The media coverage, particularly on television, of the Thai army has been peculiarly extensive in recent weeks. Most notably is the fact that the army is being portrayed in an almost exclusively positive light, doing all sorts of public service for the Thai people. Last night, for example, I watched the evening news on Channel 9 and the entire domestic news was focused on the “good deeds” the army was doing all over the country. This included rescue missions in flooded areas of the upper South, security work in the deep South, evacuation and emergency shelter preparation for border-town residents of Surin Province, patrols along the Thai-Cambodian border…the list goes on. I flipped over to another channel and it was the same story.
The army has long been part of the daily life in Thailand. It is indisputable that the main responsibilities of the Thai army stretch far beyond protecting sovereignty and national security to include functions such as natural disaster relief, internal security and animal rescue. While fewer young, educated people join the army today than in the past, being in the army still carries significant prestige among Thais. In fact, the notion that the presence of the army – or its militant culture – has penetrated Thai society in a variety of ways is truer than many would like to admit. Those following Thailand’s entertainment industry would know that the actor who plays King Naresuan in one of Thailand’s most popular (and most expensive) epics – The Legend of King Naresuan – is himself a lieutenant colonel. Scores of contemporary Thai lakorn and movies, such as Wanida, Legend of Suriyothai, Sam Pan Boke, Cha-leu Sak, just to name a few, continue to romanticize men in uniform.
This recent string of “positive” media coverage of the army’s various missions sits uncomfortably with a rumor of a possible coup that is spreading among close observers of Thai politics. Although the army still maintains a good grip on the media in Thailand, in general, it still strikes me as eerily odd that the army seems to be “everywhere” on the news. The seemingly one-sided story of the army’s work stands in sharp contrast to the violent and deteriorating situation between Thailand and Cambodia as well as the continued explosive situation in southern Thailand. I’m not disputing that the Thai army is “doing something”, but why the positive spin on everything they do (despite the outcomes)? Is the army trying to rally public support, via the media, before the election? Why? I fear we may already know their “hidden” agenda.
Probably in preparation of things to come
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Certainly a serious question. Well written, indeed. What is the alternative? The principle function of police is stability and tax collection. Without the army who would ensure tax collection?
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The army has a firm grip on Radio, and mainstream TV licenses. I don’t think ‘positive’ is cutting it.
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Benevolent or Machiavellian? The Thai army has been using the same means as the palace’s propaganda to justify their atrociousness. Soon enough we will see what they are up to.
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Let’s not get carried away.
The army pushing PR doesn’t suggest a coup in any direct way. It’s just as plausible that it’s a response to the fact that in the last two or three years their popularity has slipped. And that their fig leaf has been in the hospital for 18 months.
If I were Prayuth, I’d be trying for every possible way to keep power without a coup, since that would probably cause civil war, which is bad for business. And it’s all about business.
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I`ve noticed that the military in the USA is also treated with much more respect than was apparently the case just a few decades ago. I guess that this sort of `pro-military culture` is certainly linked to a country`s ability to go to war, organize coups, etc.
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Observer 6
Not to go too far off topic but the US was always quite happy with it’s forces smiting the heathen as long as it didn’t enter their living room over dinner.
The atrocities witnessed at My Lai and subsequent TV journalism changed that and the military learnt it’s lessons and put themin place.
The post 9/11 “War on Terror” bought terror to Iraq and Afghanistan but the depth of misery has been neutered and controlled. Atrocities are only trickling out of the militaries hermetically sealed body bag when some brave soul defies the system. We are then assured these ar e isolated events, though “precision bombing” and damage to civil infrastructure caused thousands of “collateral casualties” No body- filled ditches or screaming napalmed kids have been allowed this time.
Conversely thai media and society seem to crave these trophies, be it Songkran road kill, a jealous mans victim a “suspected” drug dealer or a movie actor in a hotel closet. But hey, each to his own. Thais appear to be more comfortable with the indignity of death, the great social leveller.
A body sprawled in a street indicates that persons lack of status or karmic fate. The good often do die young in Thailand and evil tends to accrue social status, respect, barami and inviolability.
This is the system.
If you work outside it, chances are you’ll wind up on the pavement. If you accept and follow you will prosper. What would you choose?
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“Atrocities are only trickling out of the militaries hermetically sealed body bag when some brave soul defies the system.”
Except when the Assassin in Chief goes on TV to brag about having ordered the execution of yet another ‘suspected terrorist’. That’s special treatment, of course, he doesn’t ‘drone’ on about the now near daily toll of people, women and children, assassinated on ‘suspicion’ of ‘terrorism’ at his order by remote control. Our USA has hit the greased skids of moral collapse. We’re cheering assassinations in the streets now, with our President acting the Cheerleader in Chief.
