by Siriphon Kusonsinwut

Abstract

Since 1932 Thailand becomes a democratic constitutional monarchy system; the civilian government has been toppled by the military coup systematically. The constitution is declared void; new constitution is announced to enforce as well as another election ensues. Another civilian government runs the office with the rumor of widespread corruption problem; some of the Thais encourage and champion the military to commit the coup again to wipe out the devil politicians; the new constitution is declared after the coup becomes the sovereign of the country. The new election occurs with the endeavor of the coup leader to continue their power to exploit the financial benefit from numerous megaprojects implemented to develop this country. The Thais bloodily protest such leaders and the King’s intervention with the King’s government to run the election and afterward the civilian government executes the office with the corruption scheme. The military preserves their status as professional soldier for a while; the corruption scheme and the other accusations against the Prime Minister encourages the Thais become furious with the civilian government and thus they encourage the military to involve the political movement by commit the coup to wipe out such evil problems.

The recurrent events become the devil circle which render the Thais have never been mature for the democratic system; most of Thais accept the idea which the evil can be eliminated by any means even though it is more malicious than the evil they want to get rid of. The rule of law in Thailand, which is oneself firmly declared a sacred rule and cannot be violated, becomes nullified for such evil. In other words, they have not respected for the idea that “the ends cannot justify the means.” Indeed, the Thai legal standard turns out to be “strange” generally; most of professionally impartial legal scholars consider that the “exponential standards -- the much more than double standards – have been legally enforced” merely to the “above mentioned evil,” while would not been applied to the other groups. This factor relentlessly does not infuriates most of Thais which support the former government, which becomes the mentioned evil, but also the scholars who protest the coup and try to enshrine the rule of law doctrine in Thailand. Because the voice of these groups has not been accepted from the current government, the other independent agencies which involve in “numerous lawsuits” against the “mentioned evil,” no alternate choice has been left for them but violent demonstration widespread in some parts of Thailand.

The interest groups, such as the politicians, military leader, and the influent persons behind the political parties are the important actors to exasperate the conflict. The bias media broaden and implant such conflict to people in general. Most Thais cannot tolerate to allow the rule of law to function its important rule. They consider that any wicked method can be legally applied to eliminate such mentioned evil. The potential means to solve the political crisis in Thailand, then, to reduce such unfair practice applied to the mentioned evil group, and seek the reconciliation method to bring about the harmony into society. However, the King’s intervention might be incongruent with the democratic ideal and render favoritism to partial intergroup. The acceptable committee should be set up to transform such crisis into peace. Military should refrain from intervention with the political problem. The court and other independent agencies have to act their own duties impartially, fairly, and equally, as well as politely.

Fair practice with politeness and respect for the human dignity of all groups applied to all persons equally will gradually increase the trust to the involving conflict groups and finally they will corporate with the resolution concluded by the reconciliation committee. It the political problem has been gradually resolved by itself systematically with the intervention by the coup or any other influent person; all people will learn by themselves to be mature enough to know how to deal with those problems in the free and democratic society. They will learn how to protect their individual rights without violate other freedom and rights. Unlike the current situation, most people will not respect for the other’s rights and freedom, depending on the government by “keen and sharp” men, not by law, applying every devil means to get rid of the opponents for the reason of wining without considering the public interest of the nation as a whole. How to make the Thais become mature, and have the responsibilities to the other persons, as well as consider the National interest as the center of society is the priority of each individual. Eventually, the political crisis will be diminished.

This article will be composed on three parts: the first will be the background information about the historical root of conflict; the second is analysis of the conflict will be based on the theory to find out the involving actor and attitude toward the conflict, as well as the behavior which each actor might develop to increase conflict, including the compatibility of those conflict groups; and the last part will be the potential solution which might bring about the sustainable peace in Thai society.

However, this article will be generally elucidating the historical root since 1932 after the great revolution till the 2010 A.D, but will focus especially after Thaksin Chinawatra becomes the Prime Minister. The solution is still cursorily proposed.

