Quick review of the last couple of weeks

This month I was pretty busy to blog on anything but I surely kept my eye open on what was going on. As things were, nothing seemed important enough to spare half and hour on a post. With every “breaking” news story I went “Arghhh, what a waste of time!”.

Let’s recap it quickly, in no particular order.

Map Ta Phut court ruling – things are moving along, Anand is working hard, regulatory framework is going to be set sooner rather than later. In the meantime projects that haven’t been approved can get their act together and seek court approvals. Thailand has passed the stage where environment was sacrificed to development, everybody, from politicians to policy makers to investors should get used to it.

Abhisit and the government performance polls – that was that really ticked me off at the time. What is the purpose in all this? People have absolutely no idea what the government does 99% of the time, what is the value of their assessment? Everybody can give a grade on one to ten scale in a couple of seconds, but that would be talking out of his ass, and the media spread those brainfarts into a week long affair. These polls can only testify to the perception of govt performance, nothing more.

What are they comparing the government to? What would be a ten? Perfect life in perfect times? What the ideal govt could have done during the world recession and massive layoffs? What the current government could have done if it worked at 100%? What would an alternative government could have done this year?

The Nation went a bit further and conducted their own polls among businessmen, political scientists and their own editorial team separately. The range of opinions and reasoning is telling only one thing – even these people, supposedly in the know, have no clue what they are talking about (not that I do either, and that is why I don’t give out grades).

As popularity contest these polls haven’t said anything new either – PTP is likely to win more seats than Democrats but whether they can form a working government is a big question, and it is likely to go south if they start pushing pro-Thaksin agenda again. Nothing changed, except Democrats, after eight year absence, have shown that the country can function reasonably well under a non-Thaksin government. People have a choice without fear of uncertainty now.

Hun Sen went barking mad, calling for regime change in Thailand and accusing Thais of hatching coup plots against him. Nothing new, he’s just collecting points to qualify for a mental asylum. Half way there already.

Thailand deported Hmong back to Laos. There’s public outrage, fueled most likely by ignorance and paranoia – I’ve yet to see any credible threat to their freedom and safety in any of the letters or editorials or blog posts. If someone knows something they keep quiet about it, leaving the stage to loud mouthed fools. I just don’t see how the Laotian government would suddenly change their minds and start prosecuting the Hmong instead of giving them options and funds to resettle as they promised. So far the fears are baseless.

Reds have postponed their rallies, again. Every time they do that the media starts scaring people that when they finally come out it will be a mother of all protests. Yeah, right. It takes months for protests to gain momentum and capture people’s attention. The longer reds postpone them the less mojo they have left. Despite all the scaremongering and predictions of doom for the next year, unless the govt screws it up itself it has nothing to fear from either the opposition or the reds, they are just minor annoyances.

Big shot at Thai Airways got busted for abusing his position when flying Thai. Next thing you know PTP comes with similar accusations against Korn, hoping for the same effect. Get lost.

Public Health minister resigned after allegations of improprieties (not corruption yet). It’s a third cabinet member in a year. By contrast I don’t remember Thaksin firing anyone in his six years in power over similar accusations.

Have I left anything “important”? Maybe, but, as I said, I watched the goings on this month with disbelief – these people got completely carried away with their political games and lost all sense of reality, and that is MY year end assessment.

Avatar review

Avatar is by far the must see movie of 2009. It’s simply mind blowing.

I’ve watched it twice already, first in regular 3D and then on “proper” Imax, both at Siam Paragon.

No idea how it would look on a non-3D screen, I suspect a lot of visual appeal will be lost. Imax also had superior sound with chairs literally shaking during heavy machine gun fire. On the other hand, the 4:3 screen ratio on Imax was disappointing. I’ve seen a blurb somewhere that Cameron thought cutting off sides would be better for 3D viewing but in my opinion there’s so much more detail on a wide screen that 4:3 cut takes away a lot of wow factor.

Either way, visually it’s a feast, especially the Pandora itself. From floating rocks to seeds of the sacred tree to animals and insects, it’s just awesome. I’m going to watch it again at least once before it goes off the screens – it won’t be the same on the TV once the dvd/blueray comes out.

Having said that, there were several let downs. Cameron is a great director but his stories don’t live to to his technical skills. I won’t judge if this story is as emotionally compelling as Titanic, it certainly has its tear jerking moments, but it could have been so much more. Once the emotional high has passed and I started to think about it rationally it looked shallow, boring and predictable.

Without giving the plot away beyond of what is in the trailers, the decision to fight the earth army back was clearly a rather childish kindergarten sandbox reaction. At first I thought Jake Sully had a real plan for this conflict resolution, for two sides getting a solution based on mutual respect but no, he’s just a marine, they don’t do thinking and negotiations even if the basic conditions are there – after all the “skypeople”, the earthlings, wanted the resources that natives didn’t use themselves, surely they could have found a way to co-exist and maintain the same “balance” that Ewa, some sort of Pandora deity, was so much concerned about.

It wasn’t even the Earth army, it was a private security force for a mining company, any win would be only temporary, skypeople would surely come back and put the native rebellion down. Bows and arrows and local wildlife can save the day once, maybe twice, but ultimately they are doomed anyway. They are fighting progress, and progress is unstoppable.

