New Mandala

21 responses so far ↓

• 1 Vichai N // Feb 15, 2007 at 11:47 pm

  Anti-coups are outgunned in that debate.
  Pro-Thaksins are unusually silent, hardly any coherent argument in defense of Thaksin in the Nation debate.
  Come on guys . . . you must have INPUTS, eh?

• 2 Srithanonchai // Feb 16, 2007 at 2:16 am

  The problem might be that the anti-coups are not pro-Thaksin, but just as anti-Thaksin as the pro-coups are.

• 3 Taxi Driver // Feb 16, 2007 at 8:33 am

  The coup has done more long term damage to Thailand’s future stability than Thaksin. The democratic system was going through growing pains to be sure, and Thaksin shares a great deal of blame for that pain. But to kill off the system (in some belief that it can be “reset”!) is even more dangerous, as it simply delays the inevitable and things are likely to end up worse down the track. The 2550-2560 decade is going to be rough for Thailand.

• 4 nganadeeleg // Feb 16, 2007 at 2:33 pm

  Thai people who read The Nation would usually have a reasonable level of education, so unless that person has a vested interest, they are unlikely to be pro-Thaksin, irrespective of whether they are pro-coup or anti-coup.

  Andrew, could you hold up the Pro-Thaksin side of the essay by using some of your own thoughts combined with a survey of some opinions of the rural poor & taxi drivers?
  (Bangkok Pundit may also be able to help as he is usually quick to defend Thaksin)

  Taxi Driver, I still think you are premature in thinking the ‘reset’ process is a failure. The junta, despite some mistakes, seems to be trying to work within the law, and things could be much worse.
  There may even be hope for national reconciliation, which would have been impossible under Thaksin.

• 5 Srithanonchai // Feb 16, 2007 at 4:22 pm

  I still wonder about “national reconciliation.” What exactly is this supposed to be, and why should it be neccessary? Is it not rather a propaganda instrument created by the royalist-bureaucratic-military forces in order to put themselves above democratic politics again?

• 6 nganadeeleg // Feb 16, 2007 at 7:51 pm

  I’m not sure if there is an official definintion of ‘national reconciliation’, but I used the phrase in the context of most people getting on with things for the good of the country (rather than continuing the rift/argument/fight).

  I can see some hope of that happening after the new election (without Thaksin), IF people act with goodwill.

  I know it’s a big IF, but I could not see any chance of it happening under Thaksin.

• 7 Taxi Driver // Feb 16, 2007 at 8:19 pm

  Democracy cannot be reset, because it is not something that can be imposed, handed down, or granted from above. It is a system that can only grow & develop from the bottom up. If you think it can be “reset” then you really don’t understand democracy. This lesson is also being learnt by the Bush Administration and the Neocons who thought they could turn Iraq into a flower of democracy in the MidEast by simply removing Saddam.

  I can only hope that democracy is not dead in Thailand, and that the saying “what does not kill you will make you stronger” holds for it.

• 8 Srithanonchai // Feb 16, 2007 at 9:19 pm

  But why should, in a democracy, differences in political opinion be interpreted as rifts, or even as fights? Or has this to do with the highly personalized and emotional nature of Thai political culture, where there must be a winner and a loser?

• 9 Vichai N. // Feb 17, 2007 at 3:50 am

  Patiwat you were ‘cheating’ in the Nation debate. You were editing both the ‘Pro-Thaksin’ and ‘Anti-Thaksin’ arguments (you cannot deny it, because your name was in ‘Last Edited by” line.)

  Patiwat so which side are you for anyway ? Editing the ‘other’ side to muddy their case perhaps?

• 10 nganadeeleg // Feb 17, 2007 at 7:38 am

  Winners & losers – unfortunately, that’s the nature of modern democracy, and it’s not only a Thai concept.

  If there is a new election this year, then democracy in Thailand will have been ‘reset’.
  Time will tell if the outcome is any better than the before – a lot will depend on whether people have learnt anything.

• 11 Srithanonchai // Feb 17, 2007 at 4:09 pm

  I am not sure about the “nature of modern democracy” and the interpretation of winners and losers as being about “national” rifts and fights needing subsequent “reconciliation” under the guardianship of some self-appointed organ claiming that it had the national interest at heart. I haven’t seen European electoral contests or political conflicts in this light, really.

• 12 anon // Feb 17, 2007 at 9:59 pm

  The whole “debate” is a joke. The anti-Thaksin board is full of trolls who are giving him back-handed praise, and the pro-Thaksin board is full of back-handed contempt.

