Thai court dismisses murder charges against Abhisit and Suthep

Originally published at Siam Voices on August 29, 2014 Thailand's Criminal Court has dismissed murder charges against former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his then-Deputy pPM Suthep Thuagsuban for their roles in the violent crackdown on anti-government protesters in 2010. Over 90 people were killed and thousands injured (both protesters and security officers) when the military dispersed the red shirt protesters after weeks of rallies in central Bangkok. The protesters were calling for the resignation of Abhisit's government and a new election.

The Criminal Court's decision on Thursday seems to stem from a technicality:

The court said it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case because the two men held public office at the time of the protest.

"The court has no jurisdiction to consider the case because the two were a prime minister and deputy prime minister," a judge said on Thursday. "The charges relate to political office holders. The criminal court therefore dismisses the charges."

"Thai court dismisses murder charges against former PM, deputy", Reuters, August 28, 2014

The charge against Abhisit and Suthep was filed in late 2012 by police, prosecutors and the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) on the latter's recommendation and followed a growing number of court rulings saying that protesters were killed by bullets fired by soldiers.

Suthep, who was in charge of national security and thus tasked with overseeing the security situation during the protests as director of the Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situation (CRES), authorized security forces to disperse the protests back in 2010 (including the use of deadly force) and has since then repeatedly rejected any responsibility or blame for the deaths of the protesters. At one point he even suggetsed that they "ran into the bullets". In late 2013, he quit Abhisit's Democrat Party and became an unlikely protest leader against the government of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra (who the red shirts support).

The nearly half year of prolonged rallies and sabotaging created the political impasse the military used a pretext to carry out a coup on May 22 - Suthep claims this to be planned since 2010. Ever since the coup and a very brief detainment by the junta, Suthep has entered Buddhist monkhood and is essentially under political asylum.

Thursday's dismissal means that any accountability on the army's part is very unlikely, especially under the military junta. Its leader, army chief and Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha was deputy commander-in-chief during the 2010 crackdown and since becoming army chief a year later he has actively interfered in the DSI's investigation:

On August 16, 2012, Prayuth told the Justice Ministry’s Department of Special Investigation to stop accusing soldiers of killing demonstrators during the government’s crackdown on the “Red Shirt” protest in 2010 and not to report publicly on the progress of its investigations. Prayuth has denied any army abuses during the violence in which at least 98 people died and more than 2,000 were injured, despite numerous accounts by witnesses and other evidence.

Prayuth is also using Thailand’s archaic criminal defamation law to deter public criticism, Human Rights Watch said. On August 17, Prayuth ordered an army legal officer to file a criminal defamation complaint against Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer representing the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) and exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and Amsterdam’s translator. At a UDD rally on May 19, Amsterdam gave a speech in which he alleged that the army committed brutality against demonstrators for which it should be held accountable.

"Thailand: Army Chief Interfering in Investigations", Human Rights Watch, August 23, 2012

The DSI chief Tharit Pengdit, who reportedly apologized to Prayuth for the accusations back then, was removed from his post shortly following the military coup.

While the main charge of premeditated murder has been dropped by the Criminal Court for now, it doesn't mean the end of legal challenges for Abhisit and Suthep, as other avenues have already been explored:

Since a petition has also been filed against Mr Abhisit and Mr Suthep with the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which is responsible for handling criminal cases against politicians, the court also ruled that if the NACC finds the petition against them has sufficient grounds, the graft agency is duty-bound to forward the case to the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Posts for further consideration.

"Abhisit, Suthep murder case rejected", Bangkok Post, August 28, 2014

Given Thursday's dismissal by the Criminal Court, the generally slow pace of the investigations and the current ruling military junta, it will be now even less than likely that anybody from the past Abhisit administration - let alone the army - be held accountable for the deaths during the 2010 protests, as prolonged impunity adds to the growing pile of reasons for the political conflict, no matter who is calling the shots right now.

Opinion: Abhisit’s ‘reform proposal’ a losing bet

Originally published at Siam Voices on May 6, 2014 The reform proposal tabled by opposition Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva has left many asking not only about its probability, but how serious he was with it, writes Saksith Saiyasombut

There's no blame for trying, but there's no reward for poor execution.

In the past two weeks, Abhisit Vejjajiva made headlines again by re-imagining himself as a mediator in an increasingly dangerous political stalemate, pledging to talk to all sides and come up with a plan for a way out of the crisis within 10 days (we reported).

"I understand that my proposals cannot satisfy the wishes and demands of all sides, not even within the Democrat Party, or those seen to be on my side. But I believe that this is the correct direction in order for our country to move forward," he said at the beginning of his quest.

There was no question that it was going to be an ambitious undertaking to foster a consensus for the immediate political future among the caretaker government, the anti-government protesters and other power brokers, formal and informal alike. Over half a year has gone by where the political discourse in Thailand has come to a grinding halt.

What was presented by the leader of the opposition Democrat Party last Saturday in a Bangkok hotel ballroom, however, was nothing but a complete and utter flop.

Abhisit proposed that the planned elections on July 20 to be postponed for "5 or 6 months", so that an appointed committee can draw up "reforms" to be put to a referendum, while the country is ruled by a "neutral" caretaker government with "limited powers" for a year. He additionally demanded that the caretaker government of interim Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra step down in order to make way for his proposal.

In many points Abhisit's proposal emulated those non-democratic calls for a "People's Assembly" by the anti-government protesters, who also demand "reform before elections." Nobody has detailed what the reforms actually should look like.

That alone would have drawn heavy skepticism from the Yingluck cabinet and its supporters. However, there were many more points in Abhisit's proposal that raised more questions than answers, never mind its possible legal problems.

For instance, he suggested that these barely mentioned reforms should be drawn up in part by the (until now) largely unknown "Reform Now Network," the impartiality of which has to be questioned. Furthermore, he has completely shut out the pro-government red shirts while elevating the anti-government protesters to the position of equal political stakeholder, if not even more.

This whole thing was nothing more than an attempt by Abhisit to bring himself and his Democrat Party back into the current political narrative after being sidelined and more often than not upstaged by the anti-government protests for the past six months - ironically led by former Democrat secretary-general Suthep Thuagsuban and carried by many former party executives in addition to a large, shared supporter base.

Thus, it was hardly a surprise that the interim cabinet flat-out rejected it. What Abhisit probably didn't expect though - despite all the concessions and perks he gave to them - was the rejection by the protesters as well, including their two militant wings.

This shows how politically marginalized he and his party are now. But that didn't happen overnight. It has been a self-inflicted slow decline, sfrom the 2011 election defeat and to the Democrat Party's boycott of the most recent election (partially botched thanks to mob blockades on election day associated with them).

While Abhisit has admitted for the first time that his party might have been "part of the problem" as well, their problems remain the same: the failure to acknowledge what got them to this place and why they haven't been able to win an election for 20 years.

It shouldn't even play that much of a role anymore now that the Democrats have threatened to again boycott the next election should Abhisit's proposal be rejected, since the caretaker government will carry on with the next attempt to have polls on July 20, which could likely be targeted by the anti-government protesters again.

We may never really know if Abhisit was really sincere with his proposal, but his willingness to step aside politically in exchange for it to be accepted would have been just a very small sacrifice considering his marginalized credibility in the current big picture that only further symbolizes the ongoing decline of the Democrat Party and the desperate need for a change of direction - and ultimately a new leadership.

Will Abhisit's 'middle man'-approach end Thailand's political impasse?

Originally published at Siam Voices on April 30, 2014 The efforts of Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva to mediate in the ongoing political crisis is being welcomed by some and regarded with skepticism by others. What is the opposition leader's rationale after all these months, asks Saksith Saiyasombut

The past few days saw a man with his right arm in a sling, but also wearing his new ambitions on his sleeve. Abhisit Vejjajiva, former prime minister of Thailand and the leader of the opposition Democrat Party, is seeking a compromise across all political battle lines as fears of ongoing political tensions escalating into more violence grow.

For six months now the anti-government protests led by Abhisit's former deputy prime minister and former Democrat Party heavyweight Suthep Thuagsuban have taken Thailand's political discourse to dangerous extremes. Within that turmoil the opposition Democrat Party wasn't quite so sure where to position itself in all this, especially considering that many Democrat executives and supporters waged their battle outside parliament on the streets instead.

This dilemma grew bigger when the ruling Pheu Thai Party and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra dissolved parliament in December and called for new elections. Since its chances at the polls were low as always and delusions confidence of the protesters at an high, the Democrat Party was left with the choice either to compete in the elections or to boycott them - or in their own words, either "killing" or "crippling" the party respectively, knowing that "it will hurt either way," as Abhisit noted then. Ultimately, the party decided to "cripple" itself and not to take part in the elections.

Despite the February 2 elections being successfully ruined by an obstructionist Election Commission and by mob blockades, and later annulled by the Constitutional Court, the Democrats still weren't quite sure where to position themselves other than beating the same "reform-before-elections" drum of Suthep's protesters. But with the mounting legal challenges against interim PM Yingluck at the Constitutional Court and at the National Anti-Corruption Commission taking longer than its rivals would have liked in order to oust her caretaker government, the political crisis steered closer and closer to an impasse. Meanwhile, the number of anti-government protesters has dwindled, with the hardcore  retreating to Bangkok's Lumphini Park.

Abhisit himself, while recovering from a broken collarbone after a fall at home last month, has now decided to re-position himself as the mediator between the warring factions.

Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva has volunteered to spearhead efforts to break the current political deadlock by personally approaching key political figures to sell them on the ideas of reform. (...)

Appearing in a three-minute video clip posted on YouTube Thursday, Mr Abhisit said the only way to solve the political problems and move the country towards progress and stability is reform.

"I believe that the only way forward for the country is through reform, undertaken constitutionally and democratically with elections an integral part of the process,” he said. He did not elaborate on his reform ideas, saying he wanted to meet key individuals and groups to convince them in person. (...)

Mr Abhisit expects to complete the series of meetings within seven days.

However, he did not place the blame on any particular group. "Now is not the time to play the blame game because everyone is accountable for the situation our country is facing, including the Democrat Party and myself," he said.

"Abhisit offers to head efforts to end deadlock", Bangkok Post, April 25, 2014

Since his highly publicized pledge to bring everyone back to the table, Abhisit had a series of meetings with the military, the permanent secretary for justice and also intends to meet interim Yingluck, to name a few. However, there are no signals from her ruling Pheu Thai Party and their red shirt supporters, while the anti-government protesters have straight up slammed the door on Abhisit's mediator efforts and any talks whatsoever.

Abhisit's approach looks much more level-headed on the surface compared to the shrill and uncompromising calls for an unconstitutional power-grab by Suthep or others. Some might even say that Abhisit is distancing himself from the protesters and finally stepping up to be part of the political solution rather than being part of the problem, even though that might alienate a large section of the Democrat Party's Bangkok-based voters.

However, it is still unknown what exactly his "minor reforms" would look like and Abhisit remains vague in interviews after his personal meetings behind closed doors. He also has yet to reveal what the Democrat Party itself will do in order to move things forward, as it has yet to acknowledge the need for inner-party reform. Also, in a meeting with the Election Commission on Tuesday, which is currently aiming for a new election date some time this summer, Abhisit has hinted that might still be too early.

In fact, in all his public statements during the past week Abhisit has been very non-committal whether or not his party will be taking part in the next election. That might be indicative of the Democrat Party (and others) waiting for the outcome of the legal charges against the Yingluck caretaker government (see above). In other words: Abhisit could be waiting for the political playing field to be re-defined or entirely cleared out of their political rivals.

For now, we will have to wait until Abhisit wraps up his mediation tour to see if the intentions he's wearing on his sleeve are real, or if he's actually hiding another card up his sleeves.

Tongue-Thai’ed!: Whistle blown on Abhisit's spurious pleas for reform

Originally published at Siam Voices on January 9, 2014 This is part XXIV of “Tongue-Thai’ed!”, an ongoing series where we collect the most baffling, amusing, confusing, outrageous and appalling quotes from Thai politicians and other public figures. Check out all past entries here.

Ever since deciding not to compete in the upcoming snap-elections on February 2 after a lot of meandering, the implosion of the opposition Democrat Party has left Thailand's political party in a bit of an existential downward spiral as it tries to echo the anti-election protesters' mantra of "reform before elections", while still grasp at the last bits of political relevancy the party has. In an effort to maintain that, the Democrat Party has launched its non-election campaign to discourage convince people to follow their boycott.

Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva held a speech at a party event called "Eradicate Corruption, Committed In Reforms" in Bangkok on Tuesday, when this happened:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BstwVBOvYM

Here's a description of what happened:

[...] an unidentified man stood up in the audience and blew his whistle. The audience mistook him as a supporter of Mr. Abhisit, since whistle-blowing has been a trademark of the anti-government protesters, and no one restrained him until he held up a sign which read - in English - "Respect My Vote!".

The heckler then shouted at Mr. Abhisit, "If you cannot even reform yourself, how can you reform the country?". Mr. Abhisit was visibly surprised by the incident, but the former leader tried to manage the confrontation by thanking the man for his remarks.

However, the heckler went on to shout, "When you were the government, why didn't you do it? Stop the discourse about anti-corruption. You have intimidated other people, so can they not intimidate you as well?".

"Heckler Tells Abhisit To 'Respect My Vote'", Khaosod English, January 7, 2014

The heckler was later identified to be a 34-year-old Bangkok businessman referred under his Facebook handle "Ake Auttagorn" who told Prachatai that he staged the one-man protest "out of frustration" at the political discourse now and that "Thailand already had this lesson many times before" with the Democrat Party "always at the center of it".

And this is how Abhisit reacted to the heckler...

"This is an example of reasons why we need reforms," Mr. Abhisit told the audience, "This is the form of Democrat Party′s rivals", to which the heckler shot back, "I am not your rival, I am the people!"

Security guards later surrounded the man and led him out of the room. After the heckler has been removed, Mr. Abhisit told the crowd that such harassment is a reason why the upcoming election on 2 February 2014 would not be a fair one.

"Heckler Tells Abhisit To 'Respect My Vote'", Khaosod English, January 7, 2014

While he at least didn't snap back at the heckler (and could have said something like, you know, "stupid bitch"), Abhisit failed to ackowledge that the need for reform is not because of a heckler disrupting him, but rather because of an uncompromising deliberate escalation by the political opposition and the anti-election protesters originating from a long-held contempt for electoral democracy, those who vote for their political rivals and the failure of the opposition to effectively present itself as a viable political alternative. The Democrat Party has chosen to be part of the problem rather than being part of the solution, no matter how loud the whistle is being blown on them.

Siam Voices 2013 Review - Part 1: Blowing the final whistle on Thailand's political calm

Originally published at Siam Voices on December 27, 2013 Welcome to the Siam Voices 2013 year in review series, where we look back at the most important and interesting headlines, issues and stories that happened in Thailand this past year. Today we start with the political 2013, which looked very different when it started compared to the chaos on the street we have now - and it is far from being over.

NOTE: This was written before Thursday's escalation of violence that killed a police officer. Furthermore, the Election Commission is openly calling to indefinitely postpone the February 2 snap-elections, which was rejected by the caretaker government.

For a while, it looked like the government of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra was seemingly unshaken by almost everything this year. Neither the increasingly erratic and rabid opposition in and outside parliament nor the problems of their own policies threatened the relative stability of this rule - almost.

The government launched or continued a series of populist policies that were well-intended but not perfect. The rice-pledging scheme did not lift international market prices as anticipated and Thailand lost its top exporter spot. Instead, the country sits on millions of tons of stockpiled rice it cannot get rid of - if so, only at a loss. Furthermore the scheme was tainted by alleged corruption and scaremongering over its safety.

Other incentives didn't bring in the desired effects either, such as tax rebates for first-car-buyers that proved to be a short-term success but backfired later with car owners defaulting on their purchases, or the raise of the daily minimum wage to 300 Baht (about $10) that benefitted a lot of employees but was met with resistance by their employers, especially small and middle enterprises. Also, the 2 trillion Baht borrowing scheme drew considerable criticism, despite the fact that an overhaul of the country's crumbling infrastructure is much-needed.

Politically, Yingluck herself faced a volley of criticism, for example about her constant absence in parliament or the back-and-forth fallout after her uncharacteristically sharp and committed Mongolia-speech in late April. Even the various anti-government (and utterly mislabeled) groups over the year - "Pitak Siam", "Thai Spring", "V for Thailand", "PEFOT" etc. - were not able to do much, but in hindsight were a sign of things to come later that year.

Despite all this, Yingluck managed to maintain a tense, but relative calm in the Thai power struggle at least for the first half the year. Even the military didn't mind that much to have Yingluck taking up the defense minister portfolio in the last cabinet reshuffle.

Maybe that was the reason why her government and the ruling Pheu Thai Party (PT) felt so confident that they thought it could ram a broad amnesty bill through both parliament and senate. Initially only meant to absolve political protesters from the rallies between 2006 and 2010 but not their leaders (and none convicted of lèse majesté either), a parliamentary committee dominated by PT MPs did an audacious bait-and-switch and re-wrote to expand those "accused of wrongdoing by an organisation set up after the coup of 2006" - which would have included former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's conviction in 2008 and paved him his return to Thailand after years of self-imposed exile.

Protesters' explosion and Democrat Party's implosion

The Pheu Thai Party absolutely underestimated the outrage the bill would spark. It managed to create an amnesty bill broad enough to upset nearly everybody, even their own red shirt supporter base, since it also would have covered those responsible for the violent crackdown of 2010. Thaksin, who undoubtedly still wields considerable influence from afar - has gambled away his ticket home and it'd take a long while until he or his party can try another attempt.

Despite the bill unanimously struck down in the senate and repeated pledges by the government not to resubmit it again, the controversy ignited the anti-amnesty protests which re-united the anti-Thaksin forces and brought them together as a motley crew of self-proclaimed "saviors" against corruption and for "true democracy". After the bill's demise, the movement unmasked itself as an all-out anti-government campaign led by veteran Democrat Party politician Suthep Thuagsuban. The Constitutional Court's rejection of the government's proposed charter amendments did change a little at that time already, as did the House dissolution and scheduling of snap-elections on February 2, 2014.

A lot has been already said here about the protesters and their intentions lately, but it still bears repeating: this drive is not a push against corruption and for true, sustainable political reforms, but an undemocratic power grab that keeps on escalating until there is a complete derailment of the democratic process and the resulting vacuum is replaced by a system (e.g. in form of the appointed "People's Council") that is aimed at disenfranchising a large portion of the electorate only in order to prevent Thaksin and his political influences taking hold in Thailand again, no matter how high the cost. The fact that somebody with such a chequered past like Suthep can now brand himself as the "people's champion" is a cruel punchline of the flexible moralities in Thai politics. Corruption and abuse of power in Thai politics existed before Thaksin and surely will not end with his often demanded "eradication" - somebody like Suthep should know it best.

This is the result of the opposition's pent-up frustration at the electoral invincibility of Thaksin-affiliated parties and the failure to adapt to the changing political and social landscape - especially in the North and Northeast, of which many of the protesters hold dangerously outdated views (e.g. "uneducated rural", "dictatorship of the majority", "vote-buying") of them. The steady demise of the opposition Democrat Party was illustrated by repeated antics in parliament and party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva calling Yingluck a "stupid bitch". After much meandering, the Democrat Party decided not to be part of the democratic solution but part of the anti-democratic problem by announcing to boycott the elections of February 2 and thus declaring political bankruptcy.

This year and especially the last two months have left us with an uncertain future for the state of the country's political stability; divisions are greater than ever before with compromise never further away as we inch ever closer to the brink of chaos. The elections will help little to ease the tensions, but alternatives are no better. The question is now: how do you fix democracy? Surely not by taking down the whole house and letting it be only rebuilt and inhabited by a selected few.

The Siam Voices 2013 year in review series continues tomorrow. Read all parts here: Part 1: Politics - Part 2: Lèse Majesté & the media - Part 3: The Rohingya - Part 4: Education and reform calls - Part 5: What else happened?

Opinion: Thai opposition boycott a slap in the face to voters

Orginally published at Siam Voices on December 22, 2013 Thailand's opposition Democrat Party is to boycott the February 2 elections, prolonging the current political crisis. But this move will hurt the country's oldest political party in the long-run, writes Saksith Saiyasombut

When Sukhumband Paribatra was reelected as Governor of Bangkok in March this year he did it with a record number of over 1.25m votes, maintaining the Democrat Party's stranglehold on Thailand's capital. However, the rival Pheu Thai Party was able to make ground, especially in the city's outskirts. In a city of roughly 12 million people, only 5 million are registered in Bangkok, while 4.2 million of them were eligible to vote. That means only about a third decided on the future of the other two-thirds. I commented back then that it was important for the Democrat Party to look beyond the city borders to the rest of the country since the next general election would likely be their "very last chance" to make a nationwide impact at the polls.

On Saturday, they slammed the door on that chance.

With the reportedly "unanimous" decision not to file any MP candidates and effectively boycott the February 2 general election, the Democrat Party of Thailand, somewhat ironically, has turned its back on democratic discourse in Thailand. Instead, it has decided to heed the the vague but shrill calls of the anti-government protesters for "reform before elections" in the form of the appointed "People's Assembly", proposed by protest leader and former fellow senior party figure Suthep Thuagsuban and his motley crew of like-minded ultra-conservatives.

Granted, it was always going to be an uphill battle for the Democrat Party. It hasn't won an election in two decades and would be unlikely to sway voters in less than two months. It is also undeniable that Thailand needs political (and social) reform on several fronts and the upcoming election won't solve all these problems. But by siding with the protesters and endorsing their demands, the Democrats have delivered a slap to the face of not only to the 47m eligible voters, but also the 11.5m people that voted for them in the last general elections 2011.

While Yingluck Shinawatra's Pheu Thai Party won that election easily, there were surely still a lot of people willing to give then-prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva a second chance to initiate reforms he failed to put in place while in power from 2008-20011 and are bemoaning now to be missing today, such as the proposals by Suthep for police reform (despite being deputy-PM in charge of national security under Abhisit back then) or the sudden embrace for decentralization in form of election of all provincial governors (also not mentioned during the Abhisit premiership).

On Saturday, Democrat Party leader Abhisit lamented "the loss of trust in Thailand's political system, and respect for political parties and elections." He didn't, however, touch on the failure of the Democrat Party in the past decade to effectively adapt to the politics and policies of Thaksin Shinawatra's government(s) and the changing political landscape. The need for reform of the Democrat Party into a healthy, rational political opposition is evident. However, in the party meetings this past week, with the re-election of Abhisit and Alongkorn Ponlaboot - the party's most outspoken proponent for reform - effectively sidelined, it showed that the party is unwilling to change itself for now. The boycott decision also shows that it doesn't even acknowledge that it could have been part of the solution, but instead is becoming part of the problem. The Democrats did not "play the ball back" to caretaker-Prime Minister Yingluck, as Abhisit said. They took the ball and simply popped it.

Whatever their gambit is (most likely creating a political gridlock in order to provoke a military or "judicial" coup), it will hurt the Democrat Party in the long-run. A 2006-style impasse is not possible due to amendments in the election rules that doesn't require 20 per cent of the vote for a MP candidate in the third by-election round and also due to the fact that, unlike over seven years ago, other opposition parties have not decided on a boycott yet.

Last week, the new secretary-general Juti Krairiksh said that entering the elections would “kill” and a boycott “cripple” the party respectively. Thailand's Democrat Party chose this weekend to cripple itself and it is doubtful whether or not it can recover in its current form.

'It will hurt either way': Thai opposition still undecided on elections

Originally published at Siam Voices on December 18, 2013

In Southeast Asian Buddhist mythology, the goddess that is known in Thailand as Phra Mae Thorani (พระแม่ธรณี) was called upon by the Bodhisattva to help him fend off the demon Māra, who tried to distract him from seeking enlightenment. According to the myth, Thorani then twisted her very long hair and out came an enormous torrent of water that washed away Māra and his army, clearing the way for the Bodhisattva to reach enlightenment and to become the Buddha.

Thorani's image graces the seal of the opposition Democrat Party, which is currently at a crucial junction. The party is torn between entering the snap-elections on February 2, 2014 or boycotting them. The latter would show full support for the anti-government protesters who have paralyzed the country's politics since early November and have increased the pressure on caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to step down, while openly calling for the suspension of electoral democracy in order to "reform" Thailand. The protesters are led by former deputy prime minister and veteran Democrat Party bruiser - and now self-styled "people's champion" - Suthep Thuagsuban, joined by many other recently resigned party executives, including the former finance minister Korn Chatikavananij.

The tensions have receded for now, though protesters - albeit in significantly lower numbers - are still roaming around Democracy Monument and Government House. Over the weekend, both the protesters and the government held public and private forums in order to win public support for either the "reform first" drive by the protesters or the February 2 elections set by the caretaker government.

