Birth Anniversary of a forest monk recalls the origin of Buddhism

Phra Ajaan Mun and the Forest Monk Tradition

Ajaan Mun Bhuridatta Mahathera

This week marks the 150th birth anniversary of Phra Ajaan Mun Bhuridatta Mahathera, a key figure in the forest monk movement that continues today to provide Thai Buddhism with valuable practices and insights.

Example of the Buddha

The forest monk tradition keeps alive an effort to emulate the experience of the Buddha in the forests of India more than 2,500 years ago. Forest monks note that the Buddha was born under a tree, wandered in the forest with few material possession, meditated intensively and taught what he learned from that meditation to the people he met.

Unencumbered by buildings, images, and rituals, the forest monk tradition contrasts with established urban Buddhist practices. Phra Ajaan Mun led by example, seeking out small rural wats for his rainy season retreats and spending the rest of the year as a “thudong” or wandering monk. On thudong Phra Ajaan Mun walked through the deep forests that covered much of Thailand in the early years of the 20th century.

Forest monks in our novel

Luang Paw Pat of Surat Thani

We have used Phra Ajaan Mun as one of the inspirations for Phra Som, a key figure in our historical novel “Beads on a String.” A second inspiration, also a forest monk, was Luang Paw Pat, Yuangrat’s great uncle. Like both Phra Ajaan Mun and Luang Paw Pat, the character Phra Som is caught up in the great changes taking place in the final decades of the reign of King Chulalongkorn. In parallel with the political reforms that centralized the state administration, new religious rules under the  Sangkha Act of 1902 sought to centralize and standardize the practices of Thai Buddhism. The Act also provided a hierarchy of ranks based on passing examinations.

Thai reforms

In the early years of the 20th century, Buddhist practices varied widely from region to region and wat to wat. In urban wats, the Buddhist texts produced by Supreme Patriarch Wachirayaan, a half-brother of the king, set the standards for teaching the Dharma.  Prince Wachirayaan was also leader of the Thammayut Nikai, a Buddhist sect that followed practices influenced by Mon monks from Burma. The Thammayut sect emphasized strict discipline and scholarly understanding of the early Pali scriptures.

In contrast, teachings at most rural wats interwove folk tales and ghost stories with Buddhist Dharma as taught through the Jataka tales, magical stories of the Buddha’s supposed reincarnations. Often un-Buddhist village traditions became part of local temple practices.

The forest monk alternative

Phra Ajaan Mun, Luang Paw Pat and other forest monks emphasized neither Pali scholarship nor village tradition. Phra Ajaan Mun specifically rejected a rank in the official hierarchy.

“I thought about it and decided that it was not a path leading to self-knowledge. If anything, honorific titles and prestige would lead to self-delusion,” he said.

 Instead, he focused on meditation and learning self-awareness from experiencing the dangers of life in the forest. He followed an austere tradition that rejected material belongings and limited himself to one meal per day. He slept in caves or under the canopy of trees, with only a large umbrella, called a “klot” to protect himself from the elements.

Luang Paw Pat also spent years in the forest, but in addition to meditation, he studied herbal medicine on his travels and made curing the sick an important part of the service he provided to villagers.

Facing wild animals

Both Luang Paw Pat and Phra Ajaan Mun wandered throughout Thailand and as far as Burma and Laos. Like our character Phra Som, Phra Ajaan Mun encountered tigers and elephants in Khao Yai Forest in Nakhon Nayok province. Phra Ajaan Mun explained that he regarded all the wild animals living around him – whether dangerous or harmless – with compassion rather than with fear. He believed that all animals, like humans, must deal with their cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death. Life in the forest, he taught, provided opportunities for reflection about one's own heart, and its relation to many natural phenomena.  As Phra Ajaan Man told his disciples, until a monk actually faces these animals, he will never know how much or how little he fears them.

Battling superstition

Although Phra Ajaan Mun’s roots were in rural Buddhism, he sympathized with the Thammayut effort to root out the folk beliefs and spirit worship that was such a large part of Buddhism in the countryside. A thudong monk, he taught, must work toward spiritual liberation and that meant the fear of ghosts and spirits needed to be overcome. Similarly, Luang Paw Pat preached against superstition and emphasized the Buddha’s teaching that one should only accept what can be proved.

Phra Ajaan Mun focused his efforts in the north and northeast while Luang Paw Pat eventually established his own wat in Surat Thani province of the south. In both regions the monks found it difficult to get even their most faithful followers to relinquish long-held superstitious beliefs.

The role of forest monks today

Forest monks in southern Thailand

Today, the forest monk tradition continues to provide an alternative to both the official scholarly Buddhism and the collection of beliefs and rituals based on spirit worship and magic at many wats. The forest monk and thudong traditions offer examples of austere lives that contrast with the lives of high-ranking monks who accept cash donations and get their followers to provide them with cell phones, comfortable apartments and big cars. Forest monks remind Buddhists of the life of the Buddha, an implicit criticism of the wats that seek donations based on towering stupas, statues of Hindu gods and promises of magical powers for gaining wealth. Forest monks also perform important roles in protecting the country’s dwindling forests. Living in those forests means they are often out of sight of increasingly urbanized Thais, but they should not be forgotten.

Thailand's October Waste Land

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire

– the opening lines of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

In Thailand, it is October that is the cruelest month, with a mix of memory and desire – desire for power and memories of cruelty.

In October 1973 the military regime arrested activists calling for a long-delayed democratic constitution. When growing crowds protested the arrests, violence erupted. The generals ordered police and army troops to fire on the crowds, killing at least 77 people and injuring nearly 900 others. King Bhumibol Adulyadej stepped in, appealing for an end to the violence. The military dictators fled the country.

In October 1976, after two years of right-wing propaganda and violence, a mob including police was whipped into a frenzy by anti-communist and pro-royalist propaganda. It attacked students protesting the return of one of the dictators. According to the military, 46 people died in the killings, with 167 wounded and 3,000 arrested. As much as the murders, fear and loathing arose from the mob’s shocking abuse of the corpses of the dead.

Mob violence against a student demonstrator on October 6, 1976

In total there have been 10 coups or military rebellions in the months of September, October and November since 1933, but most have been in October. The month’s sad history may be due to the annual military re-shuffle and voting on the national budget that typically take place in October.

Fortunately, this October has so far been free of violence or rebellion, but tensions are mounting.

Budget hurdle

The government of Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha faces a difficult vote on the budget this month because it has a slim and unstable majority in the recently-elected lower house of Parliament. The ruling multi-party coalition will need coherence and discipline to get the budget approved. The first reading of the budget bill passed this week, but it faces committee scrutiny and two more votes before it becomes law.

The opposition parties are calling for cuts to the defense budget. The first draft of the budget provided for a modest increase in military spending, but the opposition says Thailand faces no serious military threats so tax income would be better spent on investment, decentralized projects and human resource development.

The government coalition appears to have enough votes to pass the budget. The problem will be keeping all its members, including several tiny parties, in line. This is a common problem for complex government coalitions with little ideology in common.

 In 1971, for example, the October difficulties getting the budget approved frustrated the military-led government. The army staged a coup against its own government the following month to shut down the annoying Parliament. But that government lasted only two years before it was ousted by popular protests and a split in the army leadership in October 1973.

Military unity

Unlike in 1973, the current military leadership appears to have the usual jostling for position among army factions under control. The October military re-shuffle went smoothly. Army Commander, Gen. Apirat Kongsompong maintained his position, but then threw gasoline on the political fires by reviving memories of the bloody antagonisms of past Octobers.

Speaking before a huge picture of fighting against the Communist insurgency in the ‘70s, he claimed that politicians, academics and "old communist elements" were using "hybrid warfare" to undermine the country and the high institution.

Army chief Gen Apirat Kongsompong speaks at the Royal Thai Army headquarters.

CHANAT KATANYU, The Bangkok Post

Perhaps he should read our book Radical Thought, Thai Mind, which explains how the radicals driven to the communist party by right-wing violence in the 1970s, defected from the party because they disagreed with communist policies and practices. The party itself collapsed in the 1980s and its former members long ago moved on. But Apirat has not.

Earlier this year, he said the anti-communist anthem that encouraged violence against student demonstrators in October 1976 would again be played on army radio stations. Fortunately, his order was later revoked.

Back to the past

This return to the past may be a sign that the army believes raising fears of a return to Thailand by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is no longer enough to rouse support for the Gen. Prayut’s government.  Apirat’s attacks also signaled that the military now sees the youth-oriented Future Forward Party (FFP) as its main foe, more dangerous even than the Thaksin-backed Pua Thai Party (PTP), the party with the largest number of seats in Parliament.

Future Forward Party leader Thanathorn Jungroongruangkit and a poster that may explain the military’s antipathy to the party that became immediately popular among young Thai voters.

Going back to the tactics of 1970s (when there actually was a threat to the monarchy), Apirat brought the royal institution into his attack. Anti-government “propaganda comes mainly from communist elements who have refused to turn over a new leaf and still have ideas to overthrow the monarchy, to turn Thailand to communism,'' he said. “Most anti-royalists are mentally unstable, and the ones who don’t aren’t just have bizarre ways of thinking.”

Although Apirat did not name anyone, he showed a picture of a Hong Kong protest leader with FFP leader Thanathorn Jungroongruangkit. It did not appear to bother the army commander that the protests in Hong Kong are aimed at reducing the influence of the Communist Party of China. The army, despite its anti-communist rhetoric, has supported the government’s recent moves to grow closer to Communist China through joint exercises, weapons purchases and infrastructure development.

It may turn out that the army commander’s comments were like the “dry sterile thunder” of Eliot’s poem. The general’s lecture triggered the Parliament’s national security committee to issue a summons for him to explain himself. At the same time, an online petition to remove Gen. Apirat gained nearly 40,000 signatures in a single day.

This shows that although the recent elections allowed the military-backed parties to cobble together a coalition, Parliament offers some avenues for eventual change.

Weapons

The military and the government of Prime Minister Prayut, however, are in a strong position. In addition to the ability to launch another military takeover, they have legal weapons they routinely use to intimidate the opposition. Laws on elections, sedition, computer use and lese majeste have often worked to stifle opposition voices.

On October 4, the army’s Internal Security Operations Command, the political arm of the military, filed a sedition complaint with police in Pattani province against 12 people who discussed possible amendments to the constitution. Earlier this year, the government charged Thanathorn with sedition for giving a lift in his car to a protest leader after a protest in 2015. Thanathorn is also under fire for allegedly owning shares in a media company – something forbidden to politicians under the election law. Due to the allegation, Thanathorn was barred from Parliament pending a court decision on his case. Some 30 other politicians facing similar allegations, including several from the prime minister’s party, however, have been allowed to take their seats in Parliament.

The military has struggled to deal with the social media abilities that enabled the FFP to campaign online to garner more than 8 million votes in the elections despite its lack of experienced traditional politicians.

Problems of tradition and transition

While Eliot’s poem can be seen as a conservative lament for the loss of traditional values, the problem in Thailand appears due to the persistence of values from Thailand’s long history of class privilege and authoritarian tradition. Those values are still held by many in the urban population, especially in the civil service and armed forces. Among farmers and the young, however, there is a rising demand for more equitable treatment of the poor and more emphasis on freedom, human rights and democracy.

Prayut’s government will likely survive this October’s budget problems, but it may find greater challenges from the opposition and from its own internal factionalism in October next year when Apirat is scheduled to retire.

The question over the next year is whether the military’s legal and verbal attacks will intimidate the opposition or create sympathy for it. In either case, Thailand faces difficult days ahead as it tries to transition to a modern democracy and emerge from a waste land of conflict and authoritarianism.

The History in our Historical Novel -- Raja Abdul Karim Kamaruddin

Raja Abdul Karim Kamaruddin, the last Malay ruler of Pattani

A key event in our novel, Beads on a String, is the ouster of Raja Abdul Karim Kamaruddin as raja of Pattani. One of our main characters, Pakdee, plays an important role in a deception that leads to the raja’s arrest in 1902 and the defeat of Malay uprisings in 1910. Abdul Karim was in line to succeed his father when he died in 1899, but the Siamese government changed his status from ruler of a tributary state to a Siamese government official. King Chulalongkorn’s policy was to bring the previously semi-independent Malay sultanates into his newly centralized administration.

The king’s talented half-brother, Interior Minister Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, was in charge of the difficult process of reorganizing almost every aspect of the Siamese administration. A key step was redirecting tax revenues that previously went to the local ruler so that revenues flowed to Bangkok for later distribution to the provinces.

Another step was reform of the criminal justice system to provide government courts with trained judges throughout the country. This was particularly important in the Malay areas where sultan-appointed judges used an uncertain mixture of Malay traditions – adat – and sharia laws to render legal decisions. Abdul Karim sat at the top of this system, retaining the power to make or over-rule any legal judgment.

In our novel the king’s reform effort and the maneuvers to thwart Abdul Karim are crucial to Pakdee’s rise to a senior position in the administration of the south.

We have relied on the work of scholars such as Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Tej Bunnag, Carool Kersten, Zulkiflee Masae, Ibrahim Syukri, Dr. Chaiwat Satha-Anand and others for the historical context for our story. But there is enough that is not documented about the arrest of Raja Abdul Karim to allow us to use our imaginations to make Pakdee a pivotal character.

Dr. Chaiwat’s account was particularly useful as he relates the controversy over the Malay language translation of a Thai language letter presented by a high Siamese official, Phraya Sri Sahathep, for signature by Abdul Karim. The raja refused to sign until he was given a Malay language translation. The Thai language version of the letter indicated approval of the appointment of a Siamese official to oversee and control the government of Pattani, but the Malay translation did not.

