just too desperate. Just too many skeletons in the closet . . and that conflicted Temasek-Shin deal just one of the many Thaksin wanted to protect from any judicial inquiry . . so the man Thaksin truly intended to cling on to power indefinitely a-la Ferdinand Marcos.
By ‘causing rift in society’ , condition 1 raised by General Sonthi, was enough reason from a soldier’s creed to do a patriotic coup. Those others that followed: tax evasions, conflicted family deals, extrajudicial killings in anti-drugs, the Somchai disappearance case, and the most recent Muslim prisoner torture and execution were the very skeletons Thaksin was protecting from being uncovered and investigated . . He thus intentionally rabble-roused his villagers to create disharmony, distrust and division. That was diversionary and that was dangerous and that provoked a most righteous coup in my personal view.
Money can’t buy everything Thaksin will learn the hard way. Money can buy love (or votes) but the ardor and passion is usually fleeting because bought love (or votes) is feigned. Money will also buy temporary freedom but in the end the long arm of the law, they say, will eventually catch the thief or the criminal.
I am betting Thaksin’s money won’t help him escape justice and jail sentence because too many crimes, too many murdered, too many Thais outraged.
1. The baht follows a basket and the dollar fell sharply since then against major currencies.
2. For months investors had been lowering exposure in Thailand because of all the turmoil around Thaksin and his opponents. Turmoil over (turmoil fomented by the military), they come back.
None of that means praise for the junta’s economic regime.
Jon, Thaksin was only ‘innovative’ in so far as massive vote buying and subverting the constitution was concerned . . to perpetuate his massive corruption run of course. The path to Thaksin’s billions was ‘innovative’ in the sense that his first millions was earned selling computers to the Police Department where his father-in-law was Police Chief . . both father-in-law and Thaksin drafting the computer sale agreement so there would be disputes later on, see.
From then on Thaksin just kept on bribing the junta generals in power to get his telcom licenses . . innovative again!
Thaksin repeated his bribing ways . . . massively to buy the vulnerable village poor . Not content, Thaksin bought small parties and venal politicians to ensure his TRT party would be unopposed.
Jon Thaksin was NOT ostracized. He was deposed. Booted out. Ousted. By General Sonthi’s coup which was resoundly applauded by the majority of Thais fed up with Thaksin’s corruption and extrajudicial killings and abuse of the Thai constitution.
I still stay mothers who suspect they carry ‘baby Thaksins’ should immediately abort.
Suvimol: “Are you really wishing for ‘more baby Thaksins’ to pop out Jon?”
IMHO Thaksin, besides being a real flesh and blood billionaire, also stands for a **type of innovator** one finds sometimes in Thai institutions who, initially unanimously welcomed, is eventually unanimously ostracised.
These innovators promise to improve traditional Thai practice with non-Thai practice, taken from western books and scholarship, just like Thaksin was doing right up to his final Council of Foreign Relations speech the day before the coup.
I encountered a female Thaksin in the Thai University I once worked at. She arrived brimming with new ideas and pet projects based on western ideas where she received her PhD, initially everyone loved her, nodding their heads, this woman is going to make changes, within one semester she had stepped on everyone’s toes and alienated almost everyone, her popularity fell as meteorically as it rose, and finally she was ostracized. She remained for another year or two working by herself on innovative little projects in an office all by herself. The ancient Greek definition of ostracism has an uncanny resemblance to what happened to Thaksin:
“…ostracism was often used pre-emptively. It was used as a way of defusing major confrontations between rival politicians (by removing one of them from the scene), neutralising someone thought to be a threat to the state, or exiling a potential tyrant. Crucially, ostracism had no relation to the processes of justice. There was no charge or defence, and ***the exile was not in fact a penalty; it was simply a command from the Athenian people that one of their number be gone for ten years.”***…by temporarily decapitating a faction, it could help to defuse confrontations that threatened the order of the State….Perhaps merely the sense ***that someone had become too arrogant or prominent*** was enough to get someone’s name onto an ostrakon” IMHO this type of Thaksin-like Thai innovator could eventually change Thailand in significant and good ways.
Of course, this is all after the fact. I abhorred Thaksin’s coopting of the constitution and extra-judicial killings, although I’m afraid the reasons why many of us find this to be wrong are not appreciated by rural folk (who I live amongst).
