Repression, Nationalism, Racism & anti-women: Thailand’s Parliamentary Dictatorship

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

It is difficult to spot the difference between one year ago under the rule of the military junta, and today under the rule of the military Parliamentary Dictatorship. In fact the only difference is that after the fixed elections earlier this year, the junta is using parliament as a fig-leaf for the continued dictatorship.

Following the brilliant ant-junta protests a week ago, the police have filed charges against the organisers of the peaceful and legitimate protests in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. This is yet another example of the continued repression against the right to protest. It is hoped that any prosecutions will be met with an escalation of action on the streets.

To prove who is really in charge, the Ministry of Defence has come out and condemned these pro-democracy protests. This again highlights the militarisation of Thai society and politics which has been going on since the 2014 coup.

Added to this is the ridiculous accusations of lèse majesté by ultra-conservatives against people posting pictures of the protests with posters of the dead king in the background. These anti-democratic dinosaurs wish to make previous monarchs into holy relics. Yet, the individual most responsible for bringing the institution of the monarchy into disrepute, in the eyes of Thai citizens, is the present king Wachiralongkorn.

This is due to his debauched life-style in Germany, his insulting behaviour towards women and his never-ending greed. This is why the Thai ruling class need to keep putting up posters of his dead father in their desperate attempt to prop up royalism.

The junta is trying to stir up racism and nationalism to deflect attention away from the lack of democracy and the deteriorating standard of living for most Thais. The Parliamentary Junta’s aristocratic Minister of Labour has been mouthing off about the need to arrest so-called illegal migrants who he accuses of “stealing jobs from Thais”. This is an age-old process of racist scape-goating. It is never true. Migrant workers fill low income and dirty-job niches vacated by locals. The Thai economy would be in a serious state without migrant workers.

Rescuers carry body of civilian killed by military rangers

In Patani, the hated military rangers have murdered three innocent civilians in the province of Naratiwat. The rangers planted weapons and ammunition around the corpses and tried unsuccessfully to claim that those killed were insurgents. Eventually the military were forced to admit this and issued an “apology”. But that is not good enough. The rangers are hated and feared by local Malay Muslims for their trigger-happy and racist behaviour. The situation is made worse by having a military national government and by the deep racism and nationalism supported by the Thai ruling class. Peace can only be achieved if the military are forced to withdraw from Patani and national politics and citizens are able to exercise self-determination.

Thailand is one of the most unequal societies in the world. This is due to the monopoly of power by the conservative elites. Yet the present military government has defined women’s sanitary towels as “luxury” items for tax purposes. Women’s sanitary products are more expensive in relation to Thai incomes than in Western societies. This injustice has quite rightly caused a storm of indignation on social media. Sanitary products for women should be supplied free of charge as a necessary service to all women. They are not things that women can choose to buy or not to buy.

As we turn the corner to 2020, it is to be hoped that the level of protests against the Parliamentary Junta will increase and the military will be forced out of politics. For that to happen it will take organisation.

 

Parliamentary Dictatorship? Now we have the real thing!

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

During the period of the democratically elected governments led by Taksin Shinawat, many Thai reactionary academics, NGO activists and Yellow Shirts whined about a “Parliamentary Dictatorship”. This was merely because Taksin’s party had an overwhelming majority in the elected parliament and many of his supporters were also in the fully elected Senate. Of course, it was pure nonsense and it was obviously a ploy to justify opening the door to military intervention.

But now in Thailand we have the real thing. We have a military-appointed Senate and an engineered parliamentary majority for Generalissimo Prayut and his junta, despite the fact that Prayut’s party and various allies, won less votes than anti-military parties. [See https://bit.ly/2Wm6bzI ].

So what are the consequences of the present Parliamentary Dictatorship?

The junta will continue in power and there will be no change to the militarisation of society. Soldiers will act like policemen, hounding and interrogating anyone suspected of having pro-democracy sympathies. Soldiers will muscle their way into public meetings, filming participants at will. They will sit in at negotiations between trade unions and employers and any improvement in wages and conditions will be suppressed by soldiers. Troops will intervene in all forms of protests, from strikes to local village protests over environmental issues.

