Two steps forward one step back as revolution simmers in Thailand
For several days in April, Thailand appeared to be
on the brink of a democratic revolution, with the popular forces, led by the
United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), popularly known as ‘Red
Shirts’, in control of the streets of the capital, Bangkok and a number of
other major cities, and signs of a split in the armed forces.
UDD leaders called off their protests after the
government declared a state of emergency and was clearly preparing for a
massacre of unarmed protestors. But, with none of the contradictions tearing
Thai society apart resolved, and with the people having acquired a taste of
their own power, the outbreak of new, more militant and far-reaching struggles
is just a matter of time. (For further background to the most recent events in Thailand, see Thai people frustrate Royals and Generals, Lalkar, March/April 2008; and Thailand: A lull before the revolutionary storm, Lalkar, January/February 2009)
As the progressive Thai
academic, Giles Ji Ungpakorn put it: “For the fourth time in forty years,
troops have opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok. Each time
the aim has been the same: to protect the interests of the conservative elites
who have run Thailand for the past 70 years….
“What we have been seeing in Thailand since late 2005 is a growing class war between the poor and the old elites… Ever
since 2006, these elites have blatantly acted against election results by
staging a military coup, using the courts to twice dissolve [former prime
minister] Thaksin’s [Shinawatra] party and by backing Yellow Shirt
royalist mob violence on the streets. The present misnamed Democrat Party
government was manoeuvred into place by the army…
“The Yellow Shirts are conservative
royalists. Some have fascist tendencies. Their guards carry and use firearms.
They supported the 2006 coup, wrecked Government House and blocked the
international airports last year. Behind them were the army. That is why troops
never shot at the Yellow Shirts. That is why the present, Oxford and Eton educated, Thai Prime Minister has done nothing to punish the Yellow Shirts. After all,
he appointed some to his cabinet. The aims of the Yellow Shirts are to reduce
the voting power of the electorate in order to protect the conservative elites
and the ‘bad old ways’ of running Thailand…
“The majority of Red
Shirts support Thaksin, not because they like to ‘hero worship’, but because
his government brought in a universal health care system and other pro-poor
measures. The Democrats and the Yellows opposed these policies all along and
knew that they couldn’t win popular elections as a result. This is why they
wanted a coup.” (‘Red Shirts in Thailand face the armed might of the ruling
elites’ and ‘Looking at Thailand’s crisis: the need to establish some basic
standards’, both articles at: http://monthly
review.org/mrzine/ungpakorn140409.html)
Indeed, Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party is the only
political party in Thai history ever to win an absolute majority in a
democratic election and he is the only prime minister ever to serve a full
term. Nearly all commentators recognise that he or his nominees would win with
a substantial majority if free elections were held.
The present phase of the class struggle in Thailand grabbed international headlines when protestors forced the abandonment of a regional summit
in the south eastern resort city of Pattaya on 11 April, although a mass
demonstration had been building outside Government House, the Prime Minister’s Bangkok office, since mid-March.
The summit, to be attended by the leaders of the
10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), along with their
counterparts from Australia, China, India, Japan, south Korea and New Zealand,
descended into farce, as hundreds of red shirt protestors broke through police
and military lines to take over the conference venue while the visiting leaders
were hastily evacuated by helicopter. What was especially noteworthy was that
the police and military put up no opposition to the protestors. Indeed, they
were if anything supportive. A typical example was that noted by the Financial
Times:
“A young army
lieutenant offered his bottle of water to a sweltering older protester who was
returning to the hotel gates in the tropical midday heat.
“‘They are just like
us, we are friends,’ Surya Lamthong, a designer who was among the vanguard of
the protesters, said on Saturday, indicating the military guards who were by
then resting under the resort’s trees” (‘ASEAN summit cancelled amid
protests’, Financial Times, 11 April 2009).
Humiliated by the abrupt cancellation of the
Pattaya summit, and further humiliated when crowds swarmed into the interior
ministry looking for him, and then surrounded the car in which he was
travelling, beating it with sticks and clubs as it left the ministerial
compound, Abhisit Vejjajiva, the unelected prime minister, declared a state of
emergency on 12 April. The emergency decree banned gatherings of more than five
people, forbade news reports deemed to threaten public order and allowed for
the army to be deployed against the people. As tanks and armoured cars appeared
at strategic locations throughout Bangkok, the people remained defiant,
commandeering buses to block roads and clambering over military vehicles, at
first without any protest from the troops.
