Thialand's Emergency State: Struggles and Transformations

10a Michael.indd 285 4/25/11 6:17:23 PM 10a Michael.indd 286 4/25/11 6:17:24 PM Southeast Asian Affairs 2011 THAILAND’S EMERGENCY STATE Struggles and Transformations Michael K. Connors Thailand’s political landscape in 2010 was dominated by the ravine-like political division over the rules that define the acceptable exercise of power. Just as yellow- shirted protestors of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) had staged a four- month “civic uprising” in 2008 against what they claimed was an illegitimate proxy government of the self-exiled Thaksin Shinawatra, so in 2010 red-shirt protestors from the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship — Red All Over the Land (UDD)1 — rebelled against a government they claimed was a puppet of the bureau-aristocratic establishment, what they called the amaat. They occupied major intersections in Bangkok from mid-March to 19 May and called for the army to abandon the government. In 2010, a river of blood ran through the political division. Fatal clashes between red shirts and the Royal Thai Military left over ninety people dead and thousands injured. Previous episodes of mass protest and repression — such as those in 1973, 1976, and 1992 — have come to define new political eras. It remains uncertain as to whether the same may be said of the April-May killings, or if those events are part of a series, as yet unfinished, of increasingly unpredictable political struggle. The clashes highlighted the deadly trajectory of a contradictory politics that has emerged since the 2006 coup d’état that deposed Thaksin Shinawatra from office.2 These politics are characterized by antagonistic and hybrid political forces that, in practice, undermine their declared democratic objectives. Since the early 2000s, Thailand’s protracted battles over desirable regime form has seen incumbents use state apparatuses in instrumental fashion against political rivals, robbing Thailand of the stability of a loyal opposition that trusts ruling governments to govern within agreed boundaries.3 Each successive phase sees this approach MICHAEL K. CONNORS teaches politics and development studies at La Trobe University, Australia. 10a Michael.indd 287 4/25/11 6:17:24 PM 288 Michael K. Connors intensifying as the stakes get higher, space for compromise narrows, positions become irreconcilable, and a combination of intrigue and street politics determines fates of governments and oppositions. For the moment though, predictions of civil war have been proven wrong.4 This chapter traces the struggle as it unfolded during 2010. It also touches on humdrum issues of corruption, party politics, and the economy, relating the significance of these developments to the broader politics of regime battles. But first, some comments on the major actors that shaped politics in 2010. By the end of 2010 the coalition government headed by the Democrat Party’s (DP) Abhisit Vejjajiva had been in office for two years. This was made possible by a December 2008 Constitutional Court ruling to dissolve the pro- Thaksin People’s Power Party (PPP), then the governing party of a coalition government. Military machinations, deals, and existing party and factional rivalries led to minor parties and some former PPP MPs switching allegiance, allowing the formation of a DP-led coalition government.5 As much a party of order as of elite liberal ideas of freedom, the DP claims to want to return Thailand to its liberal-democratic trajectory of the 1990s — once it has dealt with unrest. Yet the DP depends on the parliamentary weight of old-style money politicians in its own ranks and that of its coalition partners to stay in power, inviting upon it the PAD’s excoriating censure for prodigious levels of corruption. Moreover, the DP pragmatically pacts with a resurgent military that demands and receives extra- budgetary doses, and the statist-conservative political establishment surrounding the palace. Together, these forces view the red-shirt movement with alarm and fear. They recoil at the possibility of a Thaksin-influenced palace on the passing of ailing King Bhumiphol.6 The red shirts’ actions and dissident discourses have tied popular aspirations for economic well-being, political equality, and representation to the fate of an authoritarian leader (Thaksin). Less a social movement and more a political conglomeration, the UDD is also informally tied to the opposition party Pheu Thai (PT). That nexus entails the mutual mobilization of support bases in the provinces. There is also significant overlap of local politicians and vote canvassers and local UDD cadre. Moreover, by way of its leaders’ connections the UDD finds sympathetic support in the police, the bureaucracy, and to a lesser extent sections of the military. The social composition of the red-shirt movement markedly differs by proportion to that of the significantly more urban-based and middle class yellow- shirted PAD, although both sides have support across the class