The militarisation of schools and colleges will continue and pro-military brain-washing of the younger generation will continue through the media and through Children’s Day events.

“Academic conferences are not military camps”

Military corruption and nepotism will continue and the generals will carry on with their arms shopping sprees, paid for by an ever-bloated military budget.

The use of the draconian lèse-majesté law and the so-called computer crimes law will continue as a tool to stifle freedom of expression. Prisoners of conscience will still spend years in jail. Alternative media will be persecuted.[See https://bit.ly/2wFBxXt Also https://bit.ly/2WCrr44].

Migrants and refugees in Thailand will receive poor treatment and some will be deported back to be jailed or killed by despotic regimes. [See https://bit.ly/2KBFchd ].

The courts will continue to act as agents of the military junta and the National Human Rights Commission will carry on turning a blind eye to government abuses of human rights. Rich people and generals will get away with all kinds of crimes, including encroachment of National Parks, while poor villagers are subjected to stiff punishment.

Violent attacks upon and disappearances of dissidents will continue, both by the junta’s thugs in Bangkok and the junta’s death squads acting across the border in Lao or Cambodia. [See https://bit.ly/2WYJ2aG & https://bit.ly/2WW4dqB ].

The military will still be in charge of policy in Patani, with military suppression of the right to self-determination by the Muslim Malays being prioritised over a political and peaceful solution. [See https://bit.ly/2QTqJ1n , https://bit.ly/2bemah3 ].

The junta will continue its neo-liberal economic policies which favour the rich and increase inequality and any dreams of building a genuine Welfare State will have to be put on hold. The untold wealth controlled by the nasty idiot King Wachiralongkorn will not be curbed. Nor will his disgusting behaviour.

All this will continue unless ordinary Thais get organised in a pro-democracy social movement which eventually overthrows the military junta and the system of Guided Democracy.

 

Thailand’s appalling record on migrants, refugees and asylum seekers

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

While all those who believe in basic human rights are appalled by the racist anti-refugee policies of Donald Trump in the USA and similar policies in the European Union, where over 9 thousand people have drowned in the Mediterranean since 2016, it is worth also looking at Thailand’s appalling record on this subject.

Amnesty International issued a report in September 2018 which outlined abuses committed by the Thailand’s military government [see https://bit.ly/2BBLc4O ]. These included the arrest in August 2018 of nearly 200 asylum seekers and refugees, which included persecuted minorities from Cambodia and Vietnam. There were 63 children and two pregnant women included in this number and many had UNHCR recognised refugee status. Children were separated from their parents. Some were transferred to the notoriously over-crowded Suan Plu Immigration Detention Centre in Bangkok, where there is a lack of medical assistance and poor sanitary conditions. Many others were taken to court and ended up in jail.

Thailand’s governments have refused to sign the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol. This means that asylum seekers and refugees are treated as illegal migrants and face deportation back to countries where there is a grave danger of them being subjected to violence and persecution. Dissidents from Turkey, Cambodia and China have been sent back to face imprisonment and worse.

Rath Rott Mony

In February 2018, Sam Sokha, a Cambodian political dissident was forcibly sent back to Cambodia and then imprisoned despite being recognised as a refugee by UNHCR. This week the Thai junta arrested construction union activist Rath Rott Mony while he was trying to claim asylum at a Dutch visa office. His so-called “crime” was to be involved in making a documentary exposing sex trafficking in Cambodia.

Chinese activists Jiang Yefei and Dong Guangping were deported to China in November 2015 as they awaited resettlement as refugees. In China they were sentenced to six and a half years and three and a half years in jail, respectively.

In 2015 more than 100 Muslim Uighurs, who are persecuted in China, were sent back, sparking an outcry from human rights groups. Understandably, Uighurs living in Turkey responded angrily by smashing windows at the Thai consulate in Istanbul.

