Three Isaan men still in Khmer prison

August 26, 2010
The Nation

Three Thai nationals are still under detention in Siem Reap because Prime Minister Hun Sen's instruction to release them remains unclear.

The three Surin residents - Sanong Wongcharoen, Rim Phuangphet and Rain Sabdee - were arrested last week while hunting for food in the forested area along the Thai-Cambodian border.

Surin Governor Raphee Pongbuppakit said on Tuesday that Hun Sen had ordered the prisoners' release now that diplomatic relations have been normalised.

However, the Foreign Ministry's deputy spokesman Thani Thongpakdi said on a radio programme yesterday that the three were still in Siem Reap prison, because their case had not yet been put through the court. He added that Thai authorities were working to get them released.

Thailand and Cambodia normalised ties after former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra resigned as an adviser to Hun Sen on Monday.

Both countries have reinstated their respective ambassadors after recalling them nine months ago when Thaksin was given the appointment. Thailand regarded the appointment as an insult to its judicial system because Thaksin is fleeing the jail term given over conflict-of-interest charges.

Cambodian Ambassador You Ay arrived in Bangkok yesterday to resume her duties, though she would not speak to reporters as she walked out of the airport terminal.

Thai Ambassador Prasas Prasasvinitchai arrived in Phnom Penh on Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said yesterday that the government would continue cooperating in projects with Cambodia now that ties are back to normal, adding that the Preah Vihear dispute would not be an obstacle.

The two countries have been in conflict over the designation of the Hindu temple as a World Heritage Site as well as fears of territory loss.

Political temperature soars in Thailand's red capital

May 23, 2010
By Peter Janssen
DPA

Khon Kaen, Thailand - While red-shirted protestors ran amok in Bangkok last Wednesday, looting stores, breaking into bank branches and setting alight 36 buildings, a less publicized riot was underway in Khon Kaen, in northeastern Thailand, called Isan.

On May 13, hundreds of red shirt sympathizers burned down Khon Kaen City Hall and the office of the state-run National Broadcasting Television. Others attacked the palatial home of government politician Prajak Klaewklarharn.

In the assault on Prajak, who belongs to the Bhumjai Thai Party - a partner in the current coalition government - two protestors were shot dead by guards. Similar outbreaks were reported Wednesday in five other provincial towns, but Khon Kaen's uprising was the fiercest.

Khon Kaen is deemed the north-eastern capital of the red shirt movement, officially called the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), which launched a mass protest in Bangkok on March 12 to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to dissolve parliament and hold new elections.

The protestors seized Ratchaprasong Road on April 3, turning the once posh commercial district of luxury department stores and five star hotels into a city of tents and makeshift sidewalk shacks, until troops finally dispersed the demonstration on Wednesday.

Hardcore members of the red shirts went on a rampage in Bangkok Wednesday evening after their leaders surrendered to authorities, raising serious concerns about Thailand's long term stability.

With many of the UDD leaders now under arrest, there are fears that the movement could take a more violent turn.

'Now that there are no leaders, the worm has gone underground,' said Yongyut Kongpatimakorn, a red shirt organizer in Khon Kaen, about 350 kilometres north-east of Bangkok. 'You've got a headless body that isn't being told where to throw its fist. What happens next is unpredictable and out of control, but it will not stop.'

Like most red shirt supporters, Yongyut, 74, is an ardent admirer of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose populist policies implemented during his two terms in office during 2001 to 2006 won him a mass following, especially among voters in Isan, Thailand's poorest region and home to nearly half the population.

Thaksin remains widely revered in Isan as the first prime minister to address some of their chronic problems, such as widespread indebtedness, giving them a sense of political entitlement that was missing before.

For many red shirts the protest in Bangkok was largely about hastening new polls that would bring in to power a new pro-Thaksin government. For Thaksin, who has been living in self exile to avoid a two-year jail term on an abuse-of-power conviction, the protest was a worthy investment.

'Thaksin spent hundreds of millions of baht to sponsor the protest by covering transportation costs and food supplies,' Yongyut said. 'The protestors weren't paid to be there, but they were happy to be getting three free meals a day.'

Now that the UDD protest in Bangkok has been dispersed, the government faces an uphill task in pacifying the red shirts.

'I believe the majority of people in the North-east didn't like to see the violence, the burning of buildings,' said Buapun Promphakping, a social science professor at Khon Kaen University.

'But meanwhile I think they still agree with the demands of the red shirts. They want democracy, they want equality, they don't want the traditional bureaucracy running everything and don't want double standards.'

Abhisit has promised to address some of these issues in the course of five-point reconciliation roadmap he will push through in coming months before holding an election, but given the widespread mistrust he faces in Isan, where his Democrat party has never won an election, there is skepticism that the roadmap can succeed in healing the now deep wounds.

'What will happen in the future is there will be resistance from red shirts, mostly in the North and North-east, but I won't say it will turn in to an insurgency like what we had 30 years ago,' Buapun said. 'That could only happen when you have support form outside countries.'

In the 1970s, the North-east was a hotbed for the Communist Party of Thailand, which had support from communist China.

The communist movement notoriously failed to ignite the passions of Thailand's rural masses. It remains to be seen how deep the red movement has sunk into the countryside, even in Isan.