The lines between the protest movement - calling themselves (somewhat ironically) the "People’s Democratic Reform Committee" (PDRC)* - and the Democrat Party are (intentionally) blurry, not only because the mobilization of the rallies had been rehearsed long ago, but also because of the regular involvement of Democrat Party figures. The party itself was meandering in recent weeks until its MPs decided to resign from parliament earlier this month, effectively forcing Prime Minister Yingluck to dissolve parliament and call for new elections - something that the protesters are uncompromisingly rejecting and instead lobbying (especially the military) for their undemocratic, appointed "People's Assembly".

Since Monday, the Democrat Party has been in meetings to determine what to do next as election day approaches. Apart from extending the numbers of executives to 35, the party also re-elected Abhisit Vejjajiva as its party leader.

One major casualty of the party meeting was Alongkorn Ponlaboot, until Tuesday deputy party leader before he was defeated by Satit Pitudecha by 63 to 30 per cent. An outspoken proponent for reform of the party, Alongkorn regularly insisted that the Democrats should stop blaming their electoral losses on "vote-buying, electoral fraud or populism" and instead "come up with better strategies" in order to eventually beat the ruling Pheu Thai Party. Alongkorn was also notably absent from the party's meeting that resulted in the MPs' mass resignation. After the vote, he simply tweeted "I lost" and asked the party in a following tweet to "continue to reform," since this is "the only way to regain trust in the Democrat Party".

แพ้ครับ

— อลงกรณ์ พลบุตร (@alongkornpb) December 17, 2013

ผมยอมรับมติของพรรคครับ อย่างน้อยก็ร่วมกันผลักดันการปฏิรูปพรรคจนมีวันนี้
ขอให้เดินหน้าปฏิรูปต่อไปมีแต่แนวทางนี้เท่านึ้นจึงจะกลับมาชนะใจปชช.

— อลงกรณ์ พลบุตร (@alongkornpb) December 17, 2013

This affirmation of Abhisit and the demotion of Alongkorn shows that Thailand's main opposition party is unwilling to make big changes, let alone reform itself, in order to halt the ongoing streak of elections defeats since 1992. And it has also (as of writing) deferred the decision whether or not to run in the February 2 elections, facing the dilemma of being beaten at the polls again by Pheu Thai - but then being shunned by the protesters - or losing (even more) political credit with a boycott. A repeat of the 2006 snap-elections - when the Democrat Party along with other opposition parties staged a boycott that created a political deadlock and a subsequent vacuum that led to the military coup that ousted then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra - is not possible thanks to an amendment that does away with the 20 per cent requirement of the vote for a MP candidate in the third by-election (more background on that at Bangkok Pundit). Also, all other parties have not yet publicly considered an election boycott. It is reported that the newly-elected executive board will decide on the question this Saturday.

According to reports, the party is almost evenly split on the election question. Newly elected secretary-general Juti Krairiksh was quoted as saying that entering the contest would "kill" and a boycott "cripple" the party respectively ("ส่งก็ตายไม่ส่งก็พิการ"), to which Abhisit responded that "it will hurt either way" ("มองว่าเจ็บทุกทาง"), adding...

"(...) หากทำให้ชาติไปสู่สิ่งที่ดีกว่าเราก็ต้องยอม เพราะประเทศสำคัญกว่าพรรค (...) ไม่ส่งก็เสียระบบหรือไม่ สิ่งสำคัญที่สุดคือการปฏิรูปประเทศโดยรักษาประชาธิปไตยไว้ แม้จะเป็นโจทย์ยาก (...)"

"(...) if it makes the country better than us, we have to accept that because the country is more important than the party (...). Whether or not a boycott would damage the [democratic] system, the important thing is reform [before elections?] while maintaining democracy, no matter how problematic (...)"

"ปชป.ชี้ขาด 21 ธ.ค.ส่งเลือกตั้ง 'มาร์ค'หนักใจส่ง-ไม่ส่งก็เจ็บ", Thai Rath Online, December 17, 2013 (translation by me)

Until the registration of MP candidates opens next week, Thailand's oldest existing opposition party has to decide whether it wants to be an enabler or an instigator: either the Democrat Party takes part in the February 2 elections, most likely lose against Pheu Thai (hopefully as graceful as possible), and maintain the shaky status quo or stage a boycott and completely lose any political legitimacy as a 'hilariously misnamed' husk of a party - and also comply with the PRDC's anti-democratic stance and protest leader Suthep's rabble-rousing and nightly delusions of grandeur, who has just announced yet another mass protest for Sunday.

Unlike the goddess Thorani, the Democrat Party did not manage to wash away the distractions in order to reform itself as a healthy democratic opposition. To adapt the motto in the party's logo - the Pali proverb "truth is indeed the undying word" ("สจฺจํ เว อมตา วาจา") - it will have to face the consequences of its actions - no matter how much it will hurt.

*Sidenote: Interestingly, the PDRC's English 'translation' doesn't fully reflect the original Thai name: "People's Committee for the Change Thailand's to Democracy with the King as Head of State" (Thai abbreviation: "กปปส.")

Some personal thoughts: Thai amnesty bill's wrongs do not make one right

Originally published at Siam Voices on November 4, 2013 It all happened much quicker than anybody thought. What was anticipated to last right into the weekend was done in a day and a night, and we all are still nurturing a massive political hangover.

Parliament rushed the Amnesty Bill through the second and third readings with 310 votes and an absent opposition, and now awaits confirmation in the Senate - all that amidst a flood of outcry and criticism from all sides for very different reasons. As this political crisis in Thailand has dragged on for the best part of a decade now, the political landscape has become deeply polarized.

However, the arguments of both sides show that no matter how many wrongs you make, hardly any of them make it a right.

While the ruling Pheu Thai Party initially tabled the most agreeable version of the Amnesty Bill by their MP Worachai Hema, it then did an audacious bait-and-switch as it retroactively added in the more controversial sections that ultimately transforms it into a blanket amnesty, which would cover not only political protesters, but also their leaders and other people that have been convicted .

The hubris the party showed - all that in absence of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra - with this move is reminiscent of the man that is most likely to profit from it: former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra lives in self-imposed exile since 2008, following a conviction and 2-year jail sentence for abuse of power handed down by a post-coup court that was arguably biased against him. Ever since then, he has been more than a shadow if the governments of his party's incarnations, including the current one of his sister Yingluck. While it is understandable that he is longing to return to Thailand, it can be argued that he is more effective abroad than at home, given the mountain of old and new problems he would have to face on his return.

With the blanket amnesty also absolving those responsible for the bloody crackdown on the 2010 anti-government protests, the party is betraying its loyal supporter base. The red shirts are split on this matter, as seen when 4 red shirt leaders abstained (Natthawut Saikau and Dr. Weng Tojirakarn, plus "Seh Daeng"'s daughter Khattiya and MP Worachai Hema, the bill's original sponsor), while all others followed the party line - something red shirt leader and MP Korkaew Pikulthong used to try to explain his political schizophrenia.

There have been protests against the bill before by a red shirt splinter group and they will do so again on November 10, while on the same day other red shirts will rally in favor of the bill. The red shirt movement is (once again) at a junction and has to reflect on what it actually stands for: as a force for genuine political reform - even if it means breaking away from Thaksin and the Pheu Thai Party - or forever be branded as Thaksin's mob. The crucial question is, whether the majority of the base and the leaders are capable of the former?

While conservative anti-government protesters (mainly consisting of supporters of the opposition Democrat Party) rally against the impunity that Thaksin could get away with, it is also a sign of frustration from the opposition in and outside parliament in their failed attempt to get rid what they see as "Thaksinism" from Thai politics - even if it comes at the cost of democracy.

One of their main arguments is endorsing the 2006 military coup as "patriotic" to protect the country from the "evil" Thaksin and his politics. Their vehement defense of the coup and their denial of all its consequences displays the self-righteousness in their crusade for the "good people" and their lack of self-reflection.

The decision now lies with the Senate, but it can also be expected to be challenged at the Constitutional Court - two bodies that have played their own part in the political mess that Thailand is today. It is exactly the mindset of self-serving self-righteousness and a dangerous black-and-white thinking among those political institutions and groups that are not meant to be politicized but are politicized ever since the military coup and the meddling of non-parliamentary groups.

That is also why the culture of impunity of the darkest days in Thai history (1973, 1976, 1992, 2006 etc.) still prevails and will repeat over and over again until we start to realize that it needs more than just a simple electoral majority, more than an amnesty, more than the crucifiction of a political enemy and more than just the reversal to times that once were or never were at all - all those would be the first things to make things right.

Thai gov't faces backlash from all sides over amnesty bill

Originally published at Siam Voices on October 29, 2013 Last week, we reported on the attempts by MPs of the ruling Pheu Thai Party (PT) to amend the amnesty bill draft to include those affected by groups or organizations set up after the military coup of 2006. The original draft by PT MP Wocharai Hema pardons protesters involved in the numerous political protests in recent years, but not their leaders and authorities involved in clashes during these events.

Now with the planned rewrite - spearheaded by PT MP Prayuth Siripanich, the deputy chairman of the parliamentary vetting committee of the bill - it could mean that a number of politicians and officials under investigation or already convicted could be acquitted, including former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The outcry by the opposition Democrat Party and anti-government protesters over a feared whitewash of their political enemy was to be expected. However, there's also opposition coming from PT's own supporter base: the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), the umbrella organization of the red shirt movement,  who issued a statement voicing their disagreement with the draft rewrite since it also could potentially acquit those responsible for the deadly crackdown on the anti-government red shirt protests in 2010:

(...) The United front of Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) would like to release this following statements:

1. The UDD are standing by its commitment to support the original format of MP Worachai Hema’s amnesty bill that will grant pardon to political prisoners of all colours only. (...)

3. The differences in solutions to the problem derived from the dissimilarity of opinions. Some MPs believe that amnesty bill should be priority after the formation of the government but the UDD believe that constitutional amendments and the eradication of coup consequences should be the primacy. However, since three years have passed and thousand remain convicted, the amnesty for political prisoners of all colours became the immediate policy of the UDD which resulted in the organization’s proposal for the amnesty bill that was later transformed into the original version of MP Worachai Hema’s bill.

4. One of the core problems is the group of people who will receive amnesty. In the case of former PM Thaksin Shinawatra who was victimised by the consequences of coup d’état, he should be granted justice through the elimination of coup consequences, not via amnesty bill. The amendment of article 309 is the right way to help Thaksin and it should be abolished.

"UDD Statement on the Revision of MP Worachai’s Amnesty Bill", October 25, 2013

In essence, the UDD opposes the notion of a rewritten amnesty bill that would see political and military officials not punished for the events of 2010, while at the same time suggesting an alternative route to undo the conviction of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra via constitutional amendments, which are another hot issue the government is currently facing heavy flak from the opposition and especially Section 309 seems to be very protected by the Democrat Party.

In the aforementioned Section 309 of the 2007 Constitution, the coup makers are essentially granted an amnesty since their actions and their consequences are declared constitutional, including the set-up of government agencies. One of them was the Assets Examination Committee, whose investigations led to a conviction of Thaksin in 2008 for abuse of power in a land purchase by his former wife and his self-imposed exile to avoid a 2-year prison sentence. The same conviction would be overturned by the rewritten amnesty bill.

On Sunday, around 300 red shirts of the Red Sunday Group of activist Sombat Boongam-anong (which is considered as a more progressive splinter group) returned to Rajaprasong intersection in the center of Bangkok - where most of the 2010 protests took place - to show their disappointment in the proposal, with Sombat accusing the Pheu Thai Party and Thaksin of failing their followers. Prior to that, the families of the 2010 protest victims have also voiced their opposition to it.

Despite the apparent controversy the ruling Pheu Thai Party has created among their own ranks, it is very doubtful that this could result in a backlash that is sizable and influential enough to revert it or even a "mutiny" as the Bangkok Post suggests, since the red shirts have already stated not to protest against the government should the bill pass in this form.

It is obvious the ruling Pheu Thai Party is willing to bank on a big political gamble that (while maintaining a comfortable majority in parliament) could alienate those parts of the supporter base that want to see justice for the deaths of the 2010 protests, one of the campaign promises that brought them to power in the first place.

UPDATE (Tuesday, 8.00pm): In a decisive push forward, parliament will meet on Thursday, October 31, to deliberate the amnesty bill in its second reading according to several media reports. What also emerged that the Pheu Thai Party passed a resolution that all its MPs, including the red shirts, are required to attend and all should vote in favor of the bill. The vote on the third deliberation is planned to take place on November 2.

Tongue-Thai’ed!: Democrat poster boy Abhisit loses his manners

Originally published at Siam Voices on September 10, 2013 This is part XXII of “Tongue-Thai’ed!”, an ongoing series where we collect the most baffling, amusing, confusing, outrageous and appalling quotes from Thai politicians and other public figures. Check out all past entries here.