That brings us to another aspect – “paradise” vs “progress”. The story assumes that paradise is better, that Pandora should be left alone, that it’s perfect as it is, that once you get to know it, like Jake did, you’d appreciate its beauty and even fight to protect it. One problem, though – in order to fight you need some sort of a progress anyway – you need better weapons, better organization, and you need strong passion and propaganda machine, you need to compete with other civilizations. Once you start on this path your paradise is as good as gone.

It’s nice to be a “self-sufficient” hunter on some little known planet but only if that planet has been designated and protected as a spa resort or a monastery, not if it happens to be on the front line of human endeavor to conquer the nature. Greens might rage against it all they want but it’s a fact of life and they’d better learn to live with it, and so do Na’vee Pandorians.

That brings us to the culture of Na’vee themselves – what do they do with their lives? What do they do beyond eating and procreating? What makes them different from the animals they hunt? They all, Na’vee and the animals, seem to be equally aware of “Ewa” and their places in the “balance” scheme of things, so that’s nothing special either. In fact Na’vee seem to be aware of the concept of “progress” and their elevated status among species on their planet, they are essentially at the stage the Earth civilization passed through thousands if not millions years ago and as such they don’t offer any alternative modes of development.

Surely we can learn something from them but it’s not going to change the essence of what our civilization is all about, and one remarkable thing about it is that it’s very adaptable. Even if skypeople come back and conquer Pandora, the episode will be registered and our civilization will learn from it and be more considerate next time. I bet “we” are even more concerned about preserving places like Pandora than Pandorians themselves. They just go to war, provoking destructive forces they can’t stop, and they risk losing the whole planet to their little emotional outburst. Savages, indeed. They yet to learn to control themselves when passions rise. We had a lot more experience with wars and their outcomes, they should learn our history if they have nothing to relate their situation to.

About “savages” label – while only war mongering skypeople used the term in the movie, Jake Sully, the convert himself, related to them like to savages, too. He had no second thoughts in treating them like a clueless tribe that had no idea what they were getting themselves into, he knew that Na’vee had to be saved from making fatal mistakes, but eventually he also gave up and resorted to war, and, for all their assumed enlightenment it that was apparently the only option they could think up themselves, too.

That brings us to “Ewa” and its role in this mess. In Na’vee’s words Ewa is a combined consciousness of all living beings ever lived, in science words it was a network of whatever Pandorian trees have for brains, and it has more connections than a human brain (the whole planet beats one single human brain? Duh). In Na’vee’s words Ewa is interested in maintaining the balance, it doesn’t take sides. Fine, but then it was clearly a local phenomenon as it didn’t take into account the existence of skypeople and their aspirations, it clearly took sides when the battle started. A bit disappointing, religion wise. Here, on Earth, we have a concept of God that rules the whole universe and every living creature on every planet, and, as such, if he is interested in maintaining balance he’d have no problem in settling Skypeople vs Na’vee dispute. I could say that in the end the war mongering skypeople got what they deserved by OUR God rules, not by Ewa’s, which makes Na’vee alleged superiority questionable again.

Also it was no problem for an earthling to achieve highest position in Na’vee society in three months but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t work the other way. So here the Earth is superior again.

I think the main lesson we should learn from this story is something along the lines of responsibility and sustainable development, not about bliss of sitting under trees and singing Kumbalaya.

What if we compare this story to the West vs Thailand? Well, for one thing, Thais have learned how to walk the fine line and have the best of the both worlds. When colonial powers came knocking on Thai doors, Thais have managed to placate them and save their independence, and so far they seem to resist “soft” colonialism rather well, keeping their cultural identity under the onslaught of all things “farang”. They were smart enough not to go to war they couldn’t possibly win, and they are smart enough to maintain their “privileged” status now, though at times I think they are paying only the lip service, equally to “imported” development and homegrown Buddhism.

What really happened in Cambodia.

The word “really” in the title means I have no evidence to support what I’m about to say.

After withdrawal of ambassadors initiated by Thailand Hun Sen wanted to strike at Thai diplomats and focused on the next highest rank, the First Secretary. Sifting through their wiretapping data Cambodians discovered a few calls made by Kamrob to Siwarak.

It took them a day to put the plan together and next morning Hun Sen went ahead full steam. If there was any setup, as debated in Thai media now, it was a setup against Kamrob. His phone calls were incriminating and Siwarak was just a collateral damage. They didn’t really think it through, though – Kamrob was expelled and that was the end of it but Siwarak’s case lingered for nearly a month and made them look like cartoon Madagascar, run by King Julian, and everything in this trial reeked of incompetence and cheap soap, especially the grand finale. Kamrob was the original target there, not Siwarak.

They got Siwarak’s confession right away (probably thanks to the record of the phone calls) but when Phua Thai publicly announced they had a tape on Kamrob Cambodians realized they can’t admit spying on Thai diplomats, Kamrob is gone anyway, and they can’t take this tape to the court either, and they have no other evidence, and, theoretically, if the defense argued that the evidence against their client was obtained illegally they would have no answer. That’s where changing lawyers was very handy indeed. That probably explains why the new, Phua Thai approved lawyer, went for denial of all charges, having nothing to lose as pardon was imminent one way or another.

During all this time Thaksin and Co. simply milked Siwarak’s fate for all publicity they could squeeze. He was never a real target and not a part of any conspiracy, even though his dead father’s connection to Thaksin had been spun into repayment of old debts and his mother was painted a red shirt – it was just talking up whatever little they had to rely on.