Part I: Background Information: Historical Root of Conflict

Thailand has changed its political system from absolute monarchy to the Constitutional Monarchy Democracy since 1932. It subjects to the coup systematically by the military based persuasive assertion that the corrupted civilian government conduct, bringing about the deletion of constitution from the Thai legal system and coming up with the declaration of the new one to preserve the coup power. Corruption is the most popular assertive causes to over throne the government, including the 1932 great revolution. After taking benefit for certain period of time, the coup will set up the new election and the elected government runs the office for a while; the corruption problem rumors become widespread. The military conducts the coup again. This phenomenon makes the Thai citizens get used to this evil circle, and sometimes, the citizens push the military to conduct the coup themselves. Some scholars consider that the coup is the necessary evil to eliminate the bad politicians from the democratic system. Only a few events that the Thai citizens demonstrate to protest the coup leader who attempts to prolong its power by employing democratic means such as registering the political party as well as the military threats to parliamentary system. But, almost every coup, the Thais will ignore what the coup leaders have done, and the tremendous financial they can earn during in charge of sovereign entity. Some violent protest might be seen in some instance; for example, after the 1991 coup, its leader was appointed a Prime Minister without running an election, the 1992 bloody demonstration started in Bangkok against the military which numerous protestors died from this event based on the idea that the Prime Minister must derive from the election system. Finally the King Rama IX intervened by acting as mediator between the protesting leader and the former coup leader. The latter resigned from the office and the 1997 constitution, called as the People’s Charter, was proclaimed to be the supreme law of the law. It established several independent agencies to champion the transparency in political environment and made the executive function stronger than any other constitution.

This 1997 constitution has been continuously enforced almost 10 years but, however, the 2006 coup occurred again which completely destroyed the common belief of the Thai citizens that the 1991 coup would be the last one in Thailand. The 1997 People’s Charter was declared void. On September 19, 2006, the military asserted the politicians’ corruption similar to the old assertive cause which is the consistent pretext to commit the coup again and again. Additionally, the extraordinary accusation against Mr. Thaksin Chinawatra, the former Prime Minister, is extremely severe. One of those are that Mr Thaksin is the tyrant, greedy, abuse the power, and the most unacceptable one is that he does dishonor to the highest demi-god King Bhumibhol, the current King. Those factors have been exasperated by the bias media against the government which trigger the fury against the government. Therefore the Thaksin’s administration loses the citizens’ trust especially from the middle class in Bangkok. The bias media attached with the attack by the several interest groups between 2004 and 2006 make the pretext of corruption and the rumor of the untrustworthy government leader become more powerful and sensible for the military to involve in the political environment as some elites and scholars’ assertion. Indeed, the rationale behind the political crisis is the conflict of interests among several groups involving with Thaksin’s administration. The examples of those groups are: (1) the interest group related to the Thaksin’s administration, which abused the power to exploit benefit during running the governmental megaprojects as well as amending the law to avoid the tax duties by the Chinawatra’s family; (2) the other groups such as the People’s Alliance for Democracy or PAD, which used to be the close supporter to Mr. Thaksin but later lose the financial benefit from Thaksin’s decision and government’s policy, and known as the “Yellow Shirt Interest Group” which aiming to destroy Thaksin’s administration, called “Thaksin’s system” and intentionally dress in yellow, which is the royal color of the current King; and (3) the military leaders, and the “Influent Person Beyond the Constitution,” who lose their powers and status to control bureaucrats after Mr. Thaksin become Prime Minister and thus seemingly has more power than the others. All those factors deliberately considered together, the military decided to topple Mr.Thaksin out from the office in 2006 and similarly to the others, its leaders attempt to continue their power and simultaneously to prevent themselves from revenge of former government by using “illegal force” of the resignation toward all independent agencies appointed and approved by the 1997 constitution system. Later, they appointed the new committee members of those agencies, which strongly quarrel and disagree with the Thaksin’s administration during his Excellency duties. Some of them used to work as the secretary of National Anti-Corruption Committee; the others used to function as the judge in the Supreme Court of Thailand, the rest used to work as the lawyers and scholars which all of them have strongly accused Mr. Thaksin’s administration as corrupted government. The most important weapon of the coup to support its claim is to set up the independent committee to scrutinize the “corruption scheme” conducted by the elected government of Thaksin’s administration, which later seized all assets which Thaksin’s family has continuously enquired from the whole telecommunication business until 2006. Simultaneously, it also declared the ex post facto rule, which conflict with the ideal of the rule of law and the principle of legality, effectively applied to merely the former government and its political parties, specifically the Thai Ruk Thai or TRT party. This rule is the important tools to get rid of TRT from Thailand by empowering the constitutional court, which its members were appointed by the coup and most of them are strongly opposite to Mr.Thaksin, to apply the rule retroactively for the fact conducted by TRT which the dissolving political party was pending in this court, and of course, TRT party has been dissolved based on the accusation of illegal conduct by the leader or the executive committee of the political party.