Dr. Chaiwat wrote, as translated by us:

“Phraya Sri Sahathep asked a staff member to translate that letter and read it to the raja of Pattani. After the reading (of the Malay) translation, Phraya Sri Sahathep reaffirmed that Pattani would not have any obligation (to submit to control by a government official).”

A key scene in our book depicts the meeting between Abdul Karim and Phraya Sri Sahathep, with Pakdee as the translator of the letter. This is what we wrote:

Standing to one side of the raja, Pakdee looked out over the assembled officials, the Malays with their turbans, the Thais in their white uniforms with colorful medals. All stood stiffly before the seated raja and vice minister. He held the Jawi and Thai letters in a velvet bag against his chest. He could feel the rapid beating of his heart. There was a mumble of conversation and then the raja’s secretary called in a loud voice: “Haji Wan Mohammed al Fatani.”

He had been waiting for this moment. He bowed to both dignitaries and then knelt to present the bag to the raja. Abdul Kadir pulled out the two documents inside and focused on the Jawi language letter. Then he looked up and held out the Jawi letter.

“Haji Wan, read your translation aloud so all can hear it,” he ordered.

His throat went dry and his tongue felt thick. He could see Phraya Sukhumnaiwinit nodding encouragement. The text looked blurred for a moment. Then it cleared and he began to read.

“Louder, so all can hear,” the raja said.

He cleared his throat and started again. It seemed to take forever to finish. Finally there was no more and he handed the paper back to the raja.

“This is a little blunt, not as elegant as I might write it, but, if that is the tone of the Thai letter, I like it. It is time to be clear about the problems that have been visited upon us by the actions of the commissioner. Is this a full and accurate translation?”

His heart raced, but he forced himself to reply. “Yes, Your Royal Highness. This is full and accurate.”

The raja smiled. “Then I will sign.”

Prince Damrong Rachanubhab, minister of the interior from 1894 to 1915.

It was only a few months later that Prince Damrong ordered the raja’s arrest for his refusal to accept supervision by a government official in contradiction to the signed letter to King Chulalongkorn. This was a turning point in the relations between the government in Bangkok and the majority Malay areas in the south. The arrest quashed Abdul Karim’s hopes of leading an armed uprising against the government, but it made many Malays feel like subjugated people. It also motivated Abdul Karim to stir up feelings against the Siamese government that led to armed uprisings in 1910, 1911 and 1922. Even today, the arrest of the Pattani raja is seen as a key event leading to the violence that continues to plague the far south.

In the novel, we made Pakdee the official who made the deceptive translation at the behest of his boss, Phraya Sukhumnaiwinit.

We could not find any other account that details the issue of the translation of the raja’s letter to the king, but Ibrahim Syukri, although differing in the details, writes of Siamese “trickery and deceit”:

“He (King Chulalongkorn) sent a minister as envoy to Patani in order to discuss this matter with the Malay rajas. In this meeting he requested the signatures of the Malay rajas as a token of permission and agreement with the wish of the king of Siam. At the same time he promised to give pensions to the rajas and their households until their deaths. However, the rights and revenues in the country of Patani all had to be surrendered to the king of Siam in Bangkok. By using all sorts of trickery and deceit many of the Malay rajas were deceived so that they were willing to give their signatures admitting agreement with the wishes of the king of Siam.”

In the novel we keep as close as possible to the historical record of Malay unrest, but again we place our fictional character, Pakdee, in a key role in the actual Malay uprising of 1910. We make Pakdee’s younger brother, Saifan, a devout Muslim who moved to Pattani after Pakdee’s arrest, part of the group that attacked a district office and police station. The attack is defeated due to information provided by one of Pakdee’s spies. Pakdee, however, is alarmed to learn that his brother was wounded in the fighting and gets one of his men to help him escape and get medical treatment.

We could not find many details of that 1910 violence, other than it was incited by To’ Tae, a Sufi cleric close to Abdul Karim and that it was quickly defeated with the deaths and arrests of most of the Malay fighters. So, if any of our readers can suggest additional sources for those events, we would greatly appreciate it. The novel is still in draft form so changes can easily be made.

Throughout the book we use the character of Saifan to explain the feelings and lives of the people of Pattani. Pakdee, in contrast, shows what it might have been like to adapt to the hierarchical values of the Thai ruling class at a time of wrenching change.

We hope that our fictionalized account will make learning about these critical events in Thailand’s history more accessible and interesting for today’s readers.

New Government, Old Challenges

It took four months following elections in March, but Thailand finally has a government in place. After five years of autocratic rule by the generals who overthrew an elected government in 2014, the new government has promised to lead Thailand to an orderly, democratic future. Thai history, however, indicates the road ahead will not be smooth.

Already Prime Minister Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha, reappointed after ruling as an autocrat for five years, has hinted at another coup, struggled to cobble together a shaky coalition, and stormed out of Parliament in a rage.

Coalition Challenges

The key problem for Gen. Prayut is that he depends on a shaky coalition of 20 parties to cling to a narrow majority in Parliament. It took weeks of negotiations to get 251 of the 500 MPs to join the coalition. Keeping them in line will be even more difficult.

The 20 coalition partners have a jumble of policy and personal objectives that range from legalizing marijuana to lowering personal income tax to providing stipends to the poor. Even the prime minister’s own Palang Pracharath party will be difficult to manage. Less than two years old, the party has little ideological coherence. Members range from conservative retired military officers to former members of the populist party that Prayut ousted.

Some cabinet members have unsavory reputations and previous legal problems. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University, described the coalition as “dominated by patronage politics and paybacks.”

“The unsavory few who have had a shady and criminalized past are surprising because they will be a lightning rod on the Prayuth government’s credibility,” he told the Associated Press. “It suggests that Prayuth has paid a high price for luring old-style politicians and influential figures into his party and Cabinet.”

One of his coalition partners, the Democrat Party, actually campaigned on a pledge by its leader to oppose Prayut’s return to power. When, after the election, the party reversed course and voted to join the coalition, party leader and former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva resigned in protest. It will not be an easy task for Prayut to command loyalty or even minimal cooperation from some of the Democrat MPs in Parliament.

The factional problems became obvious in the difficult negotiations to form the government. Vicious competition for potentially lucrative ministerial posts attracted so much negative attention that Prayut issued a statement apologizing for “conflict within the party.”

Prime Minister Prayut presents the new government’s policy statement in Parliament

He warned the squabbling politicians not to force him to resort to “the old method that no one wants to see happen” – another military coup.

The opposition’s strength in Parliament – 248 MPs – will make it difficult for Prayut’s government to pass essential legislation or withstand no confidence motions. Since one opposition party was disqualified during the campaign, the number of opposition MPs may not reflect the full extent of popular support possible in the next elections. The leading opposition party, the Pheu Thai Party (PTP) has fervent backing in Thailand’s rural areas of the north and northeast. Another, the Future Forward Party (FFP), won a surprising number of seats on a wave of enthusiasm from young voters.

The new government’s performance in delivering its policy statement in Parliament this week was not reassuring. Opposition MPs attacked the statement as a “bundle of wishlists” lacking practicality and implementation. Prachachart Party leader Wan Muhamad Noor Matha ripped into Prayut for leading the coup.

“How can a coup maker uphold democracy?” he asked. “You tore the constitution to pieces. That’s definitely treason.”

Prayut came under attack for increasing military spending, turning a blind eye to corruption and writing the new constitution for his personal political benefit.

Sereepisut Temiyavet, the former national police chief and leader of a small opposition party accused Prayut of “cheating” his way into power

“If I were him, I wouldn’t be this shameless and still hold on to power,” Sereepisut taunted Prayut.

The prime minister reacted angrily to the attack, slammed down his documents and stormed out of Parliament.

Sereepisut Temiyavet (l) was ordered to leave Parliament for his attacks on the prime minister.

This initial performance added to doubts that Prayut has the temperament and political skills to maneuver through the political trials ahead.

Lessons of History

As I noted in earlier blogs, the situation in 2019 is not unprecedented. Coup leaders have tried to maintain their power through elected governments several times before – in 1957, 1969 and 1992. None succeeded.

The current situation, of course, has important differences, but it is especially like that in 1969.

Elections in 1969 were an attempt by Gen. Thanom Kittikachorn and the army to legitimize their power seized in a coup. As in 2019, the military party failed to win a majority. Thanom’s party won 75 of the 219 seats (34%), forcing it into an unstable coalition. By comparison, Prayut’s Palang Pracharath party won only 116 of 500 seats (23%).

Thanom’s ability to manage the government suffered when, after elections, he was unable to use the dictatorial powers he had enjoyed for the previous five years. Similarly, Prayut has now lost the power under section 44 of the interim constitution to rule by decree – a power he too wielded for five years.

Both Thanom and Prayut face a restive rural sector. In 1969 a Communist insurgency was growing and a Malay Muslim insurgency was active in the southern border provinces. The military fought these insurgencies with a sometimes vicious suppression campaign and propaganda that vilified all opposition to the government.

Fortunately, Prayut does not face such an armed Communist insurgency, but unrest in the far south continues. The rural poor, however, remain a threat to renew large scale protests that led to serious violence in Bangkok in 2010. General Apirat Kongsompong – the current Commander in Chief of the Royal Thai Army recently stirred resentment by using a slur from the 1970s against opponents of the Prayut government. Prayut and the army will have to take care to avoid worsening dangerous political divisions in Thai society – divisions he promised to heal when he seized power in 2014.

The Thanom government faced serious foreign policy challenges as it’s main international supporter, the US government, began to distance itself from Southeast Asia and withdraw from the conflict in Vietnam under President Nixon. It was clear Thanom needed to develop better relations with the Communist regimes in Vietnam and China, but he failed to do so. Prayut’s foreign policy challenge is far less severe, but he too needs to adjust to fading US interest in the region and the fast-growing influence of China.

Money Politics

Thanom’s most immediate problems however, came in managing the government – passing a budget, allocating funds and appointing senior officials – amid a slowing economy. He was repeatedly frustrated by experienced politicians in his own coalition who maneuvered for political and financial gain. When he submitted a budget for 1970, the Parliamentary Budget Scrutiny Committee refused to approve it because expenditures were too high. At the same time, members of Thanom’s party were demanding two million baht each for projects in their constituencies.

Prayut also faces a slowing economy. According to the Asian Development Bank, economic growth will dip from 4.1 percent in 2018 to 3.9 percent this year and 3.7 percent in 2020. A drought threatens agriculture and slowing growth in China threatens exports.

Like Thanom, Prayut may be torn between the need for careful economic management and the demands of greedy members of their own coalitions. The negotiations to form the Prayut government showed that some coalition partners insisted on cabinet portfolios that offer opportunities for financial return. Prayut has claimed that his government was effective in suppressing corruption, but one of his closest associates was found to have accepted “loans” of luxury watches, yet he was appointed to Prayut’s new cabinet.

Keeping the Army Happy

Like Thanom, Prayut must not only placate his coalition partners, but also his supporters in the military. Thanom had support from the US government for improved military equipment, but Prayut must rely on limited tax income. In his five years in power, Prayut increased defense spending by 18.6%. In the first session of Parliament he came come under attack for past and planned arms purchases.

Will the economy and the Parliament allow him to continue increasing the military budget when Thailand faces limited tax income and no obvious military threat?

Prayut appears to have recognized the problem of assuring military support by taking the defense ministry portfolio himself. But that places him in the line of fire for other military grievances. Thanom sought to maintain his power over the army by repeatedly postponing his retirement date and promoting only his allies. His efforts to hold onto his army position ultimately worked against him when the army refused to obey orders to suppress anti-government demonstrations.

Some analysts suggest that Prayut’s influence over army factions has steaduily diminished with the retirement of his closest allies. The last two army commanders came from factions outside Prayut’s immediate circle of supporters. A key challenge will come next year when Gen. Apirat retires as army commander. Who will replace him? Who will decide on the other key promotions in the army? The recent death of former army commander and prime minister, Prem Tinsulanonda, has removed an influential voice in coordinating army promotions and moderating internal military conflicts.

Army Commander Apirat Kongsompong (l) and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (r)

Another problem that plagued Thanom has also sprung up against Prayut – revision of the constitution. Not only the opposition, but even some of Prayut’s coalition parties have insisted that the current constitution, drafted and promulgated under Prayut, must be revised to make it less authoritarian.

Only two years after his election as prime minister, Thanom, frustrated by all these difficulties, simply abolished Parliament, re-appointed himself prime minister and resumed ruling by decree. It didn’t last. The Thanom government collapsed in 1973 after widespread protests.

Prime Minister Prayut will need great political skills and some luck to avoid a similar fate.

The History in our Historical Novel -- King Chulalongkorn

Blog – the history in Beads on a String – King Chulalongkorn

With the slow motion disaster of Thailand’s elections still unfolding, I would like to look away from current problems and back to those of a century ago. This is the period in which we have set our novel Beads on a String. It is the story of a southern Thai family at a time of wrenching changes. King Chulalongkorn was the force behind many of those changes, including the efforts to remold an old, weak and disorganized network of semi-independent fiefdoms into a nation-state capable of withstanding pressures from Western colonial powers.

King Chulalongkorn

The story is fiction, but we have tried to infuse it with accurate history. Although he appears in only two chapters, King Chulalongkorn is the dominant historical figure in the book. King Chulalongkorn’s reforms and decisions impact the characters in the book in many ways:

• Phasing out slavery

• Outlawing most gambling

• Reforming the penal code

• Establishing a centralized bureaucracy in place of traditional local rulers

• Arresting the raja of Patani and integrating the Malay sultanates into Siam

Fortunately, there are many historical sources to guide us. We are particularly indebted to Narong Nunthong for his thesis Reform of the Administration of Monthon Nakhon Srithammarat in the Era of Phraya Sukhumnaiwinit as High Commissioner (1896-1906). Khun Narong was also kind enough to meet us for an extensive interview.