Just look at Chavalit’s attempt at drafting a pardon plea – it wasn’t even accepted by Cambodians, they had their own sweet something going on with Thaksin and it moved a lot faster.

They all walked out smiling anyway, they thought they put on a good show and public liked it. The idea that they had to at least pretend that they are civilized people living in a society ruled by law and justice didn’t even entered their heads. Hun Sen probably wants to prove just the opposite, that he wields absolute power and runs the whole country on a whim. “Underdeveloped” would be an understatement there.

Kamrob’s involvement, however, refuses to go away and now PTP wants to use it their upcoming censure debate. Let’s see, they won’t be incriminating themselves but Hun Sen might feel uncomfortable if they bring his wiretapping into Thai parliament debate. They would probably be made into minced meat anyway, if they challenge Thai embassy’s right to know about the movements of Thai fugitives abroad, or that what Siwarak had disclosed during the trial constituted any kind of spying – they would need evidence to proof that Kamrob asked for substantially more, classified information, to accuse him of putting Siwarak in harm’s way.

Both Kasit and Abhisit came out in public and made sure that without admitting to spying on Kamrob neither Cambodia nor PTP have anything to go on. Thais know very well that the call was recorded, and, perhaps, a lot more information had been passed, and they also know that their adversaries can’t do anything about it. Thais have put out a list of demands for normalizing relationships and Cambodians realized that they played their “Spying Kamrob” ace already and got nothing for it. So they are hissing about Preah Vihear and sending Thai ambassador back first. Great game – what if Abhisit plays along, what they would do in return? Fire Thaksin? They’ve got nothing else left to offer.

What happened in Cambodia…

The details are sketchy but let’s try and reconstruct what had happened there to the Thai aviation engineer.

First, Thailand knew when Thaksin was about to fly to Cambodia, Thais knew when he was expected to deliver the lecture but there were rumors/reports that he’d be there a couple of days earlier. Perhaps that what has made all the difference.

When Thaksin’s plane entered Thai airspace it wasn’t obliged to declare all its flight information and passenger manifest, and though Thai aviation and military folks probably had a pretty good idea who was on it, the government was either not on the ball or chickened out. My guess is that it wasn’t fast enough to pass the information all the way to the top, get a decision, and then pass it all the way back down.

The plane was in Thai airspace for about an hour. About half an hour later it landed in Cambodia, and that’s when the first reports emerged. Another half hour passed and that’s when Foreign Ministry official at the Thai embassy called a Thai engineer at Cambodian traffic control to confirm that it was indeed Thaksin. According to an earlier report Siwarak called him back ten minutes after the landing, or it was a bad report and the request came in ten minutes after the landing, not the answer.

When Thaksin was due to fly back the government here was prepared to force his plane down and Thaksin had to fly around the country and then make comments about two Thai F16s shadowing him until he was way out of their reach. If he was crooning about his feelings when he flew over Thailand on the way in, it wasn’t reported in English media, afaik.

What was going on through his mind then? Was he banking on Thai incompetence? Did he have his people in key positions who made sure govt response was too slow? Did he ordered another plane to fly at the same time to confuse the Thais? Whatever his plan was, it was still risky and I think that’s why he doesn’t want to talk about it in public.

On the ground in Phnom Penh, when Thai embassy official called a Thai engineer, was it a case of spying? On one hand, Thaksin’s visit was well publicized and at the time of the call the press was already scrambling around the plane. Thais had the flight information already, it was not a state secret in any way. On the other hand, private plane flight information is not posted on airport websites, and what Thais wanted is a confirmation of plane’s identity from inside sources, not from airport information counter. Not exactly kosher either.

When Siwarak, the Thai engineer at CATS, Cambodian traffic control, asked his Cambodian colleagues they just told him what he wanted, meaning that until the information reached Siwarak it was not a secret. It became “spying” only Siwarak called Thai embassy back.

At this point, from the reports on the verdict, Siwarak didn’t make any hard or e-mail copies, he just talked on the phone, and there’s no record of that conversation and no one but Siwarak had testified about it. That means there’s no proof that he passed any confidential information that could have undermined Cambodian security, if there was any in the first place. I think I saw photos of Thaksin exiting the plane and I bet if that tail number got in the picture no one would sue the photographer, and so far that’s what Siwarak has done, except in words – confirmed that such and such plane really carried Thaksin. Again, an earlier report says he didn’t even say that much.

I don’t think he was charged with any transgression of whatever non-disclosure documents he had possibly signed when he got the job, and that brings us to Cambodian side of the story. How exactly Cambodian government got involved in this? How did they even know of the conversations between Siwarak and Kamrob, the embassy guy? It took them a couple of days to make their move.

Who exactly started the whole thing? Did the Cambodian guys at the CATS called the police, or did the police called them up first? Did the police decide to take action after Thai government declared they wouldn’t allow Thaksin to fly back over the country, and so Cambodians thought there must have been a leak? Do they routinely tape Thai embassy calls and it was just a matter of finding the right record, exactly as Jatuporn claimed a few days later? Of course they’d deny existence of any such practice but who can guarantee they never brought the tape up when they were looking for a confession from Siwarak?

I guess it doesn’t really matter given how the case was made a part of the political war with Thailand and so legal reasons and arguments probably don’t matter much anyway.