The National United of Democracy Against Dictatorship or UDD, which definitely also against the President of Privy Council (whom was accused as the influent person behind the coup leader), appears to protest the coup and response to the “Yellow Shirt Interest Group” which currently UDD becomes the “Red Shirt Interest Group”, who strongly supports the former Prime Minister Thaksin. Subsequently, the Red Shirt and the Yellow Shirt become the crucial counter-part which plays the extremely important role to engender the Thai politics become more complicated until the present.

The 2006 junta also set up the panel to draft the 2007 constitution which provided numerous rules to annihilate the former government parties (TRT or its support’s alliance) from obtaining the majority vote. Nevertheless, even though this disadvantage rules were applied, and those independent agencies’ action against former TRT, the citizens in the rural area, especially living in the northeastern part of Thailand, also voted for former TRT’s successor party, specifically the People’s Power Party or PPP, as the majority of the parliament. However, the Thai politics became more complex because the PAD and its supporter disapproved the election result. The Yellow Shirt claims that the election system does not guarantee the eligibility whether the governmental leader from PPP, Mr. Samak Sundaravej, for being Prime Minister because Mr.Samak claims that he was the nominee of Mr.Thaksin to inquire “Justice and Fairness” for all politicians, especially Mr. Thaksin, who at the time was fleeing in other country. After Mr.Samak becomes the Prime Minister, he vowed to amend the 2007 dictatorial constitution, encouraging the PAD to restart its demonstration movement against PPP after suspending in 2006 after the coup. Even though the government declares to postpone the constitutional amendment plan, the PAD continues its protest, seizes the Government House. After the constitutional court removes Samak, the PPP supports Mr.Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin’s brother-in-law, to be Prime Minister, violently bloody demonstration by PAD happens on October 7, 2007 to prevent him from declaring the governmental policy to the parliament as constitution requires. The PAD and its alliance especially in the Southern part of Thailand escalate their protest, by secretly support of Democrat Party, which becomes the current government from 2008 to present, by seizing all major international airports and causes tremendous economic destruction to the whole Thailand. Ridiculously, the law enforcement officials are diffident to enforce the law because the National Anti-Corruption Committee comes to the conclusion that the police force is guilty from using the tear gas grenade, and their weapon to protect themselves. There is neither clear regulation, nor the parliamentary Act to guide the police office how to deal with the demonstration, especially when it becomes fierce mob equipped with man-made bomb, and other equivalent metal weapon. Only some impartial media reports such violent conduct of PAD frankly; the rest who detest the PPP government ignores them and simultaneously incorrectly reports that the police officers create violence and using the faulty tear gas grenade aiming to kill the PAD. The police officer become the defendant of society, National Anti-Corruption Committee takes this opportunity to declare those police officers involving the October, 7, 2007 violence become guilty and must be discharged from the office instantly. This uncertainty of official career renders the situation which all police will refrain from performing their duties to avoid the criminal law suit against them if they stop or control the demonstration in order.

After PAD seized the Suvarnabhumi Airport in November 2007, the police force has just refrained from enforcing the law; tremendous damages occurred to Thailand. This chaos stopped when the Constitutional Court dissolved PPP, the successor of TRT party, and banned its executive board from political activity based on election fraud accusation. PAD, under the surreptitious rumor of some one’s order to stop airport seizure, ended its illegal conduct from airport occupation, and the Democrat Party (DP), under the champion of the military and coup’s leader, as well as the “influent persons”, became the current government even though DP has not got majority vote from the people throughout Thailand. The red shirt, and Pua Thai Party (PTP) which is the successor of PPP and TRT party, rejected the legitimacy of the conduct of the DP and Mr. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the DP’s leader; then they run the protest against the government. They conducted slightly different from that of PAD; they seized the main roads, intersections and entrance of the government house, but still let the officials go into the building. The demonstration became more violent in April 2008, but it was stopped by the military. Thereafter, whenever the red shirt declared to conduct the public assembly, the current government will declare the martial law to control, and prevent the demonstration.