  How else can you explain anti-Thaksin crap on the like this:
  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. But since you can’t stand to lose face, you bribed 60 airlines, the AoT, the Civil Aviation Department, into claiming that the airport is safe and sound. You even found a way to bribe one of your loudest enemies, Tortrakul Yomnak, into saying that the airport was safe and the cost of fixing would be absurdly low. It is clear that no Thai institution is safe from your claws.

  or pro-Thaksin crap like this:
  Sometimes you had lots of officials and important people gathered around agreeing with everything you said – which added to the importance of your personage. I liked it when you and all your closest officials would wear starched white naval uniforms. I was impressed that you all had fliers wings on the collars. Are you all naval pilots? Listening to you speak was like having a friend say he would always pay money to make things better.

• 13 anon // Feb 17, 2007 at 10:01 pm

  Or bullcrap like this in the so-called “praise Thaksin” board:

  Remember the broke of Bird Flu, or the Tsunami, there was always Thanksin Shinawatra, the only
  prime misnister who dared eat stacks of chicken in front of the media camera to prove how brave
  he really was. How impressed we were, watching the Premier and his Thai-Rak-Thai politicians on TV actively and promptly involved in the rescue of the Tsunami victims?

• 14 Taxi Driver // Feb 18, 2007 at 12:56 am

  Ngarn, even if elections were held in 2550 and a new government formed, do you really think Thailand will have “democracy”?

  Having elections does not mean you have democracy if the elected government is subjugated to a junta/military that “hovers” above the government and may step in to remove it at any time. Again, just take a look at Iraq as an example. Elections were held there in late 2005 but no one would claim Iraq today is a democracy. Thailand will only have true democracy when the generals and their tanks are not accepted by the people.

• 15 nganadeeleg // Feb 18, 2007 at 9:29 am

  Taxi Driver said : “Thailand will only have true democracy when the generals and their tanks are not accepted by the people.”

  Until people elect better politicians, I dont care about ‘true democracy’.
  I think basic human rights, equitable & transparent laws, access to health care, access to education etc are more important.

• 16 Srithanonchai // Feb 18, 2007 at 3:42 pm

  I agree that there are more elements in “true democracy” (or its many different appearances) that merely non-acceptance of the military. “Better politicians” is tricky, partly because it might reflect the elite discourse running down “nakluaktang.” Also, before people can elect better politicians, there must be better politicians as options, which brings us to consider the issue of political recruitment. The politicians, after all, are not morally bad as such, but rather reflect the structural neccessities of the Thai political system. As for the output side of policies, yes, but one of the most important reasons for favoring a democratic system is that it might lead to better outputs. However, if it is not democratic, this output cannot be expected. So, the situation is a little complex. Alternatively, we might put our hope in the appearance of an enlightened leader. Perhaps, the experience with Thaksin would bring us to be skeptical re this possibility.

• 17 jeru // Feb 19, 2007 at 12:51 am

  Thai people weary of democracy perhaps because they see the same dishonest politicians return to power over and over again.

  It is the curse of Thai democracy that many who seek elected office feel they could make substantially more dishonest baht by being a dishonest MP or a dishonest minister, than by remaining a dishonest businessman or a dishonest policeman. Remind you someone doesn’t it?

• 18 Srithanonchai // Feb 19, 2007 at 3:06 am

  Unfortunately, many politicians have contributed substantially to the negative perception of them. However, I don’t necessarily see the “Thai people” as a collective being weary of politicians. This perspective seems to be distributed very unevenly in the Thai polity. Fort example, I don’t see the people of Supanburi being weary of democracy.

  Anyway, what is the alternative? What we see on the occasion of the current constitution-drafting exercise is that the royalist-military-bureaucratic elite, under the leadership of Charan (CDC, sub-committee on political institutions) tries to weaken politics, politicians, political parties and the government, meaning that power will move back to the remnants of the “bureaucratic polity,” to which some strong royalist elements have been added. Of course, this also means that the people, i.e. the voters, will be disempowered, compared to the constitution of 1997 (elimination of the party list system, introduction of single non-transferable vote, appointed senate).

  In short, one of the questions is whether one can strengthen politics by institutionally weakening it. And it is being weakened not in the name of the “national good”, but in order for the conservative forces to regain what they had lost in 1997. In other words, this is a power game.

• 19 anon // Feb 19, 2007 at 5:01 am

  On the contrary, most dishonest policemen and army officers are way richer than their politician counterparts. Did you take a look at the asset disclosures of the current government?

  Civil servants and judges, making a little per month, somehow found a way to accumulate tremendous wealth over the decades.

• 20 Srithanonchai // Feb 19, 2007 at 3:13 pm

  Since the subject was politicians, I did not mention police, soldiers, or bureaucrats. For sure, they are no less corrupt than the politicians. Commissions, position buying, len phak len phuak are very widespread. That’s one of the reason why I find these people accusing politicians hypocritical. What members on the CDA or the CDC are entirely clean, I wonder?

• 21 jeru // Mar 2, 2007 at 8:44 pm

  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.

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