Another helpful thesis was Tej Bunnag’s The Provincial Administration of Siam from 1892 to 1915. No work, however, was more useful than that of King Chulalongkorn himself. We especially enjoyed his letters to his children describing his journeys in southern Siam. Here below is an English translation of one of his letters we used in a chapter on the king’s visit to Pakpanang.

Photograph of Pakpanang at the time of King Chulalongkorn’s visit

“Chakri Royal Barge

9 July 1905

Dear Crown Prince of Siam,

This is more information to report to you, following my previous letter.

In the morning of the 8th of July at 9:00am, a fast dugout took me to Pak Phanang from Nakhon Bay, which is at the bottom of Laem Talumpuk. The trip took almost three hours; we used the dugout not for enjoyment but because the water is shallow. The Pak Phanang River is as wide as Chao Praya River in Bangkok. The house of a district head officer is situated near the mouth of the river. There are many houses along the side of the river, as the population in the town is over 46,000. There are a lot of Chinese, mainly Hainan; a few are Hock Kien and there is a small group of Tae Chew. The people greeted me from their boats along the river. Our boat meandered along the river and brought me to the new rice mill named after Koh Hak Gnee. The Hak Gnee family invited me to open the ceremony, I was served Chinese soup at the district officer's house, the new district office is as big as the one being built in Pattani. The commissioners and the sailors were served Thai food. Plenty of presents were prepared for the King, such as rice, sugar, fruits, sweets and medicines. Crowds of people were waiting to praise the King, both on the land and alongside the river. There were Thai, Chinese and Malaysian culture shows. I left about 3:30 pm and returned to the Chakri Barge at about 8:00pm.”

We used this letter and other historical sources in the following draft excerpts from the chapter in the book describing the king’s visit to Pakpanang in the company of one of the main fictional characters in the book – Pakdee. The dialog is invented, but most of the facts are not.

The boat King Chulalongkorn used to visit Pakpanang.

Here are draft excerpts from the novel based in part on the king’s letter.

Chapter 79 Pakdee — Royal Visit, Pakpanang, July 8, 1905

…The last time the king had come to Nakhon, Pakdee had failed miserably to impress him. Despite his panic and his failure to speak coherently, the king had approved his written appeal and reversed his conviction. Would the king remember the lowly prisoner that had stuttered into silence before him? Did the king know of his service to the high commissioner?

There was a clatter of hooves on the laterite road to the waterfront and the honor guard at the pier straightened their lines. He consulted his pocket watch. It was 9:00 am. The king was precisely on time. The villagers assembled on both sides of the path cheered as King Chulalongkorn, the fifth king of the Chakri dynasty, absolute ruler for nearly 40 years, waved and walked towards the pier.

The king wore a white shirt and tan trousers. His head was protected by broad-brimmed white hat. This was the man who had changed his life. This was the head of the government he served. This was the leader working to modernize the country. He felt the urge to pay the traditional form of respect — lying down and touching his head to the ground. But he knew the king had banned this display of servitude, however heartfelt it might be. Instead he bowed as the king approached…

A white-coated navy aide from the royal ship helped the king step down into the boat and gestured for Pakdee to sit below the king next to the platform. He sat with his legs bent to one side, careful that his feet not point in the direction of the king. More navy men, two royal aides and the Pakpanang district officer sat in the back of the boat. The long, narrow dugout pulled away from pier and cut through the glassy surface of the bay. Tall white, monsoon clouds were piled up on the horizon like mounds of fluffy kapok in the market. The sun was strong and Pakdee was thankful for the canvas awning that covered most of the boat.

“I understand we are taking this boat because of the shallows,” the king said as he watched the dark green of the coastal mangroves stream past.

“Yes, honored sir. The bay here has been silting up for centuries. In fact, at one time long ago, Nakhon town, called Ligor by the farangs, was on the coast, but silt from the rivers and sand brought in by the currents has created new land between the town and the sea. Because the bay is now so shallow, most sea transport to the province has shifted to Pakpanang. There too silting is becoming a problem. As you will hear later today, the people of the town, supported by the district officer, would like permission to dredge the bar so that large ships can enter the river, even in the dry season. Once past the bar, the river is deep enough for large steam ships to sail upriver for a considerable distance.”…

The king kept Pakdee busy with questions about the sights they passed, the boat reached the mouth of the Pakpanang River. He noted how the brownish water of the silt-laden river flowed into the blue-green water of the sea. Clumps of mangrove trees poked out of the water, tiny islands of green in the vast, flat expanse of water. A white egret, startled by the boat, launched into the air, complaining shrilly at the intrusion…

“The river is as broad as the Chao Phraya,” the king noted. “I count 31 Chinese and Malay ships. It is good to see that large ships can come this far upriver,” he said, writing in a leather-bound notebook.

Pakdee was grateful he had spent hours studying the reports from the Pakpanang district staff. He had spent most of his life in Pakpanang, but there was much he never knew. The government reports made the town seem bigger and more complicated than he remembered.

“Once past the entrance to the river, it is at least six meters deep for eight miles upriver. In the rainy season at high tide, it is even deeper,” he told the king. “Ships as large as HMS Pali and HMS Sukreep should have no problem coming up the river. In the rainy season, smaller steamships can go far into the interior with waterways reaching all the way south to Songkla Lake.”

As he spoke, dozens of small boats paddled out from both banks of the river, with boatmen, their heads wrapped in red phakaomas, wai-ing to the king.

“I also am surprised to see so many people and so many buildings,” the king said. “How many people live here?”

“The population, honored sir, is now more than 46,000. It is the largest town in Nakhon Srithammarat province aside from the muang capital. If you compare Pakpanang town with Songkla, the annual tax income of Pakpanang is only 20,000 baht less than all of Muang Songkla. There is no port town on the east coast of the southern Peninsula as busy as Pakpanang. It is also becoming a center for education as well as commerce. This year, as a result of Your Majesty’s support for education, there are now four schools in the district with nearly 100 students.”…

The king’s boat then swerved to starboard as a tall smokestack came into view. The district officer spoke up.

“Your Majesty, we are now approaching the Koh Hak Gnee rice mill. This is the first steam-driven rice mill in the south. The Hak Gnee family is greatly honored that you have agreed to preside over the opening ceremony.”

The rice mill ceremony took more than an hour, with speeches by the patriarch of the Hak Gnee family, the district officer and the king. All predicted great success for the rice mill and for rice exports from Pakpanang. …

——-

Later in this chapter King Chulalongkorn and key officials discuss the situation in the seven Malay muang of the far south. The information in Pakdee’s reports comes from a variety of historical documents, including History and Politics of the Muslims in Thailand and Rebellion in Southern Thailand: Contending Histories by Thanet Aphornsuvan. The king’s surprising comments are paraphrased from a letter from the king to his half-brother Prince Damrong quoted by Tej Bunnag.

Phraya Sukhumnaiwinit ushered the king into the district officer’s study, motioning Pakdee, the deputy governor, the chief of police and the district officer to join them as planned. The king sat in a large chair behind a teak desk. Sukhumnaiwinit bowed and addressed the king.

“Your Majesty, I would like to report on events concerning the Muslim Malay muang that we could not mention with so many others present. Khun Pakdee has remained in close touch with his informants throughout the region and has prepared a report for you.”

“Your Majesty,” Pakdee said and cleared his throat. “I regret to inform you there are still groups dedicated to restoring the Patani raja, despite his conviction and his pledge to refrain from politics. Your Majesty’s mercy in allowing Abdul Kadir to return home has not changed his determination to regain power. While he appears to be following the conditions of his release, he works secretly to foment rebellion. My informants tell me that there is a steady stream of visitors to the istana. They come from all parts of the south and return with messages from the raja — sometimes verbal, sometimes in unsigned letters. These are presented at mosques and spark anti-government discussions, often based on scurrilous rumors. Unfortunately there is just enough truth to those rumors to make them believable. No matter what we do, the people see dark motives. The honored High Commissioner helped set up government schools to allow local people get the education they need to prosper, but many people hesitate to let their children attend for fear they will lose their religion. Giving local villagers a role in the courts is seen as a plot against the traditional rulers. Bringing in more police to end cattle theft and robbery is believed to be a plot to suppress local people. Anything done to support Buddhism is considered an effort to undermine Islam. I fear there will be violence.”

The king, now clearly weary, nodded.

“None of this is unknown to me. We tried to use the approach the British have employed successfully throughout their empire — advising and supervising local rulers – but we were not successful. Unlike the British, we treated these areas as our own, but it was not true, for both the Lao and the Malay consider that their provinces belong to them. We said we were going to trust them, but we didn’t.”

“Your Majesty,” Sukhumnaiwinit said, looking alarmed at the king’s description of past policy. “That may be true, but with the threat of the imperial powers before us, we couldn’t risk the Malay rulers colluding with the British against us.”

“Yes, so we had to send commissioners and deputy commissioners to supervise them,” the king said. “We had to either manipulate the local rulers as puppets, or, if that was not possible, to spy on them, pass on their secrets and undermine them with their own people. I believe you and Khun Pakdee were most successful in this regard.”

“We had little choice, Your Majesty. We faced the risk of losing all of the Malay muang,” Sukhumnaiwinit said.

“I approved all of your actions at the time,” the king said. “But we have come to learn that an administration so full of deviousness cannot bring mutual trust and peace of mind.”

There was a long silence in the room. Pakdee was startled to hear the king express such deep doubts. They reflected his own.

“Your Majesty, what else could we have done?” Sukhumnaiwinit asked.

“I am sorry we could not have found a better solution to these problems,” the king said. “But we are now on a path to bring the Malay provinces into our nation and to make our nation a modern state. If we fail, we will fall to the imperialist powers. So, we cannot fail. We must bring the negotiations with the British to a successful conclusion. We must integrate the Malay muang with the rest of the country, but with an understanding of local feelings. So please continue your work. Prince Damrong and I do not want honeyed reports that sweeten the bitter realities on the ground.”

The words we attributed to the king provide an important viewpoint on the problems that will lead to the violence described later in the novel (and to the actual violence that continues in Thailand’s southernmost provinces today). You can see how little we changed them from the king’s actual words in the 1902 letter to Prince Damrong. According to the translation by Tej Bunnag, the king’s letter says that Siam “had perverted the administration of the Lao States and the Seven Malay Provinces from its true states. It can also be said that we have imported, but misused a foreign model of administration…

“When the British use this model of administration, they go to advise and supervise rulers whom they treat as owners of the provinces…We, on the other hand, treat these provinces as ours, which is not true, for the Malay and the Lao consider the provinces belong to them. When we say that we are going to trust them, we do not really do so, but send commissioners and deputy commissioners to supervise them. The commissioners and deputy commissioners are then empowered either to manipulate them only as puppets, or if that is not possible, to spy on them and to pass on their secrets. We cannot, however, really protect ourselves against anything in this way. I do not think that an administration, which is so full of deviousness, can result in our mutual trust and peace of mind.”

In an earlier scene in the novel King Chulalongkorn visits the Nakhon Srithammarat prison where Pakdee is serving time on bogus charges of rape. We based this scene on the king’s accounts as well as his proclamation ending prostration as a way of showing fealty. The words of Warden Krit are our translation from that proclamation. Here is an excerpt from that chapter.

Pakdee stood two steps behind the line of prison guards. Ahead of them stood Warden Krit, sweat already staining the back of his tight white jacket. ... Behind him, prisoners stood in five long rows stretched across the prison compound. The normally bare-chested prisoners wore new white cotton shirts and phatung. They stood barefoot on the clean sand spread in the compound the day before to sop up the moisture from the nightly monsoon showers. The black iron gates of the prison stood open.

Warden Krit had spent two days drilling the prisoners on how they were to receive the king. He explained that the king felt the old-style kowtows were no longer acceptable in modern Siam. He read out a royal proclamation Pakdee had found in the prison office:

"The practice of prostration in Siam is severely oppressive. The subordinates have been forced to prostrate in order to elevate the dignity of the senior officials. This kind of practice is the source of oppression. Therefore, I want to abolish it,” the warden read slowly and loudly. “From now on, Siamese are permitted to stand up before the dignitaries. To display an act of respect, the Siamese may take a bow instead. Taking a bow will be regarded as a new form of paying respect.”

Again, the words of King Chulalongkorn provide important comments on the cultural issues in both the novel and contemporary Thailand. They show that the king was not a traditional ruler tied to the past, but a reformer and a modernizer looking to the future, a future that, more than a century later, has still not fully arrived.

My next blogs will discuss other historical figures in the novel, such as Prince Damrong, Phraya Sukhumnaiwinit and Raja Abdul Kadir.

In the meantime I would appreciate your thoughts on these excerpts. Email me at paul@yuangratandpaul.online.

Thailand’s Election Mess – Part 2

The recurring nightmare of history

As strange as it may seem, the uncertain situation created by Thailand’s March 24 election (described in our April 18 blog)  is not unprecedented. As we discussed in our blogs of March 16 and March 21, there have been several elections conducted by military coup groups. Military leaders sought democratic legitimacy for their seizures of power in the elections of 1957, 1969 and 1992. All three elections led to disorder and or violence. Two led to further coups.

The 1957 dirty polls

The most troubling was the 1957 election, known as “the dirtiest election in Thai history.” Alleged vote-rigging led to the victory of the pro-military party, headed by Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsonggram. Newspapers reported many of the poll abuses and denounced the results. Public  protests forced the government to declare a national emergency. The chaos deepened divisions between the army and the police. The army commander, Gen. Sarit Thanarat, withdrew the support of the army faction in parliament and then led a coup in September that ousted the Phibun government.