The criminal lawsuit deriving from the invasion of government house, the airport seizure, etc, against PAD have still been pending (have no attempted to make any progress by the government and the police force, indeed); while the government, through police department, completes the lawsuit against the red shirt for all demonstration which might violate the parliamentary act, such as the voice control law, traffic law, the martial law, etc. The military is still able to use the arm machine gun, and other weapon to stop public demonstration; nobody or organization reprimand such conduct. Unlike the situation in October 7, 2007, the Thai Human Right Office, the National Anti-Corruption Committee, the scholars, the media, and the predilection group to PAD have vehemently accused to the police conduct even though they enforced the law to keep the public order under the international standard to control the demonstration. Most of Thai believed that the dead and injury of PAD’s member were committed by the police, which is totally fault. It bias media enrage the anger the rest of the citizens. General people also believe that the influent person also force the judges to dangerously consume the over vast duties to criticize and decide the lawsuits against Mr.Thaksin, which including the 73,000 million bath seizure by the independent agency set up by the coup.

Part II : Analysis of Conflict : Actors, Causes, Behaviors, and Consequences

From the information background, it seems like the Thai politics is in the development stage; the people from rural area, who has been continuously obtaining the financial support to develop their own products to better their quality of life, take the furious action to protect their own elected government while some Bangkokians considers the elected government is so corrupted that they cannot tolerate. Several interest groups get involvement and make the politic become more perplexing. It can be concluded that the involving actors might be seen as following:

(1) The TRT party – won landslide majority vote from the people, which made Mr. Thaksin be so confident that running megaproject which conflict with his own business; for instance, he amended the tax law to avoid tax duties from selling the stock share to Singapore’ s company.

(2) The PAD, leading by Sondhi Limthongkul, who used to be close friend with Mr. Thaksin, but later lost financial support from him as well as the lost of opportunity to get concession of the public television program from Thaksin’s administration; then, he run the demonstration against Thaksin by accusing him as the King’s dishonor, corruption, conflict of interest, selling the national heritage – his own telecommunication stock shares, etc.

(3) The Army Commander, Sonthi Boonyaratglin, and its accopmpanies, who committed the coup after the rumor of the influent person, which later announced as Privy Council President Prem Tinsulanonda, supported them to destroy the democracy system in Thailand. The coup was successfully operated in September 19, 2006 while Mr. Thaksin was attending the United Nation Conference, which is only a month before the general election would begin in October 2006. It asserted the causes of corruption, and the King disrespect committed by Thaksin as the pretext to commit the coup but indeed they felt insecure for their own status and position in the office because at the time Thaksin was very popular and thus if the general election happened he would become the Prime Minister again.

(4) The Royal family – which is not the cause of conflict at not , but the PAD always persuades the people to believe that Mr. Thaksin is no royalist, and try to overthrow the monarchy system to establish the republic system in Thailand. PAD also exaggerates that Mr.Thaksin and its followers have set the oversea plan to eradicate the royal family. The palace keeps silent, which makes the citizens understand that the place accepts such PAD’s message; then, this accusation become more convincing. It extremely persuades the people to conduct the violent mob to protest the elected government. Indeed, the palace should have been impartial and stop such rumor by preventing anyone to assert the royalist ideal as the means to destroy the political opponent; otherwise, the public might have the perception that the palace agrees and champions them to protest the democratic government.

(5) The DP and current government leading by Mr.Abhisit are the most important factor to encourage the fury to the people in rural area and the scholars who enshrine the rule of law ideal. Based on the fact that DP has not won the election, while the PT did, but the DP might not be totally guilty from stealing the Prime Minister position from PT because it seemed that if PT continued the executive function, the PAD would continue violent mob against PT. However, the DP was totally wrong from its conducts to control the red shirt group; whenever the red shirt declared its demonstration, the martial law was announced to prevent the demonstration, while the PAD sometimes did without the announcement of martial law. Whatever case involved Thaksin and red shirt, the government, through the police force, would be very eager to complete it while the case against PAD has been suspended until the present.

(6) The Independent Agencies are vital factors too. They have been appointed by the coup which used to act against the Thaksin’s administration before. Then, all cases involving Thaksin would be declared guilty; the political party involving Thaksin would be dissolved and the rule of law was completely destroyed by those agencies because they were willing to apply the expost facto law for the conducts which were committed prior to the announcement of the junta rule.

(7) The UDD is the component group of people in rural area, activists and scholars. Their objectives are: (1) to support Thaksin, and (2) to protest the coup and enquire to rule of law in the order. This group will move together because the government and other independent agencies take side in PAD. Then, there is no choice left for them but violent movement to obtain their alternative goals.