Hakeem al-Araibi

One of the latest outrages concerns Hakeem al-Araibi, a political refugee from Bahrain who has refugee status in Australia. He was arrested by Thai police as he traveled to spend a holiday in Thailand. The junta are threatening to send him back to Bahrain, where he faces torture. The Australian government are complicit in his arrest in Thailand. The New York Times wrote that his case is a window into how vulnerable foreigners are treated in Thailand, a country with a history of deporting asylum seekers. [See https://nyti.ms/2RN0JnK ].

Nearly 130,000 refugees have crossed the border from Burma, seeking to flee violence and persecution. Those refugees who are allowed to stay in Thailand do not have access to healthcare, employment, education or any government support. They are confined to refugee camps without the right to leave the camps. Those desperate enough to seek employment are easy prey to abuse by employers because they are deemed to be “illegal”. The military and the Internal Security Operations Command have a record of pushing back desperate Rohingya refugees who arrive by boat.

Migrant workers from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are vulnerable to physical abuses, indefinite detention, and extortion by Thai authorities. Recently 14 Burmese migrant workers were brought to court on criminal defamation charges after they filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand alleging that their employer had violated their rights. [Further reading https://bit.ly/2vNcwry ].

Unfortunately, due to rampant racism and ultra-nationalism in Thai society, such abuses are not confined to Thai military governments, but have taken place under elected civilian governments. [See http://bit.ly/1JaeTJY , http://bit.ly/1ZEwTnj ].

With various political parties jockeying for votes in the so-called general election, expected early in 2018, it is shameful that none of the progressive pro-democracy parties have any serious alternative policies towards asylum seekers and refugees. The Future Forward Party has raised the issue of helping Rohingya refugees by not pushing them back and holding talks with the Burmese government, but there is no policy to ratifying the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol and no promise to change the way that refugees inside the country are treated by the government. The party’s policy towards migrant labour is to promise them the minimal rights under the law which Thai workers have, which is a step forward, but does not deal with thousands of migrant workers who are deemed to be illegal.

Thai Junta represses migrant workers

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Migrant workers in Thailand, like migrant workers in many other countries, face repression, poor working conditions, injustice and extortion.

In addition to the day light robbery committed by Thai employers and the corrupt and nasty police, government policies have always made life very difficult.

The Thai junta’s new regulation to crack-down on migrant workers means that they are now forced to jump through extra official hoops and pay even more money to the government for the “privilege” of working in shit jobs. Access to Thai health care is also dependent on this registration process.

The result of the new regulations was that thousands of migrant workers left the country in fear, causing temporary but severe shortages for the cold-hearted bosses of the fishing industry. Other dirty and low paid industries were also temporarily affected.

Some migrant workers posted photos on social media protesting about the excessive documentation and IDs they are required to obtain.

Thai governments have deliberately used the law to either criminalise much needed migrant workers or to “regularise” or “legalise” a minority of them by forcing them to pay high fees and to have the correct documents which are often beyond the reach of most migrants.

This is all designed to keep migrants in a permanent insecure state in order to exploit them. It is also designed to whip up racism and nationalism against migrants. The government knows very well that the economy depends on migrants and that many of them will inevitably be “illegal workers”. Such a policy of criminalising migrants and offering them costly so-called legal alternatives, allows employers to pay low wages and also allows the police, the military and other government officials to extract illegal payments from workers who cannot afford the legal route to employment.

Legal migrant workers are only allowed to work in the areas where they have specifically applied to work. They aren’t even allowed to travel freely throughout the country. Their lives are not dissimilar to the serfs of Europe who were tied to the landlord and not allowed to change their place of work or abode.

Previous Thai governments have put up posters claiming that illegal migrants are the cause of crimes and bring infectious diseases into the country. That such posters caused no controversy in Thai society shows the level of racism encouraged by the ruling class.

Migrant workers are also not allowed to belong to trade unions even when working alongside Thai workers in the same factories. This is an important issue upon which more trade unions should be focussing.

As Karl Marx once wrote: “This antagonism (towards the Irish) is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And that class is fully aware of it.”

It could have been written about the relationship between Burmese workers and Thai workers.