Thanom Kittikachorn and his powerful deputy Prapat Jarusathien twice held elections twice overthrew them in military coups.

The coup group held new elections in December 1957 seeking legitimacy behind the pro-junta Sahaphum party. As in 2019, the junta rewrote elections rules and poached veteran politicians from other parties yet still failed to win a majority in parliament. Sahaphum won only 40 of the 160 seats, but formed shaky alliances with smaller parties and independents to form a government. Prime Minister Field Marshal Thanom Kittakachorn, however, proved unable to manage his fractious coalition. The public and the press turned against his government. Less than a year later, another military coup swept away the elected government, ushering in a decade of dictatorship.

Elections in 1969 led to a coup and disgrace

A decade after his second coup, Thanom took another stab at elections in 1969 with a military-backed party named the United Thai People’s Party. Despite government and military support, the party won only 75 of the 219 seats, forcing it into another unstable coalition. Once again the military’s civilian partners proved hard to manage. In 1971 Thanom dissolved his own government in a military takeover that soon lost public support. It fell in October 1973 to massive public demonstrations and dissatisfaction in the army.

Elections in 1992 and Black May violence

The coup group that seized power in 1991 sought democratic credentials with elections the following year. Military-backed parties won enough seats to form a government, but struggled to find someone to head it. Their first candidate was disqualified due to accusations of drug trafficking. They then turned to the coup leader, Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon, who had sworn never to become prime minister. Suchinda went back on his promise. That launched mass protests. The military tried using force to break up the protests. The ensuing violence, known as Black May led to at least 52 confirmed deaths, many disappearances, hundreds of injuries, and over 3,500 arrests. Intervention by King Bhumibol Adulyadej led to Suchinda’s resignation, the end of the protests and the installation of a government charged with holding new elections.

History lessons learned?

Prime Minister Prayut clearly learned from Suchinda’s fate. He was careful to label himself a politician before the polls and to be named as a candidate for the premiership even though he was not running for a seat in Parliament. During his five years in power, he was judicious in its use of violence and diligent in preventing large-scale protests, avoiding the chaos and violence of 1957 and 1992. The military has also learned from its failure in the 2007 polls when the party of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin returned to power. The establishment of the appointed Senate with its role in voting for the prime minister appears to preclude the possibility of a government led by the pro-Thaksin PTP.

Prem Tinsulanonda served as prime minister for eight years by adroitly balancing military and civilian interests

The question is whether Prayut and the military will have the political skills to manage a parliament in which they will struggle to find support. That was the military’s undoing in 1957, 1958, 1961 and 1971.  Prayut, however, could find encouragement in the history of Gen. Prem Tinsulanonda, the former army commander who served as prime minister for eight years in the 1980s. The differences are that Prem had no party of his own and willingly shared power with the civilian parties while maintaining military influence. Prem was buoyed by a booming economy and the collapse of a communist insurgency. He was well served by his calm personality and close relationship with a popular and long-serving monarch. All that earned him support from the general public. Even Prem, however, struggled with factional in-fighting in the army and he had to fight off two attempted coups.

Challenges for Prayut

If Prayut succeeds in staying in power once the election results are official, his problems will only just begin. The challenges are:

·       Overcoming public perceptions he benefited from flawed elections and the undemocratic Senate.

·       Transforming himself from military commander and dictator to political deal-maker.

·       Finding solutions for a slowing economy and increasing economic inequality.

·       Meeting the demands of the small parties he will need to pass legislation and survive votes of no confidence.

·       Maintaining army unity and satisfaction amid the compromises he undoubtedly will have to make.

·       Countering the opposition of the PTP and its supporters in the rural north and northeast who have already demonstrated their willingness to join mass demonstrations.

·       Dealing with the policy and public relations challenges posed by the Future Forward Party, which has nationwide backing drawn from the young and well-educated fed up with military rule.

Thailand’s difficult political history shows that most coup leaders have failed to meet challenges that were less complex. Prayut will have to decide whether to be guided by the example of Prem or of dictators Sarit and Thanom.

Challenges for the Thai people

The road to effective democratic rule, however, does not depend only on Prayut or even the civilian political party leaders, but on the Thai people. The history of Thais rejecting the law, welcoming dictatorship, demonizing opponents and resorting to violence does not bode well.

The past decade of political conflict shows there is much to learn: demonstrating opposition without violence, showing the patience for long-term solutions and refusing to accept authoritarian rule. Already the legal and personal attacks on the FFP leader show that such changes will not come quickly or easily, but improved education, greater access to information and recognition of the disastrous past suggest hope for the future.

Thailand’s Election Mess – Part 1

For our April blog, we had planned to provide an analysis of the new Thai government elected to office in the polls on March 24. Nearly a month after the elections, however, the results are confusing, contested and uncertain. Readers living in Thailand have seen daily news reports detailing the mess. For others we would like to provide a short description of the election outcome problems before we look at the historical precedents and the challenges ahead.

The good news

The election was carried out in a relatively peaceful and orderly manner, with little of the violence that has plagued past polls. The ideological conflicts of the past appear to have diminished with the various parties proposing policies that do not differ greatly.

Coup leader Gen. Prayut Cha-O-Cha sought to portray a softer image during the campaign.

Beyond the officially announced policies, however, the voters were given choices among the top four parties with clearly different personalities, leaders and histories.

The Palang Pracha Rath Party (PPRP) billed itself the party of stability and order. It proposed the coup leader and current prime minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha as its candidate to head the government.

The Pheu Thai Party (PTP) represented the legacy of two ousted prime ministers, Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra. It campaigned on its history of providing benefits to the underprivileged.

Thailand’s oldest party, the Democrat Party, offered a conservative middle course, but remained tainted by the violence that erupted during its rule in 2010.

Campaign poster for the Future Forward Party

A new party, the Future Forward Party (FFP) called for a reduction in military budgets and influence in a social media campaign headed by a photogenic young billionaire.

In general, the voters appeared to welcome the opportunity to exercise their voting rights after nearly eight years without elections. The final turnout was close to 75%.

The bad news

Despite the peaceful campaign and polling, there were numerous alleged campaign violations, poll-booth irregularities and suspect vote-counting that cast doubt on the fairness of the outcome. There were charges that some of the constituencies were gerrymandered to favor the PPRP. A party closely allied with the PTP was dissolved at the last moment due to charges it had violated the election law by nominating a member of the royal family as a candidate. An extraordinary 6 percent of the ballots were declared invalid.

The Election Commission, appointed under the military-installed government, admitted a number of mistakes and claimed some of its polling stations were “hacked.” The Commission faces legal challenges and a popular petition demanding the commissioners be impeached or tried for corruption. It has declined to announce the official results, but must do so by May 9. Even then there will be some uncertainty.

“There are cases to investigate, like allegations of vote-buying. Those who are elected could be disqualified and we should run a second election for them,” the secretary general of Election Commission, Jarungwit Phumma, told reporters. “We can allocate proportional party list seats only after we have a concrete constituency list.”

Already, the Commission has decided to organize new voting at six polling stations and to recount the ballots in two of the constituency races.

The vote totals

One thing is clear: no one party gained a majority. Preliminary results announced five days after the polls indicate PTP won 137 of the 350 constituency seats in the 500-strong lower chamber of parliament, winning 7.9 million votes.  The military-backed PPRP took 97 seats, but won 8.4 million votes. The Democrat Party suffered a stunning setback, winning only 33 constituency seats. Party leader, former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajivat, resigned to take responsibility. The big surprise was that the fledgling FFP won 30 races and more than 6.2 million votes.

The new system of allocating additional “proportional party-list” seats based on the proportion of the national votes won, is expected to give PPRP 19 more seats and FFP 50 more seats. The PTP will not get any additional seats. However, there is controversy over the method of allocating the proportional seats. The Election Commission has asked the Constitutional Court to rule on its proposed methodology, but it is unclear that the court will decide it has jurisdiction.

Wooing the smaller parties

Despite the uncertainty, the two leading parties, the PPRP and the PTP have both claimed the right to make the first attempt at forming a government. PPRP insists that it won more votes nation-wide than any other party, giving it that right. PTP won fewer votes, but won more constituency seats than any other party. In Thailand’s parliamentary system, that would normally give PTP the right to form the government. Both parties are actively wooing the smaller parties to join them.

Bolstered by the support of the FFP and several other so-called “democratic parties,” the PTP claims enough MPs have agreed to join it in a coalition that will have slightly more than the 250 votes needed for a majority in the lower house. The PPP, however, has the military behind it and is tipped to make other parties offers they cannot refuse. It’s great advantage is in the appointed 250-seat upper house or Senate.

The Senate wildcard

The constitution, written under the military government set up after the 2014 coup d’état, stipulates that the appointed Senators have the right to join in the voting for prime minister until 2023. Therefore a total of 376 votes is needed to elect the prime minister. Since six top military leaders are automatically given seats in the Senate, 194 are directly appointed by the junta and the rest are appointed under a process managed by the current government, it is assumed that most if not all of the 250 Senators will vote for Prime Minister Prayut.

Problems going forward

So, despite having a majority of the lower house, the PTP cannot elect a prime minister without a substantial number of votes from the Senate. Even if they somehow got those votes, the power of the Senate to oversee the government would make it difficult for the civilian parties to govern. A PTP-led government also would be constrained by the power of the higher courts, the ombudsman, the counter corruption agency and other institutions led by officials appointed by the junta.

It is likely, therefore, that Prayut, who did not run for a parliament seat, will head the next government. The problem he faces is that his PPRP and their allies will struggle to find enough votes in the lower house to pass legislation and defeat no-confidence motions. The power to rule by decree, which Prayut wielded since the coup, will end once the new government takes office. It is unclear how he will be able to govern effectively.

If Prime Minister Prayut does stay in office, what could he learn from Thailand’s political history?

We will look at that question in our next blog.

Thai Elections: What has the Military learned from the Past?

The situation facing Thailand’s military rulers in polls this Sunday is one that has faced coup makers before. Like their predecessors, the current leadership seeks to legitimize their rule through elections without giving up too much power and privilege to civilian politicians.

As we noted in last week’s blog, there have been at least nine elections after military coups since 1932. Some have resulted in outright electoral defeat for the military. Some have been electoral wins but have saddled the ruler with greedy and unmanageable political partners. Three have led to further coups and the abandonment of any pretext of democracy.

The Military’s Political Strategy

Coup leader Gen. Prayut Chan-O-Cha seeks to be legitimized as prime minister after Sunday’s polls. Although not running for a seat in Parliament, Prayut is the prime ministerial candidate of the military-backed Palang Pracharat Party.

The actions of the military junta that has ruled Thailand since it seized power from an elected government on May 22, 2014, show it has studied the strategies used by past military dictators. They have decided on a two-part strategy:

·       To set up a political party and campaign for the coup leader, Gen. Prayut Chan-O-Cha, to continue in power through elections

·       To change laws and institutions so that even if the military-backed political parties fail in the elections, the military will still be able to dominate the government

This effort to convert a coup group into an elected government is not new. Past military coup leaders who became prime ministers of elected governments include  P. Phibulsonggram (1938 to 1944 and 1948 to 1957), Sarit Thanarat (1957 and 1958 to 1963), Thanom Kittikachorn (1957 and 1963 to 1973). The 1991 coup leader, Suchinda Kraprayoon, also became prime minister, but he lasted for only 47 days before being forced to resign after large-scale public protests – history that the current junta does not want to repeat. Except for Suchinda, all of these military men clung to power for a considerable time, but none of them was able to hold on to both power and democracy for very long. That is the challenge facing the military this coming Sunday.

Tactics from the Past

To implement the first part of the strategy, the junta has used the tactics of past coup leaders:

·       Like both the Sarit and Thanom regimes, the junta repeatedly (at least five times) promised and then postponed elections, giving itself time to solidify its hold on power after the coup.

·       Following virtually every coup group, the junta scrapped the constitution  and wrote a new one with provisions tailored to its advantage.

·       Imitating past coup groups, the junta created appointed bodies that it could fill with loyalists.

·       Similar to previous coup groups, the junta has tightened control over the mass media. It banned some opposition media at times. Prayut dominated the airwaves for his weekly lectures throughout the years when other politicians were barred from ‘campaigning.’

·       As in 2006, the court dissolved one of the main opposition political parties, this time on the grounds that it violated a rule against abusing the royal family by nominating a former princess as a candidate.

·       Continuing on from past elections, the military’s Internal Security Operations Command, which has committees overseeing each of Thailand’s 72 provinces, has acted as a political intelligence gathering and covert action arm of the military.

·       Taking a leaf from the playbook of the prime minister ousted in 2006, the military party, called the Palang Pracharat Party, has recruited influential local politicians to stand for it in the polls.

No Guarantees

The problem for the junta is that these tactics have rarely led to enduring democratic victories for the military. Adding to the uncertainty is that these elections will bring to the polls some seven million new voters – young people who have grown up with a more liberal and international mindset than the senior leaders in the junta. How will these young voters respond to the old military election tactics?

Thai opinion polls have often been unreliable and recent polls differ widely. Since local elections have not been held since the coup and political discussion has been kept under wraps for five years, the strength of anti-military feeling is difficult to assess. It may be deep enough to overwhelm the military party and its allies despite their advantages.

One indication that the military is not very confident is a last minute PR effort that included photographs of a sweetly smiling Prayut in fashionable clothes – laughably different from the gruff, no-nonsense image he projected for more than four years.