(8) The general citizens who always ignore the politic conflict; most of the Thais would keep their standing as “Neutral” position. Indeed, they do not care for politics, if they still can earn some benefit for themselves. They, therefore, would take part in the politic environment; they do not worry if the rule of law has been completely destroyed until their lives will be impacted.

Those actors cannot share the attitude toward the democratic system. PAD always disapprove that the election system, even it is fair and without fraud, will be the least worst for demonstrating the general will of the people. They would assert anything which they can take benefit for them. They believe that the coup is the necessary evil for the country choice to get rid of the bad guy. However, the history directly teaches us that there is no real hero riding the white horse to help the innocent; they just come into the power and take benefit from the people instead.

Part III: Potential Solutions for a Substantial Peace (Ways to transform conflict to peace)

Personally, the best way to transform the political crisis into order is to continuing the conflict and let the rule of law plays the important role to solve the fundamental problems. The impartiality of the referee, specifically the judges, and independent agencies, is the most important factor to get rid of unfair practice. The politeness, fairness, and equality of the procedural rule applying to everyone equally with the respect of human dignity will incredibly champion the peace finally. I totally believe that the injustice and unfair practice are the most important to be solved.

However, the history instructs us again that the members of the independent agencies cannot be impartial because they have been appointed by the coup which they contain absolute bias against the former government before. It will be the hardest time to bring the peace to Thai society without the method to remove those people from the offices and appoint the acceptable and honorable people to function in those positions. The reconciliation committee to convince them to resign from the office might have to be done before the implementation of the fair rule of law. These two steps will be workable if the military would not intervene with the politics again. The right attitude should be implanted in Thailand that is: “only the right means can be implemented,” and “the rule of law should be implemented fairly, equally, and politely.” I those factors come together, the peace will appear in Thailand.

The best scenario for the politic crisis is that the continuity of somewhat peaceful demonstration. The Red Shirt will continue protest the government until the parliament will be dissolved and the new election occurs; the PT slightly wins election and comes up with the coalition government with the weakness of the executive function; the instable government reoccurs. The corruption comes up with the request of stupid people to demand the military to commit the coup; the democracy starts itself for the people to learn about this ideal again and again.

The worst scenario is that the crisis becomes more extremely severe; the Red Shirt can bring about the irate feeling to public, specifically in the Northern and Northeastern Part of Thailand, in which their citizens strongly support PT, and thus bring the violent demonstration to protest government. Because they are rooted in their own identity and cultures which totally different from the central part of Thailand, which is very new when compared to the ancient history of the old kingdom in such regional areas, they might would like to claim their self-determination to separate from Thailand.

The in between situation is that the palace will grant the mercy by acting as the faciliator again; even though the crisis stops and becomes the peaceful politics, but latent conflict in the future has never been eliminated; the more violence will reoccur when the appropriate factor run on the proper time! I don't know when is going to happen, and nobody either!

What should we select? I, personally, would like to people to learn what they want by themselves; the better the will get from their own determination, not from the central government.

"In Somalia, recent events have tragically shown that the conflict has a direct bearing on global security," Ban told about 30 African leaders.

Later at a news briefing, Ban said the United Nations was still considering "whether conditions are right for a peacekeeping operation."

Violence in Somalia has killed 21,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and uprooted 1.5 million people, a contributing cause of one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.

PIRACY

Heavily armed pirates from the lawless Horn of Africa nation are terrorizing shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia.

Ramtane Lamamra, AU Commissioner for Peace and Security said Somalia was now as big a threat to global security as Afghanistan and should not be ignored.

"The international terrorism is the same and there is the link to the same mother organization, al Qaeda," Lamamra said. "And there is also piracy."

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told delegates he admired the work of the AU in Somalia but that it was not "sufficient."

"If we do not support the transitional government more, Somalia could become a place that could destroy humanity," Zapatero said in Spanish.

"The proper response is a strong response from the international community, led by the U.N. Somalia is suffering."

Al Qaeda's Yemen-based branch became a global security priority after it said it was behind a failed December 25 attack on a U.S. airliner, and concerns have been raised about its ties to Somalia's al Shabaab militants.

The West has said it is concerned Somalia could turn into an al Qaeda training camp and launch pad for international attacks, a role played by Afghanistan in the run-up to the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

Delegates will discuss Somalia alongside the conflict in Sudan and Africa's four coups this year at the three-day summit that ends on Tuesday.

Source: Reuters