Former Thai prime minister and leader of the opposition Democrat Party Abhisit Vejjajiva was and still is by some regarded as a well-mannered politician who would never lose his temper or resort to the use of direct derogatory language towards political opponents or critics. We wouldn't expect anything less with his oft-mentioned Oxford-educated (English language) eloquence and general high-brow public image.

However, with the increasing frustration of being in the opposition against a government that is seemingly unbeatable at the polls, the Democrat Party recently started to imitate the governing Pheu Thai Party's political rallies and has taken to the streets to get their message across and mobilize their supporters. Freed from the restraints of parliamentary debates and press conferences, party members can unabashedly slam the government, its policies and everything else related to it.

At one such event in Bangkok on Saturday, Abhisit took the stage and among many other points in his speech, he criticized Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's regular absence in parliament and regular foreign trips, and her failure to tackle the problems back home while launching trivial projects like the upcoming reality TV show "Smart Lady Thailand" to advertise the Thai Women Empowerment Fund.

And here is when things went downhill for Abhisit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adikMyfh1no

นายกรัฐมนตรีก็หลบเลี่ยงปัญหาเหล่านี้ ผมก็ดูไม่ออกครับว่าที่อยู่ในประเทศมา 1 อาทิตย์ที่ผ่านมา ไปทำอะไรบ้าง เมื่อเช้าเห็นแว้บๆ มีข่าวไปทำอะไร โครงการอะไร Smart Lady แปลว่าอะไร ผมก็ไม่ค่อยเข้าใจทั้งหมดหรอกครับ เหมือนกับว่าจะประกวดใช่มั้ย หา Smart Lady แปลว่าอะไร Smart lady นี่ผมถามอภิมงคลแล้ว แปลว่าผู้หญิงฉลาด แต่นี่ผมก็ถามว่า อ้าว แล้วถ้าทำโครงการนี้เนี่ย ทำไมต้องทำ ทำไมต้องหาผู้หญิงฉลาด ทำไมต้องประกวดผู้หญิงฉลาด เพราะว่าเขาบอกว่า ถ้าแข่งขันหาอีโง่ ไม่มีใครไปแข่งได้ 

The Prime Minister is dodging these problems. I don't know what she was up to in the past week in the country. This morning I spotted what project she was doing - "Smart Lady". What does that mean? I didn't fully get that. It's like a competition, right? What does it mean to find a "Smart Lady"? So I asked Apimongkol [Sonakul, Democrat MP] and he said it means 'smart lady'. But I ask why do they do this project, why do they have to find a smart lady, why do they make a competition out of this? Because if they are looking for a stupid bitch, there would be no competition!

"คำต่อคำ นายอภิสิทธิ์ หน.ปชป.ในการปราศรัยเวทีประชาชน เดินหน้าผ่าความจริง วัดดอกไม้ ยานนาวา", Democrat Party Thailand, September 7, 2013 - translation by me

Now, อีโง่ (pronounced "ee-ngo") is not very easy to directly translate into English. However, the prefix อี ("ee") is only used to address somebody in a very rude manner - think of it like "that ..." in a very condescending tone. Since โง่ ("ngo") means 'stupid' or 'the stupid one' and Abhisit was talking about the female prime minister, it is safe to assume that not only he made a derogatory remark about her intelligence, but also specifically about her gender.

(READ MORE: What was Abhisit thinking when he made his stupid “bitch” remark?)

Unsurprisingly, a lot of negative reactions followed these remarks from Pheu Thai Party members and government personnel. Also unsurprising was the repeated silence of the country's prominent feminists, as previously seen here and here - despite the fact that prime minister at times faces nasty sexist remarks. Meanwhile, Yingluck herself is currently (somehow ironically yet again) on a foreign trip to Europe.

On Monday, Abhisit was seemingly unfazed by the controversial gaffe he created:

Mr. Abhisit did not apologise for his now-notorious remark when reporters questioned him at the Democrat Party headquarters earlier today. He claimed that he did not refer to Ms. Yingluck specifically when he said those words on the stage. "I was merely following what I saw on Google," Mr. Abhisit insisted (typing "stupid bitch" in Thai on Google search would bring up images of Ms. Yingluck). [and there's also a dedicated Facebook page for it]

"I don't know which newspaper has reported the news in such negative manner," Mr. Abhisit told the reporters, "I suppose it's the same old one that likes to distort [my words]. And if it's Khaosod, I would not know what to say about it because that newspaper is beyond any remedy". Asked by a reporter what he has to say to the people who are offended by his remark, the visibly irritated Mr. Abhisit shot back: "Offended about what?"

"Abhisit Unapologetic For 'Stupid Bitch' Remark", Khao Sod English, September 6, 2013 

The media is definitely now reporting on it, as seen by the Bangkok Post and The Nation - both having considerably softened the translation to "stupid woman".

A colloquial and at times rowdy beer tent-esque atmosphere is to be expected at such political rallies from all parties. However, with harsh rhetoric provoking vulgar crowd reactions (again, something other parties are not discouraging either) and erratic displays of antics in parliament - just last week a Democrat MP was throwing chairs - the Democrat Party are increasingly descending into gutter politics and will stop at nothing to damage the government, even at the cost of any political progress.

Some of his supporters would welcome that Abhisit Vejjajiva is 'finally' not pulling any more punches (as in the past that was left to e.g. his former deputy Suthep as extensively documented here, here and here), but while it is one thing to appear folksy and aggressive, it is an entirely another unacceptable thing to resort a misogynistic remark. There's no doubt that Abhisit Vejjajiva is no more Mr. Nice Guy.

Thailand fails to find closure on Bangkok massacre

Originally published at Siam Voices on August 16, 2013 Over three years after the deadly military crackdown on the anti-government red shirt protests, battling narratives on what happened that day are still defining the current political climate - even more so with the debate on the government-sponsored amnesty bills and the release of an official inquiry report that fundamentally contradicts with recent court rulings.

On May 19, 2010, after nine-and-a-half weeks of anti-government protests and street occupations by the red shirts, the military staged a bloody crackdown. With the previous clashes since April 2010, at least 90 people were killed and thousands injured, mostly civilians. The chaos and carnage has left a gaping wound in the nation's psyche that still hasn't healed. Not least because the questions surrounding  what exactly happened and who is responsible for the deaths are still the subject of intense argument across all political allegiances, mostly with little facts and much hyperbole.

Last year, the Truth for Reconciliation Commission of Thailand (TRCT) released their final inquiry report into the events of May 19, 2010. The panel, set up during the administration of then-prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva with virtually no powers or access, found faults on both sides and was promptly criticized and dismissed by both sides.

Last week, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) released its own report in what they think happened in the crackdown:

The report, around 90 pages long, can be summed up in 2 points: that the security forces did commit several inappropriate actions - such as dropping teargas from the helicopters onto the crowd below and censoring a number of websites - but the bigger issue is that it was the Redshirts who "violated human rights" by engaging in unlawful protests and provoking the authorities.

The Redshirts under the leadership of the National United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), the report said, violated the laws by organising a protest at Ratchaprasong Intersection, the heart of Bangkok′s financial district. The move equals to provoking violence, according to NHRC. Therefore, the NHRC said, it is entirely lawful that Mr. Abhisit formed up the Centre for Resolution of Emergency Situation (CRES) and declared emergency laws. (...)

The casualties during the crackdowns in April and May 2010 were results of clashes between the security forces and shadowy armed militants allegedly allied to the protesters, according the report. (...)

Even the deaths of 6 civilians at Wat Pathumwanararm Temple, declared as ′safe zone′ for fleeing protesters by the authorities, were described as a consequence of alleged gunfights between the militants and the soldiers near the temple - (...)

"NHRC Accused Of Whitewashing Authorities' Hands In 2010 Crackdown", Khao Sod English, August 10, 2013

The NHRC report fails to point the finger of blame at the military for the deaths, which Abhisit and his then-deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban are now facing murder charges by the DSI. Especially foggy are the circumstances, in which six civilians were killed inside Wat Pathumwan, that are described by the NHRC inquiry ("killed outside and then dragged inside the temple grounds"). In fact, they were disproved in a landmark court ruling just a few days earlier that explicitly found the military responsible for the deaths - which was instantly rejected by army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha, back then one of the key commanders of the crackdown.

Expectedly, the NHRC report was met with heavy criticism with accusations of whitewashing the crackdown, since it also seems to be reinforcing the same official line that has been touted by the authorities and the Abhisit government back then in 2010 and is still insisted upon today by the now-opposition Democrat Party and its supporters. Given the political affiliations the NHRC head Amara Pongsapich and the circumstances that led to her appointment, the report is hardly a surprise, but a disgrace to the National Human Rights Commission's task.

The May 19 crackdown was also a central issue of the parliamentary vote of the so-called amnesty bill last week. From the various draft bills that have been suggested (including one by families of the Wat Pathum victims strangely supported by Abhisit), the government led by the Pheu Thai Party (PT) submitted the draft of PT MP Wocharai Hema, that grants all political protesters amnesty - including the various yellow and red shirt protests since the 2006 military coup - but does not include the protest leaders and authorities responsible for the crackdown. The bill was initially passed by the lower House, but has to vetted and submitted for vote again.

The heated exchanges during the debates saw both political sides occupying their narratives to the events of the violent clashes during the red shirt protests of 2010. One such moment included Democrat MP and former deputy PM Suthep insisted that no snipers were deployed in the dispersal, despite secret documents stating the contrary.

On Thursday, the Bangkok Post published a column by Democrat deputy leader Korn Chatikavanij voicing his opposition to the amnesty bill, accusing the government for a lack of "any genuine desire for reform or reconciliation" and points to the TRCT panel that was set up by then-PM Abhisit (but gave it virtually no powers whatsoever), cites the "objections from the UN human rights office" (although the UN OHCHR only cautioned and then clarified it didn't object the bill at all) and (mistakenly?) references the NHRC as "our own Human Rights Watch", while during the Abhisit government he and his government regularly blasted the findings by HRW and other international human rights organizations.

What all these events in the past week show is that the wounds of what is considerably the worst political violence in the Thailand's recent history still have not healed, because not only are competing truths evidence of an ongoing divided political discourse, but also the very likelihood of repeated impunity for the authorities and the military for the May 19 crackdown still prevails, something that has been practised too often in the country's history - 1973, 1976, 1992, 2006, just to name a few - in the short-sighted hope that all is forgotten and forgiven until the next tragedy.

Thailand: Reconciliation games continue as amnesty bill goes to parliament

Originally published at Siam Voices on July 26, 2013 When Thailand's parliament reconvenes next week to continue the political season one of the most discussed and possibly the most controversial issue will be the passing of the so-called amnesty or reconciliation bill. Advertised as a means to overcome the ongoing political division by giving far-reaching amnesty to those convicted for taking part in the countless political protests - of both yellow and red shirts - since the military coup of 2006, opponents are accusing the government of white-washing the activities of the red shirt protesters and exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Depending on which of the various drafts you read, the bill could issue an even more far-reaching amnesty that also includes the junta behind the military coup, the military and civilian authorities responsible for the violent crackdown of the 2010 anti-government red shirt protests (including then-prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his deputy Suthep Thuagsuban), the various protest leaders, erasing the post-coup judiciary (a junta-appointed court which has dissolved deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai Party and banned 111 politicians from office in 2007) and - according to one draft - even absolve Thaksin himself from a 2008 court sentence for abuse of power in a land purchasing case.

The authors of the drafts nearly all come from the governing Pheu Thai Party (PT). Red shirt leader and current deputy commercial minister Natthawut Saikua and coup-leader and now-opposition politician Sonthi Boonyaratglin may come from opposite ends of the political devide, but have presented similar amnesty drafts, with the main difference that "those who commit terrorist acts and acts causing death" are excluded in Natthawut's bill proposal. The former deputy prime minister and now newly demoted named labor minister Chalerm Yubamrung also throws in a draft of his own in a typically eager attempt to leave a personal mark on this issue, in which almost everybody - including Abhisit and Thaksin - are absolved. None of the bills include those imprisoned under the lèse majesté law.

Last week, another proposal for a reconciliation bill was introduced by a group that has been often neglected in the political infighting but was arguably most affected in the political crisis:

Relatives of those killed in the April-May 2010 crackdown on red-shirt protesters are to submit a "Worachai-plus" amnesty bill as parliament prepares to consider six other amnesty bills next month. (...)