The Army’s propaganda in Thailand covers, for instance, its recent displacement of 50,000 and the dozen or so documented deaths it caused for no reason at all among Thais with its aggression against Cambodia. Who knows the damage to the other side.
The Thai military is busily assuring an endless supply of opponents in the South by dint of its own terrorism under the aegis of the ISOC, as well. The US military is doing the same on a worldwide scale.
The military is the military is the military. Its only ‘tool’ is a gun and everything looks like a target. Using its only ‘tool’ ensures the eternal recurrence of its ‘problem’ and hence the perpetual employment of its ‘tool’, and so the opportunity to do more and more ‘good’.
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I don’t agree with the proposition that media coverage of the army has been systematically biased.
Criticism of recent political sabre rattling by the military has been front page news, and justly so. How did you miss it?
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To Aim Sinpeng (the author),
your argument on men in uniform is a fallacy, at least to me.
Not only Thai that fancy men in Uniform. All culture, since the ancient time, relate men in uniform with sexual desire or drive. This is simple human psychology…nothing to do with Thai politics.
Your exampleห from วนิดา เชลยศักดิ์ are not valid in this sense. Major roles in both stories do not represent to power of state. On the other hand, they are pure romance. Men, masculinity, strength in sexual fantasy of women….that is what they represent.
ok?
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You know, what we really need is a text of the quality of the King Never Smiles which deals with the Thai military. Why the preoccupation with the palace when the power lies with generals? Who are these generals? Are they related? Are military positions effectively passed on down the family line? What business interests do the generals have? what is their wealth? etc.
Over to you, Mr Handley!
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Mariner – Paul Chambers presents a much more accurate analysis of the Thai military, and their actions, than Handley’s very flawed account.
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Chris: any chance you can specify how Handley, writing on the monarchy, is wrong on the military and on what Chambers gets right. I have read both and am not at all sure of the basis for comparison.
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Ralph – simply to begin with, there are TWO major weaknesses in Handley’s account of Bumiphol during the Suchinda period, eg. Handley’s account of events leading up to the 1991 coup led by General Suchinda :
Handley seems to think Bumiphol should have EARLIER come out clearly against the Suchinda clique, when
1) the coup had proved popular, and
2) the clique initially appeared as a clean-up operation against Chavalit’s notoriously “unusually rich Buffet Cabinet”.
I simply don’t see how the supposedly politically neutral Head of State could have moved earlier, until knowing beyond a shadow of doubt that he was backed up by Suchinda-opposing, i.e. Prem-backed, sections of the military.
The Head of State’s PRIMARY duty was to preserve the stability and unity of the nation.
Chambers seems to say this better than Handley.
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Ralph – my apologies : the above should read – “eg. Handley’s account of events leading up to the May ’92 massacre, AFTER the 1991 coup led by General Suchinda.”
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I’m not sure I am getting this Chris. You seem to say that Handley suggests an interventionist king should have intervened earlier while Chambers believes the king was not interventionist because that his his legal role. I don’t have either book at hand just now (I’m holidaying on a river), so can’t check, but it seems that if Chambers is claiming the king is not interventionist, then a question is raised? Sorry if I am misunderstanding.
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Ralph – all monarch’s, and possibly all Heads of State, are ultimately interventionist – to some extent. This is called the “Reserve Powers of The Crown”.
The UK – and Australia’s – Queen Elizabeth undoubtedly has them, and Thailand’s Sovereign even more so. But obviously they have to be exercised with care, caution and circumspection – they are, after all : “reserve”.
It does seem to me that Chambers does a better job appreciating the subtleties involved, than Handley.
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Chris: the Bagehot line on reserve powers is one usually trotted out by monarchists when defending the king as being under the constitution. That it bears no relation to Thailand in this reign has been demonstrated in several English-language academic works, so I don’t think Handley is out of place there.
If the question is about 1992, then one might begin with the account in the new big book:
The coup and the king’s role is glossed; Suchinda’s role is whitewashed; and Chamlong is blamed for leading an “overwhelmingly peaceful crowd” on a march meant to take the demonstrators to Government House, “close to Chitralada Villa, King Bumibhol’s main residence” (p. 152). By “glossed” I mean that there is no mention of the king’s support for the coup and his attacks on Chatichai.