What the Rohingya slave labour and Ko Tao scandals reveal

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Both the Rohingya slave labour scandal, exposed by the Guardian newspaper and other media, and the police handling of the brutal murders of two British tourists on Ko Tao, reveal a very nasty side of Thai society.

While large numbers of decent Thai people would condemn the human trafficking, systematic rapes, imprisonment on large cargo ships and the eventual enslavement in the fishing industry, of hundreds of Rohingya refugees from Burma, much more needs to be done. Thai organisations and political groups should be mobilising and campaigning over this issue and trade unions should be making a stand against the shocking labour conditions in the fishing industry.

There might be sympathy in Thai society for those at the sharp end of human trafficking, when it is exposed in the media, but deep-rooted racism and nationalism, which infects most Thais, means that when the issue of welcoming the refugees and re-settling them in normal Thai society is raised, there is widespread hostility. This spills over into the blatant disregard for the plight of migrant workers from neighbouring countries. When not being trafficked, they are abused, beaten and robbed of their wages by employers and members of the security forces. Government posters reinforce derogatory views about migrants, accusing them of crimes and of carrying diseases. Ordinary Thais routinely use racist terms like “Kak”, “Yuan”, “Farang”, “Aye-Meud” (Darky) etc. to refer to people of other ethnicities.

This poisonous racism is responsible for the continuing miscarriage of justice over the Ko Tao murders. The two Burmese migrant workers, who are in court facing serious charges, are the “usual scape-goats”. There is also an appalling attitude among many Thais towards European women and the wearing of normal swimwear on the beach, as though it was an indication of “loose morals”.

Yet just look at the lack of morals in Thai society. We have a thriving sex industry where young people are exploited and trafficked. Thais are the predominant clients and beneficiaries of this industry. The country’s rulers, past and present, including Prayut, Abhisit and Taksin, are usually mass murderers who will never face trial for human rights abuses. Corruption and exploitation by the rich and powerful is the order of the day.

The root cause of this appalling situation is that there is far too little opposition to authoritarianism in all its forms. This is a vicious circle because when individual people are brave enough to speak out, they are subject to repression. The left is weak, the trade unions are disorganised or mainly apolitical and the pro-democracy Red Shirts have been demobilised by the UDD and Taksin. The National Human Rights Commission is staffed by members of the security forces, fanatical royalists and reactionaries. The NGOs are either with the military or are only interested in campaigning for fragmented single issues.

Fundamentally it is the weakness of the left and organised labour which accounts for a lack of strong opposition. Not only is the opposition to authoritarianism too weak, but there is almost no opposition to nationalism and racism in society. In such circumstances, ordinary Thai working people are tied to the mainstream ideology of the ruling class. Karl Marx once commented that British workers would never be able to liberate themselves until they got rid of racist ideas about the Irish. We could say similarly that ordinary working Thais will not be able to liberate themselves until they reject nationalism and racism. Throughout Europe today in an era of austerity, nationalism and racism are used to weaken movements opposed to neoliberalism and the impoverishment of workers. It is socialists and left-wing organisations which form the core of opposition to racism and nationalism in Europe.

In Thailand we desperately need to revive the left in a struggle for democracy and against national chauvinism.

Prayut travels to Burma to meet his only true friends

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

General Prayut’s trip to Burma is a pathetic attempt to appear as an “international statesman”. The truth is that if the head of the Thai junta made a request for an official trip to any genuinely functioning democracy it would be turned down. He is a pariah, an embarrassment.  So he has to turn to his best friends in the Burmese military.

Thailand and Burma have become much closer and very similar after the recent coup. The Burmese junta has much experience in massaging elections and building a political system where elected representatives have no real power. What is more, only the “right kind of people” can hold any top office in Burma. Elections are just a pretend charade. This is exactly what Prayut and his hand-picked team of anti-democrats are busy designing for Thailand right now. They want to build a political system where elections carry little weight and politicians like Taksin or Yingluk will be banned.