"People from all colours will be absolved of any offence they committed or had committed against against them, except for core leaders," Ms. Payao [Akkahad, the mother of 25-year-old Kamolkade Akkahad, a medical volunteer who was killed inside Wat Pathum Wanaram on May 19, 2010] said of the victims' relatives' version of the bill.

The relatives will submit their five-page bill to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra tomorrow, and to the parliament speaker on July 24, she said.

This bill, [Punsak Srithep, father of the 17-year-old Samapun Srithep, who was killed on May 15, 2010, on Ratchaprarop Road,] said, would allow judicial lawsuits to be pressed against persons or groups that killed people and/or damaged private property. The relatives' bill also does not prevent private entities whose properties were damaged in the unrest from launching civil suits against vandals or arsonists, he said.

"2010 victims' relatives push amnesty bill", Bangkok Post, July 15, 2013

The draft, coined by local media as the "People's Bill", has found in opposition Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva an unlikely proponent. While he lauds it to be "the first amnesty bill that had been proposed with a reasonable and reconciliatory tone," parts of the proposal directly target him and his administration's role in the violent crackdown on the red shirt protesters in 2010 (both he and his former deputy Suthep are facing murder charges by the DSI on at least one count, if not even more). It comes as no surprise that his party supporters and other ultra-conservatives have criticized Abhisit for voicing his support, many questioning whether or not he actually read the entire thing. The opposition has not yet brought up a proposal on their own.

Meanwhile, the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), the mainstream red shirt umbrella organization, has voiced skepticism about the "People's Bill":

Prominent Pheu Thai politicians and Redshirts leaders, such as Mr. Weng Tojirakarn, Mr. Sombat Boon-ngarmanong, and Ms. Suda Rangupan, have accused Ms. Payao and Mr. Pansak of trying to slow down the process to pass amnesty bill by picking a fight with the powerful military.

According to those opposed to the ′Victims Families′ amnesty bill, the effort to free detained Redshirts protesters should be a priority over the need to prosecute the security forces. They expressed their fear that the military would never allow Ms. Yingluck′s government to pass such a bill, ruining the chance of any little gain there might be altogether, and might even launch a military coup in retaliation.

Some Redshirts also openly questioned the motives of Ms. Payao and Mr. Pansak, indirectly accusing them of being collaborators with the rival Democrat Party which, strangely enough, had expressed its support for the ′Victims Families′ amnesty bill.

"Fragmentation Among Redshirts Highlighted By Amnesty Debate", Khaosod Online, July 24, 2013

Instead, the UDD and the Pheu Thai Party are reportedly backing the draft by PT MP Worachai Hema, putting it top of the agenda for deliberation in parliament (even before the 2014 Budget Bill!) and ditching all other proposals - a move some observers say is to avoid uproar from the UDD, despite reports of dissatisfaction among certain groups within the fragmented movement. Under Worachai's bill, all political protestors will be granted amnesty - regardless of their political allegiance - while excluding the protest leaders and authorities responsible for the crackdowns.

August rings in a new political season that could get very heated very quickly: on top of the 2014 Budget Bill, the 2.2 trillion Baht (US$ 730bn) loan for infrastructure investments and proposed constitutional amendments, the amnesty bill will spark months of legislative tugs of war and wars of words (and potentially worse antics by the opposition outside and inside parliament like last year) - once again revealing how big Thailand's political divisions really are and that even a far-reaching amnesty will not be enough to close the gap.

Thailand in 2012 - Some personal thoughts (Part 2)

Originally published at Siam Voices on December 29, 2012 This is the second and final part of the Siam Voices year-in-review. Yesterday in part 1, we looked at the year of prime minister's government, that of the opposition and the prevailing impunity over the 2010 crackdown.

Lese majeste: Cowardice in the face of first victim

One topic we expected to continue to play a role in 2012 is the draconian lèse majesté law and its unjust application to crack down on alleged dissent voices. And in many ways - despite the release of Thai-American Joe Gordon and an 'only' suspended sentence against Prachatai webmaster Chiranuch Premchaiporn for not deleting monarchy-insulting web comments quickly enough - it unfortunately still made headlines for the wrong reasons.

The death of Amphon "Akong" Tangnoppakul marked what could be argued the first victim of lèse majesté. The 64-year-old retiree was serving a 20 year sentence for allegedly sending four defamatory text messages to the personal secretary of Abhisit Vejjajiva (despite inconclusive evidence). Having repeatedly being denied bail and suffering bad health, Akong died in detention on May 8. Obviously, his death sparked universal condemnation against the law - almost: Thailand politicians showed little sympathy and interest to do something about the arbitrary law, with Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra insisting not to do anything to change Article 112 of the Criminal Code.

Up until this point, the heated discussion about how to amend or if not abolish the law altogether was ongoing. Leading this debate was the Nitirat group, a collective of reformist law academics from Thammasat University, amidst considerable uproar. And it was that university that had a reputation for being one of the more liberal institutions in this country that was struggling and battling with itself, which led to one of the most astonishing sights of this year: of all people, journalism students (!) were seen protesting against Nitirat and the reform of the lèse majesté law by saying “Don’t use knowledge to distort morality!”

The chances that the law will be somehow changed (or even just remotely touched by politicians) remain slim as two incidents have shown that it is untouchable: the Constitutional Court rejected a petition by Somyot Pruksakasemsuk and Ekachai Hongkangwan, both currently on trial for lèse majesté, as it does not see the constitutional right to free speech being violated by Article 112 of the Criminal Code. In another story, a bill petition proposing to amend the law - signed by over 30,000 - was dismissed by the speaker of the parliament.

Meanwhile earlier this week, a former stockbroker has been sentenced to four years in prison under the equally flawed Computer Crimes Act for spreading "false information".

Emerging neighbors: Thailand's geo-political opportunities and blunders

This past year showed the rapid rise of neighboring Myanmar, as the country carefully progresses economically and politically - despite the unmasking of the ugly side of the Burmese pro-democracy movement regarding the genocide against the Rohingya - and other countries of course are in a gold rush mood, as they see new investment opportunities and also to grow their regional influence.

Thailand was one of the few countries that already did business with its neighbor before the change and the upcoming industrial area and deep sea port in Dawei on Myanmar's west coast is the biggest of them. But we reported at the beginning of this year that the mega-project ran into some problems and also caused the Thai government to reconsider their commitment. However, after a visit by Prime Minister Yingluck to Myanmar it seems to be on track again.

A different story shows how Thailand has lost some regional credibility: When NASA planned to use the Thai naval airbase in U-Tapao for atmospheric research study, the opposition Democrat Party drummed up nationalistic outrage and tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists came out crawling again - conveniently forgetting that...

Officials have noted that the Democrats, now opposed to the NASA initiative, approved the program while in power in 2010 and that it would not entail the use of military aircraft.

"Baseless controversy over Thailand's U-Tapao", Asia Times One, June 22, 2012

It was petty domestic political squabbles that eventually led the annoyed NASA to kill the project and gave Thailand a huge slap to the face geo-politically for not being able to sort itself out.

While the prime minister was busy traveling the world this year to bolster economical ties (read our exclusive report on her visit to Germany and France here), Thailand needs to take charge in the ASEAN region (and without looking down on its neighbors), if it doesn't want to loose relevancy.

The exploits of "ThaiMiniCult" in 2012: Mammophobia!

Of course it wouldn't be Siam Voices if we wouldn't monitor the self-proclaimed cultural heralds of everything “Thai”-ness - or in short "ThaiMiniCult". And while this year they have been noticeably less outraged in quantity, there were still instances when we could only shake our heads.

There was for example the ThaiMiniCult that was rumored (and thank god it was only a rumor) to order that "100 per cent males" shouldn't play transgender roles on TV. Or some arbitrary survey that blames Facebook for teen pregnancies, only to find out that it was lazy journalism that caused that headline, while the real problem of nearly non-existing sexual education is being swept under the carpet. Or the MP that was caught looking up some naughty pictures on his phone in parliament.

But probably the most noticeable media outrage (and also the most-clicked Siam Voices story of 2012) was the 'controversy' over the literally bare-breasted painting performance on the TV show "Thailand's Got Talent" that caused one of the judges to throw a sanctimonious tantrum on national TV and a moral witch-hunt. In the end, it turns out that the producers have "hired" her for a staged controversy. However, given how Thais reacted (or claimed to react) to this brouhaha, it was in many ways revealing.

What else happened this year? (in no particular order)

- The four-part series on Thai Education Failures by our regular Siam Voices contributor Kaewmala is a must-read! Be it ridiculous O-Net questions, questionable standardization, our poor international performance and lacking English proficiencies - our archaic education system is in dire need of change! And what does the Pheu Thai government do? Give away free tablets...!

- A rape case in Krabi, the disgusting denial by the Thai tourism minister in order to 'protect' the image and a father's creative plea for justice.

- Thais being outraged by five tourist douchebags cutting down a tree while most population doesn't give a damn about their own environmental lifestyle and willingly plastic-bags everything...!

- Thais being outraged at Lady Gaga for tweeting the intention of buying a fake Rolex while most of the population otherwise willingly ignores the countless counterfeit markets, and after campaigns by outraged religious groups in the Philippines and Indonesia to ban her concerts, looking rather silly and childish...!

- The Thai senator who accidentally shot his wife...or secretary...or cousin...with an uzi...or not...!

- In upside-down world news this year: The reactionary right-wing ASTV/Manager (media outlet of the anti-democratic yellow shirts) accuses the blatantly anti-Thaksin The Nation (an attempt of a newspaper) of being pro-Thaksin - mind blown!

- "Double, double toil and trouble;" - Thailand's movie adaptation of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" gets banned, but not for the depiction of regicide, rather for the depiction of another "Dear Leader" and the disparagement of his followers.

- Three Iranian terrorists literally blowing up their cover on Valentine's Day in the middle of Bangkok after a warning by the United States Embassy and the immediate arrest of a Hezbollah suspect a month before that and the tweeting motorcycle taxi driver that got the scoop of his lifetime. And deputy prime minister Chalerm Yubamrung as the spiritual successor of the former Iraqi information minister by saying that there's "absolutely no terrorism" in the kingdom.

- Deputy prime minister Chalerm Yubamrung as our new regular contributor to the "Tongue-Thai’ed!"-segments and coming up with the most creative name for the new command center in the South!

- The tsunami scare in April and the failure of Thai TV to inform the public because of a royal cremation ceremony.

- The Dhammakāya Movement's newest revelation: the afterlife of Apple's Steve Jobs...!

- The visit of US President Barack Obama to Thailand, and his meeting with Yingluck Shinwatra and half of the internet not able to be mature about it.

- The Bangkok Futsal Arena fiasco, as the city has failed to construct a purposed-built arena in time for FIFA Futsal World Cup and thus embarrassing themselves on a world stage.

- The return of the fraudulent bomb-sniffing device also known as the GT200, essentially a horrendously overpriced empty plastic shell with a dowsing rod. It's ineffectiveness has been proven since 2010, but it has emerged that the bogus device is still in use by the armed forces for the simple reason that there's "no alternative" but to keep on using it until there's a replacement, while soldiers are unnecessarily risking their lives more than they should because of this fraud, whose UK manufacturer has been charged this year.

- Thailand has FINALLY reached the early 21st century with the arrival of real 3G network coverage after an eternal farce and one last court decision - while neighboring Laos is preparing for 4G already...!

- And last, but not least: The still undisputed, most coherent article by The Nation - EVER!

I’d like to thank my co-writers and editors at Siam Voices and Asian Correspondent for their contributions and work this year, and YOU, the readers, for the support, feedback, criticism, links and retweets! Here’s to an eventful, exciting 2013 that brings us news, changes, developments to discuss and report for all the right reasons! Happy New Year!

Thailand in 2012 - Some personal thoughts (Part 1)

Originally published at Siam Voices on December 28, 2012 As tradition dictates, we're here to yet again look back at the year gone by in Thailand. It looks quite different compared to the previous ones - at least on the surface. While we did not have to deal with week-long political protests, 'biblical' natural disasters, and even the self-proclaimed "Thainess" heralds went easy on us in 2012 (well, almost). Nevertheless, there was still enough going on to report on, as you will see here.

If you read this article, we have apparently survived the Mayan Doomsday Prophecy (and Christmas as well). Luckily, Thais did not really believe it and academics from Chulalongkorn University reassured us that nothing was going to happen - but then again, who knows if this finding was actually theirs and not stolen? Now, since we are still here, let's look back at Thailand 2012.

In part 1 today, we look how 2012 was for the government of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, for the opposition in and outside parliament and also the ongoing injustice despite the change of government.