Another interesting point is how Thaksin’s flight has become a matter of Cambodian national security. I can accept prosecution and judges’ argument for that now, but how can they expect Siwarak to comply with it almost a month ago? Where does it say that once a foreigner gets a job with Cambodian government his movements become “national security” and his native country has no rights to know his whereabouts?

Regardless, Siwarak got seven years, but it’s a minimum sentence under the article he was charged with, so the court probably doesn’t take the case very seriously, and in political games the pardon is very likely, if the request comes from politically correct channels, and it means Thaskin and his friends.

Their role in this affair is murky. They’ve been accused of orchestrating the whole thing from the start and were linked to Siwarak’s release all along.

They can of cause claim that they got involved only after Siwarak’s mother asked for their assistance, but not many people take their words at the face value. Let’s see how it plays out before reaching any conclusions.

Southern solutions

Here are some thoughts on autonomy and solutions to Southern problems.

First, I don’t believe straightforward approach is going to work, for now it looks like some people thank that if two sides simply negotiate political terms then everything would go away. Terms are not terribly important here – whether they should have elected governors or special administrative region or whatever.

This is a negotiation between two societies, Southern muslims and mainstream Thai. The solution must be acceptable to the societies at large, terms laid out on paper is a very poor approximation of that settlement, and for now it’s the possibility of settlement itself that is in question.

On Thai side we have a very diverse society and vast majority of Thais don’t really care how muslims in the South conduct their affairs, and I can’t think of anything that would ignite their interest. If cultural identity is going to be a possible problem – Thais have a far bigger challenge with their own new generation. Introducing sharia might give them jitters, but it would mostly be a headache for the government, not for the people who’d be totally unaffected.

The resistance lies in a perceived threat to Nation-Religion-King, and the heart of this resistance lies in a very closed quarters. If muslims can manage to live without threatening that concept, and I believe they can and would, there should be no problem with the autonomy.

It’s like with trying new food – Thais usually shun any unfamiliar stuff and they need to be tricked into trying it, and they need their trusted friends skillful encouragement.

Practically it means the autonomy idea needs to be sold to a few selected individuals first and spread from there. For the sake of convenience let’s say Prem should be that first person, though it could be one of his aides or other members of Privy Council or someone else entirely.

The key here is not the ingredients or the recipe but psychological barrier, and that’s why I think the exact details of proposed autonomy do not really matter.

On the muslim side the picture is a bit more complex. They have the old separatist movement, largely retired, they have new generation of fighters, totally out of control, and they have current set of leaders, largely irrelevant. Ok, not irrelevant, but the formal leadership, MPs, senators, provincial and tamboon elected officials, do not talk about autonomy at all, at least in public. It appears that for them, and for daily governing of the region, autonomy is irrelevant, it won’t offer any clear administrative advantages and possibly reduce the flow of funds from central government. Perhaps for them it would create only more problems as the region is not economically viable to stand on its own feet in the short to medium term.

So there we have the problem of violence by the new generation of insurgents, and two other stakeholders with their own interests – old separatists want the autonomy, current leaders are indifferent.

For some time Thai government strategy was to get the old guard to negotiate and hope that they could somehow reign in the “yawe”. It’s understandable why Thais chose this approach because if it works they’ll get peace with all troublemakers at once, but there’s also a danger that “yawe” would break off any connection with old guard the moment they feel duped into a deal with Thais and we will be back to square one.

As the time goes this new generation of fighters also grows into an old news. Maybe they can still attract new blood for now but as Thais take better control of the breeding grounds and mainstream muslim society grows resentful of their war new recruits will be a lot harder to come by. Also pretty soon the “old hands” will naturally start growing out of it – running around the jungle and cutting people’s heads off is a very “teenage” thing, it might help you score some chicks but you’d better have a real job if you want to marry and get your bride’s father blessings. I’d say the biological clock would run alarm bells in less than ten years, we are five years into the insurgency already so in the next few years the old timers would start settling in and hopefully it would have a pacifying effect on the insurgency overall.

I’m sure Thai planners have taken these considerations in account, and winning the hearts strategy, however imperfect and even counterproductive it might appear, is absolutely necessary, and so are negotiations with whatever party represents the other side, and so is pouring development funds in the region and talking about political solutions, and so is military solution to armed insurgency.

Then, out of the blue, comes Chavalit and declares autonomy for the South in the form of a special administrative region as his party policy. That was an absolute disaster on all fronts. First, as I said earlier, Thai hardliners need a soft and inconspicuous approach, they need to be tricked in considering the idea in a safe and unprovocative enviornment, and Chavalit ruined it all, possibly for good – god knows how much time they’d need to get over this bad impression.

On the muslim side they are not stupid either – they don’t take Chavalit seriously, he’s not in the position to negotiate or promise anything, and they probably see him as an opportunist using the problem to his own political ends, and it also came hot on the heels of Chavlit’s “help” in Cambodia that had exactly opposite effect.

Chavalit’s political benefits are not clear, probably because they were never thought of and he didn’t consult with anyone. It’s not even his party to make electoral promises on behalf of. Autonomy might no go down too well in PTP’s strongholds in Isan – Thai state had long relied on Isanese to defeat the separatism there and many Isanese paid with the lives of their children for that. There could also be an exodus of Isanese who were relocated there years ago to create Buddhist community in the South.