Doing More than Before

Clearly the military’s political strategists realized early on that they would have to do more than past coup groups to avoid making their 2014 coup another “khong sia – wasted thing” as some called the 2006 coup. Conservatives considered the coup “wasted” because Pheua Thai, a party supporting ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, won two elections despite the efforts of the coup group. Rarely in Thailand’s long history of coups have elections been delayed for nearly five years before elections. Part of this time was used to make extensive legal and institutional changes designed to implement the second part of the strategy – entrenching military political power.

Chadchart Sittipunt (l) is the candidate for prime minister and Sudarat Keyuraphan is the chief strategist of the Pheu Thai Party that won the last elections and has a strong following in the populous north and northeastern parts of the country.

The delay allowed the junta to appoint senior bureaucrats in positions such as provincial governor, the Counter Corruption Commission, the Ombudsman, the Election Commission, the National Broadcast Commission and the judiciary. These organizations have responded with a variety of actions favorable to Prayut’s election.

The junta initiated important changes in the constitution. Among other measures, it provided for a prime minister who does not have to be an elected member of Parliament – opening the way for current Prime Minister Prayut to stay in office. A temporary five-year provision of the  constitution gave the Senate a role in the selection of the prime minister. That means that if Prayut gets the votes of 250 non-elected senators appointed by the junta, he will need only 126 votes from the 500 elected MPs to become prime minister again.

The Senate, required to include the top military and police commanders, also gained the power to oversee the elected government’s implementation of a “20-year national strategy” mandated by the constitution. The junta produced the 72-page strategy paper that is supposed to bind any elected government. The elected government must announce a policy statement and budget allocations in compliance with the strategy. If the Senate deems it has failed to do that, it can bring the case to the National Anti-Corruption Commission. If the government is found guilty of violating the strategy, its officers could face dismissal and a jail term.

Thanathorn Juangroonruangkit, leader of the new Future Forward Party, hopes to appeal to Thailand’s 7 million new voters with calls to reduce the budget and importance of the military

The rapid rise of social media in Thailand created a problem no other coup group had to deal with before. How could it be brought under control? The Election Commission banned social media posts that contained anything other than candidates’ names, pictures and biographies, and the party name, logo policies and slogans. The rules struck at the new progressive parties, such as the Future Forward Party, that sought to use social media to spread their message. This came on top of an already draconian computer crimes law that makes it a crime to share information considered damaging by the authorities.

Possible Outcomes

So, does all of this guarantee a victory for Prayut and the military? Not necessarily. Here are three possibilities.

Former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajivat leads the Democrat Party that appears likely to be in opposition after the elections, unwilling to back either the Palang Pracharat or Pheu Thai parties.

1.     Thai voters have proven stubbornly independent in the past. The last three elections have all been won by parties influenced by former Prime Minister Thaksin and opposed by the military and the bureaucracy. Military-backed parties might get so little support that the civilian parties could form a government despite the Senate. Even Abhisit Vejjajivat, the leader of the Democrat Party, the country’s oldest party, has announced he will not support Prayut. The civilian parties, however, would have to overcome deep differences that sparked violence in 2008, 2010 and 2014. Even if that occurs, the military, the appointed Senate and the conservative bureaucracy have entrenched power that will allow them to exert considerable influence from behind the scenes, no matter what happens at the polls.

2.     All of the tactics of the junta could bear fruit and the military party could win enough votes to propel Prayut to a stable majority. With the backing of the Senate, the courts and the bureaucracy, Prayut and the military would be secure in power for what could be a long time.

3.     If Prayut wins just enough support to be elected prime minister, but not enough to form a stable government, Thailand could be in for a rocky ride. Prayut would need political skills like those of Gen. Prem Tinsulanonda, who presided over civilian governments for eight years in the 1980s, to survive. There would be problems passing legislation and dangers from no confidence motions. There could be public protests stirred by political parties aggrieved by winning the polls but blocked by the Senate from leading the government. That would create a situation similar to those faced by military rulers Thanom, Sarit and Phibul in the 1950s and 60s. In each case, the way out for the military ruler was another coup.

Sunday’s polls will test the Thai people’s willingness to resist authoritarian power. The formation of a new government will test Thai abilities to resolve political differences without violence. The elections could mean a step forward towards more effective representative government, a slide into electoral authoritarianism or a fall back into the old cycle of political conflict and military coups. Much is at stake.

Post-Coup Elections in Thailand, Learning from History

Coups and restoring “democracy”, patterns in the past

As Thailand heads towards its first elections since the 2014 coup, the history of post-coup elections may be relevant. Military coup groups, like the current regime, have often sought to continue in power through the mechanisms of electoral democracy. The record is mixed, but here are some points to consider.

Military – Politician Split

An alliance of civilian and military leaders educated in Europe led the 1932 coup that overthrew the traditional monarchy. They proclaimed a democracy. Almost immediately, however, conflicts erupted over a radical economic plan, the role of the monarchy and the coup group’s personal ambitions. Those struggles led to another coup in June 1933.

The first nation-wide elections took place in November 1933, but political parties were forbidden, so all candidates ran as independents. In retrospect, the lack of parties meant that there was little effort to build mass political support and scant cooperation among the elected members of Parliament. That civilian political weakness allowed the military under Field Marshal P. Phibunsonggram and others to gain power and pervert the original democratic ideals of the coup group while maintaining the outward form of democracy. This authoritarian content in democratic form has continued into the 21st century. Can the upcoming elections lead back to military-civilian cooperation?

Easier to stage coups than win elections

The army overthrew the elected government in 1947 and then held new elections. The army-backed parties, however, fared poorly in the polls. The Democrat party won the majority of seats in the new assembly. Dissatisfied with the election outcome, the Soldiers Committee forced the prime minister to resign and made Field Marshal Phibun prime minister once again.

In 1957 Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat seized power. He sought to consolidate his power with elections in December that year, but his party won only 44 seats in the 160-seat Parliament. He had to resort to coercion and bribery to install a government.

In 1969, the military held elections after more than a decade, but the military-backed United Thai People Party won only 75 of the 219 seats in Parliament. It had to lure 30 independents to form a government that led to a shaky coalition. That government soon ended in another coup.

A half-century later, the military faced similar problems winning elections after overthrowing the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Despite more than a year of military-led government, a re-written constitution, new election laws, dissolving Thaksin’s party and banning most of its executives, Thaksin’s supporters again won elections in 2007 and 2011. Some therefore saw the 2006 overthrow as a “wasted coup.”

The challenge now for the pro-military parties is to avoid wasting another coup and five years of military rule.

Winning elections is not enough

Field Marshal P. Phibulsonggram

In 1951, Prime Minister Phibulsonggram and his army backers became frustrated with criticism from Parliament and launched a coup to remove opposition lawmakers. In the next elections, held in early 1957, the political parties backed by the coup group won a majority of the seats in Parliament. Widespread coercion and vote-rigging, however, sparked mass protests. Unable to quiet the protests, the military-led government declared a state of emergency and later launched another coup.

In 1971, army leaders became irritated at the difficulties of managing an elected Parliament. Only two years after winning elections, Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn carried out a “self-coup” against his own government and ruled through a nine-member National Executive Council. The clumsy, corrupt and authoritarian rule of Thanom and his allies not only heightened a public desire for democracy but undermined support for the dictatorship among senior army officers. When the army commander, Gen. Kris Sivara, refused to send more troops to suppress massive, student-led protests in 1973 and King Bhumibol Adulyadej called for an end to the killing, Thanom and Prapat fled the country.

Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat

With its appointment of most of the upper house of Parliament, the coup-makers have a good chance to return to power at the end of this month, but it may not be easy to stay in power if the elected MPs or the general public are angry at the outcome.

Full dictatorship

The longest period of military rule came from 1958 to 1973 when the army gave up trying to be democratic. Fed up with  difficulties in dealing with the elected Parliament, Sarit staged a coup in October 1958 to overthrow the government he had set up himself. This coup heralded a harsh authoritarian era in Thai politics. Sarit scrapped the constitution and dissolved all political parties except for his own. He arrested editors, reporters and political activists. He imposed censorship on all media. Summary execution, police torture and corruption became hallmarks of his regime.

After his death in 1963, Sarit’s policies and army domination continued under Thanom and his powerful interior minister, Gen. Prapat Charusathien. They repeatedly delayed new elections, blaming insecurity due to the communist insurgency.

The current elections are a chance to move back to more than just the form of democratic rule and to ease the harshest measures of the current government. It would be unfortunate to miss this opportunity.

The path from general to prime minister

For much of Thailand’s modern history, the country has been ruled by military men, but they have come to power in different ways. Some, like Gen. Prem Tinasulanonda were appointed by Parliament, some, like Sarit and Thanom, seized power in a coup, and some won election as civilian-style politicians, like Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh and Gen. Chatichai Choonhavan.  Others, like current Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, have tried to move from coup maker to government leader via elections. The most interesting example is Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon. After overthrowing an elected government, Suchinda promised he would never take office as the prime minister. When military-backed parties selected him even though he was not elected to Parliament, however, he accepted. Public protests broke out and mounted swiftly. Violent suppression of the protests led to royal intervention, Suchinda’s resignation and new elections.

Prime Minister Prayut seems intent on making this transition, but it may not be easy.

Military – politician balancing act

In some periods, military leaders and civilian politicians have found accommodation. The eight years of Gen. Prem Tinsulanonda as the prime minister saw a balancing act between military and civilian interests. Similarly, the 1992 elections ushered in 14 years of civilian rule. The military, seeking to be seen as more professional, retained influence, but stayed in the background.

The new elections are an opportunity to at least partially re-balance military-civilian power, but the outcome is unlikely to please either.

Efforts to appoint an unelected coup leader, Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon, as prime minister after elections in 1992 led to deadly clashes between troops and protesters. King Bhumibol Adulyadej stepped in, Gen. Suchinda resigned and new elections were held. The military then avoided coups for 14 years.

Military political power has increased

Whether in times of direct military control or behind-the-scenes influence, the military’s political power has generally increased over time. It has gained ownership of radio and TV stations, a large budget, influence over the votes of soldiers, a role in some state enterprises and the ability to threaten further coups. The military has improved its public image since 1957 by proclaiming itself as the ultimate and necessary protector of the monarchy. It has successfully settled the 1950s conflicts between the army and the navy and between the army and the police that triggered several coups. The army is now supreme. Similarly the factional squabbles in the army that sparked abortive coups in the 1970s and 80s appear to have eased.

Military political power now faces a critical test — not just whether it can elect Prayut, but whether it can manage an elected government and a Parliament that will include parties still angry at nearly more than a decade of harsh treatment.

Return to “democracy”

Despite its history of dictatorial rule from the 1950s to the 1970s and its difficulties winning elections or managing elected governments, the military seems to feel a continuing need to return to democracy. Coup groups held elections in 1933, 1947, 1951, 1958, 1969, 1972, 1979, 1992, 2007 and now again in 2019. Even authoritarians such as Phibul, Sarit and Thanom felt the need to hold elections. The issue for the military coup makers is how to have the “cake” of public and international acceptance from elections and still get to eat the cake of political power and privilege.

That is the problem facing the coup leaders behind Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha in the polls scheduled to take place on March 24. What lessons has the current coup group learned from this history?

That will be my theme for the next blog. It will look at the legal, political and structural changes put in place by the coup makers in the five years of preparations for this month’s elections.

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For more detail on Thailand’s long history of coups and post-coup elections, the following books can be helpful:

Thailand: The Politics of Despotic Paternalism, Thak Chaloemtiarana

Thai Politics: Extracts and Documents 1932-1957, Thak Chaloemtiarana, ed.

The Military in Thai Politics, 1981-86, Suchit Bunbongkarn

The Political Development of Modern Thailand, Federico Ferrara

A History of Thailand, Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit

Chronicle of Thailand, Headline News Since 1946, Nicholas Grossman, ed.

Radical Thought, Thai Mind, Yuangrat Wedel and Paul Wedel

The Balancing Act, A History of Modern Thailand, Joseph J. Wright Jr.

Political conflict in Thailand: reform, reaction, revolution, David Morell, Chaiʻanan Samutwanit

"Good Coup" Gone Bad: Thailand's Political Development since Thaksin's Downfall,                         Pavin Chachavalpongpun, ed.

Khaki Capital: The Political Economy of the Military in Southeast Asia,                                                  Paul Chambers and Napisa Waitoolkiat, eds.

Anand Panyarachun and the Making of Modern Thailand - book review

Note: I am reposting my review of Anand Panyarachun and the Making of Modern Thailand as it was accidentally deleted from the website.

This biography of Anand, the first in English, is Anand Panyarachun and the Making of Modern Thailand by long-time Bangkok journalist, Dominic Faulder. The outcome of six years of work, the book covers Anand’s life and work as diplomat, prime minister, company chairman, philanthropist and contributor to national and international reform. As the subtitle of the book indicates, Anand’s career also provides an useful lens through which to view the last half century of Thai history. The book includes interviews with many of the key actors in the events that have made modern Thailand. As Faulder notes, “The benefit of writing a book about Anand is that many people are willing to open their doors to talk about him; this kind of access is rare in Thailand.” Sadly, at least eight of those interviewed have since passed away – highlighting the timeliness of Faulder’s work.

Before going further, I should acknowledge that I do not come to this subject without my own experiences and biases. I covered Anand’s surprising nomination as prime minister in 1991 as Bangkok bureau chief for United Press International. A few years later I was part of the group that persuaded Anand to chair the non-profit Kenan Institute Asia and I served for a decade as executive director and later president of the Institute under Anand’s leadership.  I later worked as part of a team of writers supervised by Anand that produced a book on King Bhumibol Adulyadej. I have been friends with Dominic Faulder for many years and more recently became friends with Nick Grossman.

Anand and I with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1998.