Yingluck's first full year in power: challenging the odds

As hinted in the introduction, this year in politics was relatively calm compared to the tumultuous and eventful previous years. It was the first full year for the government of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra and the Pheu Thai Party - and arguably no other in recent history has been under much fiercer and thorough scrutiny by the political opponents both in and outside parliament. Many of them are legitimately aiming against the government's policies, like the subsidy rice-scheme that puts a big dent in the country's agriculture economy, or giving away tablets at schools instead of tackling our decaying education system head-on and now the tax refunds for first-car-buyers. On the other hand, many target this government with very irrational and erratic behavior - more on that later in this article.

Nevertheless, her government has more or less sailed through this year unharmed despite everything that was thrown at them: it has comfortably survived a no-confidence debate in November and the Constitutional Court has spared them from doom in the summer. Even the hawkish military feels comfortable to side with Yingluck at the moment (and despite a few hulk-outs, army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha was pleasantly less erratic this year), since it has a government that is willingly buying new toys for them.

But the main challenge for the government will remain not to step on anybody's toes, while trying to push ahead their policies and political goals as far as they can. In doing so, it will and already is running danger to alienate and disappoint the red shirt supporters, who are still seeking for justice for the victims of the 2010 crackdown and of the still archaic lèse majesté law - both issues that the government has been very hesitant to tackle. Add to that the ongoing omni-presence of Thaksin, who's constantly testing the water (as he did recently on state TV) for a potential return with possible amendments to the military-installed constitution of 2007 or an amnesty bill, and the Pheu Thai Party could be in for a busy 2013 if they're not careful enough.

Extremely loud and incredibly desperate: Thailand's opposition wrestling with relevancy, reality

Ever since elections in July 2011, Thailand's opposition both in and outside the democratic playing field are trying to grasp with the new reality of yet another Thaksin-influenced government - and have done so quite badly. While the Democrat Party is taking on their usual role as the parliamentary opposition and have been eager to criticize every single thing the government is doing, there have been some incidents however during the debates over the 'amnesty bills' earlier this summer, where the tantrum thrown by them are just erratic and desperate.

Meanwhile outside the House, the reemergence of Thailand's royalist, right-wing and anti-democracy movements show how little progress has been made to overcome the political intolerance: the yellow-shirted, ill-named "People's Alliance for Democracy" (PAD) have staged street protests at the parliament in summer with just a couple of thousand supporters and the ultra-royalist multi-color shirts have attempted to re-brand themselves under the "Pitak Siam" ("Protect Siam") banner and Gen. Boonlert Kaewprasit as their (most of the time lackluster) leader, who right out of the gate calls for yet another military coup as the only way to topple the government.

Emboldened by their first rally in October, Pitak Siam upped the ante a month later with a rally at the Royal Plaza, in which the group was deliberately trying to provoke the police forces and to incite violence. Fortunately for all involved, the rally ended in a non-violent disaster with Gen. Boonlert calling it off and also throwing in the towel as leader, as they have failed to rally enough supporters in order to reclaim 'their' Thailand that either doesn't exist anymore or has never existed in the first place. However, this year has also shown that a compromise is not what is on their minds and their irrational hatred makes real reconciliation harder to realize.

Impunity prevails: when 'reconciliation' is more important than 'truth'

One of the key problems of this political conflict is the fight between competing 'truths' about past events in recent history, especially when it comes to the violent clashes and the crackdown of the red shirt protests in 2010. In September, the Truth for Reconciliation Commission of Thailand (TRCT) presented its final report on its investigations into the violent clashes between the authorities and the red shirts, in which at least 90 people have lost their lives and thousands were injured. The overall conclusion of the inquiry was that the commission finds faults with both sides.

But the report will not change much or bring any justice, because both sides are already subscribed to their version of the 'truth' (and to some extend in total denial) and the TRCT never had any real powers and access to conduct a proper investigation in the first place. It must have been more insulting for the red shirts on May 19, on the anniversary of the 2010 crackdown, when Thaksin phoned-in yet again to urge to push for national reconciliation and set aside their feelings of anger and injustice. Of course, Thaksin had to back paddle after some considerable outrage by his supporters.

Even though now more and more death cases are determined to have been caused by the army an, then-prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his then-deputy Suthep Thuagsuban have now been formally charged by the very flexible Department of Special Investigation, it is doubtful that these two or any other will ever be convicted - since this country has always upheld a culture of impunity - especially towards the army - in a numbers of events (1973, 1976, 1992, 2006 etc.) and it needs a lot more to end this.

In the second part of our year-in-review tomorrow: Lèse majesté claimed its first victim, Thailand's upcoming regional challenges, the dismal state of our education and all the other small stories that made 2012.

Thailand: Abhisit, Suthep charged with murder over 2010 crackdown

Originally published at Siam Voices on December 7, 2012 Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has said it will charge former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and then deputy prime minister Suthep Thuagsuban with premeditated murder for their involvement in the death of a taxi driver during the crackdown on the anti-government red shirt protests in May 2010, where about 90 people were killed. Both will be summoned to acknowledge the charges on December 12, 2012.

The charges come after a court determined that taxi driver Phan Khamkong was killed by security forces during the crackdown - more similar cases and inquiries lead to the same conclusions.

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI), police and Thai prosecutors jointly decided to charge the former leader and his deputy Suthep Thaugsuban under article 288, the section of the Thai criminal code that deals with murder, said DSI chief Tarit Pengdith. "Their actions -- repeatedly sending the armed forces against civilians -- show an intention to endanger life," he said.

"Ex-Thai PM to face murder charge", by Thanaporn Promyamyai, AFP, December 6, 2012

The timing of the charges is no coincidence as the parliament is currently in recess until December 21 and Abhisit is not protected by its immunity. DSI chief Tharit Pengdith has been lining up the charges against the two Democrat Party politicians earlier this year.

Last month Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's government comfortably survived a vote of no-confidence. Emboldened, it is now considering pushing for amendments to the constitution and another attempt to bring forward the so-called "reconciliation bills" is expected. Depending on which version will be eventually passed, it states that all charges and verdicts related to political protests between 2005 and May 10, 2011 (so a few days before the May 19 crackdown) will be dropped, including the verdict against former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Some analysts said the charges were a way for the ruling Puea Thai Party to pressure the opposition into accepting a broad amnesty deal that could whitewash guilt on both sides of the conflict and bring Thaksin home from his self-imposed exile in Dubai.

"It's a political game and a way for Puea Thai to gain the upper hand by forcing their opposition to accept some sort of amnesty deal," Kan Yuenyong, director of Siam Intelligence Unit, a think tank in Bangkok, told Reuters.

"Former Thai PM Abhisit charged over crackdown deaths", by Amy Sawitta Lefevre, Reuters, December 6, 2012

This decision also highlights the very flexible nature of DSI chief Tharit towards whoever is currently in power. Just a few years ago, Tharit was focussed to prosecute the red shirt leaders and not put the blame for the deaths during the protests on the army after the crackdown, leading to inconclusive reports. Now, as seen above, he is working against those the used to serve. The DSI has also now accepted more other cases to investigate allegations of irregularities of big projects and constructions, especially against the Democrat-led Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, whose Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra is up for re-election in February.

Even if Abhisit and Suthep will face trial, it can take years of legal process until this eventually goes to court - and this is just over the death of one person during the protests. Nevertheless, it is a sign that those cases are being very slowly progressed. However, this decision is rooted in political consequences and will cause further political consequences, as the current political climate could rise again.

However, one crucial section that is responsible during the clashes and the crackdown is still being left untouched: the armed forces have so far been not charged and even the slightest hint by DSI chief Tharit has been met with so much uproar that he caved in and apologized.

Thailand's Democrat Party rallies behind "men in black" conspiracy

Originally published at Siam Voices on October 15, 2012 On Saturday, members of Thailand's opposition Democrat Party rallied in the streets of Bangkok that were the scenes of the bloody clashes of the anti-government protests in 2010. At least 92 people were killed and thousands were injured when the red shirts rallied and blocked off streets in central Bangkok in order to force out the government of that very same party, that of then-prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. They took to the streets recently to present their own version of under what circumstances people, both civilians and security officers alike, lost their lives and also who is to be blamed.

The mobile rally, accompanied by supporters wearing black T-shirts, black balaclavas and cardboard rifles, made stops at various places of the 2010 protests. One of them was Wat Pathum Wan, a Buddhist temple which was supposedly a designated safe zone after the bloody crackdown of May 19, 2010. However, six were killed inside the temple compound by shots fired from the elevated BTS tracks, where soldiers where supposedly engaged in a firefight with nearby armed men.

The Democrat Party held an emotional rally in Lumpini Park yesterday to condemn the government and provide its version of the military crackdown against red shirt protesters in 2010 when it was in power.

Party members attempted to shed light on the mysterious men in black who had been linked to the red shirt United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) and who were believed by some to have attacked security forces and killed people during the 2010 political violence.

"Abhisit urges truth about men in black", Bangkok Post, October 14, 2012

The 'men in black' are the often mentioned group of armed men that have been spotted at various incidents like during the first clashes of April 10, 2010 and have reportedly fought against military forces. Countless rumors have been made about their affiliations, among them allegedly being under command of the late Maj. Gen. Khattiya ’Seh Daeng’ Sawatdiphol, who had his own group of 'security personnel' during the rally and was considered to be a hawkish hardliner among the red shirt protest leaders. 'Seh Daeng' was shot by a sniper (most likely from a building under military control) on May 13, 2010 while he was giving an interview for The New York Times and later died in a hospital.

The activities culminated in a rally in Lumphini Park, not far from where Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi was killed on May 19, 2010 - recent reports suggest he was killed by shots from the army side (same goes for the death of Japanese Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto). Reportedly 2,000 supporters listened to the speeches by the Democrat Party heavyweights, as they presented "The Truth Without Colours" - same as the book by party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva that is being currently released. The takeaway from this event was probably this accusation:

The Democrats yesterday accused ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra of being behind the so-called "men in black" who were allegedly hired to kill innocents including red-shirt protesters in order to smear the previous Abhisit government.

"Democrats: Thaksin was behind 'men in black'", The Nation, October 14, 2012

Despite or rather especially because of this, last Saturday's rally is very reminiscent in style and content to their pre-election rally at Rajaprasong in 2011, where in a last-ditch attempt the Democrat Party was presenting their version of what happened at that intersection during the military crackdown and taking every opportunity to blame Thaksin for rallying up a 'red mob' and painting him as the main reason of the political crisis.

Another parallel is that both rallies were primarily held to fire up their own supporter base, as those loyal to one political party are unlikely to switch allegiances and those neutral are likely by now fed up with the bi-partisan bickering. This shows that the Democrat Party, Thailand's oldest political party, has moved forward very little since their defeat in the 2011 elections and sometimes come across as desperate, as their antics in parliament earlier this year have shown.

However, what is particularly striking is the apparent willingness of the Democrat Party to still overlook the role of the military during the protests, as this tweet by Abhisit shows: he wrote that "if there weren't any 'men in black', no policeman, civilian or red shirt would have lost their lives!"

เพื่อที่จะบอกท่านว่า ถ้าวันนั้นไม่มีชายชุดดำ ไม่ว่าตำรวจ ไม่ว่าทหาร ไม่ว่าปชช. คนธรรมดา หรือคนเสื้อแดง จะไม่มีใครเสียชีวิตเลยครับ (3/3)

— Abhisit Vejjajiva (@Abhisit_DP) October 13, 2012

It bears some cruel irony that this political rally, meant to reveal the 'truth' of what happened to the victims of the bloody clashes during these 9 and a half weeks in 2010, took place on the same weekend as the anniversary of October 14, 1973, when pro-democracy protesters were brutally gunned down by the military regime of Field Marshal Thanom. Seventy-seven people were killed and over 800 were injured, but ultimately no one was held responsible. It is this culture of impunity that still prevails today and that is being preserved by the mindset the Democrat Party (but also the Pheu Thai government, should they give a blanket amnesty including for Thaksin) is still promoting with this rally - by focussing on one issue only and completely missing the bigger picture.

Op-Ed: A 'truth' for the sake of Thailand's reconciliation does little

Originally published at Siam Voices on September 30, 2012 Last week, the Truth for Reconciliation Commission of Thailand (TRCT) presented its final report of their investigations of the violent clashes between the authorities and the red shirts during the 2010 anti-government protests. At least 92 people were killed and thousands injured. The overall outcome was that they find faults at both sides. However, it does very little to move the country forward to the much-yearned for national reconciliation.

Right from the outset the commission was met with skepticism and rejection, especially from the red shirts, since it was established shortly after the protests during the Abhisit administration and the fear of bias was strong. Even if an investigation would have been set up by the succeeding Yingluck government, any inquiry that would be set up by any government would be regarded as partisan in this current political climate.

