The Vongthip Letter July ’10
Mending the fences: Thanks to FIFA, Thai football fans put away their politically colored shirts to spend sleepless nights watching the World Cup matches in South Africa. News of favorite teams and players dominated most newspapers and TV screens. An avid football fan himself, PM Abhisit has, however, managed to accomplish most of what he had promised. On 7/6/10 he left for half a day trip to Vietnam, to attend the World Economic Forum and meet up with Asean leaders at the Greater Mekong Subregion summit meeting. He took the opportunity to brief world’s business leaders of the current political situation in Thailand and to assure them that his government was taking every possible step to restore law and order while moving the country forward toward national reconciliation.
On 7/6/10 he announced another cabinet reshuffle (5th), with eight new ministers mostly from the Democrat Party. Throughout the month, the Abhisit government continued to address the country’s most urgent economic issues i.e. severe El Nino drought (worst in 18 years) that had delayed rice planting by at least six weeks. The Map Ta Phut environmental problems were finally sorted out, with 18 activities to be banned and clearer rules and regulations to become effective by year-end. After years of frozen salaries, civil servants were granted a special bonus to be paid out in 10/10 and a 5% salary increase to be effective in 4/11.
Farmers’ problem loans too were being refinanced or restructured with hefty haircuts. The first lot of community title deeds was given out. Shooting prices of sugar and eggs were promptly addressed and lowered. Rescue package for those affected by the Ratchaprasong shutdown and arson was fine-tuned and extended to include foreign businesses in the area. To ease the burden of the urban poor, free electricity (max. 90 kw), free (hot) bus, free (third class) train and subsidized LPG, were extended till year end, when PM Abhisit hope to make some of them permanent.
By Vongthip Chumpani*
Reform Thailand: To restore social equilibrium, PM Abhisit quickly launched his 5-points National Reconciliation Roadmap. Sombat Thamrong-thanyawong, a respected academic was appointed to chair the panel to scrutinize changes to the Constitution. Former Attorney General Kanit na Nakorn was chosen to head the independent fact finding panel called Truth and Reconciliation Committee, to probe into the root causes of the violent clashes in 5/10 within two years. On 18/6/10 former PM Anand Panyarachun agreed to head the independent panel to set out national reform policies.
He would be working closely with Dr. Prawase Wasi, a highly respected social commentator, who was asked to lead the National Reform Assembly to gather public views on how reforms should be implemented to overcome social disparities. Implementation plan would be worked out within three years, with an annual budget of THB 200 million. PM Abhisit also appointed Yubol Benjarongkit to set up a panel to kick-start reform of the media. Last but not least, Pol Gen. Vasist Dejkunchorn was invited to chair the panel to restructure the police force.
Do you hear what I hear?
In the belief that public policies should come from the people, not from a few people with their own agenda, PM Abhisit has initiated a number of public hearings in earnest. On Rice Day 5/6/10, farmers were invited to air their views at the government house. In successive events, PM Abhisit extended his invitation to various sectors of the Thai society e.g. NGOs, civic groups, academics, local and international business groups, foreign diplomats, foreign investors, local and foreign mass media, to share and exchange their views with him on national reconciliation and reform issues that were important and of special concern to them.
For six days, the PM, his cabinet members and hundreds of civic minded volunteers took turn to man some 300 telephone lines opened to any callers who wished to air their needs, recommendations and complaints. Most of the issues raised were related to the current economic hardships. Many were to give encouragement to PM Abhisit and his government. As expected, there were earfuls of abuses and insults from those who sympathized with the red shirt movement. Based on the number of calls on the subject, the Ministry of Finance had to set up a special hot line to record problems related to loans in the unorganized market. All input were documented and sorted out for further analysis and solutions under the national reconciliation framework.
CRES’ emergency
The Center for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation CRES has estimated that some THB 30 billion was spent on financing the red shirt movement’s political activities. Some 83 individuals and firms suspected of funding and acting as financial proxies for the red shirts were identified and told to clarify their financial transactions from 9/09 to 5/10 to CRES investigators representing the DSI – Department for Special Investigation, the Revenue Department, the Anti-Money Laundering Office and the Office of the Narcotics Control Board.