Most international media believe that nothing of substance in terms of economic agreements will come out of Prayut’s trip to Burma. Image building and reinforcing mutual friendship are the prime reasons for the trip.

The Burmese regime may make polite noises about the torturing of two Burmese migrant workers, which resulted in so-called confession to the brutal murders of two British tourists, but it will only be for show. The harsh reality is that the Burmese generals have grabbed the lion’s share of wealth in Burma, while neglecting the economic and social well-being of ordinary people. That is why millions of Burmese seek work across the borders. The Thai junta is also busy exploiting and abusing migrant workers. Its economic policies, including the king’s sufficiency economy ideology, favour the rich and the Thai generals are busy accumulating their own wealth.

Both the Thai junta and the Burmese regime have little respect for ethnic minorities struggling for autonomy and freedom.

Both the Thai junta and the Burmese regime do not hesitate to use brutal violence against people who disagree with them. Prayut was the key military man who ordered the killing of pro-democracy red shirts in 2010.

Friendship between the citizens of Burma and Thailand would be a great thing. A reduction in Thai racism against migrants from Burma would also be huge step forward.

But friendship between the despotic rulers of Thailand and Burma will not benefit citizens in either country. It is a further obstacle to building freedom and democracy either side of the border.

We need solidarity across the borders between people who wish to fight for democracy.

Migrants: political scapegoats

Numnual  Yapparat

I was very delighted to see the big red shirt rally last weekend. However, we have not seen the progressive demands yet from the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD). However, the UDD response to the latest yellow shirt accusations was not very progressive. The yellow shirts claimed that the red shirt rally was full of migrant workers. In 1976 fascist groups made similar false accusations about students in Thammasat University by saying that they were Vietnamese communist infiltrators.  This helped to legitimise the brutal killing of students and some of them were even burned alive. Today the Anti-Democrats and their friends want to use the same racist tactics again. Sadly, the majority of the red shirts are still under the influence of nationalist propaganda. They fought back by showing their Thai ID cards instead of showing solidarity with migrants. If we want to have equal rights we should see migrants as human beings too because we should believe in human dignity. The differences in language, ethnicity and skin colour should not be a barrier to building a progressive society. Better, more progressive, politics would help us get out of the current political crisis too. Let the yellow shirts breathe their filthy politics but we must not follow their rules. We need to be better in all aspects.

The red shirts should deny the concept of “Thainess”. The politics of “Thainess” seeks to enhance inequality and backwardness in society because it demands loyalty to the Thai ruling class. In reality greater harm is likely to come from the yellow shirts than from any migrants. Ordinary Burmese have suffered for a long time from political repression and they desperately need safe shelter and employment in Thailand. If the red shirts want a better society they need to show solidarity with them.

Migrants in Thailand work in hard, dirty and low paid jobs that Thai workers do not want. Examples are in the seafisheries or domestic jobs. Lots of them are being treated like slaves and some of them are killed by police or employers. There are NGOs groups who campaign for migrants rights but only a few Thais are in sympathy with them.

The migrants make a huge contribution to society which is good for all of us. The majority of migrants are young and therefore they can fill the gap left by older workers who retire. Thailand should legalise all of the illegal migrants and therefore they can pay taxes, have access to health care and education. Big cities in the world are full of migrants and this is an indicator that those countries have healthy economies. If migrants have equal rights in our country it means that our democracy is very strong.  We should welcome migrant workers, not fall into the trap of the anti-democratic racists.

Our political goal should be to fight for a society that belongs to everyone, not only the elites. Migrants are not our enemy but those at the top are. Those who want to destroy democracy and kill citizens who hold different views are our real enemies.

Photo: INN

 

Unrest and Opposition Over Military Rule: Thailand on the Brink ….

Bangkok resists the coup.

The 3 finger salute of the Thai anti-coup flash mobs today in Bangkok… It is probably adapted from Hunger Games (!) and some interpret it to mean Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

Photos: Facebook

 

Anti coup protesters chase away soldiers

Anti-coup protesters chase the army away at Victory Monument Bangkok today. Soldiers cower behind police and then run way….