Has the Lao meaning of “seminar” been completely tainted by the re-education/reconciliation concept, or is the term also used the way Thais use it, in an academic context?
In Thai it commonly means either an academic conference (similar to the way it is used in mainstream english) or a type of advanced university class where you spend the semester researching a topic in detail, while every week speakers (usually external) come and speak about related topics. It’s one of the grueling courses, required in my old faculty, of the undergrad academic life.
The anonymous theory is plausible, but ignores one significant factor: the massive appreciation of the Baht in the months following the coup.
When the junta seized power, the Baht was around 37.8/USD. For one reason or another, the Baht is now at around 35/USD, and the BOT has refused to intervene. Such a significant appreciation in such a short time is quite unprecedented, and the Baht is now stronger than it ever was since the 1997 devaluation.
Thus, if Temasek were forced to sell of it’s stake in Shin Corp at a nominal loss, it would still gain significantly from the Baht’s appreciation. Whether the appreciation is enough to put the deal in the black is pure speculation at this point.
The only loosers in this whole mess will probably end up being Thai export industries. But they’re run by greedy capitalists who refused to practice self-sufficiency 🙂
Vichai, when Sonthi explained the coup on his TV broadcast the morning of the 20th, he cited many reasons, including lese majeste. You can’t ignore it.
Specifically, he claimed Thaksin caused 1) a rift in society, 2) corruption, 3) nepotism, 4) interference in government agencies, and 5) lese majeste.
Many other reasons were later cited, but lese majeste remains one of the key reasons the junta overthrew Thaksin.
[…] In my previous post to New Mandala, I introduced Mentur, and his claims that he had been held in seminar in 1995 and in 2006, the first time in Vietnam and Sam Nuea, and the second time in Vieng Say. To investigate his claims further, my first port of call was the group of buildings that he had indicated as one of the locations in which he was held. A path led from the backyard of the hotel up a short incline to the buildings. In total there were only five buildings. The doors were padlocked from the outside, and the windows were boarded over. There were no clear perimeter and no guards. In fact, the place seemed deserted. But there were some signs of life – fresh cigarette boxes in a bin, clothes drying on a line, vegetables growing in fenced yards. If this was a prison, it was like no prison I had seen before: no guns, no razor wire, no turrets. The most visible sign that this was a place of detention was, in fact, literally a sign. On the second building, a notice informed visitors that: When coming to visit the accused: […]
I wonder whether the families of Chaleo, But and Chit would agree. And I wonder if you would be so sanguine if it was a member of your own family who had gone to their death for a crime they did not commit.
Surely the point is not whether an investigation would uncover new information, but in the hypothetical situation that lese majeste were lifted (as I say, impossible) it would allow certain questions to be asked, and certain things to be said, that are currently impossible to ask or say because they would by definition be acts of lese majeste.
Thank you, anonymous, for this fascinating story, and you have a nice way of telling it. More evidence of the cloak of invisibility. I am wondering if there is a slightly fuller version on the record somewhere to which we could refer those New Mandala readers interested in the self-sufficiency theory?
A most ridiculous law lese majeste. Every Thai gossips about the monarchy and there are lots to gossip about. My customers at the shop . . wives of policemen, wives of generals, ladies-in-waiting for the monarchs never stop gossiping, mostly negative particularly about the prince.
Who would do a coup with lese majeste as the excuse. Thaksin was ousted for many many outrages against the Thai people and Kingdom . . not the King in particular. Patiwat merely wants to pick one item here and there, but altogether, to justify his argument that the coup was uncalled for. Patiwat you should go back to ‘Politics is Boring’ it is all there, all the many reasons, and some reasons by themselves were enough to put Thaksin in jail.
Another comment from TLC list, responding to Patrick Jory (see comment 5 above):
Patrick,
Wonderful! I could not agree with you more! (By the way, there is no hard evidence that “vote-buying” has determinative effects on elections.It takes place, but does it determine outcomes? I can cite several anecdotes where it did not.) The latest news on reorganization of ISOC tells the tale – elites are simply positioning the military to prevent any kind of “populist” success into the future. (See the Nation within the last few days for information.) Regardless of future elections, Thailand will be a military regime well into the future. The coup has been the death of democracy for the long term.The death of democracy is the responsibility of all those who apologize for the regime, as well as the elites who perpetrated it. Is there no shame?