Through it all, there were death threats against key government officials and a few bomb explosions at some of the 68 targets identified by the security people. Two red shirts were arrested in Siemreap and sent back to Thailand by the Cambodian government for masterminding the bombing of the Bhumjaithai Party headquarters In spite of private sector’s recommendation to the contrary, the Abhisit government decided to maintain the emergency decree in Bangkok and in 19 provinces in the Northeast and the North as a matter of precaution against threats of another major violent outburst.
All quiet before storm?
In 6/10 Thaksin has kept a low profile and did not call home as was the habit. Instead, his cause was aptly amplified by a team of international lobbyists, led by a Robert Amsterdam who made strategic and systematic attacks on the Abhisit government, accusing them of colluding with the Thai military to violently crack down on the red shirt movement and to permeate a non-democratic government. Throughout 6/10, there was a stream of negative foreign press and TV reports on Thailand. Thaksin’s “hired guns” took actions to discredit the Abhisit administration with the U.N. Human Rights Council, the U.S. congress and the European parliament.
Alas, the Abhisit government was able to contain the damages. UNHRC elected Thailand’s ambassador Sihasak, not only as a member but also as chairman of the council. The US Congress voted 441:4 in favor of PM Abhisit’s national reconciliation roadmap. A Bangkok by-election on 27/7/10 was expected to be a good indication of the snap election, to be called some time next year. It would go to show whether the Puea Thai candidate, a core red shirt leader arrested and jailed for terrorist activities, could win over a Democrat candidate, former deputy minister of foreign affairs responsible for “hunting down” Thaksin as he flew all over the world in his private jet.
A pleasant surprise
Notwithstanding the bloody political mess in 4-5/10, Thailand’s economic resilience has been substantiated once again by the better than expected 5/10 data. Public debt was down to 42% of GDP. And government budget deficit this year was expected to be only 3.5% of GDP. Investment has also picked up, mostly in machinery and equipment to support future export orders, with capacity utilization between 65-70%. Export of farm goods increased 42% yoy. Total export went up to USD 16.44 billion and import USD 14.14 billion. Trade balance was positive again at USD2.3 billion. Current account balance was USD 1.0 billion in the black. Balance of payment however recorded a deficit of USD 989 million. International reserves dipped slightly to USD 143.5 billion.
As at end of 6/10, THB remained firm at THB 32.37 to USD, THB 36.23 to Yen, THB 39.71 to Euro and THB 48.67 to Sterling. In spite of net capital outflows from equities and bonds, the SET ended the month on a firm note at 797. Interest rates remained unchanged. The country’s 2010 GDP forecast was adjusted back to 5 – 6% and inflation to 3.5%. Export for 1-5/10 totaled USD 75 billion, up 34.5% from the same period of last year. The only bad news came from tourism, down by 20.2% in 4/10 and 12.9% in 5/10, with average hotel occupancy rate at only 30%. Arrivals from Asean and East Asia declined the most. Increased political stability was however expected to attract tourists from Europe and North America for the peak season starting in 10/10.
Businessmen’s pitch
To move the country forward, the Thai private sector has come up with their own four pronged economic development plan, to be undertaken jointly by regional chambers of commerce and provincial federations of industries. They would focus on increasing the farmer income, beefing up regional tourism, improving basic infrastructures through reduction of national logistics cost (from 19% to 14% of production cost), and increasing cross border trade, in preparation for Asean Community integration in 2015. The business community in Thailand has come to appreciate the necessity and the urgency of redressing the country’s huge wealth distribution gap.
They have been pitching in with their own contributions in cash and in kinds. They would be coming up with new ideas and recommendations with regard to PM Abhisit’s latest challenge to substantially increase the minimum wages in exchange for tax incentives. While many believed higher minimum wages would give the poor a chance to upgrade their lives and thereby stimulate domestic spending, others cautioned that inflation could soon neutralize the benefits and make Thailand less competitive as an FDI destination. Ultimately mutually acceptable solutions would materialize as Thai society learnt how to constructively work out their differences and share the wealth of their nation more equitably.