It gets worse, claiming that “[i]ll-equipped and poorly trained” police “attempted to hold back violent elements that had infiltrated the crowd” (p. 153). The city, it is claimed, “descended into anarchy.” The story becomes bizarre: first the demonstrators are peaceful ; then they are attacking the army. The troops are reported as only firing in the air, but the Royal Hotel becomes a “casualty ward as the dead and wounded were brought in…” (p. 153). Who was shooting them then? The crowd is said to have thinned and there are “[w]ell-trained arsonists with a more sinister agenda…” who are burning down government buildings. The royal “history” continues stating (p. 153): “The distinctive thump of heavy machine guns could be heard…. [no mention of who was using the guns] Just before first light, … the [Royal] hotel was stormed by veteran infantrymen who arrested everyone on the premises without firing a single shot.”
It as if the machine guns were disembodied and as if the horrible video images of “veteran infantrymen” kicking men and women, smashing them with rifle butts and stomping on their semi-naked bodies with heavy boots simply doesn’t exist.
The next night is described as “outright criminality and opportunistic score settling” (p. 154).
This section of the book is a travesty, but it undoubtedly reflects the palace’s view of this event and implicitly supports the long-held view that the palace and king supported the military-police crackdown. On the king’s role, the palace’s story is: “… in Bangkok observers were asking about King Bumibhol’s whereabouts.” It repeats rumours that the king didn’t know what was happening and even that he might have been a “prisoner.” There’s no explanation as to his whereabouts until the video of him meeting Suchinda and Chamlong on their knees. The king refers to the protesters and not the military when he says: “… when people get in a state of blind fury and act in uncontrolled violence…”. He worried that the situation would “lead the country to complete ruin” (p. 154).
The king’s collusion with the House Speaker in appointing the next prime minister is glossed over as a victory. The man who became PM, Anand Panyarachun explains that this extraordinary appointment was necessary because “there was complete chaos” (p. 155). Of course, there’s no evidence for this. It is just the palace meddling, a bit like 2008 and the judicial coup then.
Anand finds it necessary to affirm that the king’s action was not in breach of the constitution. Of course, it was a clear breach. The book is forced to refer to “reserve power, prestige and moral authority to pull the country back from the brink of calamity…” (p. 156). Of course, this is also a royalist interpretation of the king’s partisan political interventions in 1992 and at other times. Notice the addition of “prestige and moral authority.” That helps the ideologues explain the interventions.
Believe it if you must.
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Ralph, like Handley, you obviously don’t appreciate the subtleties involved.
Chambers does.
Your Bagehot line is a bit rich. Another of your sweeping generalisations.
I was there in May ’92. In Ratchadamonen, just by Nang Lerng police station, on the West side, when the first shots fired out. “The distinctive thump” of guns – the first, and only, time I’ve ever heard such a thing. An American journalist, working for one of the major networks, came rushing with the crowd, from the East side, to where I was standing. The demonstration at Fan Fa Bridge had been largely peaceful that night, until then – obviously in some shock, he blurted out to me that two men had come out of a building and with pistols – started firing directly into the crowd. I heard those shots – intermittently, for about twenty minutes. They achieved their aim : the crowd then exploded in anger. There were definitely agent provocateurs at work – through-out May ’92.
Handley did n’t do a good job of reporting these events. Like you – he seems to want to over-generalise, and is too quick to blame Bumiphol, without REALLY knowing the subtleties. Chambers does n’t make this mistake.
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All this talk of 1992 reminds me that we should not fall into the trap of seeing ‘the army’ as a monolithic institution. Remember that both Suchinda and Chamlong had been through Chulachomklao – they were just in different classes. I remember speaking (on the streets in ’92) to a Brigadier and a former Squadron Leader during the disturbances. Both had very different ideas about what might happen, as did a senior officer from 2nd Cavalry division.
I think it’s important to recognise that some of these fissures may have widened over the ensuing years.
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Nic Stuart – I 100% agree.
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CB #19
I was also in the Pha Arthit Phan Fa Bridge area in 1992 and your version of the events doesn’t seem to accord with reality at all. In fact, it seems to be not much more than the Thai officialdom version with a dubious anecdote”
“An American journalist, working for one of the major networks, came rushing with the crowd, from the East side, to where I was standing. The demonstration at Fan Fa Bridge had been largely peaceful that night, until then – obviously in some shock, he blurted out to me that two men had come out of a building and with pistols – started firing directly into the crowd. I heard those shots – intermittently, for about twenty minutes. They achieved their aim : the crowd then exploded in anger. There were definitely agent provocateurs at work – through-out May ’92.”
The reason no one else has ever told this story is that it is just not true.
Peaceful army, violent third hand = propaganda
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