To “Biff” and Mike,
During the 1980’s and 1990’s the concept of ‘People Participation’ has been promoted and implemented by the development projects, small NGOs, with villagers groups throughout the country, especially in the North and the Northeast . Though few scholars may view this as the counteraction to the expansion of Communist ideology, the impact of the effort in the North and the Northeast Thailand, together with the decentralization of the government authority in administration asserted by democratic movements, have yielded great impact as fertile soil to the political campaign of Thai Rak Thai Party and its implementation, as Keyes witnessed in his revisit to Mahasarakham. Thaksin is just the opportunist politician, not the savior of the grassroots.
I agree with Nganadirek. Further investigations wont uncover anything. Chaleo, But, and Chit were executed, Pridi is dead, Por is dead, the King’s mother is dead, Phraya Anurak is dead.
The one living man who might know anything secret will probably take whatever secrets he has to the grave, so to speak.
It happened over 60 years ago…..I’m not sure what an investigation now would come up with as most of the evidence would be long gone.
Despite, the lese majeste laws, I would have thought what really happened would have been exposed by now (if it is known).
I also think you place too much emphasis on the lese majeste laws as the major reason the monarchy continues, because there are still plenty of rumours/whispers (and who is getting sent to jail?)
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Against the grain?
1. Thailand doesn’t follow a basket any more. Besides, the appreciation of the USD hasn’t even been close to the appreciation of the THB.
2. In the months of 2006 prior to the coup, the THB had appreciated substantially, not depreciated. Things have just accelerated these past 3 months. With interest rates still high, the BOT sitting around doing nothing, and the junta giving the finger to exporters, there’s no sign that the Baht will be weakening soon.
New species of military democracy discovered in the Pacific!
Patiwat we’ll have to remember then that soldiers do and will protect their Kings and country. Maybe Patiwat we won’t get to see lese majeste scrapped during our lifetimes after all.
I told you before Patiwat that Thaksin was a fool. Maybe i was wrong . . . maybe Thaksin was just too desperate. Just too many skeletons in the closet . . and that conflicted Temasek-Shin deal just one of the many Thaksin wanted to protect from any judicial inquiry . . so the man Thaksin truly intended to cling on to power indefinitely a-la Ferdinand Marcos.
By ‘causing rift in society’ , condition 1 raised by General Sonthi, was enough reason from a soldier’s creed to do a patriotic coup. Those others that followed: tax evasions, conflicted family deals, extrajudicial killings in anti-drugs, the Somchai disappearance case, and the most recent Muslim prisoner torture and execution were the very skeletons Thaksin was protecting from being uncovered and investigated . . He thus intentionally rabble-roused his villagers to create disharmony, distrust and division. That was diversionary and that was dangerous and that provoked a most righteous coup in my personal view.
Money can’t buy everything Thaksin will learn the hard way. Money can buy love (or votes) but the ardor and passion is usually fleeting because bought love (or votes) is feigned. Money will also buy temporary freedom but in the end the long arm of the law, they say, will eventually catch the thief or the criminal.
I am betting Thaksin’s money won’t help him escape justice and jail sentence because too many crimes, too many murdered, too many Thais outraged.
Against the grain?
1. The baht follows a basket and the dollar fell sharply since then against major currencies.
2. For months investors had been lowering exposure in Thailand because of all the turmoil around Thaksin and his opponents. Turmoil over (turmoil fomented by the military), they come back.
None of that means praise for the junta’s economic regime.
Against the grain?
Seems to me if foreigners have NO confidence in any government . . they’ll pull out all their foreign investments in that country IN A HURRY!
Surprising that the Thai Baht was the strongest performing currency since September, just after the coup.
Maybe foreigners have more confidence in General Sonthi than Patiwat has.
Charles Keyes on Sondhi Limthongkul
Jon, Thaksin was only ‘innovative’ in so far as massive vote buying and subverting the constitution was concerned . . to perpetuate his massive corruption run of course. The path to Thaksin’s billions was ‘innovative’ in the sense that his first millions was earned selling computers to the Police Department where his father-in-law was Police Chief . . both father-in-law and Thaksin drafting the computer sale agreement so there would be disputes later on, see.
From then on Thaksin just kept on bribing the junta generals in power to get his telcom licenses . . innovative again!
Thaksin repeated his bribing ways . . . massively to buy the vulnerable village poor . Not content, Thaksin bought small parties and venal politicians to ensure his TRT party would be unopposed.