spectrum. Reds tend to be relatively poorer than the “generic” yellow supporter. The former 10a Michael.indd 288 4/25/11 6:17:24 PM Thailand’s Emergency State: Struggles and Transformations 289 tends to work or run businesses in the informal or provincial sector while the latter are more likely to work in the formal sector.7 Neverthesless, the UDD and its predecessors have always had some support among the professional middle classes in Bangkok. Also, while popularly referred to as a movement of the poor, commentators are right to point out the post-peasant and farmer-entrepreneur social base to the red movement, and its provincial lower middle class feel.8 Five years ago Thirayut Bunmi astutely noted that Thaksin’s populist policies were largely directed at an emergent petty capitalist class.9 This is not to say that there are not many supporters of Thaksin and the movement among the poor. The leadership of the UDD is multilayered, with provincial leaders and district leaders running semi-autonomous organizations that raise funds and political consciousness, host radio shows, publish papers, run red businesses, and which facilitate attendance at UDD rallies. At the upper level are well-known political cadres such as Jarun Dittha-apichai and Weng Tojirakarn. Most important are the powerful orators, the “three amigos” Jatuporn Prompan, Natthawut Saikua, and Veera Musikhapong. The trio gained heightened prominence in 2008 while hosting the weekday television show “Truth Today” broadcast on public television, from which they relentlessly attacked the post-coup judicial order and the “party of dictators”, the DP.10 The UDD’s protest form mirrored that pioneered by PAD in 2006 and again in 2008.11 Political rallies were broadcast as political entertainment to red-shirt supporters across the nation. At these broadcast rallies and through social media the UDD, also following PAD, employed popular music formats, venomous-speech, rhetorical analysis, and shock exposes contributing to what Pravit Rojanaphruk — speaking of both colours — calls “vigilante” media.12 At various rallies UDD members playfully brandished plastic foot-stompers to applaud endless speeches lambasting the amaat, perhaps a signal of red-shirt contempt for assumed social superiority as the foot is considered the basest part of the body. At the very least, red shirts gave a very political edge to longstanding pop-cultural mocking of the ersatz aristocratic culture that pervades official life and high society. Mobilizing Ideas and Forces After being routed in the Bangkok clashes of April 2009, the UDD regrouped and consolidated its position, holding periodic rallies, most notably on the third anniversary of the 2006 coup, when the government invoked the Internal Security Act. A constant UDD theme was double standards in the administration of justice. In 2010 the UDD made this up-close-and-personal when approximately 10,000–20,000 10a Michael.indd 289 4/25/11 6:17:25 PM 290 Michael K. Connors protestors travelled to Khao Yai Thiang forest reserve to protest against Privy Councillor Surayudh Julanont’s illegal holiday home there. This targeting of phu yai (literally “big people”), unthinkable three years earlier, was just one example of the red media’s constant exposé of suspect financial interests of anti-Thaksin elements. Surayudh’s house was demolished and investigations commenced on over thirty other illegally occupied plots.13 The UDD has undoubtedly played a part in a new awareness of inequalities and double standards, leading to a mood dubbed taa sawang, or enlightenment, meaning that the organization of power and interest by the rival elite is visible and the need for democratic struggle is understood.14 During late 2009 and early 2010, the UDD steadily built up protest infrastructure throughout the northeast, with fundraisers bagging millions of baht. Political education schools in non-violence and democracy were held in several hundred locations educating thousands of cadres, while elsewhere some UDD leaders made incendiary speeches telling red shirts to meet violence with violence.15 Anticipating a late February Supreme Court decision to seize frozen assets from the Thaksin family (46 billion baht were seized), and buoyed by the success of its actions against Surayudh, the UDD swung into action by declaring 14 March as the day of its long expected march on Bangkok. It called on PT politicians to mobilize thousands of their constituents. They and grass-roots leaders and political activists succeeded in mobilizing at least several hundred thousand (some claim over half a million). The initial intent was to mobilize a million people and see the government dissolve into thin air. Red-shirt leader Jarun told the New York Times, “Our aim is to topple the government, force them to make a choice between suppressing us and stepping down.”16 Despite government-ordered roadside checks and the invoking of the Internal Security Act, the march on Bangkok was momentous.

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