Although I covered parts of Anand’s career and worked closely with him, Faulder’s book gave me new information and greater insight into Anand’s life and character. Faulder has given an accurate picture of a man of decisive rationality and integrity with high standards he set for himself and those working with  him. As the book shows, Anand is a man of great self-confidence and quick decisions. More often than not, even in confusing circumstances, his judgment has been sound. Anand worked in a wide variety of roles in his career. He brought value and concern for the public good to each of them.

Elite has become a term of disparagement, but in many positive ways, Anand was elite. He did not suffer fools easily and was often straight-forward in exposing their foolishness. This is not the easy way to popularity. Although he certainly had enemies, Anand gained public support because most people could see his blunt assessments were intended to serve the public good. They also saw that he recognized the advantages his privileged upbringing had given him and sought to understand and empathize with the lives of ordinary Thais. He was elite without being elitist.

Yuangrat and I chat with Anand and UNC professor Jack Kasarda at a Kenan Institute Asia reception in 2015

Faulder gives a good account of Anand’s early life as a student in England and shows how his personal bonds with fellow overseas Thai students proved valuable in later years as Anand and his friends rose to positions of greater power. The background on Anand’s family and the particular importance of his father Sern is useful in understanding Anand. Sern, the son of a high-ranking official of Mon ancestry, won a King’s scholarship to study in England before being called back to Thailand to serve in the ministry of education, rising to take charge of all the royal schools, to serve as a professor at the Civil Service College and to become the top civil servant in the ministry. After the coup that overthrew the traditional monarchy in 1932, Sern became a  businessman and publisher – precursors of his son’s later occupations.

It is hard to find fault with most of what Faulder has written. It is well-organized, carefully documented and, as far as I can tell, accurate. The faults I find lie in what is omitted, likely due to circumstances beyond the author’s control.

First of all, this is a biography that had both the advantages and the constraints of Anand’s full support and extensive cooperation. It gives little space to his critics and contains nothing embarrassing. It deals very carefully with Anand’s personal life; it is more about what he did than who he was. Faulder gives a brief account of Anand’s courtship and marriage to Mom Ratchawong Sodsee Chakrabandh, a fellow student in England and a descendant of King Mongkut. The book, however, says little about Anand’s long marriage, despite Faulder’s extensive access to Anand and his two daughters.

Similarly, the book fails to shed much light on Anand’s relationship with King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Faulder notes that Anand had numerous meetings with the king, especially during Anand’s two terms as prime minister. He quotes others about the relationship. One friend described Anand as a Bhumibolist rather than a royalist. However, there is little insight directly from Anand. As Faulder states in his author’s note, Anand made it clear that matters discussed privately with the king were off limits for the book. This is understandable, but unfortunate, as Anand’s views of the king could have contributed to a better understanding of a monarch whose long reign has been obscured by unfounded rumors, excessive adulation and excessive blame. Both the king and Anand had minds shaped by extensive early education in Europe that had to deal with the complexities of traditional Thai society. Their discussions of Thailand’s problems must have been interesting.

There is also little account of Anand’s religious thinking. Faulder notes his opposition to making Buddhism the state religion during the development of the 1997 constitution and quotes him as saying “normally I don’t give money to temples.” Since Buddhism is so important in the thinking of many Thais, it would have been useful to learn more.

Many of Anand’s views in the book were familiar from my chats with him at board meetings, dinners or social events, but some were new. For someone often described as part of the traditional elite, Anand’s views are rather untraditional. He rejects the idea of “Thainess” and laments that so many Thais misunderstand their own history – taking pride in the glory of a unitary state that never existed. He refutes the common prejudice of many in Bangkok against the Lao ethnic minority, saying he saw them as intelligent and hard-working. He says he appreciated the writings of Thai “radical thinkers,” including Jit Phumisak, Seni Sawaphong, Khamsing Srinawk and Seksan Prasertkul. He decries the abuses of Thailand’s Lese Majeste law and recommends its reform. As head of a commission on the troubles in Thailand’s far south, he goes against the views of most military and government leaders, recommending more local autonomy, greater respect for Islam and a bigger role for the Malay language as measures to reduce the violence there. At the same time he rejects the idea of a “network monarchy” popular among foreign academics. Faulder says Anand sees this network monarchy as “a convoluted, somewhat obsessive conspiracy theory.”

At 608 pages, Anand Panyarachun and the Making of Modern Thailand is comprehensive and detailed.    It is an important step in addressing the lack of serious English language biographies of leading Thais, but it does more.

Using the life of a significant Thai leader, the book gives us insider accounts of many of the critical developments in recent Thai history. Anand’s career extended to diplomacy, government leadership, private enterprise, reform commissions and charitable work making him an important player in that history. But because the account is tied to Anand, it says little about the impact of change on the people of the countryside, the recurring radical movements, the rise and fall of the Thai communist party and much else. However, it does give us a better understanding of whatever events Anand touched and they were many.  Anand and others contributed hundreds of hours of interviews to the book. This wealth of material provides an understanding of Thai diplomacy during the cold war and Thai efforts to adjust to the new reality after the wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In particular there is an inside account of the fiasco of the Mayaguez incident and the contentious departure of US troops from the Thai perspective. The book describes Anand’s role in the Thai effort to readjust its relations with the communist governments in Vietnam and China – suffering the wrath of the conservative Thai military in the process.

The highlight of the book, however, is a detailed account of Anand’s two terms as prime minister. It describes his surprising appointment as prime minister after a military coup in 1991 and the confusing process that led to a second term after a public uprising against an unelected military leader the following year. Faulder sheds light on the relationship between Anand and army commander Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon who appointed him only to see him move against military interests and sideline key generals.

 He details the Anand government’s considerable achievements during those two brief terms. Quite correctly, a share of the credit is given to the ministers that Anand brought into his cabinet. With Anand’s support, those ministers advanced the rights of women, espoused much needed educational reform, improved the telecommunications infrastructure and made Thailand a model for enlightened action against AIDS, saving many thousands of lives.

There is a discussion of Anand’s work to help write Thailand’s 1997 constitution often described as the best of the many constitutions Thailand has had. His well-timed actions against the leaders of the 1991 coup kept Thai military leaders in their barracks and out of politics for nearly a decade.

Somewhat apart from Anand’s story, Faulder also provides inside accounts of publications about King Bhumibol and a long overdue dissection of a travesty of a royal biography, The Revolutionary King by William Stevenson.

Whether read for its insights into the life and work of an important Thai leader or for its account of recent Thai history, Anand Panyarachun and the Making of Modern Thailand is good value. Hopefully it will set the standard for biographies of other significant Thais that are long overdue.

Storm hits Pakpanang: Fact and Fiction

Fact

The people of Pakpanang are struggling to recover from the first big tropical storm in three decades to hit Thailand. Tropical storm Pabuk, with winds up to 75 kph, last week lashed five meter-high waves over the sandy spit of Pakpanang’s Talempuk Cape and drove a storm surge up the Pakpanang River. The storm flooded the market and many of the homes and buildings along the river. It tore off roofs, felled electrical poles and toppled trees. The storm forced some 10,000 people to flee their homes.

The government said the storm killed at least four people and damaged more than 11,000 houses, 55 roads and five bridges according to still incomplete surveys. In addition to government assistance, funds are being raised to assist the victims of the storm.

His Majesty the King has ordered revenues from the just completed Winter's End Festival to be diverted to help affected people. The Thai Red Cross has given medical care and other aid to storm victims. The Stock Exchange of Thailand, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, PTT, King Power and many individual donors have pitched in to provide funding for the recovery effort.

Individual donations can be made via Kasikorn Bank account Silom Branch Office, account name "Thai Red Cross for Disaster", Account Type "Current Account" No. 001-1-34567-0. You can also donate in person at the "Donation Room" Office of Revenue Reduction, Thai Red Cross Society, Amnuay Noratham Building, 2nd Floor, Rama 4 Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok. For details on donations to the Red Cross, you can visit the Facebook page "Redcrossfundraising - Office of the Thai Red Cross Revenue Office". For more information about making donations to the “Pabuk Storm Victims Center Phuket Rajabhat University”, call 086-4780062, 093-5824897, 088-1687421 or 061-8680495 (available 24 hours).

Fiction

About eight months before the Pabuk storm struck, Yuangrat and I wrote several chapters of our historical novel about a storm hitting Pakpanang. Our account of the storm is imaginary, but based on Yuangrat’s experience of Tropical Storm Harriet in 1962 that killed over 900 people, mostly in Pakpanang. Our story is also based on my own two years in Pakpanang and experience of lesser storms. The novel is still at the first draft stage, but I thought it might be interesting for our readers to get an early glimpse of the story. The storm is a turning point in the novel. It wrecks a sailing ship in the gulf captained by one lead character and it impacts another, a teen-aged girl named Ploi, whose family runs a riverside gambling den in Pakpanang in 1899.

Here are two of those chapters about Ploi, who is competing with her older brother for her father’s attention and a place in the family business. We welcome any comments you may have.

Chapter 16 - Rising Waters

Ploi looked up from the accounts ledger as a powerful clap of thunder shook the tin-roofed gambling den. She looked into the main room were two dozen gamblers were intent on their games, barely noticing the growing storm. Four games were in progress. In one corner the fan tan players were hunched over their cards, eying each other warily. The biggest group of gamblers was around the Po Kam mat. Most were men, bare-chested and tense as the bowl of cowries was uncovered. Ploi looked at the Thua mat – that was the high-stakes game that generated most of their profits. The Thua dealer was counting out the cowries as the gamblers watched. Most of the Thua players were well-dressed. Women with a dozen bracelets, men with chains of gold, even a top-knotted little boy holding his mother’s hand. The district officer, his white official coat tossed to one side, had made a series of bets on the numbers two and three. A saw-oo player provided a piercing tune that lent a rhythm to the betting around the gambling mats, but failed to drown out the sounds of the storm. Smoke from a dozen cheroots chased around the room as the rising wind blew through the barred windows.

Located well off the main road to the provincial capital and with its own pier jutting out into the Pakpanang River, the Jaikla Casino – the Daring Casino – was one of the best known buildings in the district. It had one main gambling room, one private room and a room for records and accounts. The walls were rectangular wooden planks held together in a frame of dark teak wood. It was the only licensed gambling den in the district and generated a good portion of the income that Sia Leng, the monthon gambling tax concessionaire, sent on to the monthon office in Songkla.

It was Ploi’s job to ensure that there were credible records to show the Chinese concessionaire while ensuring the tax paid was as low as possible. Although only 16, she had become expert at shaving a few baht here and there from the income and adding a few baht here and there to the list of expenses. Once the job of her elder brother, she had taken over when the concessionaire had sent his thugs to threaten her father with broken thumbs if the casino continued to insult him with the meager payments. She knew the concessionaire knew she was cheating him, but she did it carefully and paid enough tax to keep him from feeling insulted. Ploi now had control of the casino finances – token exchange, payouts, accounts and tax payments. Elder Brother Chit was left with the job of keeping order on the gambling floor, handling the disputes that occasionally broke out and making sure the big bettors were happy. He seemed to enjoy that – chatting up the customers and offering free rice wine to the best customers. But now he was nowhere to be seen. Where is Older Brother? Ploi mouthed to the head dealer. He shrugged his shoulders. Ploi shrugged her shoulders in response. It didn’t matter. The casino ran just as well without him, though her father would never admit it.

“Do the best you can until Chit is able to get back,” he father would say. “Leave any serious problems for him to handle. Just don’t make things worse.”

Unlike many of her girlfriends, Ploi did not idolize her older brother. He was often carefully cruel to her, creating slights intended to let her know that however, much their father loved her, there was only one eldest son. He had mocked her quick ability to deal with numbers and her beautiful hand-writing.

“Why does a girl need write and calculate? You only need to warm some man’s bed and tend to his babies – that is, if anyone will have you.”

Ploi knew that Elder Brother Chit was the one behind the scorpions left in her bedding and the smelly stains that appeared on her best clothes. Chit would always give her a smirk to make sure she knew. Once she had complained to their father, but he said she was imagining it. After that she never complained again, but made sure her father could see that she, not her brother, was the reliable one, that she was the one devoted to the family business.

But it was not just his treatment of her that led Ploi to despise her brother. As she grew older, she saw that he was the slave of his own whims and urges – whether for liquor, for excitement or for women. She quickly realized that he was shallow, weak, ill-disciplined and lazy. She resented that her mother and father invariably made excuses for his failings. That leniency, she thought, only made him worse. He really thought he could get away with anything.

Ploi thought that his abandonment of the casino during the evening peak time would also be excused. Now, with the storm growing in intensity, she thought, perhaps they should close down so customers could get safely home. It might already be too late for those who had come by boat. Ploi quickly glanced out the door and saw wind-whipped waves surging over the dock. The river was rising rapidly and high tide was not for another three hours. It must be raining in the mountains to the west, swelling the streams feeding the river. At the same time, storms like this often sent a surge of water from the gulf into Pakpanang Bay. If the runoff, the storm surge and high tide all came together, she thought, there would be flooding.

A sudden crash reverberated through the room and stopped all the gambling. It must have been a dried palm frond smashing into the metal roof. Ploi straightened her pha sin and strode into the main room. The zinc roofing shifted and the wind whistled through the widening crack. Ploi made a quick decision and stepped to the center of the gambling room.

“We are going to have to close early because of the storm,” she announced.

An immediate cry of protest arose from many of the gamblers.

“I am on a winning streak.”

“I need to recoup my losses.”

“You can’t do that. Where is your father? Where is Kamnan Paen?”

Another branch hit the roof and the wind lifted one of the metal roofing sheets. Rain whipped into the front corner of the casino. Gamblers around the Po Kam mats grabbed their wagers and moved to the middle of the room.

“Who came by boat?” Ploi asked. “It is already too rough for you to go home that way.” Groans and protests went up from the group now huddling in the dripping room.

