Thai Hotel

I’ve been told I can no longer write about the coup for various magazines in Thailand. As frustrating as this is, I understand the position editors are in.

I don’t want to talk excessively about the coup and the Constitution, but there are still some elements of it that I want to explore. I’ve written a few pieces about the coup on my blog and have taken a keen interest in gaining a better understanding of what has been happening recently.

Not everyone is happy with the way events unfolded after the coup. The September 19 Network Against Coup D’etat are a group who have been expressing a very different viewpoint than we have been led to believe exists in Thailand. The Thai media has been reluctant to put forward this side of the story.

I for one am leaning towards showing my outright support for this group because they seem to represent something about the universal values of human rights and democracy.

Is it true that now we are in a state of martial law that all corruption in Thailand now ceases to exist? Certainly not, and furthermore, some are justifying the actions of the bloodless coup, as it were, by saying that it has avoided violence. Maybe so, but it has overturned democracy. Sometimes violence is a necessary side-product of democracy.

As ugly as it may be, the people need that right to be violent and to protest and stand up for what they believe in. Democracy cannot be expected to be peaceful and Eden-like at all times. Surely this much has been learnt from the past.

The fact remains that the coup leaders have the ability within their power to change the present climate any way they see fit. If the people were to rise up then this could force a situation whereby elections could be called for.

Do not think that by me speaking out against the coup that I am in favour of Thaksin. This is simply not true. Some people seem to be under the impression that the only options are “Thaksin or tanks.” Since when did this become the case? Whilst I understand that Thaksin was a very corrupt, thuggish man, he served many of his 16 million voters effectively. He acted unethically, but let me ask you once more, is a Thaksin-free Thailand now also corruption-free? Not at all.

What also concerns me is that a lot of people are quick to say how this is how Thailand does it, how this is the way that Thai democracy works. This is the exact point of view that supporters of the September 19th Network Against Coup D’etat are fighting against. Thailand has moved on a lot in recent years and the backlash of this is a large group of people who have come to understand universal values of democracy.

The main problem comes with the rural poor. When I said two weeks back about Thailand emulating Western values, I meant amongst the more privileged classes, in the larger cities, where anti-coup movements like this are a reality. The situation is, of course, different for the rural poor who do not care for Western values and only care for how they can immediately benefit from the political situation. This is why they supported Thaksin, because the benefit was very immediate.

Whilst the bigger cities rely on Western practices, on the farms it is not quite like this. This highlights the very real problem of the divide between the elite and the poor.

Furthermore, the rural masses are not interested in freedom of speech. They are only interested, to the best of my understanding, in what they can get here and now, and this comes in the form of superficial benefits. Therefore, what should be key in Thailand should be educating the millions of people who have the power to vote in what that vote actually means.

It’s a very complicated and volatile situation, and one that I often struggle to get my head around. Part of me wants the slightly romantic and unpredictable nature of democracy to be reintroduced, but then how can this democracy be ideally utilized if nobody actually understands what it means? Sometimes I think the Orwellian nightmare is the only solution.

I support the ideal behind what the September 19 Network are saying, but at the same time I am aware that this ideal is far from perfect because it is an ideal for the social elites. If there were no rural classes then fine, the power could be returned to the people more easily, but as it is it seems like the damage done by Thaksin’s educating the masses will take years to fix. Even so, however, I still believe overthrowing the 1997 constitution was not the right thing to do because of the lack of freedom of expression in place now.

The future looks very bleak.

Matt Crook is a Bangkok based writer and editor who relocated to Thailand from the UK in July 2005. His commentary on the Land of Smiles and the issues facing a 23-year-old expat can be found on his personal blog WhatisMatt.com

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Thai premier Surayud Chulanont has reacted to escalating violence in Thailand’s southernmost regions by traveling to the area and making his latest move towards ending decades of violence.

The insurgency in southern Thailand has received major media attention in the wake of a series of violent incidents centered in the three southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.

The history of this separatist movement can be traced back to the early twentieth century when in 1902 Patani was annexed by Thailand (then known as Siam). Seven years later Thailand was given sovereignty over the region from a treaty with Great Britain. Patani was divided into the three aforementioned provinces, along with two districts of Songkhla, in 1933.

Patani was originally a Malay Sultanate and as a result more than three quarters of the population in the three southern provinces today are Muslim. Whilst having some linguistic and cultural similarities with the Malays of Malaysia, Thailand’s southern Malay community retains a distinct individuality and sense of independence.

As far back as the 1930s there has been a drive to establish an independent southern state. The movement has taken many forms and the ideology has shifted between a desire to establish this independent state and a desire to establish cultural autonomy. Separatist groups have continued to be active until the present day.

The resurgence of violence at the turn of the new millennium has cast a deathly shadow over Thailand’s southernmost area. The problems have not been helped by the words and actions of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his government who until 2004 insisted that criminal gangs, as opposed to insurgents, were responsible for the violence.

When martial law was declared in the southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat in January of 2004, the situation worsened as Thai troops and police were responsible for the deaths of more than a hundred Muslims in a series of attacks.

Attempts to set up a dialogue with the insurgents have been riddled with problems surrounding the anonymity of the movements’ leaders.

On August 31, 22 banks were simultaneously bombed in Yala, whilst on September 16 six motorcycle bombs killed four people in Hat Yai as attacks overran into the neighboring province. Bloodshed continued to spill onto the streets of the southern provinces as the military coup of September 19 approached.

The military coup and current political volatility in Thailand has done little to quell the friction in the South and attacks have persisted. On Thursday November 2, military-appointed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont made a speech to 1200 Muslims in Pattani province apologizing for the problems created by the previous government, primarily resulting from the Kru Se Mosque and Tak Bai incidents which occurred in April and October of 2004 respectively.

The Kru Se Mosque incident occurred when 32 insurgents sought refuge in Pattani’s most sacred place of worship after a coordinated attack on 100 police outposts. Army commander Pallop Pinmanee ordered troops to storm the mosque and all 32 rebels were killed.

The Tak Bai massacre was spurred by a demonstration demanding the release of six men arrested for allegedly supplying weapons to insurgents. The demonstration became a massacre when the army used tear gas to control the crowd. Shooting began shortly after and scores of locals were rounded up, piled as many as five people high in trucks and driven for five hours. 85 men died in all, 78 of whom suffocated in the trucks.

The newly-installed premier’s pledge to rid the southern provinces of violence has thus far been unsuccessful as attacks continue to break out on an almost daily basis. Surayud stated that his government will only use peaceful means to end the century long tensions, although there has been no mention of the possibility of an independent state. Surayud has rather made clear that his intentions are to unify Thailand.

The Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre was recently revived, after a five year absence, and is now headed by Phranai Suwannarat who has been charged with instilling peace into the region.

The current government has been very vocal about the negative implications of the previous government’s actions, but as of yet it is unclear how the newly-revived body will tackle the situation.

Surayud has already done what Thaksin refused to: he has apologized. However, this is only a single step on an already long journey that will most likely take years to complete. If Thailand is to unify itself then measures must be taken to remove the feelings of alienation felt by the country’s Muslim population.

The author of this article can be found at WhatisMatt.com.

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