Thaksin Shinawatra’s campaign of terror


The Ramadan massacre of Muslims by Thai security forces should ring alarm bells for all: there is a new autocrat on the block, warns Farish Noor.

Page 10
Q-News, Issue 358
December 2004

In Thailand, as in many parts of the Association of South East Asian Nations  (ASEAN), we are witnessing the return of fascism. The brutal killing of  eighty-four Thai Muslims during security operations in the country’s Southern provinces reminds us of the killing of Burmese pro-democracy activists in 1988, when dozens of them were crammed into lorries with exhaust pipes diverted into the trucks and were subsequently choked to death.

Perhaps this was yet another case of one brutal ASEAN regime learning from another? If anything it was proof that the struggle for democratic reform in ASEAN is far from over and that ASEAN’s inter-governmental policy of ‘non-interference’ in domestic affairs is a convenient way to allow the respective governments to go on butchering their own people.

That such casual manslaughter can take place in Thailand today, under the leadership of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, speaks volumes about his regime’s total disregard for the value of human life and fundamental human rights.

The editorial of the Thai newspaper The Nation summed up the moral vacuum in the country aptly when it blared: “His (Thaksin’s) contempt for human rights has resulted in a scattering of personal tragedies, masked by the proclaimed success of the war on drugs. But now this flawed trait of his leadership is threatening to plunge the country into the bitterest and most detrimental divide between the people and the state.” But none of this should come as a surprise, for Lieutenant-Colonel (rtd.) Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra’s rise to power was, in many ways, an indirect result of the collapse of democracy in Thailand and the return of authoritarian, counter-reform tendencies in the country.

Thaksin was an ex-security forces commander, who held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Thai Police. With a similar educational background to that of other senior leaders of the Thai army, police and security services, he commanded considerable respect and support from the armed forces and security services. He then branched out into the world of business and rose to become a tycoon in the telecommunications field. With strong business and army links as well as an independent financial base, he formed and led the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party and swept to power with the support of the urban middle class and business community (as well as the backing of foreign capital).

Part of Thaksin’s project was his ‘new social contract’ with the Thai public, which promised the restoration of law and order at any cost. Under his leadership the Thai public was constantly fed with a stream of state propaganda about internal threats within Thailand, ranging from drugs gangs to Islamist militants in the South of the country. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the 2002 attacks in Indonesia, Thaksin has used the rhetoric and discourse of the ‘war on terror’ to further extend his power and the scope of activities of the Thai security forces. In particular his government was keen to demonstrate to the Thai public and the international community that the troubles in the Muslim provinces in the South of the country was part of a global trend of ‘Islamic terrorism’ that required a strong, even violent, response from the state.

Like Indonesia and Malaysia, Thailand also boasts of having its own international Anti-Terror centre in the South of the country. And like the other Anti-Terror centres that now blight the landscape of the ASEAN region, Thailand’s own fetid offering to the altar of anti-terrorism is strongly supported by the West, notably the United States of America.

On 28 April 2004, Thai troops bombarded and then stormed the ancient Krue Se mosque in Patani, killing all of the alleged Muslim insurgents who had taken refuge there. (Local witnesses claimed that the troops also desecrated the mosque in the course of the fighting.)

Thaksin’s approach to the problem of social unrest in the Southern Muslim provinces in Thailand has been a combination of the ‘carrot-and-stick’ approach. While allowing senior Thai military commanders to use their own initiatives and methods, the government has also promised a 300-million Baht investment project (to be parcelled out over a period of 10 years) into the region. One of the initiatives on offer is the 28-million Baht project to restore the Krue Se mosque near Patani.

Local Patani Muslim leaders however have argued that the real problems of local army and police corruption as well as abuse of power and infringement of fundamental human rights have not been addressed by any of these promises. Local critics also argue that these measures do not in any way solve the problem of Bangkok’s inability to understand and appreciate the demands of the Patani Muslims, who are Malays, and who resent the hegemonic grip of Bangkok that wishes to impose a Thai-centric model of national identity on the Southern provinces.

The burden of shame and negative responsibility falls on ASEAN governments for not trying to help resolve the troubles in Patani. For so long the leaders of ASEAN have been content to play the role of ostriches, burying their heads in the ground to avoid having to look at the realities close to them. Well today that option is not as easy as it was in the past: The soil in which they have buried their heads has been stained with the blood of innocents. And buried in that bloody soil is also our hopes for a democratic ASEAN of the people, by the people and for the people of ASEAN themselves.