* Vongthip Chumpani is an advisor to and former president of Bangkok Bank and a former advisor to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. All views and opinions expressed herein are entirely from her own personal observations.
Cheers Dan,
A little ray of sunshine … It’s good to know that this disgusting hypocrite is confidently proclaiming her usual nonsense in fine hubristic fashion. These days watching Thailand is like watching Nazi Germany circa 1932 … First they came for … Hell I forget. And I guess that’s the point really. What difference will this all make in a few years?
For the last few days I have been driving through the French countryside and, while admiring the bastides and ancien villes of central France what has held my attention are a series of roadside memorials to long dead resistance fighters, or terrorists as they were then known.
Tonight I am writing this in the Walt Disney ancien ville de Carcassonne at the end of a glorious sunny July day. But for the last couple of days I have been traveling south from Normandy with a copy of Antony Beevor’s latest tome. Using it, and a long out of print work, I have been following, or should I say, backtracking the march of the Das Reich Division. For those of your readers who might be curious a quick google of Oradour Sur Glane might be interesting.
How many Oradour’s have the modern Thai military been responsible for in the last, say forty years I wonder? How much enthusiastic state sponsored murder has taken place, and then, with the collaboration of the supine Thai media (Mr. Tulsathit etc.) been conveniently forgotten. Has any Thai officer responsible for mass murder ever been charged, let alone jailed? Forget about the most recent events,wWhat happened to the responsible figures involved in the mass murders of 1992? This of course was only the most recent and public (because they were in Bangkok) of a sequence of heavy handed, murderous suppressions of civilian dissent going back decades … Are the people responsible suffering as they hone their golf handicaps? What a sick, disgusting, servile, sycophantic personality a Thai writer must need to have to find anything redeemable about a government that has just presided over mass murder in the streets … And, for fear of being mistaken for a Thaksin supporter, I must state for the record that I am not confining my remarks to the current government.
I hope you won’t take offence if I say that I am trying to limit my views of your site, and more generally my exposure to Thailand’s current affairs at the moment. Reading the English language media of Thailand causes my blood pressure to rise unhealthily. Compared to the egregious refereeing of the World Cup, the Abhisit-led “reconciliation” might seem reasonable but in the real world it’s so obviously fraudulent that even the pro-market forces Economist feels it necessary to comment. (Congratulations on the news links btw. Still the best on the net in my humble opinion.)
Tonight I think justice was served as in the end as Spain deserved to win … It’s not so easy to pick a side or a just cause in Thailand where all the sides to this conflict are dirty in varying degrees. To my mind there is no justice served by the current victors. And I have my doubts as to whether the current dispensation are the lesser of the evils on offer. Historical counterfactuals are notoriously slippery but should the coup not have happened what would Thailand look like now?
In any case, I am not in any doubt that the current rulers of Thailand, like their recent predecessors, are appalling people. Media manipulation, and the fine words and press releases of the Western friendly photogenic leadership of Abhisit and Korn, have lulled many observers into assuming that the underlying motivations of the seekers and holders of power are noble . But murderers, some with long murderer’s pedigrees, continue to wield unaccountable power without any serious challenge except from other murderers. And properly elected representatives of the current government follow the traditional Thai political process of knowingly cooperating with unelected (and unelectable) powerbrokers who can concentrate the formidable forces of wealth, violence and traditional/non-democratic sources of authority to continue the long tradition of overriding and overawing officials that have merely been elected.
What sort of country can Thailand be when it can only function in the modern world with people like this wielding power? Vongthip, and her ilk, in my opinion, are the most public manifestation of the kind of fascist filth who presume to know what is best for Thailand. It’s important that we hear their siren voices as they call softly but firmly for the maintenance of the status quo. So long as these people are taken seriously, its a fair bet that Thailand will continue to periodically experience the sort of upheavals that we have seen in the last few years.
