At about 9:30pm, September 19, 2006, local time, in Bangkok, Thailand, a bloodless military coup led by General Sonthi Boonyaratglin overthrew the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was out of country in New York attending a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. Below are the decidedly opinionated thoughts of a Westerner who's lived in Thailand for more than 25 years. In short, he details the consequences of absolute power and corruption, attained through entirely legal means, when one political party is able to control all facets of government.Thailand before Thaksin
Thaksin has destroyed Thailand. Fascism in the name of progress. What we see now is a ghost, or just a shell, of what Thailand was 10 years ago. Thaksin's form of democracy made democracy into a terrible thing; absolute power corrupts absolutely. There was no real democracy at all, the 'landslide' votes were generated by a fantastically well financed and organized roots level money distribution and propaganda machine.
It's been said that the coup, and the lead up to it, were financed by the alcohol and tobacco industries. Of course they were just an example of those who were opposed to Thaksin's political party, Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais). BUT the sheer amounts of corruption by TRT, and the amount of uncontestable control mongering, became simply astounding, overwhelming, and impossible to ignore. I'm talking about the sheer amounts of money generated, and accrued, by the fellow school classmates of Thaksin, his cabinet members, the TRT party heads, Thaksin's family, and the Thai/Chinese community in general, it is completely beyond belief, and actually had become illegal to question. The rich got so rich that they could pay the poor to vote for them and carry their flag. It was just that simple.
These guys that pulled the transition: They knew what they were doing, they knew who would support them, and it seems they realized how to do it in the least harmful way. They did their homework and the timing was perfect. There is huge public support at the moment.
I hope the Thaksin years will become a distant reminder of how someone can corruptively control not just government, but basically everything, to generate even more wealth and power... if he has enough money to pay for it. It's an old story throughout history of course. This time it's our legacy to repair.
I admire the people that finally stood up to say, "I've had enough and I can't take it any more!" A totally corrupt democracy is not a democracy at all. If someone has anything to say about that, I will just say that you haven't lived here in Prathet Thai long enough to know what you are talking about. Thailand WILL become a better place. Mark my words. Fear not, the road to true democracy has begun.
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The cost of each one of Thaksin's policies was too high, by anyone's standard. The hard core policeman in him discounted the collateral damage as always 'acceptable', no matter what was lost. Damn the torpedos full speed ahead.
Most of the people that lost their lives in the extra judicial ya-ba (methamphetamine) murders were innocent family members, usually just bystanders when an informant (on a policeman in most cases) was violently terminated. Himself a policeman with a terrible agenda, again, not at all a man with a good idea.
Look, Thaksin created a regime. It was not a democracy in any way shape or form. Even the electorial commitee members were corrupted Thaksin supporters. Hello? They're now in jail!
How does the guy say to everyone in the country, including tourists and foreign workers, that they MUST pay their taxes, VAT, income, or whatever; then uses a self manipulated loophole to escape paying taxes on a US$2 billion deal (about 1% of Thailand's GNP)?
The hospital system is on its way to a debt ridden nightmare, the 'Gold Card' system in itself should have been enough to indict Thaksin as a corrupt charlatan, the Thai people will be paying for that boondoggle for 40 years. Again, not a man with a good idea, just a manipulating bastard that couldn't care less about what damage was coming in the future, after he had long exited the scene.
The hand of power acted as emperor, not Prime Minister. What you think of as Internet service, what you think of as telephone service, what you think of as television service, Thaksin created an intense level of uselessness. If you want it to work, you just pay me, Thaksin's motto. Mafia. Yep, sounds like a mafia to me. And, there was absolutely no responsiblity when the shifty-shafter finally got busted and was told to step down.
Yeah, the educated Thais hated this guy's lying guts. 'Sherriff of Nottingham' comes to mind. Don't fall for the surface rhetoric, all lies. "Watch me pull a rabbit out my hat, as I steal your wallet, or your LIFE." In the end, the guy was just another low life corrupt Chiang Mai cop.
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Right now the world is being hammered with sensationalistic crap about the coup d'etat in Thailand.
We, with our feet on the ground here in Thailand, see many positives from this thing, and the negatives represent a very short list (and even that can only be found on a longtail headed out fast somewhere south of Klong Toey.)
The International community believes that the recipe for goodness and democracy is inherently everywhere, we in Thailand know that this is not true here at all. The coup, and the way that it happened, was a must do, it HAD to be done. Thaksin was never going to step down and the TRT was going to win any and every election, any time, and anywhere. Because of the depth of corruption, it could never lose.
Thinking again, a thousand pardons, some history...
Chiang Mai, as a city, has been in place for 800 years, the roads and streets are the exact same ones where elephants, rickshaws, and hand carts lasted for LOTS AND LOTS of hundreds of years. They have gone through a ton of stuff (Wars, occupations, brutal sieges & attacks, it was its own autonomous kingdom for centuries) and it has always survived in one way or another. For all of WWII the Japanese demanded it to be subservient and on its knees, and it was, or was it? There was always somebody screwing somebody on every level to get whatever it was that was needed or had to be done. Fast forward, now, the idea of democracy: Democracy is essentially a very NEW THING there in Chiang Mai. Even Thaksin learned his craft from the history of all of back stabbing and warring between kingdoms & peoples, and how insanely strong you have to be to survive, not to mention make it to the top. This was the Chiang Mai/Thaksin history and culture, and democracy was NOT IN THE EQUATION. Pure and simple.
Now;
This is going to sound like a really stupid question, but here goes anyway. This is an honest question, not tongue in cheek or anything else. I know this needs a new thread and is totally boring, but that's the point and here we are:
How and where do you begin to make 'democracy' work in Thailand?
Here in Thailand, or anywhere else, I believe that democracy has to stem from educated choices. Educated choices means access to non-dogmatic and truthful information so the voter can make a solid choice of what is best for him/her. How do you make a poor lowly educated Thai voter understand that the election is not about 'A nice Isaan dinner party, 400 Baht in a red envelope, and neung Saeng Som quat yai free to take home.' How do you convince them that it is not the way to choose your vote?
Quickly and off the top, I would say:
=Start with the schools, the teachers in the schools, the universities where the teachers get their degrees.
=Take TV out the hands of the military, create more TV channels & radio stations and mandate more educational and/or quality programming instead of low brow confrontational garbage.
=Create non profit (yeah right) programs that give truthful information to the public for free,
Add to this, please, I know everybody here has solid ideas. Our experienced Thai people on the board especially. How do you make democracy work in Thailand?
Thaksin is a product of his time and environment, his evildoings are just the way they got things done. He probably doen't even think he did anything wrong. Real democracy must be out there somewhere, how to start?
'Old and in the way' in Phuket
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