Thai protesters should count their blessings

Thailand (John Blanchard / The Chronicle)
Supporters rally for the Thai government (seen here) while Red Shirt foes denounce it. (Photo: Paula Bronstein / Getty Images)
Supporters rally for the Thai government while Red Shirt foes (seen here) denounce it. (Photo: Manpreet Romana / AFP/Getty Images)

Sunday, May 2, 2010
Joel Brinkley
San Francisco Chronicle (California, USA)

Today, Cambodia is ruled by a kleptocratic, elective dictatorship. Emblematic of its behavior, the government sold a beautiful lake, a landmark in the center of the capital city, to a developer for $79 million and pocketed the money. The buyer began pumping sand into the water intending to fill it up and build a new development. But to do that, the government had to order the eviction of 4,000 families from their homes on the water's edge. Angry about this, one resident painted a declaration on the side of his home that said "Stop Evictions!" The government sued him for defamation.

Southeast Asia is a frustrating part of the world for anyone hoping to live in a democracy, as the violent protests in Bangkok right now make perfectly clear. But take a close look at Thailand's neighborhood and you come away wondering: Why can't the Thai people appreciate what they have?

To Thailand's west lies Burma, which last held democratic elections in 1990. Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party, the National League for Democracy, won a sweeping victory. But the ruling military government refused to accept the results and instead locked her away in her home. The next year she won the Nobel Peace Prize, but that changed nothing. She is still under house arrest today. Now the military junta is planning new elections this fall, but it recently released rules structured so that Aung San Suu Kyi cannot participate. Last month, her party's leadership announced it would boycott the vote. No one anywhere regards these planned elections as anything but a sham.

To the north of Thailand lies Laos, a closed, impoverished little nation where hammer-and-sickle flags fly above government offices, perhaps the last place on Earth where that is so. Schools and offices display posters of Marx and Lenin, and in a speech earlier this year, President Choummaly Sayasone opined that "Marxist-Leninist theory is practical and is suitable for the current situation in Laos."

Laos last held an election in 1955, but the coalition government collapsed in 1958, and the country hasn't experienced even a breath of democracy since. Meanwhile, half of the nation's children are so malnourished that they are stunted, meaning they are not growing, either physically or mentally.

To the east lies Cambodia, whose people received an extraordinary gift from the world almost 20 years ago. The United Nations, recognizing the tragedy the nation faced under the Khmer Rouge, occupied Cambodia for two years and spent $3 billion to redeem the state, giving it a democratic constitution. The United Nations staged national elections and, obviously hungry for democracy, 90 percent of the Cambodian people voted. But all of it was for naught.

Today, Cambodia is ruled by a kleptocratic, elective dictatorship. Emblematic of its behavior, the government sold a beautiful lake, a landmark in the center of the capital city, to a developer for $79 million and pocketed the money. The buyer began pumping sand into the water intending to fill it up and build a new development. But to do that, the government had to order the eviction of 4,000 families from their homes on the water's edge. Angry about this, one resident painted a declaration on the side of his home that said "Stop Evictions!" The government sued him for defamation.

Then, to the south lies Malaysia, which does have a democracy of sorts. But like their neighbors, Malaysians are having serious difficulties maintaining democratic freedoms. The U.S. State Department's human rights report, published last month, noted that "significant obstacles prevented opposition parties from competing on equal terms with the ruling coalition. Some deaths occurred during police apprehensions and while in police custody.

"The government also arrested other opposition leaders, journalists, and Internet bloggers apparently for political reasons" and "continued to restrict freedom of press, association, assembly, speech, and religion." At the same time, "arbitrary arrest and detention using the Internal Security Act and three other statutes allowed detention without trial, and persistent questions remained about the impartiality and independence of the judiciary."

And then there's Thailand, a democracy. It's not without problems, some quite serious. Official corruption is rampant. Occasionally, as in 2006, the military stages a coup. The Thai government, like Malaysia's, "maintained some limits on freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly," the State Department said.

But by and large, Thailand is more democratic - freer than any of its neighbors. And yet, thousands of people are demonstrating in the streets because they don't like the outcome of recent elections, just as they did before, in 2006 and 2008.

Two mass-protest groups, the Red Shirts and the Yellow Shirts, are roughly similar to Democrats and Republicans. It's a crude comparison, but the Red Shirts are poor and working-class populists, while the Yellow Shirts are defenders of Thailand's oligarchy. In recent years, leaders who were perceived to be advocates of one camp or the other have served as prime minister. Each time, the other side took to the streets, paralyzing the nation.

Thailand's protesters should look around, see how their neighbors live, realize how fortunate they are - and then wait for the next election.

Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a former foreign correspondent for the New York Times.