In a telephoned message from exile, Thaksin
declared: “Now that they have tanks on the streets, it is time for the
people to come out in revolution.”
UDD leader Jakrapob Penkair declared: “We will
start a people’s war.”
Seeing the writing on the wall, the Thai ruling
class brought in elite troops who they could rely on, and who promptly began
firing on the unarmed protestors with live ammunition. At least two people were
killed and many others injured. Leaders of the protest movement were arrested
and warrants issued for their colleagues who remained at large. Besides the
admitted fatalities, Red Shirt leaders, former prime minister Thaksin and
numerous eye witnesses all reported that many more demonstrators had been shot
and killed by the troops, their bodies taken away for secret burial.
As Thaksin told the Financial
Times:
“The current prime minister used
military force with live ammunition and shot at the people. So many people
died, they dragged the dead bodies away, and tried to destroy the dead bodies.
This is the same as what happened in October 1996 when there was a student
uprising. There were so many missing, but you couldn’t find the corpses because
they destroyed them.
“We have had 17 coups,
10 of them successful, and we have had 22 elections. That means that every two
elections we have a coup. What kind of democracy is this?” (‘Interview
transcript: Thaksin Shinawatra’, Financial Times, 17 April 2009)
While Prime Minister Abhisit hypocritically claimed
that his troops were using the “softest means possible” to clear the
streets, the real message came from General Songkitti Jaggabatara, the head of
the army, who appeared on television, to warn that “all possible means”
would be employed.
Everybody in Thailand knows what that means – the
armed forces have slaughtered peaceful protestors for democracy in their
hundreds, indeed thousands, on several occasions. Needless to say, the contrast
could scarcely be greater with the treatment of the regime’s yellow shirt
thugs, who late last year were allowed to wreck Government House and shut down
the country’s international airports, indeed the whole of Thailand, with impunity. Moreover, faced with this blatant attempt to overthrow a
democratically elected government, the army demanded that the government resign
and then, in league with the royal palace, engineered its dismissal.
With the near certainty of a terrible massacre, the
UDD leaders decided to call a temporary halt to their protests. In the words of
one of their leaders, Jatuporn Phromphan: “I want to save the people. But I
will continue to fight for democracy.” (Quoted in ‘Protests end but Thailand left shaken’, Financial Times, 15 April 2009.)
At most, therefore, the people will only be allowing
the regime, what the Economist described as “a temporary breathing
space”. (‘Thailand’s political crisis: Dousing the flames’ Economist,
16 April 2009)
Indeed, in a sign that the movement will surely
develop in a more militant direction, on 17 April, Sondhi Limthongkul, a
particularly hated leader of the reactionary yellow shirts, was shot in the
head, spending a week in intensive care. Nearly 100 spent bullet casings from
AK47 and M16 assault rifles were recovered from the scene, as well as an M-79
grenade that was fired but failed to explode.
A spokesperson from the Bangkok police said: “Considering
the nature of the attack and the weapons used, we believe it was carried out by
people with expertise.” (Quoted in ‘Founder of Thailand’s ‘yellow shirt’
movement shot in apparent assassination attempt’, Daily Telegraph, 17
April 2009)
In his Financial
Times interview, Thaksin succinctly summed up the nature of the people’s
protests:
“They need justice. They come and beg
for justice, they come and beg for democracy, but they go home with lost life,
with injuries and a bitter feeling that society, the government doesn’t give
them fair treatment.
“I would urge the whole world to listen
to the poor. They are the majority and they have been treated badly so they need
to be treated fairly and the place they have been given in Thailand is unfair to them…
“No one is encouraging
division, but without justice no peace, without peace no stability, without
stability no prosperity.” (Interview transcript: Thaksin Shinawatra, op.
cit.)
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, told the Financial Times: “This is about
sharing not just the power but the money and the prestige as well…The elites
are facing a choice: lose some now and keep a lot or keep it all now and risk
losing the lot.” (‘Colour-coded challenge to Thai elites’, Financial
Times, 12 April 2009)
Fortunately for the longer term prospects of the
Thai people’s genuine emancipation, their ruling class shows every inclination
to choose the latter option.