“Learn to share the wealth more equitably”? Words fail me …
When France was liberated in 1944 it had only been occupied for a brief period of four years. They sheared heads, shot the worst of the traitors and put the rest behind bars where they belonged. It’s one of those rare moments in history when some justice for atrocities against a civilian population was seen to be done. And as the Klaus Barbie trial showed, even in France, where official hands have plenty of blood on them there is no statute of limitations on murder. So even when the law says that you cannot be held accountable for something you do when the “emergency” law is in effect, it’s worth pointing out that should you ever lose power, all bets are off. Reconciliation might not seem such a great idea to the more bloodstained elements of the coalition of forces that supports the Abhisit government. The total annihilation of all potential sources of resistance might make a lot more sense …
Jaded you’re outed as the same cheap hater like them. That’s your solution?
Jaded, as usual, I cannot find any legitimate criticism with reference to her post.
You have, in the past, demonstrated that you are capable of making credible and legitimate criticisms.
But, basically every time Vongthip Newsletter is posted, I can be sure to find your comment going on a rampant orgy of personal attacks and irrelevant ranting. I might as well watch family guy if I want to be entertained by random jokes that do not stick to the plot.
See? You could also use a break Jaded. Enjoy the Calvados!
BangkokDan
Fair comment Leopold. I was ranting. And yes JJ when it comes to certain murdering members of the Thai military I am, as you put it, a hater. It must have been the bottle of Burgundy and the World Cup excitement that provoked me though. It goes without saying that my hatred is directed at those who give the orders to murder. Those who only obey orders are often ill informed and frightened and therefore can hardly be held wholly responsible for their actions in the heat of the moment.
What about the letter then? The idea that Thailand will gradually improve if the same people who have taken control in the last few years are allowed to just continue in power long enough to tweak the system back to a point where politics returns to “normal” is central to this letter and a very attractive one to its prospective audience.
Her last sentence sums up the establishment’s presentation of the current reality:
The tone of this statement is absolute and invites no contradiction. After all what other alternative is there really? Traditional respect for authority and for those with the power, education and the veto over democratic elections, continues to dominate the choices on offer in Thailand. There is no other choice now and the smug, self-satisfied rhetorical flourishes of the apologists for this version of corporate fascism, while they might incite me into ranting a bit, are also a fact of life for the immediate future.
Why should I bother to kick against the pricks (as a countryman of mine once put it). I suppose its a sense of outrage and disgust that inspired me. It’s quite futile though. These people are been given a free hand now to do what they feel is expedient given the nature of the situation. A mixture of carrot and stick is being promoted, and as this has long been the traditional establishment response to popular disturbances, neither the intent of these policies, nor their consequences, are unprecedented. We will hear a great deal about the carrot from people like this creature. And, assuming the attempts to censor the net continue to maintain their standard of crass incompetence we should also be able with a little digging to find plenty of information on how the stick will force those who cannot be encouraged in other ways …
It’s just so predictable what will happen over the next few years. Efforts will be focused on dampening down the opposition to a point where it appears that the desire to have control over their own destiny has faded from the minds of the dissenting population. Eventually the authoritarian element will loosen their controls over politics and society and the slide towards another cycle of Thailand’s stop start modernization process will begin. Unless Thailand wants to become a more sophisticated version of Burma, sooner or later a popular politics is going to return which will once again threaten to disrupt the interests of the privileged classes. And so long as the same insular, authoritarian and occasionally psychopathic personalities retain their hold on power there is only so far that reform and very limited commitment to a redistribution of wealth can go before it becomes a problem for the very people claiming now to be in favour of these ideas. The proposed initiatives expressed here seem to imply that very day serious reform can be delayed is worth the baht invested in spurious subsidies and incentives to the less well off …
So spending money to delay real change or reform seems to represent good value for organizations that are motivated solely by profit according to Vongthip. But given given the late reign circumstances of the moment and the deep pockets of the opposition there is little doubt that this time the cycle back to more popular disturbances and revolt will be a lot quicker than the people who are promoting expenditure to delay reform might believe. The inevitable failure of their attempts to thwart popular politics and impede progress are sickeningly predictable but what the consequences are for Thailand if politics is limited this way are not predictable at all. And when it comes to the question avoided in this letter, the wielding of the metaphorical stick to enforce social and political discipline, one wonders whether a new extremism, at the moment driven underground by the ISOC etc. might appear at a very vulnerable point in Thailand’s development. It all looks under control now but then it would do wouldn’t it.