Jon Thaksin was NOT ostracized. He was deposed. Booted out. Ousted. By General Sonthi’s coup which was resoundly applauded by the majority of Thais fed up with Thaksin’s corruption and extrajudicial killings and abuse of the Thai constitution.
I still stay mothers who suspect they carry ‘baby Thaksins’ should immediately abort.
Charles Keyes on Sondhi Limthongkul
Whoops here’s the citation for that quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism
Charles Keyes on Sondhi Limthongkul
Suvimol: “Are you really wishing for ‘more baby Thaksins’ to pop out Jon?”
IMHO Thaksin, besides being a real flesh and blood billionaire, also stands for a **type of innovator** one finds sometimes in Thai institutions who, initially unanimously welcomed, is eventually unanimously ostracised.
These innovators promise to improve traditional Thai practice with non-Thai practice, taken from western books and scholarship, just like Thaksin was doing right up to his final Council of Foreign Relations speech the day before the coup.
I encountered a female Thaksin in the Thai University I once worked at. She arrived brimming with new ideas and pet projects based on western ideas where she received her PhD, initially everyone loved her, nodding their heads, this woman is going to make changes, within one semester she had stepped on everyone’s toes and alienated almost everyone, her popularity fell as meteorically as it rose, and finally she was ostracized. She remained for another year or two working by herself on innovative little projects in an office all by herself. The ancient Greek definition of ostracism has an uncanny resemblance to what happened to Thaksin:
“…ostracism was often used pre-emptively. It was used as a way of defusing major confrontations between rival politicians (by removing one of them from the scene), neutralising someone thought to be a threat to the state, or exiling a potential tyrant. Crucially, ostracism had no relation to the processes of justice. There was no charge or defence, and ***the exile was not in fact a penalty; it was simply a command from the Athenian people that one of their number be gone for ten years.”***…by temporarily decapitating a faction, it could help to defuse confrontations that threatened the order of the State….Perhaps merely the sense ***that someone had become too arrogant or prominent*** was enough to get someone’s name onto an ostrakon” IMHO this type of Thaksin-like Thai innovator could eventually change Thailand in significant and good ways.
Of course, this is all after the fact. I abhorred Thaksin’s coopting of the constitution and extra-judicial killings, although I’m afraid the reasons why many of us find this to be wrong are not appreciated by rural folk (who I live amongst).
Seminar: tool of oppression or reunification?
Has the Lao meaning of “seminar” been completely tainted by the re-education/reconciliation concept, or is the term also used the way Thais use it, in an academic context?
In Thai it commonly means either an academic conference (similar to the way it is used in mainstream english) or a type of advanced university class where you spend the semester researching a topic in detail, while every week speakers (usually external) come and speak about related topics. It’s one of the grueling courses, required in my old faculty, of the undergrad academic life.
Against the grain?
The anonymous theory is plausible, but ignores one significant factor: the massive appreciation of the Baht in the months following the coup.
When the junta seized power, the Baht was around 37.8/USD. For one reason or another, the Baht is now at around 35/USD, and the BOT has refused to intervene. Such a significant appreciation in such a short time is quite unprecedented, and the Baht is now stronger than it ever was since the 1997 devaluation.
Thus, if Temasek were forced to sell of it’s stake in Shin Corp at a nominal loss, it would still gain significantly from the Baht’s appreciation. Whether the appreciation is enough to put the deal in the black is pure speculation at this point.
The only loosers in this whole mess will probably end up being Thai export industries. But they’re run by greedy capitalists who refused to practice self-sufficiency 🙂
New species of military democracy discovered in the Pacific!
Vichai, when Sonthi explained the coup on his TV broadcast the morning of the 20th, he cited many reasons, including lese majeste. You can’t ignore it.
Specifically, he claimed Thaksin caused 1) a rift in society, 2) corruption, 3) nepotism, 4) interference in government agencies, and 5) lese majeste.
Many other reasons were later cited, but lese majeste remains one of the key reasons the junta overthrew Thaksin.
