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 The unrest that has brought the capital to the brink of
catastrophe this week has laid bare a societal schism pitting the
majority rural poor against an urban-based elite establishment. It
is a divide that has led to upheaval several times in recent years,
sometimes death, even though the man at the center of it, former
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has not set foot in Thailand
since 2008.
Thaksin is despised by millions who consider him to be a corrupt
threat to the traditional status quo, but supported by millions more
who welcome the populist policies that benefit them.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin's sister, helped set the
stage for Thailand's latest protests by backing an amnesty bill that
would have wiped out a corruption conviction that keeps Thaksin in
self-imposed exile. Now his longtime political foes are trying to
use that public anger to seize control.
Suthep Thaugsuban, an opposition politician who resigned from
Parliament to lead the protests, says he won't stop until power is
"in the people's hands," but his plan sounds anything but
democratic. He's calling for an unelected "people's council" to
replace a government that won a landslide victory at the polls just
two years ago.
And the way his supporters have gone about it has not been entirely
peaceful. They have called for Yingluck's overthrow from the
occupied halls of seized government offices. They burst through the
gates of Thailand's army headquarters and urged the military to
"take a stand." And since the weekend, they have tried to battle
their way into the prime minister's office with slingshots and
burning Molotov cocktails, and threatened to overrun television
stations that do not broadcast their message.
Thailand has endured 18 successful or attempted military coups since
the 1930s, but so far the army has remained neutral.
Yingluck said Monday she will do everything she can "to bring peace
back to the Thai people," but said there is no way the government
could meet Suthep's demand under the constitution. Suthep has said
Yingluck's resignation and new elections would not be enough.
Thitinan Pondsudhirak, director of Chulalongkorn's Institute of
Security and International Studies, said the two sides "believe in
different versions of democracy."
"It is a fight for the soul of the nation, for the future of the
country," he said. One side wants "to be heard" while the protesters
"want the kind of legitimacy that stems from moral authority. Their
feeling is ... if the elected majority represents the will of the
corrupt, it's not going to work."
The unrest already may have weakened Southeast Asia's second-largest
economy. Thailand is a lucrative manufacturing hub whose factories
produce everything from computer hard drives to cars that feed a
global supply chain. The country is one of the world's leading rice
exporters. Its sapphire-blue water beaches are among the world's
most popular tourist destinations, but the government has said
protests are driving tourists away.
The latest unrest began last month, after Yingluck's ruling Pheu
Thai Party tried to ram the controversial amnesty bill through. Even
many traditional Thaksin supporters disliked it because it also
would have pardoned top opposition leaders.
The bill failed to pass Parliament's upper house, and emboldened
protesters drew 100,000 people to a mass rally in Bangkok on Nov.
24. Over the week that followed, demonstrators seized the Finance
Ministry and part of a sprawling government office complex that
includes the Constitutional Court. They also massed outside half a
dozen other government ministries, taking over offices and prompting
the evacuation of civil servants — some of whom had eagerly waved
them inside.
The conflict escalated dramatically this weekend, and blood spilled
for the first time. At least three people were killed when
anti-government demonstrators clashed with pro-Thaksin "red shirt"
activists near a stadium where a pro-government rally was being
held.
Outside Yingluck's office at the now heavily fortified Government
House, masked mobs launched repeated bids to storm rings of concrete
barriers. The police used force there for the first time, unleashing
volleys of rubber bullets and tear gas.
The protests have failed to dislodge the government so far, but it
remains possible that Thailand's history will repeat itself.
The army deposed Thaksin in a 2006 coup. Controversial court rulings
that critics labeled "judicial coups" forced the resignation of two
Thaksin-allied prime ministers who followed. One of them was
Thaksin's brother-in-law, who saw his own office at Government House
occupied by protesters for three months in 2008.
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The opposition Democrat Party took over, and in 2009, pro-Thaksin
protesters overran a regional summit, forcing heads of state to be
hastily evacuated by helicopter from a hotel rooftop. The next year,
red shirts occupied Bangkok's glitziest shopping district for weeks
in a standoff that ended with parts of the city in flames. More than
90 people died, many of them protesters gunned down in an army
crackdown ordered by Suthep, who was deputy prime minister at the
time.
The Democrats, who have not won a national election in more than 20
years, were soundly beaten by Pheu Thai and Yingluck in 2011.
Protesters claim her ascent was only made possible with Thaksin
money.
"You can't call this a democracy," said Sombat Benjasirimongkol, a
demonstrator who stood outside a police compound this week. "This
government is a dictatorship that came to power by buying votes.
Yingluck's supporters are poor. They are uneducated. And they are
easily bought."
Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an associate professor at Kyoto University's
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, said such claims form a pretext
that Thaksin's opponents are using in an attempt to seize power.
The anti-government protest movement is simply "a minority that is
refusing to play the game of electoral politics. They cannot compete
with Thaksin, they cannot win elections. So they come up with this
discourse of village people being so uneducated they don't know how
to vote," Pavin said. "But the reality is, these people (Thaksin
supporters) are not stupid. They are politically conscious. They
have become awakened."
Even if the Shinawatra clan can claim electoral legitimacy, the
conflict between the two sides is not black and white.
Thaksin, a billionaire who made his fortune in telecommunications
during Thailand's late 80s-early 90s boom years, was accused of
manipulating government policies to benefit his business empire. His
critics charged he was arrogant and intolerant of the press; at one
point he went so far as to have cronies try to buy controlling
shares in two influential daily newspapers that had criticized him.
During his five years in office, Thaksin also came under fire for
ham-fisted handling of a Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand, and
a particularly brutal "war on drugs" that left 2,300 people dead in
2003. Human rights groups complained police were turned loose to
kill drug dealers and users at will.
Nevertheless, Thaksin remains hugely popular in Thailand's rural
north and northeast and among many of Bangkok's working class for
populist polices including subsidized housing and nearly free health
care.
Opponents dismiss Yingluck as Thaksin's puppet, though for most of
her administration she has trod a more careful path than her
brother, building a fragile detente with the army and managing to
keep a lid on the nation's divisions. But she was damaged by the
amnesty bill, by a court ruling rejecting her party's attempts to
boost its power in the Senate, and by controversial policies
including a rice-buying scheme that the International Monetary Fund
has criticized.
Suthep told The Associated Press recently that his supporters "feel
that if the country continues on this path, it will fall into
pieces. ... So they come out today to fight for their country and
for their children's future."
But Suthep's tactics and his demands have riled even some of his own
backers. Democrat lawmaker Korn Chatikavanij, a former finance
minister, asked last week: "How will this so-called 'people's
government' happen? I still can't quite imagine."
Thailand's political tensions have played out against a backdrop
over fears about the future of its monarchy. Thaksin's critics have
accused him of disrespecting ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej and
trying to gain influence with Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, the
heir to the throne.
Many hope the conflict will ease Thursday, when Bhumibol turns 86.
The fear is that any peace will only be temporary.
[Associated
Press; TODD PITMAN]
Copyright 2013 The Associated
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