Vongthip seems in some ways to represent the views of what are sometimes called “rightminded” people. It seems to me that while well intentioned people (who supported the PAD and later the Democrat Party led government) claimed that their efforts were to prevent the creation of a Thaksin dicatatorship they have now fallen into the trap of creating a different but equally disturbing authoritarian Thailand based on existing institutions. Whereas Thaksin’s dictatorship was always a matter of conjecture there can be few illusions now about the disturbing nature of the current dispensation exercising power in Thailand.
These people largely support the status quo in Thailand and as such can be seen as resistant to the idea of significant social or political reform. Some reform is unfortunately necessary in order for them to hold on to their privileges but this is a limited offer only of course … This is their government now. And while the consequences of this regime’s choices are as yet unknown, it’s pure hubris to assume that the so called reconciliation process is likely to succeed nor even indeed to be what it purports to be … Their government now has a relatively free hand and is keen to demonstrate its competence. We’ll see … What future has it really with characteristics like no real popular support, reactionary attitudes amongst prominent leaders including Abhisit’s potential heir Korn, money politics for the moneyed, reliance on force in places where the government’s writ cannot be enforced in any other way, shady political partners with their own potentially subversive agendas, etc. etc. etc. Even in cultural matters it continues to promote a nonsensical version of Thainess that relies on creating an arbitrary version of Thai culture that has no basis in real historical tradition …
I’m just going to stop describing what I think is a train wreck of a government in process … My inclination is to tune out of the inanity of the present and wait until it’s time to tune back in to Thailand’s next political eruption which cannot be that far off in the future.
(BD: You still call that an opposition?)
Yep. As you have deduced correctly Calvados is my favorite digestif. And there is a Norman hole in my stomach to testify, should witnesses not be available, that I have been enjoying the Calvados this evening … again.
So the opposition comment should be responded to.
Actually, I should reiterate that there is no point in opposition except as a kind of customary dissenting that dissociates what will happen next from anything that I might be accused of supporting.
Perhaps the pro-government propaganda is correct and such opposition as might truly exist is biddable. Thaksin’s offer has merely to be countered with a somewhat better option and the situation will be defused. Or at least that seems to be the view as expressed in the letter above.
Whatever …
There really is no opposition now except in the pro-forma sense. This government now has a free hand. My view is that it will fail to sway sufficient people to support its purpose and consolidate its position. That failure will lead inevitably to another cycle of unrest etc.
That’s it really, no point in criticizing the policy. If the people who have formulated it are right and reform can be conveniently bought off then I will be proved absolutely wrong in my analysis and stand convicted of undue pessimism and a defeatist mentality. As there is no significant public entity to voice opposition to the government’s policies (Bangkok by-election notwithstanding) they are being carried out in somewhat of a critical vacuum. I guess we will all have the opportunity to judge their success or failure shortly. Let’s wait and see …
I still stand by my view. But I could, and indeed I well may be, completely and utterly wrong. That won’t make the moral quagmire of Thai political calculation any more attractive to me but it may serve to show that judging the actions of people like Vongthip solely on the basis of their absence of any moral sensibility is both ill considered and unreasonable. We will all see I guess.
