Democracy: Two years after Rajprasong crackdown & Red Shirts still cry “No Justice, No Peace”

/ May 19, 2012

The more things change, the more they stay the same

  • By Tammy, Thai Intel’s humanity journalist

I just got back from the 2 year anniversary of the crack-down on the Red Shirts protest at Rajprasong, that 2 years ago caused bout 100 civilian death.

I went to sit with my Red Shirts friend.

I have been to enough of them to know what the speeches tonight will be about, and it is bloody hot at Rajprasong. Way too hot for me to stay. Perhaps tonight, late night, I will do back, to look at the Red Shirts dance.

The conversation, with my Red Shirts friends, was on a Red Shirts MP, who was disqualified by the courts yesterday as an MP, and setting the stage for Yingluck’s political party to be dissolved.

“It’s just the establishment way to keep Yingluck on a leash,” said a friend.

“Yeah sure, after everything Yingluck is doing for the establishment,” said another friend.

I felt depressed, and start thinking, drifting away from the conversation.

  • When Bhumibol, a young man then, became the King Buhmibol of Thailand, he said he will rule Thailand with justice. Since then, even now on TV, the promotional video of him will often re-run those words.

Those words are shown, with Bhumibol picture, on the thrown for the first time, as King.

  • Have he rule Thailand with justice?

A few years back, before the 2006 coup, when the royalist Yellow Shirts and the Democrat Party was active, in destabilizing Thailand under the Thaksin government, King Buumibol, in a meeting with senior judges, said quote:

  • “You as judge can help solve Thailand’s problem.”

While most sees the Thai King as meaning well, those words, in fact, ushered in to Thailand a period of blatent “Judicialization” of Thailand under establishment rule that is still in effect today.

And Thailand drifted far away from democracy, liberty, justice and human rights, top off by a coup, that insitutionalized all the in-justices about Thailand.

That judicialized Thailand, have resulted in the World Justice Report, reporting during the Abhisit government that, quote: “The Thai civil justice is under political influences.”

  • The sad fact is, Thailand, under the Thai King, even going back to the origin of modern Thai politics, have seldom experienced justice.

Even since before Bhumibol became King, during those transition period, from Absolute Monarchy to Constitutional Monarchy, there were little justice, but Thailand was filled with mysterious intrigued.

  • But what of the future?

If one thing is clear after all those up-rising of the past in Thailand and all the slaughtering Thais on the street every now and then, the establishment, have “Swallowed” all the dissent, into its “Mass” of superstructure socio-cultural existence.

  • Never, was anything learned from the past.

Thailand today, is still very much the same as Thailand, of the first day Bhumibol became King. The only real differences, is the economic development.

But the socio-cultural, political superstructure, and the nature of Thai politics, is “Absolutely Exactly” the same.

And Yingluck is proving how much “The Same” things are, as in the past. All the in-justices that have occurred in the past few years, is still there, on her road to reconcile Thailand.

  • The new constitution is poised to disappoint those who are looking for democracy, the lese majeste law, the root cause, of many injustices in Thailand, will likely be the same. The death and imprisonment of political prisoners, looks like it will be un-accounted for and not re-solved.

And the dream that the royalist Yellow Shirts and the Democrat Party, facing justice, is a far fetch expectation.

There is no doubt, that the Thai establishment is “Swallowing Up” Yingluck, bit by bit, weakening her, and the end of Yingluck’s Pheu Thai Party, is only a matter of time.

  • What is normal in Thailand?

The sad fact is, “Injustice,” is just a normal part of Thailand, where the philosophy is, “Feed the Thais just enough justice to keep the establishment on top.” And if justice becomes a threat to the Thai establishment, often, a coup is called.

Everything in Thailand is geared to get back at business as usual. The mode of thinking by most leaders in Thailand is getting Thailand back to “Normal.”

Every crisis in Thailand, in the past, ever since Constitutional Monarchy has been brushed off as “Oddity Event” meaning something that is just simply not-normal.

  • All those crisis, as far as the Thai establishment is concerned, are  “Freak Incidents” that pops up now and then, that should be left alone to dissolved into nothingness, and again, swallowed up by the superstructure of “Normalcy.”

In sum, “In-justices is normal in Thailand and wanting justice, is the odd state.” Thailand, indeed, is ruled by justice, held and controlled by the establishment.

Today, Thailand is still as far away from democracy, liberty, justice and human rights, as the first day Bhumibol became King Bhumibol of Thailand.

  • The following is from AP:

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, May 18, 7:10 PM

BANGKOK — Just two years ago, Thailand was at war with itself. Rifle shots and exploding grenades rang out in Bangkok as troops crushed through barricades to disperse a nine-week-old insurrection. A retired nurse was the last to capitulate.