The real problem of this panel is not what is being pointed out by the report or whether or what the motives of the nine commissioners were, but rather the toothless nature of the panel. It was given virtually no powers and access to forensic and official information in order to conduct proper investigations regarding the violent clash of April 10, 2010, and the bloody crackdown that ended on May 19, 2010.

And so the actual report was criticized and rejected by both sides, neither fully acknowledging the claims by the TRCT that there were mistakes done by them in order to prevent violence. However, the emphasis of the alleged link of a black-clad militia group to the red shirt leaders, especially to the late rogue Major General Khattiya"Seh Daeng" Sawatdiphol - who denied any involvement with them, but confirmed their role during the April 10 clashes shortly before he was assassinated from a sniper who the TRCT concluded must have shot from a building under control of the army - all without proper evidence, which begs the question where the priorities of the commission lie.

The personal opinion of TRCT chairman Khanit na Nakhon (which has been wrongly reported as an official statement of the commission by a few outlets) that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra should "sacrifice himself" and keep out of politics underlines one major misunderstanding and the ultimate blind spot of many political actors: the notion that Thaksin is the root of all evil problems ignores the long-term effects of his (in no way altruistic or goodie-goodie) policies that lead to the political awakening of the population outside of Bangkok.

On the other hand, there were many solid and legitimate findings and recommendations made by the TRCT report, such as the call for amendment of the draconian lèse majesté law and the call to the armed forces to restrain themselves from taking political sides. But those are just non-binding recommendations and it has to be seen if anyone would take these to heart and implement actual change. Furthermore, this report does not give more clarity for the victim's families, which is unfortunately more the rule than the exception in Thailand, as political events that have turned violent in the past have never been properly investigated.

This country has a very long history of impunity where the state perpetrators have never been held accountable for their decisions and their consequences - many of them resulting in deaths. Whether it was the attacks on democracy activists on October 14, 1973, the Thammasat University massacre of October 6, 1976, the Black May of 1992 or the recent military coup of 2006, the events of modern Thai history have left gaping wounds in the nation's fabric and those responsible have never been brought to justice. Instead, for the sake of national 'reconciliation,' the anger has been attempted to be quelled with the ever-repeating mantra of forgiving and forgetting - only for the next tragedy to strike and many to ask how it could happen again.

Reconciliation cannot happen without understanding or even be ready to acknowledge what brought us here to the first place, that competing narratives and opinions about our past, present and future exist, that 'unity' should not require surrender of differences and that the 'truth' can no longer be claimed by just a few. That is the main point of this column: it's not so much what the 'truth' is here presented by the TRCT, what is crucial for this country is how the 'truth' is being handled and implemented by the stakeholders and by the common citizen in order to move Thailand beyond the current power gridlock.

The full TRCT report in Thai can be downloaded in PDF form here and the English-language press release here.

“Uncle SMS” death inspires hypocrisy, indifference among politicians

Originally published at Siam Voices on May 12, 2012 The death of Ampon Tangnoppakul on Monday, known as "Ah Kong" (grandpa) or "Uncle SMS" and imprisoned under the lèse majesté law for allegedly sending inflammatory text messages against the monarchy, has sparked widespread outcry, condemnation and anger — domestic and international alike. However, one group of people that have been very silent on this matter were Thailand's politicians - and if there were any statements from both sides, then they showed the hypocrisy, double standard and sheer cowardice in order to maintain an unstable status quo concerning Article 112 of the Criminal Code.

Among the first to respond when questioned about Ampon's fate and the re-ignited discussion over the lèse majesté law, was Abhisit Vejjajiva of the opposition Democrat party, who said that the death of the 62-year old grandfather "must not be exploited for political gain." He continued:

He said the government was duty-bound to explain what happened to Ampon as he was in the custodial care of the Corrections Department under the supervision of the government.

"Reds told not to exploit Ampon's death", Bangkok Post, May 10, 2012

What Abhisit completely neglects to mention is that it was during his time as prime minister that Ampon was arrested and brought to trial. What he also fails to mention is that it was his own personal secretary Somkiat Klongwattanasak who received those messages and reported them to the police — a fact that Abhisit still denies to have noticed until today, as heard recently at a FCCT event. That almost overshadows that there were no mentions of condolences or anything similar expressed by him reported in the press.

Another public figure who did actually expressed his condolences was (slightly surprisingly) army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha, but in the same breath also reminds the people of his idea(ls) of 'being a Thai':

"ประเด็นสำคัญคือ กองทัพเสียใจ ไม่ว่า ใครก็ตามก็ถือว่า เป็นคนไทย ขอให้ทุกคนสำนึกความเป็นคนไทยกันมากๆ ว่า ความเป็นคนไทยต้อง คือ ต้องเคารพกฎหมาย รักชาติ ศาสนา พระมหากษัตริย์"พล.อ.ประยุทธ์กล่าว

"The important thing is that we, the armed forces, are sorry. Whoever [he was], [he was] a Thai. I want everybody to be very aware of being a Thai. Being a Thai means to respect the law, to love the country, religion and the monarchy," said General Prayuth.

""ประยุทธ์"เตือน อย่าดึงปม"อากง"โยงสถาบัน เผยกองทัพเสียใจ ชี้ให้มองความเป็นจริง", Matichon, May 10, 2012

As the kingdom's top soldier, he sees his duty to serve and protect the monarchy from all threats against it, no matter how constructed and perceived they are. Ever since his inception, the army chief has been consistently showing loyalty to the royal institution and vowing to crack down on lèse majesté offenders - because everything else to him is apparently not Thai.

However, it was most anticipated what (if at all) prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra would say about the death of 'Uncle SMS' - it took her five days to say this:

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said yesterday she has no plans to amend Section 112 - the lese majeste law - despite an outcry over the death of a 62-year-old man jailed for the offence. (...)

"I want to reaffirm that my government's policy is to stay put," Ms Yingluck said in response to questions about possible reform of the law. I have already told groups who push for amendment that the government's urgent mission is to solve economic problems."

"PM adamant she will not reform lese majeste law", Bangkok Post, May 12, 2012

This is almost a carbon copy of her statement she did in July last year shortly after her party won the elections:

Question: “Do you have any plan to change the 112 law?”

Answer:  ”No, for me, I don’t have any idea to change the 112. I would not reform it, because it is not my policy and also this is an issue which is quite sensitive so we have to leave it to the people who have expertise to comment on that. I don’t want to see the misuse of this law regarding his majesty.”

"Will Yingluck amend Thailand’s lese majeste law?", Siam Voices, July 8, 2011

During the months following their election victory, it became clear that the new Yingluck government will NOT push for a reform of Article 112. Even worse, both the MICT minister and deputy prime minister Chalerm have vowed to crackdown even harder on alleged offenders, hinting to be part of a deal with the military not to touch this issue in exchange for a non-intervention against the government and potentially also not intervening against a potential return by Thaksin.

Nevertheless Yingluck's repeated refusal to touch the issue of lèse majesté is betraying a substantial part of her and the Pheu Thai Party's supporter base - many of which were hoping for a reform since they were the most targeted group under this law. Their loyalty has been put on the test before and a recent visit by Yingluck with Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda, regarded by many among her supporters as a nemesis, has divided opinions among the red shirts.

It appears that all sides have decided to maintain the status quo for the sake of stability. However, this stability of upholding Article 112 is not sustainable, as with each victim the opposition to this law will grow and could result in a backlash against the current government. The prisoners bear the brunt of a political battle, in which all sides could ultimately lose all their supporters.

Saksith Saiyasombut is a Thai blogger and journalist currently based in Hamburg, Germany. He can be followed on Twitter @Saksith and on Facebook here.

2011 - Some Personal Thoughts

Originally published at Siam Voices on December 31, 2011 2011 is history and looking back on Thailand this past year, it has been yet another eventful year that brought some answers, but many more questions to the wide-spread problems that continues to plague the country in many aspects. However, 2011 brought many chances and changes, shed light on issues and topics left in the dark before, voices echoed by many and opinions uttered by a few, whether you agree with them or not.

This is a (definitely incomplete) list of these stories that happened in 2011...

Lèse majesté sees December surge

Let's start off with the most recent topic that has unfortunately brought Thailand into the world headlines for all the wrong reasons again and that is none other than the problematic issue of lèse majesté that is gripping freedom of speech. The whole month of December was filled with stories about high-profile cases and countless victims of this draconian law, the discussion to amend it and the (irrational) defenders of this law and the institution that is meant to be protected by it.

The recent surge of lèse majesté began in late November with the dubious sentence against Ampon "Uncle SMS" Tangnoppakul, despite doubtful evidence. The 62-year old grandfather is now being jailed for 20 years, five years for each alleged SMS sent. On December 8 the Thai-born US citizen was  sentenced to two and a half years prison for posting translated parts of a banned biography on the King. On December 15 'Da Torpedo', despite winning an appeal resulting in a restart of her trial, was punished to 15 years prison for alleged remarks made in 2008. These are just a few cases that happened in November and December compared to the countless other (partly ongoing or pending) cases over the past 12 months.

But the surge was also accompanied with growing and publicly displayed concern by the European Union, the United Nations and the United States Embassy in Bangkok over the increasing blatant usage of the lèse majesté law, only with the latter to be flooded with irrational, angry hate speeches and also the venue for a protest by royalists in mid-December (and also in a nearly instant iconic display of royal foolishness, the protesters are wearing Guy Fawkes masks, most likely inspired by the #Occupy-movement, but totally oblivious to its historical roots). It was not the first time this year that this issue got attention from the international community, as seen in October.

The government of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra was elected into office last July (see below), and while she would have liked to see some change on the application of the law, not to the law itself though, the new ICT minister has vowed to exploit this to the fullest. He was only to be topped by deputy prime minister Chalerm Yubamrung a few months later, who went into full combat mode and declared war on lèse majesté web content with a THB400m ($12,6m) strong war chest, right after a meeting with the military's top brasses. The hopes of many supporters of the Pheu Thai Party, especially the red shirts, are at latest by now fully gone, as this government already has a tainted record on this issue.

But there was also an important protest by opponents of lèse majesté - the "Fearlessness Walk" shows that this issue can no longer be ignored and the consequences of its enforcement are doing exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to do. It is drawing attention to the ambiguous nature of Article 112 of the criminal code (as well as the Computer Crimes Act), it is drawing attention to the signs of changing times and those who refuse to see them, and ultimately it will draw more opposition - we will (unfortunately) hear more about this issue in 2012!

(Non-)Culture: Baring the unbearable and monopolizing "Thai"-ness

While we're on the subject on being subjected to the anachronistic ideas of a few, there were several stories in 2011 in the realms of culture that were disconcerting, to say the least. It wasn't so much the incidents themselves rather the reactions by those self-proclaimed cultural heralds of everything "Thai"-ness - a phrase I've been using too often in each of those stories: three girls dancing topless on Songkran, the then-culture minister calls for a crackdown on them as if they have attacked everything "Thai"-ness stands for. A few months later the same culture minister suddenly notices that infidels foreigners are getting Buddhist tattoos and calls for a ban (and back paddles after some considerable uproar). Shortly after his ministry senselessly attempts to crack down on a senseless internet meme because it's "inappropriate" and "not constructive". Later this year a rather curious guide for parents was published on their website. And finally a singer's rather raunchy video gets a ton of hits online and a sanctimonious scolding on national TV.

See a pattern here? The selective outcry borders on ridiculousness and fuels Thailand’s National Knee-Jerk Outrage Machine (“กลไกสร้างปฏิกิริยาอย่างไร้ความยั้งคิดแห่งประเทศไทย”, trademark pending), claims to uphold the only valid definition of "Thai"-ness, that isn't even fully spelled out yet, while they have not noticed that the world beyond their minds has moved on and come up with new and different definitions of what else Thailand could be. The problem is that these cultural heralds, by political office or class, claim monopoly on this. Everyone below their wage level is not entitled to even think about it. And if something doesn't fit their point of view, as guest contributor Kaewmala put it brilliantly, "Only taboo when it's inconvenient!"

The 2011 General Elections

Will he or will he not? In the end, Abhisit Vejjajiva did dissolve parliament and paved the way for early elections in May and also set off quite a short campaign season, which not only saw a few strange election posters and illustrious characters running for office, but it also saw the emergence of Yingluck Shinawatra as the lucky draw for PM candidate of the opposition Pheu Thai Party. After much skyping to Dubai discussion within the party, the sister of Thaksin was chosen to run and it turned out to be the best pick.

