Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees in the news that the US State Department is urging the new Thai PM to move (quickly) to restore democracy in Thailand. Your Maximum Leader will just state on the record that what the US should be urging is a restoration of a democratic process within Thailand’s Constitutional Monarchy. Last time your Maximum Leader checked, King Phumiphon was still the head of state. (At least the CIA still thinks so.)
Regardless of that nitpicking… We in the west have been wringing our hands about the recent coup in Thailand. Last week while reading over the Guardian of the UK your Maximum Leader chanced upon this editorial. He meant to publish it earlier, but he was overtaken by other events. Since the link he saved doesn’t get you to the right page any more… Here is the whole piece:
Despotic? Maybe. Dictator? No
Was Thaksin’s toppling justified? It depends who you ask, reports John Aglionby
John Aglionby
Tuesday September 26 2006
The GuardianThe United Nations high commissioner for human rights yesterday jumped on the bandwagon of international condemnation of the Thai generals who launched a coup against the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.
Louise Arbour said last week’s putsch “raised serious human rights concerns”.
“The various decrees issued by the Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy restrict a number of basic human rights, such as the right to freedom of assembly, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention,” she said in a statement.
To be fair to Ms Arbour, the office of the UNCHR has been one of the few international organisations or governments which cannot be accused of inconsistency.
Throughout Mr Thaksin’s five years in power it criticized him for various alleged abuses, including the murders of some 2,200 people in the government’s 2002-3 war on drugs and the deaths in October 2004 of scores of people in army trucks following a demonstration at Tak Bai in the insurgency-ravaged south.
Much of the rest of the world has been all too swift to condemn the coup while remaining conspicuously silent as Mr Thaksin steadily consolidated his power by emasculating or, at the very least, undermining the authority of supposedly independent institutions like the senate, the election commission and the constitutional court. Other bodies, like the counter-corruption commission, were simply abolished.
There is no denying that Mr Thaksin won the 2005 general election but with the media severely restricted and the poll authorities far from neutral, his victory was neither completely free nor fair.
With his legitimacy thus in question and many of his actions since the ballot - most notably the tax-free sale by his close relatives of shares in the family-controlled Shin Corporation for 1.1bn [British Pounds] - passing without official scrutiny, the coup must be seen in a different light. It is no longer the black and white of despotic generals overthrowing the nation’s elected civilian leader.
Was toppling Thaksin justified, therefore? If you ask the Bangkok elite, the answer is a resounding yes. The frmer police colonel and telecoms tycoon had not only committed the myriad sins listed above, he had polarised Thai society to such an extent the nation no longer had a functioning government. It was, the elite argued, only possible to save Thai democracy by going outside the system and suffering a hiatus of democratic development.
Western commentators who argue the coup will set back Thai democracy for decades and embolden Thailand’s authoritarian neighbours are being too simplistic, many Bangkok academics argue convincingly.
The 19-million mostly rural poor who in February 2005 swept Mr Thaksin to the largest ever electoral victory say the complete opposite.
While some farmers I interviewed last week said Mr Thaksin had grown too big for his boots and was no longer the superhero of four years ago, there was clearly widespread frustration - expressing anything stronger risked arrest - at his demise.
Their arguments also have some merit. An election had been scheduled for November and the outcome was by no means certain. As the results of the annulled poll in April showed, Mr Thaksin’s popularity was waning and was probably likely to wane considerably further.
The military argue that they had to act when they did to prevent massive bloodshed in the run-up to the polls, but such claims are easy to spin after the event. There are signs but little conclusive proof that widespread violence would have happened.
On balance, therefore, it does not appear that Thailand had reached the point of no return, and that while he was undoubtedly showing many despotic traits, Mr Thaksin had not become a dictator.
What happens next is anybody’s guess. Thus far the military appears genuine in its desire to appoint a civilian caretaker administration under its supervision by next week.
And its attempts to crack down on corruption and create a constitution that will not allow a Thaksin Mark II to emerge are commendable.
But power also grows on people. The generals have to stick to their stated timetable and, preferably, to accelerate it.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
It is always nice to see the other side of things…
Of course, we might see another coup in the near term if the Turkish Army has much to say.
Carry on.
