A policeman in the south of Thailand speaking confidentially one day to a human rights defender explained how he gets assigned to kill people. The superior officers do not give direct orders. Rather, they may call him to an informal meeting after work, and share some drinks. They bring him into their confidence, and treat him as peer and a friend, rather than as a subordinate. During the discussion, the name of the targeted person comes up. The senior officers agree that “it would be better if he (or she) were not around”. The junior officer gets the message, and someone dies.
On December 14, the interim prime minister of Thailand, General Surayud Chulanont, called the senior news editors of the country to a meeting. He also did not give any direct orders. Rather, he invited them for lunch and brought them into his confidence, expressing concern about the challenges lying in the year ahead. During his speech, he urged them to recognise the importance of their role: the need to report “accurate” information and avoid leading the country to the wrong choices. Presumably, the editors got the message, and with any luck all of those “inaccurate” reports will get killed off too.
Government heads committed to free opinion do not presume to lecture the news media on their job. They just let them do it. However nicely he may have gone about it, General Surayud’s lunchtime chat was indicative of the hypocrisy with which Thailand has been governed since the September 19 military coup. His gentle exhortations, while inviting criticism of the government, are evocative of those from the regime in neighbouring Burma, which also calls meetings of writers and publishers to remind them of their duties to the nation and the need to avoid spreading rumours.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has consistently maintained that the 2006 coup was an unmitigated disaster for human rights, the rule of law and democracy in Thailand. On the eve of the third month marking the takeover, it reiterates this position and summarises some key features of government in Thailand during that time as follows.
HYPOCRISY: Judges are entitled to make decisions that fit with our agenda
The military regime has from the start claimed that it would ensure the independence of the courts, and had the same written into its interim constitution, while simultaneously completely undermining their authority and propelling them back to a diminished pre-1997 status. The Constitutional Tribunal tacked together under its instructions in lieu of the court of the same mandate that it disbanded has been assigned the task of going after the political parties accused of having made a mess of the country. Most recently, coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin was reported as having said that the former prime minister, if called to speak before the tribunal on the proposed dissolution of his own party should be the last witness. He suggested a number of criteria that should be used to determine the circumstances of his testimony while adding, perhaps as an afterthought, that the judges are the ones entitled to make this decision. Meanwhile, lower courts have been writing the 1997 Constitution out of judgments prepared before September 19, perhaps keen to avoid any confusion that may jeopardise their future careers in a “reformed” Thailand.?
HYPOCRISY: No one can abuse power except us
Among the reasons that the coup group has iterated to justify its takeover is that the former government was irreversibly corrupt, self-interested and abusive of power. Since the military regime took control it has demonstrated its comparative selflessness by removing all of the persons connected to the former government from power and putting its own people in their stead; granting large monthly pay checks to its members and appointees, and ordering an enormous increase in the military budget. Its interim prime minister and others have on the one hand proposed the decentralisation of police power on the pretext of reform while simultaneously General Sonthi has ordered the recentralisation of special investigative power under the Internal Security Operations Command, a counterinsurgency relic from the cold war. This last move bodes especially ill for semi-autonomous investigating agencies set up under the 1997 Constitution, such as the Department of Special Investigation, which has already had enormous trouble maintaining its independence from within the Ministry of Justice.
HYPOCRISY: We’ll get tough on human rights cases that don’t involve our people
The interim government has proposed to reopen many grave human rights cases left unresolved by the former administration. Among these are inquiries into some 2500 persons killed during the “war on drugs” in 2003 and high-profile killings and disappearances, such as the abduction of human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit. General Surayud has also apologised to people in the south for the Tak Bai and Krue Se mass killings of 2004, and for the excessively violent and provocative policies of the previous government. However, he has not so far mentioned what action will be taken to bring the army officers responsible for the 78 deaths in their custody at Tak Bai to justice, not to mention the seven other persons killed in the operation outside the district police station. And what of Krue Se, in which three army officers have been identified as having the primary responsibility for the deaths of 28 persons inside the mosque there? What is the likelihood of bringing them, including General Pallop Pinmanee, into the dock any time soon? Or what about the numerous instances of killings, abductions, torture and other gross abuses in the south of Thailand in which the armed forces will have been implicated? Will the rhetorical commitments to addressing problems of justice and human rights in the south be extended as far as criminal liability? If not, what meaning do they have? And will the coup group lift the emergency decree over the three southern provinces–which a UN expert has described as allowing soldiers and police “to get away with murder”–any time soon?
HYPOCRISY: Everyone is free to share an opinion that does not contradict us
The military regime from the start claimed that its illegal acts have been done on behalf of the King, albeit not with his prior knowledge. “Nobody knows what the line is between the monarch and the interim government,” a recent Reuters report quoted one journalist as having said. This makes the free giving of opinion about the coup leaders in Thailand extremely precarious, as it risks the prospect of being hit by antiquated and severe lese majeste laws. Meanwhile, the junta continues to undertake concerted efforts to thwart organisers of anti-coup rallies. Persons attempting to come from provincial areas for a demonstration in Bangkok on December 10 were detained and forced to return home, while others never even set off after being told that they would not be allowed to reach the capital. And as martial law remains in effect across roughly half of the country, soldiers and police do not require any special powers of persuasion to waylay incipient protestors and send them back from where they have come before they do something that may perhaps lead to “inaccurate choices”.
HYPOCRISY: We encourage people to participate freely in our rigged constitution-writing process
The military regime has consistently expressed enthusiasm for the principles of the country’s first truly popular and democratic constitution which it had the honour of ripping up, while at the same time working hard to return the country to a 1980s model of management by conservative bureaucrats who will not rock the army’s boat. Its staged-managed national assembly is trundling along, as is the unnecessarily complicated business of it selecting persons to write a new “permanent” constitution. The interim prime minister is encouraging ordinary folks to get involved in constitutional affairs, but for what purpose? The interim constitution does not admit them any role in writing the new charter other than by way of a passing remark that once the drafters are finished with their work they “shall disseminate/publicize the Draft Constitution and the explanatory note as per paragraph 1 above to the public as well as promote and organize public hearings”. There too, no purpose is given for the making of publicity and holding of public hearings.
The Asian Human Rights Commission recently received a letter from the Office of the Attorney General of Thailand concerning four former government ministers who had been detained without charge by the coup group in the first days after September 19. The letter was in response to an appeal sent on their behalf. In it, the office wrote that
“We would like to inform you that we understand your anxiety, but your complaint mentioned above concerns the Coup d’Etat by the Council for Democratic Reform, which is not related to the authorities and functions of [the] Office of the Attorney General.”
The Office of the Attorney General has in its letter inadvertently described the situation across the whole of Thailand today. Ordinary private citizens, judges, petty functionaries and all other persons outside the circle of power defined by the coup group and its confidants have been forced back into an historical role as spectators of the national stage. They have been given permission to applaud, or even cough politely or boo occasionally if they do not like what they see, but they are no longer entitled to participate: generals and their sidekicks are the actors today. And this is after all the true meaning of hypocrisy: the acting of a theatrical part; at which, it should be added, the current regime in Thailand seems particularly adept.?