“Make sure your boats are well-secured. You will have to spend the night on this side of the river. I think we will all have to move to higher ground,” Ploi said. “Finish the current games and then pick up your betting counters. We will pay everyone immediately.”

Ploi issued quick orders to the dealers who rushed through the remaining games. They hastily picked up cowrie shells, collected the cards and rolled up the mats. Ploi started exchanging the bright-colored ceramic betting counters for dull coins when a cry arose as the wind rattled the roofing sheets and tore one off, letting the pellets of rain slant into the betting room. Ploi glanced through the door at the bettors scrambling to avoid the rain. She grabbed the account book she had been working on and strapped it around her waist. She picked up the lantern and the light picked out the frightened faces of the gamblers. She could feel the fear and panic radiating from them, but she felt strangely calm.

“Daeng, lock the cash box and bring it with you.”

The fan-tan dealer closed the lid on the wooden box when a gust of wind blew open the door. A wave of warm river water sloshed through the door and across the floor of the casino, sweeping gambling mats and betting counters with it. Several bettors screamed and rushed towards the door through the dark water already knee-deep and rising.

Chapter 18 – Swept Away

A sharp gust of wind slammed the casino door shut to more screams from the casino customers. Another gust whipped it open and left it quivering on its hinges. Ploi waded through the rising water and stepped down into the current sweeping past the river side of the building. She held up her lantern and waved to the group in the doorway to follow her. A quick glance towards the dock where the boats had been tied up showed nothing in the dim light from her lantern but white-capped waves. Ploi quickly turned to head up the slope from the river. The rain had churned the bank into a thick porridge of wet clay that grasped at her feet. She struggled up, pushed forward by the gale that swept in from the bay.

Behind her, the two workers carrying the casino counters and cash struggled to stay upright. A heavyset Chinese lady fell back into the mud and shrieked for help. The river was rising quickly and now swirled around the trapped woman. Ploi dropped her lantern and slid back down the bank to grab her arm. One of the workers took the other arm and they heaved her upright.

“Don’t leave me. I’ll drown,” she screamed.

“No one will leave you. We are all together. Just lift your foot straight up and then forward. Now the other one,” Ploi urged. A market lady got behind her and pushed. The ungainly group slowly moved up to get out of the water and onto firmer ground.

The glimmer of light from the casino flickered out. Ploi looked back at the casino and saw the river water tear off one of the wooden walls and then another. They hesitated a moment and then were seized by the water, disappearing into the darkness. As far as she could see in the darkness, there was nothing but wind-whipped waves and fast-moving water.

“Everyone keep moving this way,” Ploi yelled as she trudged forward. She couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead. All she knew was that they had to go uphill, angling across the slope and the water that wanted to pull them into the river. Ploi paused and waited for the group to catch up, but the older women kept slipping in the mud. She pulled the Thua mat from Daeng’s hands.

“Everyone take hold of the mat. We’ll pull you up,” she shouted.

Finally, the ground leveled off and the mud was not so deep. Ploi stopped the group on the higher ground that formed the road to the river side. Ploi stopped and counted as the group bent over in exhaustion. All 32 of the people at the casino had made it this far. Wet and cold, the survivors felt their way through the darkness to the main road to Nakhon. The heavy rain had flooded both sides of the road. It was now a long thin island. Two small houses near the road were dark and partly flooded.

“We’ll go to my house. It is the nearest,” Ploi said. The road of hard-baked laterite made much easier going, but the wind and the rain continued to assault them. Ploi was grateful when she saw the multiple roofs of her home emerge from the darkness. The large columns of takian wood held the multi-roofed house out of the water that streamed off the road and into the family compound. Yellow light leaked around the window shutters. Ploi wearily pulled herself up the steep teak stairway into the house and pounded on the door. She pounded again, but there was no response.

“Open the door,” she screamed. “It’s me.” She was rewarded with the sound of the iron bolts being withdrawn from the door. It swung open and Ploi staggered onto the central platform of the house and into the arms of Som, one of her father’s assistants.

“Where is father?” she asked. Som nodded to the reception hall on one side of the platform. Ploi opened the door and stepped over the raised door frame. She welcomed the warmth and light of the room. A dozen men sat around a long mat with bottles and glasses beside them. Several trays of prawn crackers lay between them. At the far end of the room, Kamnan Paen Looked up with a scowl.

“What are you doing back here so early? Where is your brother?”

“The storm. The river rose. The casino washed away,” Ploi said. She looked down and saw that she had lost her sandals somewhere. The other survivors pushed their way into the room and stood dripping.

“That is ridiculous,” Paen snorted.

“I almost died,” the Chinese woman wailed.

“The wind felt like a whipping with palm fronds.”

“Give me something to drink.”

“The river was wild. It just kept rising and rising with big waves.”

“Alright, alright,” Kamnan Paen roared. “Ploi, where is the money and where is your brother?”

Ploi looked back at Daeng and the two casino workers and they looked down at their empty hands.

“Where is the money?”

“We had it when we left the casino, but we had to pull people up the bank to escape the flood. The river was up to our waists and trying to pull us into the current. We had to leave some things behind. The cash box is big and heavy,” Ploi said, looking at Daeng, who hung his head. “It would have been dangerous to try to carry it through the water. The important thing is we managed to save everyone and, other than a few cuts and bruises, no one is seriously hurt.”

“But the money? What about the casino counters?”

“It was just one night’s take,” she said. “And I did save the accounts.” She pulled out the sodden account book she had strapped around her waist.

“You lost our money? How could you be so careless?” he screamed at his daughter.

Ploi’s eyes flashed with anger and she took two steps toward her father. “We saved everyone’s lives when they could have drowned. You were not there to help. Elder Brother Chit was not there to help.”

Paen took a step back in surprise that his daughter would yell back at him. “Well, where is your brother? He was in charge of the casino. If you had only waited for him — he wouldn’t have lost the money,” he said.

“Isn’t he here? He said he was not feeling well and was going home,” Ploi said.

“Would I ask if he was here? How could you forget your brother and save everyone else?” he demanded.

“But he wasn’t there. I don’t know where he is,” she said. “If we had waited for him, we all would have drowned.”

Daeng stood up. “Kamnan, sir, Ploi did everything possible to save everyone at the casino. Ai Chit left the casino long before the storm and we never saw him again.”

“We need to go back to the casino and find him,” Paen said.

“There is no one there, there is nothing left but the building posts,” Ploi said. “Chit has probably gone to one of his friends’ houses. You can’t see anything in the dark and rain.”

“He is my son. We need to find him,” Paen said. “Ong and Art, get some lanterns we’ll go out to search.”

Kamnan Paen and his men quickly headed out the door, letting another blast of rain and wind into the room. Ploi shook her head in silent disagreement, but quickly busied herself getting food and drink for the casino group. Her mother brought out sleeping mats and blankets for the group that lay exhausted on the floor. Many were quickly asleep.

Ploi, however, stayed awake listening to the storm. She thought about all she had done for her father, but he hadn’t said a word about her own survival or her efforts to save the casino customers. He cared only about the money and his son. What did she have to do to mean something? The only way was through the casino. She had to make it bigger and more profitable. Her father would notice that. She would earn the money to extend the house so her mother had another room for her Buddha images and her father could have a separate room to entertain his friends. There was much that could be done to attract more customers. With Pakpanang growing as a port and a trading center, they should be able to bring in much more money. That would keep the concessionaire off their backs and employ more people. Someday, Ploi thought, she would be an important person in the family and in the town. The storm lashing the house seemed to infuse her with energy for a moment as she thought of all the changes she would make. After what seemed like hours of fury, the whistle of the wind softened. Its high-pitched scream lowered into a moan. The sound of the rain lashing the thatched roof gradually faded. Ploi slipped into an exhausted sleep.

Two hours later, her father came back in, wet, cold and in despair. “We went to all his friends’ houses, but nothing.” He sat slumped in a corner and grabbed for one of the liquor bottles still on the floor.

“Father, I…

“Don’t talk to me now,” he grunted and drank from the bottle.

For the first time that night, tears welled in Ploi’s eyes as she watched her father take another drink, staring at the darkness beyond the door.

The thin grey light of a morose dawn filtered into the room, glinting off the bottle as it was raised and lowered, raised and lowered.

Looking at Thailand’s Shift into China’s Orbit - book review

 One objective of this blog is to highlight good writing about Thailand and the region. I won’t try to be comprehensive, but when I read a good book or article, I will try to provide an objective assessment of it. Sometimes the authors will be friends or acquaintances, so I may not be entirely without bias. I hope, however, my main bias will be in favor of well-researched and useful writing that addresses important issues.

This first book blog looks at an important effort to document Thailand’s fast-changing relationships with the United States and China. These changes are important for both Thailand and the United States. For Americans they should raise alarm about the loss of former allies to the power and allure of China, loss that cannot be halted without investment of intelligence, money and expertise. For Thais this move towards China raises the danger of Thai leaders becoming enamored of China’s authoritarian style of government and guided by the Chinese government’s all-too-successful efforts to control its people through technology and fear.

Benjamin Zawacki, whom I have known for several years, provides a thoroughly researched account of the alarming shift of a US ally and friend into the orbit of China. Thailand: Shifting Ground between the US and a Rising China details the US diplomatic blunders and inaction that have accelerated this move. With extensive interviews of senior officials and access to embassy dispatches, the book piles up details that are compelling. Shifting Ground should be required reading for every US diplomat and every policy maker dealing with Southeast Asia and China. The book, however, ultimately points to an even more serious problem at the center of US foreign policy–the conflict between American ideals of democracy, human rights and rule of law and the practicality of dealing with governments and dictators that respect none of these. The US attempt to have it both ways–American ideals and effective real world advancement of US national interests, Zawacki argues, delivers neither.

In the case of Thailand, Zawacki shows how US posturing during Thailand’s frequent bouts of political violence and military takeovers eroded US influence. It is not just that the US government criticized Thailand’s democratic failures, but that such criticism went missing where immediate US interests seemed more important. He quotes former prime minister, Anand Panyarachun saying “What happened in Egypt in 2013? They (the US) helped the army dismantle a democratically elected government. If you go back, the US did that in Guatemala, in Panama, in Nicaragua, in the Dominican Republic, in Cuba. Yet, they keep on carping about this timetable, about a roadmap for when we will have democracy. It’s absurd.”

Zawacki writes that this unequal posturing has led many Thais to conclude that US policy is hypocritical at its core. This perception of hypocrisy has been heightened by the failure of the US government to back up its idealistic words with effective action. The Obama government’s announcement of a ‘pivot’ to Asia displayed an awareness that US interests require effective action to compete with China for influence in the region. However, Zawacki documents how, in the case of Thailand, the actions intended to implement the pivot were too few, too weak and too inconsistent to be effective. Worse, the announcement of the pivot energized China’s efforts in Thailand. Zawacki writes: “US policy was finally spot-on, but its architects and agents could not get out of their own way. Causing China to pivot even further into the country and region. America’s non-pivot would backfire.”

In contrast, China’s approach has been to keep quiet about Thailand’s internal problems and focus on concrete actions to build influence through business, trade, infrastructure projects, education, and a well-funded and consistent program of soft diplomacy focused on Thailand’s royal family. From Zawacki’s detailed account of China’s clearly successful effort to become the dominant foreign friend of Thailand, it might appear that he thinks the US should follow such a pragmatic, real-politic approach. That, however, is not what he proposes.

He writes in his concluding chapter that: “A solution will come, in Thailand, as elsewhere, only when the US decides to consistently treat democracy, human rights and the rule of law as national interest—not merely perceive or proclaim them as such, but invest strategic resources toward their protection and advancement.”

Such a change in US foreign policy has been mooted in the past under presidents such as Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, but there has never been effective and consistent implementation. There has always seemed to be a dictator that had to be mollified, human rights abuses that had to be ignored or a military takeover that had to be accepted for perceived short-term national interests. It is in this critique that this book about China and Thailand offers a wider warning about all US foreign policy. Despite being the most powerful military and economic power in the world, US influence is declining, in Thailand, in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.

Zawacki shows how this decline was accelerated by blunders in dealing with Thai political conflicts, in failing to conclude a free trade agreement with Thailand, in doing little to help Thailand in the 1997 economic crisis, and in omitting Thailand from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP blunder, was, of course, later magnified by abandoning the trade agreement entirely. This was a blunder by President Trump, but Hilary Clinton was an accomplice, failing to build understanding and support for the Partnership that could have reduced China’s allure for nations around the Pacific.

Zawacki’s account, however, is not relentlessly negative about US efforts to maintain its influence in Thailand. He cites American assistance after the Indian Ocean tsunami and other disasters, the establishment of a police officer training institute in Thailand and the efforts of some American diplomats, such as former ambassador Skip Boyce. He also acknowledges that China has key natural competitive advantages in its proximity to Thailand, the large number of ethnic Chinese in leadership positions, and the benefits of business links to the large and growing Chinese economy.

He accepts that many of the developments that have reduced US influence are the results of the poor political decisions by the Thais themselves. The abuse of power by civilian politicians, the refusal to abide by reasonable rules for political competition, the resort to political violence by multiple parties, the corruption of officials, both civilian and military and the welcome given to military dictatorships have all had a negative effect on the US-Thai relationship.

The book does not deal with the election of Donald Trump, but the dangers Zawacki documents of inconsistent US policy, failure to understand local context, lack of expertise and allowing domestic political interests to determine foreign policy appear likely to worsen. Certainly it is already apparent that his recommendations of more effective action on democracy, human rights and law are unlikely to be a priority for a Trump administration that persists in its simplistic focus on a tariff-based trade confrontation with China.