The Democrat Party were banking heavily on negative campaigning (a precursor to the upcoming, inevitable Thaksin-phobia in 2012), which reached its climax in the last days with their rally at Rajaprasong, the same venue where the red shirts protested a year ago. In this event, then-deputy prime minister Suthep Thuangsuban claimed to give the "full truth" on what really happened during the violent crackdown of May 19, 2010. What followed were hours of fear-mongering in case of a Pheu Thai win and an incident that almost caused a major misunderstanding:

The big screens flanking the stage on the left and the right are bearing a gruesome view. Footage of at times badly injured people from last year’s rally are being shown when suddenly at the sight of blood people started cheering – as it turns out, not for the brutally killed victims of the anti-governments protests of 2010, but for a woman with an Abhisit cut-out mask waving to the crowd behind her.

"Thailand’s Democrat Party rally: Reclaiming (the truth about) Rajaprasong", Siam Voices, June 24, 2011

The last days of the campaign were spent outside of Bangkok, for example Pheu Thai in Nakhon Ratchasima before the big day. On Sunday, July 3, election day of course meant a full-day-marathon for a journalist. Not only did it mean covering as many polling stations around town as humanly possible, not only to crunch the numbers of exit polls (which turned out to be total BS!), but also of course running the live-blog at Siam Voices. In the end, it went very quickly: Abhisit conceded, Yingluck smiled and at a lunch meeting later there was already a new five-party coalition.

The worst floods in decades: a deluge of irrationality

790.

This is the current death toll of the what has been described as the "worst floods in decades". Floods are an annual occurrence in Thailand during the rainy season. When the water was sweeping through Chiang Mai already back in late September, this natural disaster was somehow going to be different. But it took some considerable time, despite the unprecedented damage it has created in Ayutthaya to the ancient temples and the vital industrial parks, until the capital was drowned in fear of what was to come.

It was curious to observe that those who were least likely to be affected (read: central Bangkok) were losing their nerves the most. Back in November I attempted to explore one possible reason:

One of the real reasons why the people of the city react the way they did though is this: After a military coup, countless violent political protests and sieges of airports, government buildings and public roads, this city has a sense of anxiety not unlike New York after the 9/11 terrorist attacks: a sense of being constantly under siege by something or somebody that separates Bangkok from the rest of the country even more. An incident at Klong Sam Wa Sluice Gate (we reported) is a perfect example of the conflict between inside and outside Bangkok in miniature form.

"The Thai floods and the geographics of perception – Part 2: Certain fear of uncertainty", Siam Voices, November 23, 2011

On an anecdotal note I remember people around me hoarding bottled water, moving their belongings upstairs and barricading their houses waist-high - while I can understand these precautions, I was astonished to say the least when I started to read social media updates that accuse the government so much so to the point of deliberately drowning the people of Bangkok and other outlandish conspiracy theories, including the now ubiquitous "blame it on foreign media"-card.

There's no doubt that this natural disaster has not only shown the worst in people, but also it's helpful and charitable side (not only towards humans exclusively). During my work reporting from the floods for foreign news crews (hence there weren't many posts on Siam Voices), I admired the apparent resilience and defiance I saw from many victims of the floods - some of which are now struggling with rebuilding their lost existence. And a lot of clean-up will be needed to be done, both literally as well as politically, in order to prevent such a disaster from happening again!

What else happened in 2011? (in no particular order)

- Then-prime minister Abhisit urging then-president of Egypt Honsi Mubarak to respect the will of the people - while being totally oblivious that he exactly did not do that a year ago because, well, "They ran into the bullets" themselves!

- Half a dozen Thais walking through the border region with Cambodia and surprised that they're being arrested, in an arbitrary way to dispute the border demarcations between the two countries. This ongoing conflict, largely fueled by the ever-shrinking PAD, sparked into a brief armed battle. Two of the strollers are still sitting in a Cambodian prison.

- The one-year-anniversary of the crackdown of May 19 and my personal thoughts on this.

- The somehow strangely toned-down five-year-anniversary of the 2006 coup.

- Army chef General Prayuth Chan-ocha going completely berserk at the press.

- The fact that Thailand got its first female prime minister and the (un)surprisingly muted reactions by Thailand's feminists.

- The saga of the impounded Thai plane on German ground, the curious case study on how Thai media reported it, the juristic mud-slinging, and how this mess was eventually solved. Which brings us to...

- The German government allowing Thaksin back into Germany, after heavy campaigning by a bunch of conservative German MPs. Still boggles my mind...!

- And while we're on topic, we are saying good-bye to a regular contributor of outrageous quotes - no one has been so focused to do a different job than written his business card than Thaksin-hunter and former foreign minister in disguise Kasit Piromya!

I'd like to thank my colleagues at Siam Voices for building a diverse and opinionated collective, our editor who keeps everything in check and YOU, the readers! THANK YOU for the support, feedback, criticism, links and retweets!

Here's to an eventful, exciting 2012 that brings us news, changes, developments to discuss for all the right reasons! Happy New Year!

Saksith Saiyasombut is a Thai blogger and journalist based in Hamburg, Germany again (*sigh*). He can be followed on Twitter @Saksith and now also on his public Facebook page here.

Did a monk really predict 'damage once Thailand has a female PM'?

Originally published at Siam Voices on September 20, 2011 Thais can be a superstitious bunch of people. Whether it's amulets or tattoos, many just do not want to take any chances. When it comes to political fortune telling, much attention is paid to the men, who have gained such wisdom to give a prophecy about how the balance of power will play out in the future. Some of them are (intentionally) cryptic, some are more concrete (but yet wrong) - nevertheless, such things regularly make the headlines in Thailand, as seen recently when former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was surveying the flooding situation in Sing Buri province:

(ที่มา ข่าวสดออนไลน์)

(...) นายอภิสิทธิ์ได้เข้านมัสการพระธรรมสิงหบุราจารย์ (หรือหลวงปู่จรัญ ฐิตธมฺโม) ที่วัดอัมพวัน (...) พร้อมกับสนทนาขอข้อมูลและคำแนะนำถึงการแก้ไขสถานการณ์น้ำท่วม (...)

ในระหว่างการสนทนาหลวงพ่อจรัญ กล่าวกับนายอภิสิทธิ์และกลุ่มสื่อมวลชน (...) เคยได้อ่านคำทำนายของหลวงพ่อฤาษีลิงดำกันหรือยัง (...) ถ้าประเทศไทยมีนายกฯ เป็นผู้หญิงจะทำให้บ้านเมืองเสียหาย มีปัญหา จึงขอให้นายอภิสิทธิ์รักษาเนื้อ รักษาตัวให้ดี เพราะจะได้กลับมาเป็นนายกฯ อีกครั้งหนึ่งแน่ (...)

(via Khao Sod Online)

(...) Abhisit paid respect to Phra Dharma Singha Bhurajarn (also known as Luang Pho Jaran) at Wat Amphawan (...) and to discuss the flood situation.

During the the discussion, Luang Pho Jaran asked if Abhisit or members of the press (...) have read the prophecies by Luang Pho Ruesi Ling Dam. (...) "If Thailand has a female prime minister, the country will take damage and have problems." Thus, [Luang Pho Jaran told] Mr. Abhisit should take good care of himself, since he will surely be prime minister a second time. (...)

""หลวงปู่จรัญ" ยกคำทำนายฤาษีลิงดำทัก "มาร์ค" นั่งนายกฯรอบ2 เหตุผู้นำหญิงทำบ้านเมืองเสียหาย", Matichon, September 16, 2011, translation by me

Now that sounds very concrete and something that Abhisit and like-minded people probably love to hear at the moment. But if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. When you look at another Thai newspaper, things kind of start to appear not the same way as they did at the beginning. Thai Rath ran the headline "Double premiership awaits, Mark rejoices, Ruesi Ling Dam predicts" and wrote in their subheader:

หลวงพ่อจรัญ ยกคำทำนายเกจิดังหลวงพ่อฤษีลิงดำ ทัก"มาร์ค"จะได้รีเทิร์นนายกรัฐมนตรีรอบสอง แนะรักษาเนื้อรักษาตัวให้ดี เพื่อจะได้กลับมาดูแลทุกข์สุขของประชาชน...

Luang Pho Jaran cites prophecy by Luang Pho Ruesi Ling Dam that "Mark" [Abhisit's nickname] will return as prime minister for a second time, advises him to take good care of himself in order to take care of the people again...

"ได้เบิ้ลนายกฯ มาร์คปลื้ม ฤษีลิงดำทำนาย", Thai Rath, September 16, 2011

Now who said what? And has any monk predicted chaos once this country is governed by a woman? And how can the monk foresee a second prime minister tenure for Abhisit? This small religious gaffe prompted Wat Tha Sung, the temple of the aforementioned Luang Pho Ruesi Ling Dam to issue following statement:

ตามที่มีข่าวลงในหน้าหนังสือพิมพ์หลายฉบับ นับตั้งแต่วันที่ 16 กันยายน 2554 ทางทีมงานฯ เว็บวัดท่าซุงขอชี้แจงว่า เป็นความเข้าใจคลาดเคลื่อนในเรื่อง "คำทำนาย" เหล่านี้ เพราะสมัยที่พระเดชพระคุณหลวงพ่อพระราชพรหมยาน "ฤาษีลิงดำ" ท่านไม่เคยมีคำทำนายเหล่านี้ออกมาเผยแพร่ เพราะท่านไม่ได้เข้าไปยุ่งเกี่ยวในด้านการเมืองแต่อย่างใด (...)

After reports in several newspaper on September 16, 2011, Wat Tha Sung wants to clarify that there is a misinterpretation of the "prophecy" because Luang Pho Ruesi Ling Dam has never said such things because his holiness has not intervened into politics at all. (...)

ฉะนั้น ทางทีมงานฯ จึงขอยืนยันว่า แม้ในปัจจุบันนี้ทางวัดท่าซุงก็มิได้เชื่อถือคำทำนายเหล่านี้ โดยเฉพาะคำพูดของหลวงพ่อจรัญใน "ไทยรัฐ" ที่กล่าวว่า "หลวงพ่อฤษีลิงดำ ทัก"มาร์ค"จะได้รีเทิร์นนายกรัฐมนตรีรอบสอง" นั้นเป็นไปไม่ได้แน่นอน เพราะหลวงพ่อฤาษีลิงดำท่านมรณภาพไปนานแล้ว และหากเป็นคำพูดจากหลวงพ่อจรัญด้วย คิดว่าท่านคงจะเข้าใจผิดอย่างแน่นอน

We insist that the temple now does not believe in that prophecy, especially Luang Pho Jaran's quote in "Thai Rath" that "Luang Pho Ruesi Ling Dam predicts that "Mark" will return as prime minister for a second time" - that is definitely impossible because Luang Pho Ruesi Ling Dam has passed away a long time ago [in 1992]

ถ้าท่านผู้อ่านเทียบเคียงกับหนังสือพิมพ์ทั้งสองฉบับนี้แล้ว [และ] "ข่าวสด" ที่อ้างหลวงปู่จรัลบอกว่า ถ้าประเทศไทยมีนายกฯ เป็นผู้หญิงจะทำให้บ้านเมืองเสียหาย มีปัญหา จะเห็นว่าการเสนอข่าวก็ยังไม่ตรงกัน แต่ถึงอย่างไรก็ทำให้ทางวัดเสียหาย และเกิดความข้องใจในโลกออนไลน์ เพราะมีการนำข้อข่าวเหล่านี้ไปโพสต์ออกความเห็นกันมีทั้งลบและบวก บางคนก็มีการจ้วงจาบไปโดยรู้เท่าไม่ถึงการณ์

If the readers compare both newspapers [and] "Khao Sod"'s citation of Luang Pho Jaran, that if Thailand has a female prime minister he country will take damage and have problems, you will see that their reporting is not the same. But nevertheless it brings the temple into disrepute and raises doubt online because this will be posted to express their opinions, which has both its positive and negative sides. Some will show disrespect because of that limited knowledge [about the subject].

ด้วยเหตุนี้ จึงขอให้ทุกท่านที่ได้อ่านข่าวนี้แล้ว โปรดใช้วิจารณญาณไตร่ตรอง "ข่าว" (...)

We request all readers to use caution towards "news" (...)

Official Statement by Wat Tha Sung, September 17, 2011, translated by me

Thanks to shoddy reporting by both Khao Sod and Thai Rath some people have unnecessarily raised their hopes that things might change sooner than later and have posthumously attributed a monk with an outlandish prophecy. Call it karma, call it fate, but again: if something's too good to be true, it probably is.

Saksith Saiyasombut is a Thai blogger and journalist currently based in Bangkok, Thailand. He can be followed on Twitter @Saksith and now also on his public Facebook page here.