Chavalit himself is also not a new face in the South, local Wadah faction came to prominence under his NAP and later TRT and it didn’t get anywhere and was trashed in 2005 elections. What are the chances of successfully resurrecting them? Perhaps Chavalit was simply afraid that they’d go with Sonthi’s (coup leader) new Matabum party. Either way even his sincerety is in serious doubt, nevermind his abilities to deliver.

Also making autonomy part of a political platform in Thailand’s internal politics effectievly kills any chances of it actually happening – it would become a commodity, stripped of any commitment and traded along with cabinet posts and other political spoils, not to mention the likelyhood of PTP not be able to break up the coalition and assume power after the elections, or keep it long enough to see the autonomy through. It also forced Democrats to take the opposing side even if it’s not where they want to be on the South issue, now they could be easily provoked and manipulated by being asked uncomfortable questions they’d rather not discuss in public.

And that’s why even muslim leaders gave Chavalit a cold shoulder despite being attracted to the idea.

Hopefully Chavalit’s intervention didn’t ruin the negotiations altogether and didn’t spook Prem and Co, and it wasn’t a major blow to the process altogether. Luckly he quickly disappeared from the spotlight without inflicting any more damage.

Why Samak was so popular

This is just an attempt at putting some thoughts together to see if they make sense.

First, the background for 1973-1976 developments is Sarit’s regime and Sarit’s legacy. Though there’s not much good to say about him, he nevertheless instilled some very deep values in the generation that played a major part in how 70s turned up for Thailand.

Sarit was a strongman in every sense, completely dominating political scene. In fact he simply outlawed politics altogether. With a man like Sarit in charge there was no need for things like parliament, and there was no need for any checks and balances. He was incorruptible, dedicated, selfless servant of the nation and the King. Whether he lived up to this image is not the point – people believed it and they cherished it. Sarit brought the monarchy back into the center of “Thainess”, making it a symbol of the state and everything good in the world, monarchy was again inviolable and indispensable. Sarit also showed no mercy to “troublemakers”, I think he even executed a few himself. Sacrificing troublemakers lives for the betterment of the nation, in the name of unity and the King, was deemed acceptable and no one gave it a second thought.

Sarit’s reign also coincided with Americanization of the country, when the US made Thailand it’s strongest ally in South East Asia. In exchange Thailand got growing investments, then Vietnam war brought in even more, and good times rolled. The country boomed, Americans built roads to Eastern borders and with that came even more development, spreading deeper into the countryside. Everything was on the up, up, up.

Then Thanom-Prapas took over, continuing in the same vein, but without Sarit’s charisma and public presence.

Middle classes expanded tremendously during those years, people really started to think they could climb up the social ladder and get rich. Education was also booming with university enrollment doubling and tripling every couple of years. Middle classes thought their kids would really really make it big, any moment, aspirations were set really really high.

Then the reality asserted itself.

First there were allegations of corruption against Thanom and Prapas. Perhaps people didn’t want a repeat of embarrassment of disclosure of Sarit’s assets after his demise, perhaps it was toying with democracy in the form of national assembly (Thanom-Prapas staged a coup against their own government and dissolved the parliament), but they were not going to tolerate these two one way or another, then Thanom’s son married Prapas daughter and it became Thanom-Prapas-Narong evil trio.

That brought 1973. While the movement was spearheaded by the students, the vast majority of protesters were middle class, respectable citizens. When half a million of well dressed and well mannered people took to the streets the establishment couldn’t ignore it. So there was “people revolution”, it was exhilarating, but while the notion of benevolent dictatorship has quietly disappeared, people were not prepared to ditch its values, and they had no idea where to go from there, and so from then on it got only worse.

First there was the worldwide oil crisis that drove inflation up and the investments and land speculation down, and the boom as people knew it was basically over. Then Americans started losing the Vietnam war, Thais were left to themselves, and it wasn’t very promising. Then Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia fell into communist hands and Thais were really scared they would be next as communist insurgency was raging through the countryside.

Internally, students who were leaders of 1973 uprising were taking a very anti-American stance, following their counterparts on campuses in the US. That was alarming.

Another major problem is that culturally students didn’t turn out as middle classes expected them to be. In Sarit’s days “student” was a status symbol, students were supposed to enter the sacred halls of bureaucracy and become model citizens. Instead middle classes were confronted with generation of free thinkers who didn’t display any outward respect to the monarchy and analyzed reverent Thai history in terms of class struggles and parallels with Europe. That was shocking. This new generation was very anti-establishment, the same establishment parents groomed them to be the best part of.

The growth in student population during economic crisis also meant many of them were unemployed, or even unemployable.

Another disturbing feature of post 1973 period was tremendous growth in labor strikes. In Sarit’s days unions were outlawed, strikes were unimaginable, and punishment was death. Instead middle classes were forced to endure personal inconvenience, losses in profits, increased wages, absolute impunity, and some unkempt, good for nothing layabouts arguing that this is the way it should be.

It’s in this soil that the right-wing establishment planted the seeds of 1976 crackdown. They came up with their own propaganda – people should unite around Nation-Religion-King triplet and good old values so that the country can pull through the crisis together and fight off communist malaise.

There was nothing scientific or rational about it – the country was supposed to be saved through faith and sacrifices, the country was punished and it needed to be put back on the straight path.