Zawacki warns that the case of Thailand shows that the US is failing to meet the challenge of a rising China more broadly.  He writes: “In a strategically located Thailand, the US has not been competing with China for influence in how Thai leadership perceives power, treats its people and applies its laws.”

In contrast, many in the Thai leadership have come to look with admiration on how China is governed. Over the past four years government actions to suppress dissent, control electronic communications, rule by decree and set rules to favor the military’s political power are consistent with what Zawacki calls the “China Model.” The economic aspects of that model, focused on a large and protected state sector and government-directed economic development, has gained credibility through China’s remarkable economic growth. Its use of state power to repress dissent and ensure order looks good to many Thais after a decade of violent political conflict. The China Model appears to have a strong appeal for Thai military leaders who have now held power for more than four years.

Zawacki shows how China gained influence with the Thai military through offers of training, cheap material and special equipment, such as submarines. In contrast, US military influence, once dominant, has declined rapidly with fewer officers trained and less equipment provided. China has successfully increased its role in joint military exercises with the Thais. US legal requirements to cut military aid after each coup has further antagonized the Thai generals.

Zawacki makes it clear that China’s strategic interests in Thailand are not altruistic, though many of their actions furthering those interests may appear to be. Thailand is a key piece in China’s long-term geopolitical strategy for dominance. That strategy, according to Zawacki, seeks ways to avoid the chokepoint of the Straits of Malacca through which much of China’s energy supplies and raw materials must pass. Currently that chokepoint is controlled by the US Seventh Fleet. China, therefore, seeks access to the Indian Ocean through Myanmar and Thailand. China’s support for rail and road infrastructure through Thailand is part of this strategy. Zawacki predicts that no later than 2025 China’s influence will be sufficiently powerful to induce Thailand to start the construction of a canal through southern Thailand to provide Chinese shipping with an alternative to the Malacca Straits. Such a canal would come at a huge environmental, social and possibly financial cost to Thailand.

So, Zawacki’s book serves not only as a warning to the US but also to Thailand. Thai leaders, both military and civilian, should pay particular attention to the struggles of the current Malaysian government to reduce the burden of Chinese-initiated infrastructure projects along the Malacca Straits. Those projects include multi-billion dollar ports, industrial parks, artificial islands, rail links and gas pipelines that benefit China’s regional strategy with the local taxpayers picking up most of the bill.

This is an important book, but it is not an easy read. Zawacki supports his key points with an accumulation of details that can be mind-numbing. He moves back and forth in time in ways that can be confusing. His writing style is complex and lawyerly. At the same time, however, he sometimes omits the names of key sources or players, referring to them only by a title. This practice does not seem to be meant to protect anyone, but to spare readers more unfamiliar names – names that Thai specialists would like to see.

 The detailed account is supported by more than 1,300 footnotes, but some of the footnotes seem unfortunately cryptic. Zawacki makes excellent use of the embassy dispatches found on the WikiLeaks website, but the footnotes for these references include only a document number and a date, forcing the reader to go to the website to see who signed the dispatch.

There are occasional, mostly minor errors, such as the misspelling of Chinese Premier Li Peng’s name and the statement that China built Thailand’s first warship. In general, however, Zawacki gets things right in his account of the twists and turns of the US-Thai relationship. His accumulated evidence and his conclusions deserve serious attention from both Americans and Thais. The rise of China may be impossible to stop, but the US failure to compete effectively is opening the path for China to gain easy regional domination.

“Thailand Shifting Ground between the US and a Rising China by Benjamin Zawacki
Published October 2017 by Zed Books and The University of Chicago Press ISBN: 9781783608690 Paperbacks $26.95

On Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Thailand-Shifting-Ground-between-Arguments-ebook/dp/B075ZXNLH5/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1546773355&sr=8-1&keywords=Zawacki
”

Khmer Rouge leaders found guilty again, but they may be the last

In mid-November, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia convicted two former Khmer Rouge leaders of genocide and crimes against humanity committed more than 40 years ago. The slow motion justice of the hybrid Cambodian-International court adds to the guilty verdicts and life sentences already imposed on ageing former Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. Testimony before the court gave detail and depth to the brutal consequences of Khmer Rouge rule that Yuangrat detailed in her article “Cambodia: Marxism or Sadism?” published in 1979 or the numerous articles on conditions in Cambodia that I wrote for UPI from 1977 to 1980.

The verdict may give some closure to the victims of the Khmer Rouge’s bizarre and brutal Maoist rule, but most had to move on with their lives long ago. The decision puts a final stamp of global disapproval on the radical Communist dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge. However, it does little to help the present day victims of the more pragmatic, but occasionally brutal elected dictatorship of Prime Minister Hun Sen. The question is whether the long-delayed trial will have any warning effect on the Hun Sen government or any of the other regimes that abuse human rights. It seems sadly unlikely.

The latest court proceedings concerned a broad range of crimes that led to the suffering and deaths of millions of Cambodians from 1975 to 1979. The earlier conviction focused on the tragedy of the forced evacuation of major Cambodian cities in 1975 and the murder of members of the previous government. The charges covered crimes stemming from the harsh treatment of people in vast labor camps, the torture and murder of suspects at government jails, the mistreatment of Vietnamese, Moslem Chams, and Buddhists and the forced marriages that were often accompanied by rape. These crimes were identified in a 2008 survey in which Cambodian survivors of the regime were asked which of the Khmer Rouge crimes were the most significant. Some 80% of the respondents listed the extra-judicial killings that occurred through much of the country. Another 63% listed the starvation due to rice exports and collectivization, 56% noted the forced labor at work sites and 33% listed torture of people suspected of opposition to the regime.

Numerous witnesses testified to the court that they were forced into unwanted and often brutally abusive marriages. Some of the witnesses said that those who resisted the marriages or refused to have sex with their new husbands were sometimes raped by local Khmer Rouge leaders. It is significant that forced marriage carried out on a national scale was recognized by the court as a crime against humanity.

The convictions on the charges of genocide, however, have attracted more attention even though the actions of genocide affected far fewer people than the Khmer Rouge crimes against their own people. Both leaders were found guilty of genocide against the ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia while Nuon Chea was also convicted of genocide against the minority Cham community. Since the definition of genocide cites efforts to destroy an ethnic or religious group, the murders and abuses of the native Cambodians were not included in the genocide charges.

Former Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu Samphan (l) and Nuon Chea at their trial.

Picture: Christian Science Monitor

The two leaders have insisted that they were unaware of the abuses carried out during their rule. "I was president of the National Assembly and had nothing to do with the operation of the government,” said Nuon Chea, 92, leading ideologue and right-hand man of the top Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. “Sometimes I didn't know what they were doing because I was in the assembly." Khieu Samphan, the 87-year-old former president of ‘Democratic Kampuchea,’ insisted that the harsh conditions in the collectives and work sites were necessary to urgently provide food for a nation emerging from a long and destructive civil war. "In order to rebuild and defend our country, the only force we had was the strength of the people. The wish of the Communist Party of Kampuchea at the time was not to subject the population to slavery for the sole benefit of Pol Pot," he told the court. In her article, Yuangrat shows that many of the most disastrous Khmer Rouge policies had their roots in Khieu Samphan’s doctoral thesis, which called for withdrawal from global trade, total self-reliance and a return to basic agriculture in a collective system.

The defense teams of the two Khmer Rouge leaders have already announced that they will file appeals once the full judgments are announced. Appeals on the earlier convictions took more than two years to conclude. So, it appears unlikely the latest decisions will be final until late in 2020.

So far, after some $300 million in costs and more than a decade of work, the court has delivered very few convictions. Two of those on trial, former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his powerful wife Ieng Thirith, died before sentencing. Three others, including the two leaders found guilty last month, are already serving life sentences in prison.

Trials against lower ranking Khmer Rouge officials seem unlikely to go forward. Charges against a regional Khmer Rouge military commander were dropped last year. Some of those initially charged have transformed themselves into supporters of the current government. The Hun Sen government has pushed back against widespread investigations against mid-level Khmer Rouge soldiers and officials. Hun Sen himself, along with other senior government officials, previously served in the Khmer Rouge army. The powerful prime minister, who I interviewed three times for UPI, has held office for nearly 4 decades. Hun Sen has backed limiting and winding up the tribunal, saying Cambodia should “dig a hole and bury the past.”

Four international judges have resigned in frustration at the slow pace of the proceedings, trial irregularities and government pressure to limit the investigations. Interior Minister Sar Kheng, also a former Khmer Rouge cadre, has already announced that since there are no more top Khmer Rouge leaders left, the trial process should be brought to a close. The impact of the deaths and suffering imposed by the Khmer Rouge on their own people continues, however, in the nightmares, physical disability and mental trauma of millions of Cambodians.

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Why blog?

Yuangrat and I are excited about starting our writing blog as a way to communicate more frequently with our readers. We will use this blog to do several things:

• show how Thai history impacts current thoughts and actions

• interact with readers of both our fiction and non-fiction, seeking comments, corrections and suggestions to improve that work

• give readers additional information, background and explanation to better understand the issues we address

• display photographs that help readers visualize the people and places in Thai history that continue to impact our lives today

• draw attention to books and articles on Thailand’s past that illuminate current issues

In this first blog, we would like to draw your attention to the re-issuance of our book Radical Thought, Thai Mind. Written in the 1980s, the book gave a detailed account of the revolutionary ideas important in the political turbulence of the 1970s. With return of political conflict from 2004 to the present, we thought it would be useful to revisit the history of the development of radical political thinking. We found that a great deal of useful scholarly work has been done on this topic since we wrote our book, so a thorough re-write of the book was needed.

The new edition of the book includes a great deal of material that was not available when we wrote the original version. This material enabled us to provide more information on the history of the Communist Party of Thailand, the problems faced by the radical faction of the People’s Party after the 1932 coup and the thinking of radical writers of the 1960s among other issues. We expanded the sections on gender equality and the influence of Buddhism.

We were also able to add to our earlier interviews with radical thinkers by talking with some who played key roles in both the 1970s and the most recent conflicts. These include Red Shirt leaders Thida Thavornseth, Weng Tochirakarn and Jaran Dita-apichai along with community activist Prateep Ungsongtham-Hata.

The new version benefits from the research and insights of scholars such as Thongchai Winichakul, Craig Reynolds, Charnvit Kasetsiri, Ji Ungphakorn, James Ockey, Kevin Hewison, Benedict Anderson, Kasian Tejapira, Andrew Turton, Peter Koret, Vichitvong Na Pombhejara, Charles F. Keyes, Santikaro Bhikku, Peter A. Jackson, Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit.

We hope the rewritten Radical Thought, Thai Mind will not only provide an understanding of the political thinking of the past, but will help readers understand the divisions that continue to afflict Thailand today. Many of the ideas in conflict between the red shirts and yellow shirts that have torn Thailand in the 21st century date back to the reign of King Chulalongkorn. Thai students sent overseas to learn Western science, technology and law, came home with Western ideas about democracy, social justice and economics that contrasted sharply with traditional Thai thinking. Much of that traditional thinking had its roots in the sakdina system that dated back to the early kingdoms of Ayuthaya. The books shows how the sakdina system worked and how it encouraged acceptance of a hierarchical society that allocated benefits, rights and duties according to socio-political status that depended on the king as a semi-divine “deva-raja.”

The new ideas brought back to Thailand (then Siam) by returning students led to the formation of the “People’s Party” that sought to transform what they saw as an outdated, ineffective and unjust system. Frustrated by the system’s resistance to change, the People’s Party plotted the overthrow of the traditional monarchy in 1932. Although the coup was successful, the traditional Thai system proved resilient. Over the following decades, splits within the People’s Party gradually allowed the return of an authoritarian system, now headed by military leaders rather than the hereditary monarch. The traditionalists proved adept in using fears of Communism to suppress progressive ideas — including some that animated the Red Shirt movement nearly a century later.

Student-led demonstrations on October 14, 1973 withstood attacks by the army and police to overthrow the government and open a short-lived experiment with electoral democracy.

As the government moved back towards hierarchical authoritarianism and the People’s Party unraveled in factionalism, radical thinkers turned towards the revolutionary ideas of Marx, Lenin and Mao. The collapse of the military-led government after student protests in 1973 led to three years of increasingly violent attacks on progressive student, labor and farmer activists. That violence culminated in the brutality of the October 6, 1976 attack on demonstrators at Thammasat University and the military coup against the elected government later the same day.

We show how the student radicals who sought refuge from right-wing suppression fled to the forest to join the Communist Party of Thailand. Soon however, the radicals found that their ideas conflicted with the devout Maoism of the party leaders. We detail the internal Communist struggle that helped lead to the collapse of the party in extensive interviews with party defectors backed by party documents.

We trace the various paths by which the radical leaders re-entered Thai society and identify a split in the radical movement. Disheartened by the failure of the revolution, many gave up on political means to effect change and turned to local actions. These radicals often became the leaders of NGOs focused on local issues of land rights, environment and health. Others continued to struggle for progressive change through party politics despite the corruption and weakness of the Thai political parties. Many of these political activists joined forces with billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra hoping to convince the successful capitalist to bring in reforms to help the poor. At the same time, the localist NGO leaders, fearful of the money-driven, authoritarian rule of Thaksin joined the military and traditional elite agitating against the elected government.

This historical split continues to create division and confusion in the lead-up to the elections that have been announced for 2019. We hope our history of Thai radical political thought will help readers understand the complex divisions between the localists and the red shirts, between the rural people and the city elite, between the civilian politicians and the politicized military.

We are pleased to provide free download of a pdf version of the book for all those who sign up to our monthly newsletter. Subscribing to the newsletter will also give you access to downloads of many other articles and research reports. We look forward to your comments.

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