“I stood before the soldiers and asked if they wanted to shoot me, or arrest me,” said Phussadee Ngamkham, now 57, who became a hero of the Red Shirt protest movement by refusing to budge while others fled a final crackdown by soldiers on May 19, 2010, after weeks of deadly street fighting.

 “At that time, I had made a promise with my Red Shirt brothers and sisters that if we didn’t get democracy, I wouldn’t go home,” she said.

Those days of mayhem, which pitted Thailand’s rural masses against a government they decried as elitist and which left at least 90 people dead and almost 2,000 injured, now seem a world away.

An election has since given an overwhelming mandate to the party most closely allied with the protesters, and the normally peaceful Buddhist country has returned to its routines and tourists to its tropical beaches.

Much of the us-versus-them vitriol has dissipated, giving way — for now — to an apparent acceptance on both sides that while neither the current government nor its predecessors are perfect, elections may be better than street violence for deciding the country’s future.

Still, deep divisions remain, and many wonder how long this phase will last.

“It’s stability on the surface. The conflicts are still there,” said Michael Nelson, a Thai studies lecturer at Walailak University in southern Thailand. “It’s a return to business as usual, and as long as there’s no really outstanding point of conflict, … nothing much will happen. There is no reason to get out on the street.”

On Saturday, Red Shirt supporters will go back to central Bangkok to peacefully mark the anniversary. Like most Red Shirt rallies it will include an evening video appearance by ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra. He fled into exile after being ousted by a 2006 military coup, and was convicted of corruption in absentia.

The 2010 conflict was largely between supporters of Thaksin — whose populist policies made him the rural poor’s hero — and supporters of Thailand’s traditional powerholders in the royal palace and the military.

Part of the reason for the current state of peace is because Thaksin’s supporters have been appeased by the new prime minister, Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra. She won her 2011 campaign by a landslide and ended the premiership of Abhisit Vejjajiva, a staunch Thaksin opponent who ordered the May 19 crackdown on anti-government protesters who were demanding that his government immediately resign.

Yingluck has continued in the spirit of her brother’s populist policies, cementing her rural base and winning over others who were not initially supporters. She has increased the minimum wage, handed out ample tax refunds to the budding middle class and endeared rice farmers with a new program that pays them above market rates for rice.

Many Thais who oppose Thaksin have come to terms with his sister’s government, saying she has managed to maintain an uneasy but welcome calm. And Thai politics has not yet produced a viable alternative to the Thaksin camp.

“I’m not satisfied with this government, but to be honest the Abhisit government wasn’t any better,” said Siriluk Pornchaitipparat, an anti-Thaksin cafe owner who had to shut her central Bangkok shop for 10 days in 2010 when the Red Shirt rioting raged in her neighborhood.

“No matter how incompetent I think Yingluck is and no matter how much I’d like to reject the current government, I don’t see any other choices who can compete with them effectively,” she said. “Life goes on as usual but we don’t know when another round of demonstrations will occur. Maybe when Thaksin returns.”

Yingluck’s unstated priority is to ease the way for her brother to return without serving the two-year sentence for corruption in office that he fled to avoid.

Thaksin himself has said he would like to return to Thailand this year, a prospect that would surely fire up the other camp of protesters in Thailand, known as the anti-Thaksin Yellow Shirts, who also have wreaked havoc on Bangkok streets over the past half-dozen years.

Yingluck’s ruling party has pushed for a broad amnesty bill for political leaders, supporters and security forces involved in the 2010 unrest — seen as an attempt to pave the way for Thaksin’s return.

New York-based Human Rights Watch warned against such a measure as an affront to reconciliation, and has criticized both Yingluck’s and Abhisit’s government for failing to bring to justice a single soldier or official for the scores of deaths and injuries that occurred during the political violence.

“This gives the green light for … people in uniform to do this again next time,” said Brad Adams, the group’s Asia director.

At least one lasting legacy of the Red Shirt movement is the political awakening of Thailand’s majority of rural and urban poor. Phussadee, the former nurse known as the “Last Red Shirt,” said she’ll hold the government to account regardless of whether or not it hails from her side of the country’s political divide.

She said the Red-Yellow divisions in her neighborhood remain, though she is happy to note the hostility has eased.

“Without the mob mentality, people tend to think with reasons, not emotions. The Yellows are thinking what they did was not totally right and now the Red Shirts also see that the government they supported is not perfect either,” she said.

“I think I have accomplished the goal that I fought for two years ago, but it’s still just the first step,” she said. “I’m giving this government four years before they lose my support.”

Related articles

Related posts

Leave a comment