Welcome to Vieng Say
[…] In my previous post to New Mandala, I introduced Mentur, and his claims that he had been held in seminar in 1995 and in 2006, the first time in Vietnam and Sam Nuea, and the second time in Vieng Say. To investigate his claims further, my first port of call was the group of buildings that he had indicated as one of the locations in which he was held. A path led from the backyard of the hotel up a short incline to the buildings. In total there were only five buildings. The doors were padlocked from the outside, and the windows were boarded over. There were no clear perimeter and no guards. In fact, the place seemed deserted. But there were some signs of life – fresh cigarette boxes in a bin, clothes drying on a line, vegetables growing in fenced yards. If this was a prison, it was like no prison I had seen before: no guns, no razor wire, no turrets. The most visible sign that this was a place of detention was, in fact, literally a sign. On the second building, a notice informed visitors that: When coming to visit the accused: […]
New species of military democracy discovered in the Pacific!
I wonder whether the families of Chaleo, But and Chit would agree. And I wonder if you would be so sanguine if it was a member of your own family who had gone to their death for a crime they did not commit.
Surely the point is not whether an investigation would uncover new information, but in the hypothetical situation that lese majeste were lifted (as I say, impossible) it would allow certain questions to be asked, and certain things to be said, that are currently impossible to ask or say because they would by definition be acts of lese majeste.
Against the grain?
Thank you, anonymous, for this fascinating story, and you have a nice way of telling it. More evidence of the cloak of invisibility. I am wondering if there is a slightly fuller version on the record somewhere to which we could refer those New Mandala readers interested in the self-sufficiency theory?
New species of military democracy discovered in the Pacific!
Patiwat (no.13) let’s celebrate if when the lese majeste law has been scrapped, not before. Hopefully we’ll that law scrapped during our lifetime.
New species of military democracy discovered in the Pacific!
A most ridiculous law lese majeste. Every Thai gossips about the monarchy and there are lots to gossip about. My customers at the shop . . wives of policemen, wives of generals, ladies-in-waiting for the monarchs never stop gossiping, mostly negative particularly about the prince.
Who would do a coup with lese majeste as the excuse. Thaksin was ousted for many many outrages against the Thai people and Kingdom . . not the King in particular. Patiwat merely wants to pick one item here and there, but altogether, to justify his argument that the coup was uncalled for. Patiwat you should go back to ‘Politics is Boring’ it is all there, all the many reasons, and some reasons by themselves were enough to put Thaksin in jail.
Pro-poor programs
Another comment from TLC list, responding to Patrick Jory (see comment 5 above):
Patrick,
Wonderful! I could not agree with you more! (By the way, there is no hard evidence that “vote-buying” has determinative effects on elections.It takes place, but does it determine outcomes? I can cite several anecdotes where it did not.) The latest news on reorganization of ISOC tells the tale – elites are simply positioning the military to prevent any kind of “populist” success into the future. (See the Nation within the last few days for information.) Regardless of future elections, Thailand will be a military regime well into the future. The coup has been the death of democracy for the long term.The death of democracy is the responsibility of all those who apologize for the regime, as well as the elites who perpetrated it. Is there no shame?
Bob Albritton
Pro-poor programs
To “Biff” and Mike,
During the 1980’s and 1990’s the concept of ‘People Participation’ has been promoted and implemented by the development projects, small NGOs, with villagers groups throughout the country, especially in the North and the Northeast . Though few scholars may view this as the counteraction to the expansion of Communist ideology, the impact of the effort in the North and the Northeast Thailand, together with the decentralization of the government authority in administration asserted by democratic movements, have yielded great impact as fertile soil to the political campaign of Thai Rak Thai Party and its implementation, as Keyes witnessed in his revisit to Mahasarakham. Thaksin is just the opportunist politician, not the savior of the grassroots.
New species of military democracy discovered in the Pacific!
I agree with Nganadirek. Further investigations wont uncover anything. Chaleo, But, and Chit were executed, Pridi is dead, Por is dead, the King’s mother is dead, Phraya Anurak is dead.
The one living man who might know anything secret will probably take whatever secrets he has to the grave, so to speak.
New species of military democracy discovered in the Pacific!
Singapore effectively has a lese majeste policy with regard to the family of Lee Kwan Yew and his princes. nepal had one but it was ineffective.
New species of military democracy discovered in the Pacific!
It happened over 60 years ago…..I’m not sure what an investigation now would come up with as most of the evidence would be long gone.
Despite, the lese majeste laws, I would have thought what really happened would have been exposed by now (if it is known).
I also think you place too much emphasis on the lese majeste laws as the major reason the monarchy continues, because there are still plenty of rumours/whispers (and who is getting sent to jail?)