Bangkok's savage conflict may be a mere dress rehearsal

A Redshirt in Bangkok: both sides have used violence Photo: Getty Images

Thailand is torn between two rival camps, best characterised as competing patronage networks.

19 May 2010
By Duncan McCargo
Telegraph (UK)

Since March 12, tens of thousands of red-shirted demonstrators have occupied central areas of Bangkok, demanding the resignation of the Oxford-educated prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the dissolution of parliament. The violence peaked on April 10 – when more than 20 people were killed – and has flared up again, as the military have tried to clear out the Redshirts' encampment.

At times, the security forces have fought pitched battles with protesters. The fatalities have included a Japanese cameraman, and several foreigners have been injured, including a Canadian journalist. In recent days, snipers have been shooting people from high buildings.

This has been portrayed as a struggle between poor farmers from the countryside and an undemocratic Bangkok elite. Yet despite the sympathetic coverage for the Redshirts in much of the international media, this is not a classic "pro-democracy" struggle between good guys and bad guys. It is a savage and dispiriting civil conflict, from which nobody emerges with much credit.

At the last election in December 2007, the ruling Democrat Party took 39.63 per cent of the party list vote – almost exactly the same as the 39.60 per cent of the People's Power Party, from which the Redshirts are largely drawn. Neither side has had a monopoly on popular support; both have some valid arguments and positions; and neither has been playing by the rules.

Amnesty International has condemned the shooting of at least 35 unarmed protesters in the past few days, either by uniformed soldiers, or unidentified forces apparently working on behalf of the state. But at the same time, elements of the Redshirt movement have used heavy weapons against a range of government and civilian targets, including the luxury Dusit Thani Hotel, and at one point they stormed Chulalongkorn University Hospital.

The central problem is that Thailand is torn between two rival camps, each led and directed by rich and powerful factions. Though ostensibly divided by ideological differences, in reality the anti-government Redshirts and the pro-government Yellowshirts are best characterised as competing patronage networks, bound together primarily by personal loyalties and emotional attachments. Supporters on both sides have been mobilised by intermediaries playing on local and family ties.

The figureheads for each side are prime minister Abhisit and Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister who was deposed in 2006 in the latest in a series of military coups. The former Manchester City owner certainly remains deeply linked to the protests; if he were to call for the Redshirts to step back from the brink, his words would be extremely influential. But many among the fractious, essentially ad hoc coalition are indifferent to, or even critical of, Thaksin. While some are indeed farmers from his strongholds in the north and north-east, the military recently estimated that 70 per cent of the protesters come from Bangkok and its provinces.

Across Thailand, the Yellow-Red divide cuts through households: married couples, parents and children, and lifelong friends have been torn asunder. Even though swaths of the country north of Bangkok have become virtual no-go areas for government ministers, this is much bigger than a simple class or regional divide.

The Redshirts argue that Thaksin was removed from power by an illegitimate military coup, that a majority of voters remain loyal to pro-Thaksin parties, and that the present Democrat government came to power as a result of dodgy backroom manoeuvres.

It is true that the Abhisit government took office after a previously pro-Thaksin faction switched sides, rather as if the Lib Dems decided to defect from their alliance with the Tories and put Labour back into Downing Street. The Redshirts also complain, with some justification, that the government has done nothing to punish the "terrorist" transgressions of the yellow-shirted People's Alliance for Democracy in 2008, which included occupying Government House for more than three months and seizing Bangkok's airports; they also lament that their side has been harshly treated in landmark court cases.

Abhisit's supporters point out that for all Thaksin's grandiose rhetoric, he was no great supporter of democracy or human rights in his five years in office, during which he practised "CEO government" and staunchly opposed any form of decentralisation. They are appalled by the thuggish tactics of the Redshirts, and their distasteful alliance with hit squads informally headed by Major General Khattiya Sawasdipol, a rogue army officer who was killed last week by a mysterious sniper. Government supporters are also deeply frustrated by the failure of the police – whose ranks are packed with Thaksin supporters – to maintain order, and the inability or unwillingness of the armed forces to carry out a decisive crackdown.

Underlying the mistrust and paranoia on both sides is a set of larger fears about the future of the country. King Bhumibol, for many a symbol of unity and stability, is 82 and in poor health. Whatever their political orientation, most Thais can hardly imagine a future without him. On one level, Thailand's political crisis is an expression of collective anxiety about the succession. If the sides cannot negotiate a settlement before then, the recent spate of protests may be dress rehearsals for an even more dramatic, and more damaging, confrontation.

Duncan McCargo is Professor of South-East Asian politics at the University of Leeds