BTW … Now writing in Barcelona, Spain which is, as you might imagine, quite a pleasant place to be. Interestingly, Beevor’s book states that the Paris rising against the Germans in 1944 took the Barcelona insurrection of 1936 as its template. In my experience, both French and Spanish (perhaps I should specify Catalan) societies enjoy quite exceptional standards of public service and the wide availability of public resources means that private means are largely reserved for the purposes of luxuriousness. I would say that it is hard to find a higher quality of life, particularly for a working person, anywhere on the planet. Of course, I am sure Scandinavia and perhaps Germany are comparable but the combination of culture, climate and cuisine has left me in awe of what these democracies have achieved. When one considers that Franco’s Spain once mirrored Thailand in backwardness and a tendency to regress through the prison of tradition it really shows what can be achieved in a comparatively short space of time … It’s been over thirty years but the locals haven’t forgotten. All over Barcelona this summer there are large tableaus of life under the dictatorship. Not that anyone over the age of 40 needs any reminding of the stagnation of the society under the dictatorship. It’s my view that Thailand has everything except the political will to bring it rapidly into the developed nation that it should have been long ago. The forces of reaction will resist this though.
Jaded,
Have you read these stories from 1992 Bangkok Post?
http://2bangkok.com/09/1992headlines08.shtml
At one point they commandeered fully packed buses, with some protesters even sitting on the roofs, and charged them at soldiers who, in response, sprayed them with gun fire.
I’m afraid it wasn’t as black and white as you want it to be.
There’s more there:
http://2bangkok.com/09/1992headlines.shtml
It’s very sad reading really. I suppose from the tone of the Post article it might be supposed that a normal aspect of crowd control would be to place fully armed troops on the street in front of a demonstration. Not that I blame the troops in the situation of course. They are as much victims of circumstances beyond their control as the demonstrators. It’s the people who order in the armed troops, along with those on both sides who stage provocations, that I believe are culpable.
I have read a bit about 1992 and it sounds like it was much worse than the recent events but my sense of that tragedy is more of an impression than a measured reponse so I certainly can’t comment on who fired what at where etc. etc. Its not really on topic but if you know any good sources of information I’d be most interested. The sources that I have for 1992 are really my skimming of a couple of books. I attempted to read an academic work called The Funeral Casino a few years ago but it proved too densely packed with information to be easily digested. I also skimmed a Christopher Moore novel that used 1992 as a backdrop. Sometimes fiction seems to be a safer medium for the discussion of some subjects … I haven’t read newspapers from the time, nor have I read anything that had much historical detail on what took place. I would welcome the opportunity to do so as it would be interesting to compare the two events.
Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner live again!
Jaded, I’m not sure the concept of “crowd control” existed in Thailand circa 1992. I’m not sure there were any “international” standards to follow, too.
Thais were on their own.
Some blame Chamlong for the violence, though he was already imprisoned when it broke out. Those who gave orders to the troops were also probably influenced by reports of looting and arson in the city and so had formed a violent image of the demonstrators.
I guess it was a tough choice for all sides, if there was any choice at all, considering the pressure and the circumstances. If it was a choice, they have to live with it, I’m not so quick to judge anymore, I wasn’t there, in front of a bus ramming though police lines.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/186299/political-parties-seek-that-added-intervention
Towards the end of the article there is a report of an interesting, jointly sponsored ceremony at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. I wonder was Vongthip involved? Does anyone know?
I don’t want to anyone to suggest that I would be in favor of limiting the free expression of religious belief. You know, even under emergency law, any group of like minded people is entitled to get together for a religious purposes, and this article mentions ceremonies by political parties also … Nevertheless, when the Internal Security Operations Command, the Thai Bankers’ Association and the Thai Chambers of Commerce organize their own merit making ceremony its seems fair to speculate on why they might want to do that? Any one care to offer a rationale for this expensive and obviously significant alignment of interests? Anyone see a pattern perhaps?
Jaded;
There is no point in ranting about the execrable Vongthip, there really isn’t. She is an excellent example of the kind of mindless jackanapes (definition: ORIGIN early 16th century (originally as Jack Napes): perhaps from a playful name for a tame ape, the initial n- by elision of an ape (compare with newt ), and the final -s as in surnames such as Hobbes: hence applied to a person whose behavior resembled that of an ape) that the Thai propaganda system is intended to produce.
She could no sooner have a thought outside of her pitiable conditioning than she could fly in the air.
Cool my man, this world needs its idiots, if only to serve as a horrible example to the rest of us.
Rich