'As I see it, the UDD leaders just took people from the villagers to die for them in Bangkok,' said Apichai, a former headman at Kam Pla Lai village, about 50 kilometres north-west of Khon Kaen city.

'In this province they don't all love the reds. There are some who love their opponents,' he said.

Thaksin still holds sway up north

22-10-2008
Nirmal Ghosh
The Straits Times

In Ban Na Kha, locals are free with their opinions on the political turmoil in Bangkok--and none are very complimentary to the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD).

Ban Na Kha is 16km from Thailand's northeastern town of Udon Thani. Headman Wiratyu Khulidi, 52, points to a road in front of his house and asks a rhetorical but pointed question.

"This road is as well paved as, or better than, any road in Bangkok," he says.

"I have personally overseen the one million baht budget for my village. Why is it wrong for me to like the (ruling) People Power Party when the PAD has done nothing for me?'

Also in Ban Na Kha, coconut seller Chichanok Taimuangphak, 39, belies her kindly appearance when she says: "I wish the police and the military would wipe the PAD protests out. There should be a coup to end the economic turmoil."

The political turmoil in Bangkok has spawned an 80 per cent drop in business for the village, a centre for cotton and silk trading which normally sees a steady stream of tourists. This fuels the anger of people like Chichanok.

"It's in our blood. Everyone hates the PAD," she says, pointing to her wrist for dramatic effect.

In the same village relaxing on a hammock, former headman Kanla speaks for many of the locals when he says: "What do I know? Only the chao naa (elite) know what is going on."

"But I have no idea why people support the PAD; I haven't seen all the problems they keep claiming. What is wrong with our system? What is there to fix? The only problem is them."

The view from the northeast, home to around a third of Thailand's population, is quite different from the view from the middle-class enclaves of Bangkok.

Udon Thani is among half a dozen cities dotted across the agricultural plains and rolling hills of the northeastern region known as Isan, where most speak, not the Thai of the central plains and Bangkok, but the dialects of Lao.

The region--together with much of the north--is the backbone of the mass support that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra cultivated and parlayed into near-unassailable majorities in Parliament from 2001 until he was overthrown in a military coup in September 2006.

The view from Bangkok is coloured by the bias of the capital's middle and elite classes, grounded in the city's domination of the country and the region.

Bangkok remains a beacon for people young and old, from upcountry Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Burma, who want to make something of themselves. The city of around 10 million is an engine of the region, contributing about 70 per cent of Thailand's gross domestic product.

As the seat also of government and the powerful monarchy, Bangkok is therefore the key to controlling the entire country of 63 million.

The Bangkok-centric view, crystallised in the speeches and propaganda of the right-wing, royalist PAD, is that upcountry people are ill-educated peasants, easily bought by venal politicians and therefore with only a dim understanding of democracy.

The reality is less simple. Many locals are well informed and perceptive, not just on national issues but even regional and global issues. They watch television and read newspapers, and many have sons and daughters working in Bangkok and beyond--some even in the United States.

The conflict in Bangkok which has created what many say is the worst social division in memory, is viewed with concern in Isan, mixed with a sense of powerlessness, frustration and some anger.

Udon Thani is where a PAD rally was violently attacked by pro-government thugs in July, leaving dozens badly injured. Politically active locals say the attack was a warning to the PAD not to overstep the limits in penetrating the upcountry hinterlands that remain loyal to the ruling People Power Party (PPP), whose mentor is Thaksin.

In village after village in the northeast, locals list the schemes that have benefited them, after years of neglect from aloof central governments, including those of the Democrat Party, which has been on the opposition benches since 2001.

Among the programmes was the cheap, 30 baht-a-visit (approximately US$1) universal health-care scheme, a range of cash and micro-credit schemes that lifted locals out from the clutches of loansharks; and the 2003 crackdown on drugs.

Locals cared little about how Thaksin got things done. In 2003, one local told The Straits Times, "So what if he is corrupt? He gets the job done."

Explained Wiratyu in Ban Na Kha: "Accepting money for votes is simply our culture whenever the election comes around. But in the end, we vote only for who we like. We don't know who the politicians are, but we know that the PPP has solid policies which we have benefited from."

This toleration of corruption and abuse is cited by the PAD, with the backing of powerful sectors of Bangkok's old elite, as grounds for political reform.

But it ignores the fact that rural voters are more politically mature today, and know how to use their votes.

It is not as if there is no sympathy for the PAD. While locals in villages have little or none, those living in the city of Udon Thani seemed to be more ambivalent. One man was pro-PAD, and some others sympathised.

Offering a balanced view, Professor Prasart Phonimdaeng, 56, of the University of Khon Kaen, another nearby city, told The Straits Times: "The people don't know how to utilise democracy, so we need a new system which is not just electing people. The villagers can accept corruption and money because they don't realise the extent to which corruption hurts the country in the long run.

"But the PAD also has no idea what democracy is, because they keep repressing the rights of other people by disrupting public order.

"I want peace. But I want the PAD to follow the government like a shadow, to make sure that they do their work properly--not to destroy the government."

Additional reporting by Lee Xin En in Udon Thani