It worked brilliantly. It appealed to people’s core values and memories, and it strengthened itself by offering a “full package” in form of various Village Scouts, Red Gaurs, Nawapon and other popular organizations. Many of those groups were acting as social clubs where disillusioned people got their doze of nationalism, monarchism, traditional culture, songs and stage performances etc. The leaders were local pooyais and hi-so and I suppose membership was somewhat prestigious.

When crisis fully hit and they were told horror stories about what’s to come, and there was a need to blame someone for it, guess who was at the top of their list, edging out Chinese and Vietnamese? Students and the leftist movement in general.

That strategy assured middle class support for the crackdown. The muscle itself came in the form or Nawapon and Krating Daeng (Red Gaurs).

For Nawapon the establishment recruited vocational students, playing up on their second class status and higher unemployment rates. They were offered a chance to get back at their “superior” university counterparts, and they were enticed with the offer of the same goodies their parents wanted them to enjoy – money, booze, brothels, good life. For some reason violence was in these guys nature, when not fighting leftists they were busy bashing each other (and they still do, in 21st century).

Red Gaurs were established by Border Patrol Police, had people close to royal family, and they were driven by pure ideological hatred.

Nawapon and Red Gaurs were armed to the teeth and between 1973 and 1976 they attacked and killed a number of students and leftists, and the police couldn’t touch them. They were practically flaunting their untouchable status.

Ideological connection with middle classes prevented any serious public backlash, and so the right wing was fully prepared to unleash the horror of 6 October, 1976.

People like Samak, with unquestionable loyalty to the Nation-Religion-King, resolute and merciless to enemies were the heroes, and people voted for them with their hearts, and it stayed in their memory for decades – Samak won over a million of Bangkok votes in 2000 elections, people still don’t care about several hundred dead students.

Samak was literally the voice of their hearts back then, and he was no doubt articulate, witty, and intelligent, and they couldn’t accept that he might have been wrong.

After 1976 Nawapon and Red Gaurs were sent off to fight communists, and Village Scouts disappeared themselves, as far as I know. The whole massacre episode was rather embarrassing and was left unspoken, a quiet admission that it was a mistake. Thais don’t do soul cleansing very well, it’s not Christianity with it’s value of confessions, people deal with sins in a different way here.

Samak’s passing

What to make of it?

On one hand it’s a good time to forget his controversial side and focus on “RIP” but I don’t think it would serve any useful purpose.

There’s a lot to be learned from his life and death.

Politically speaking he was a very very unpleasant fellow with absolute disregard for freedoms and even human lives, not to mention the media. It was less than two years ago when he declared with a straight face that only one person died during 1976 massacre to which he personally contributed by rallying the mobs against the commies.

In a one dimensional world he’d be served nothing but condemnation for this, but I believe there’s more to this story.

Take the media. He made a career and a name for himself as a journalist and even once owned a newspaper. I believe he knew how media works a lot better than any of us, internet critics. We believe in unbiased reporting and some abstract “truth”, from Samak’s point of view none of that exists and media and journos are dirven by their own agendas, and I find it hard to disagree.

If he didn’t give them as much respect as we expect it was probably because he knew how much respect they deserved exactly. In my opinion CNN deserves to be lied and manipulated, for example. They accept it when it suits their editorial line, why protest when someone lies to them about something they don’t like?

When Samak was shouting at some female reporter from Al Jazeera we saw him attack the press, Samak probably saw a young and ignorant faceless upstart biting a lot more than she could chew just because she was sent there by an “important” news agency. Samak probably didn’t want to talk unless she was “properly introduced”, and I believe should would have behaved differently, too.

Samak lived in a world where everybody was connected and related to everybody else and no one was allowed to pretend any independence. In that sense I can easily trace my own connection to Samak, either via my family or my work. It would be just a few steps before he would say: “Ok, enough, now I know who you are.” My Internet persona is something different, though.

If I talked to Samak as StanG who writes this blog, he’d probably skip on that and asked for my real identity instead, and then tried to reconcile what I write here and what I would say in real life. I would have some real explaining to do, if he even paused to listen, and I think it’s fair and I wouldn’t blame him for that or for whatever unflattering words he’d chose for me.

Reconciling his involvement in 1976 is a lot more difficult, but I believe it deserves an attempt, too. Why? I never had any positive thoughts for those mobs and the police that let them on a mad rampage on that day, but one short blurb in The Nation’s report on Samak’s last moments made me puzzled about this:

“..Samak’s relatives had no idea the end was near until the patient deliriously remarked about angels surrounding his hospital bed..”

There’s no chance he was visited by angels if his 1976 exploits were not somehow forgiven. Of course you could simply refuse to talk about any angels at all and stop reading right here, but let’s assume that there were indeed angles and not demons surrounding his deathbed, and he wasn’t taken to one of the numerous buddhist hells but to some heavenly planet with lots of cats and heaps of noodles and unrivaled fresh produce.

That’s what forced be stop and think of possibilities. Maybe he was just doing his job, like an executioner who doesn’t go to hell for chopping people’s heads off. Or maybe he sincerely felt it was the right thing to do, and maybe he was somehow right.

Like with media example, we approach those events from a certain angle, in our universe October 1976 is universally condemned. For Samak, however, and the rest of the Thai society, it wasn’t a black and white affair as it is portrayed to us in popular history. There were real people involved in it, with real aspirations and feelings, sharing some and diverging in other areas.

Prapas-Thanom regime overthrown in student uprising in 1973 is viewed extremely negatively, too, but just a few years earlier it was perfectly acceptable and there was nothing major to complain about, judging by former British ambassador letter. On page 5 Thanom is described as “benevolent, accomodating, cautious, not spectacularly rich” and carries “general goodwill”. Compare this to how he is viewed now on wikipedia – it’s as if they are describing a different person.

Something happened in those three years between 1973 and 1976 that turned public opinion in a completely opposite direction. So far I’ve heard only the student side of the story, the “prosecution”. I’ve yet to see “defense” arguments. I think it’s quite plausible that Samak’s role in those event shouldn’t be demonized, as I myself have done in the past. It is unacceptable now, but in those days, over thirty years ago, it could have looked entirely different and, perhaps, the judgment should be reserved until more information is available.

And then there’s human side of Samak, and it was almost universally adored, there seems to be a consensus that he was everybody’s favorite uncle. I have no doubts that he was a devout Buddhist, exemplary in his behavior and thoughts. I’m pretty sure that it was this side of his life that earned him a visit from the angels, if it ever happened. Even his harsh speech was admired by many, if only for his skill and presentation. While some wanted to sensor his weekly radio program for inappropriate language, others were apparently glued to their radios, trying to learn: “His Sunday talks when he was prime minister, on the Thai language, history and culture, was a weekly enjoyment as I could close my ears to his political views.” – from a letter by Songdej Praditsmanont.

At the end of the day, many of his political enemies would pay him their last respects on his funeral. Newin, who blocked his return to PMship last year and later defected to join Democrats, went to Samak’s bathing rights already. He was duly booed by some reds, as were Democrats themselves, even though Newin cannot be really called Samak’s protagonist.

Samak started his political career in Democrat party, btw. Of course it was a different outfit than it is now but it’s an interesting factoid to reflect on.

I wish I could conclude by saying customary RIP, but, I think Samak wouldn’t have cared even a little about that. He never wanted any reconciliation with his “enemies”, he never felt the need to apologize for any of the things he is accused of, so I don’t think extending that unwarranted forgiveness is necessary, as in “Samak, we forgive you, RIP”. Crap.

I’d rather ask for his blessings instead, he doesn’t need any of mine.

Red Rally postponed, Dubai Declaration goes into bin.

After the govt imposed Internal Security in Bangkok, red organizers indefinitely postponed their rally (which is another was to say it was canceled).

What does it mean for “Dubai Declaration”? Sure it must be binned, but, on the other hand, the cancellation rather proves it – Thaksin strategy is tied to a possibility of a coup, without it there’s no point in holding the rally at all.

The government cannot be toppled and snap elections won’t achieve anything, time to cut the losses and concentrate on the future.

The court is still questioning the witnesses in asset concealment case and there’s still time before the verdict, which was initially expected in the mid-November, then mid-December, then before the year end.

Dubai Declaration

On a slow news day, PAD, or rather New Politics Party, NPP, came up with this new conspiracy theory, allegedly hatched in Dubai.

It’s not their first one, there were probably hundreds of them, but only one made a real splash – the infamous Finland Declaration. Will this new discovery of Thaksin’s secret plans deserve the same attention? I doubt so.

Read the article for yourself.

The only part of it that provoked my interest is the plan to block Bangkok roads with taxi cabs. They tried it in April, and it generally worked, but they haven’t thought this through then -they were just trying to create chaos. If they use the cabs to prevent the authorities from reaching large areas of the city, there will be power vacuum, and it could be exploited to undermine Abhisit and force a coup.

However, it won’t work if they are not prepared to go all the way – there’s little point in creating “independent red state” in a couple of Bangkok districts for a couple of days, they’d be cleared out eventually.

If they can pull off the coup, it is very likely Dubai (or rather “PAD Declaration” at this point) would come really true, with “national government”, freeze on Thaksin court cases and eventual pardons. The reason would be: “We gave Abhisit a chance at reconciliation, he failed, now we have to try some other way”.

It is very likely to work, as the current troublemakers, Thaksin and his reds, will be placated and Democrats will be declared incompetent yet still invited in the government. I don’t think Democrats would agree to this, but, faced with the new reality, public opinion might go against them.

Coup makers can also manage fallout with PAD if they keep Thaksin away from public eye for the first few weeks. Thaksin never thought much of PAD’s ability to mobilize people, he probably isn’t concerned with that possibility now, he just wants to make a deal with (alleged) PAD backers. A coup would give him a big bargaining card and “elites” would be forced to accept his demands.

There will be huge backlash on the net and internationally the country’s image will suffer, there will be a price to pay, but it won’t come out of Thaksin’s pocket, so it’s not a real problem.

Basic strategy – force a coup against Abhisit and negotiate new terms with new powers, even if they are not explicitly pro-Thaksin. It’s worth a try as his situation can’t get any worse anyway.

Apart from red demonstrations protected by taxis, assassination of scores of anti-Thaksin leaders, also mentioned in the declaration, can also force a coup against helpless Abhisit. That would be just a terror campaign, and it might force the “elites” to back down just like they were forced to react to PAD takeover of the airports a year ago.

When I read myself here it looks like Abhisit is Thaksin’s main obstacle, and in a way, I think, it is. Prem can be sidestepped and isolated and his allies would eventually accept the new reality, but it’s Abhisit’s control of the military and police that needs to be overcome first.

But enough with wild plans. While reds themselves might believe in their power to cause all these changes, the rest of the country would have none of it unless reds come up with really big numbers. A million in Bangkok would certainly suffice but anywhere less than a hundred thousand is simply not enough to get noticed.

Sustained terror campaign is probably impossible to carry out in Thailand at all. Bangkok is not deep South, people talk and see and report things here.

Latest addition – some say that Thaksin twitted that Nov 30-Dec 3 dates are not the best dates for the rally. I can’t confirm this one way or another. His latest tweet was a while ago and it seems he was just talking to some of his fans.

Thaksin’s Big Ones

I refer to the planned big rally coinciding with the 76 billion baht court verdict – people have always assumed that recovering this money was Thaksin’s main motivation in his struggle with Thai state. A few months ago it probably downed on him that the case is as good as lost.

He tried royal pardon, but that didn’t go anywhere either, and that’s really interesting – if he really wanted a pardon, he could have come back, checked into the jail, and submitted the petition himself. He’d probably be released by now, and asset concealment case would probably be stalled for good. It would have been a sacrifice on his part, but if the money is the main motivation, it would probably have been worth it.

On the other hand, perhaps he thought that Royal pardon wouldn’t have granted him immunity from those who want his blood and it wouldn’t have stopped 76 bil case. Or, perhaps, he didn’t have enough wits to go through this plan – it needed to be played just right, without overplaying his “remorse” and displaying utmost sincerity at all times. Either way, it’s in the past now.

Then there was “only a miracle can save me” quip, then build up to September coup anniversary, then to October rallies (traditional month of big political changes), and now it’s a new “all out war” to oust the government again. Not much of a plan, really, and there’s no way they get enough people on the ground to pull it of. Kwanchai, red leader from Udon, was talking about forty thousand coming to Bangkok from North and Northeast. He was probably being optimistic, as usual, and it still falls short of Jatuporn’s promised one million. Kwanchai was saying that people were waiting for money for travelling expenses and Thaksin’s personal go ahead.

The government will impose ISA, again, the parliament will be in recession, so no chance of legally changing the coalition make up (though they could theoretically force Abhisit to dissolve the House). All in all it will probably be soon forgotten, just like previous September and October rallies. At worst they could force a violent confrontation on the streets, and at most they could try to frame the military/police, but it’s still a long long way of toppling the government. They could try a coup (let’s see how many of them would drive their taxis into tanks if the coup goes their way).

That leaves the trial itself as the last hope, and that’s where it gets murky – no one knows all the details. All we know that it involves Ample Rich and Winmark stakes in Shin Corp or SC Assets in particular. Prosecution wants to prove that Thaksin and his wife still legally controlled those companies, while the defense argues that all the control was fully in the hands of their grown up children. There are transaction records presented by both sides to prove their point, and we know next to nothing about them.

While the case make look big and important, and the verdict will be played by both the winning and losing sides to their full advantage, some basic stuff needs to be kept in mind first – no one in his right mind believes that Thaksin’s children were really in control of Shin Corp all these years. It’s just stating the obvious, and the whole legal contention is about omissions and errors in the paperwork.

It would be a good time to look at the laws and regulations covering the ownership and nominees, they are obviously inadequate. Perhaps a totally different approach is needed, from a totally different angle, so that nominee problems doesn’t arise altogether. Fighting the paperwork seems like a huge waste of time and resources, not to mention all the damage done by PAD and Red rallies and paralyzed governments and parliament. So much struggle, and it all comes down to spotting errors in a few backdated documents. That’s what is supposed to decide everything.

Just look at what they are arguing about, as The Nation describes it:

“The facts show that if the Bt4.5 billion payment by Panthongtae to her mother for the TMB shares was real as claimed by Pojaman, the mother would have probably conned her son out of as much as Bt3 billion in just one go.

Why? The entire 450 million shares of TMB Bank as cited by Pojaman included 300 million shares that Pojaman got for free via the exercise of 300 million warrants, so the actual cost of all 450 million TMB shares was just Bt1.5 billion, not the hugely-inflated Bt4.5 billion.”

Is this what PAD were trying to prove by airport closures, and Reds by April riots? If this money is confiscated, would it even cover all the damage?

Back to the case – there are two parts in it, first is whether Thaksin was still controlling Shin shares while being the PM – he’ll get only political punishment for this, and second is whether prosecution can prove that he benefited from using his position – that would cost him a lot more, possibly a new jail time. The verdict could be split along this line, or it could be complicated and include splitting the assets instead – how much to confiscate, how much to return, or it could be simple but ugly, like Ratchada conviction.

Let’s wait and see, it won’t be long now, I think Surakiart Sathirathai, former Thaksin’s Foreign Minister and UN Secretary General contestant, is the last witness, and he is testifying today./I was wrong – it was an official from Exim Bank. Connection to Surakiart that I was expecting is that he was involved in Exim loan case, too – Added on Nov 26 – /

Back to Thaksin’s motivation – will he keep trying after losing his money? I think he would, I think he’s too attached to his followers to simply cease and desist, and it would a totally different game then, without deadlines and pressure – he can build a solid and well thought case against “bureaucratic polity”, for example. Something good might still come out of it.

Let’s wait and see.