THAILAND: ‘King of Commercial Sex’ Puts Premier in Hot Seat

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jul 31 2003 (IPS) - Suddenly, the tough-talking prime minister of Thailand who has won public approval for his high-profile, populist campaigns – including the promise to be a crimebuster – appears to be losing his steely edge.

The reason: an embarrassing flow of accusations about police corruption being made for weeks now by Chuwit Kamolvisit, known here as the ‘king of commercial sex’ for the string of upmarket massage parlours he owns.

This emerging shift in the political fortunes of the premier, Thaksin Shinawatra, has come amid the debate about corruption that has been unfolding in the local media since Jul. 9, when Chuwit went public about the hefty bribes he gave senior police officers to keep his businesses in the flesh trade running.

Thaksin is now in a dilemma, writes Suthichai Yoon, editor of the English-language daily, ‘The Nation,’ in a commentary on Thursday. ”He can’t afford to ignore Chuwit’s allegations, most of which, in the public’s sceptical eye, are highly credible.”

Among the massage parlour tycoon’s recent revelations was the list he has of some 1,000 police officers, including 10 police generals, who he says were on the take. Before that, he claims to have given trays of Rolex watches and paid 287,000 U.S. dollars a month to the police to keep his six massage parlours open.

But Thaksin has thus far evaded attempts by Chuwit to hand the premier this list. ”Thaksin may rankle at the thought of having to act under pressure from a maverick. But footdragging will only undermine his position,” adds Suthichai. ”Nothing short of a national-level inquiry into all levels of police corruption, followed by tough, no-nonsense punitive actions will satisfy the public now.”

That is what independent groups monitoring corruption here, like the Thai chapter of Transparency International (TI), a global network that exposes corrupt practices, are hoping to witness, too.

”The Chuwit case is one way of checking if the government is serious about cracking down on corruption and crime,” Kanokkan Anukansai of TI Thailand told IPS. ”It also serves us in knowing if the judicial system works, and for that the government needs to show its sincerity.”

Kanokkan considers the scale of corruption being highlighted by Chuwit as a ”big scandal” that cannot be easily brushed aside. ”We need to look at what will happen, and if it will result in the reform of the police. Wrongdoers must be punished.”

For the moment, the government keeps saying it will not shy away from this challenge, which also has personal implications for Thaksin, who is himself a former police officer.

”The prime minister believes that bad policemen have to be punished. He wants to see the justice process take over,” Suranand Vejjajiva, spokesman for Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai) Party, told IPS.

”But the public wants things to be done overnight,” he added. ”And we have to try and remain neutral because both parties are dubious and have bad records.”

The verbal assault Chuwit has mounted on the police force – which has transformed him into a national hero for his courage in blowing the whistle on a force that few have dared challenge – comes in the wake of his own transgressions.

He has been charged for ordering the destruction of bars in a popular tourist strip in this city and also for having underage girls working in his massage parlours, which offer men sex.

Yet such details have been sidelined as a result of his exposes. Consequently, Chuwit has succeeded in bring out into the open the hostility the Thai public has towards the national police force for its corrupt practices.

Hardly anyone, on the other hand, has expressed surprise that corruption courses through the veins of Thai life.

In June, for instance, the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) revealed in a study that the Thai police force was the reason why the country’s legal system was deemed the second worst in South-east Asia after Indonesia.

”The failure of successive governments to raise the performance and ethics of the police force has become a national scandal,” PERC noted. ”The police are undereducated and underpaid (and are) a major engine of corruption.”

The breadth of such corruption ranges from the fancy amounts Chuwit has been forking out to substantially smaller amounts the uniformed law enforcement officers squeeze out of street vendors and taxi drivers.

”Every month I have to pay them 8,000 baht (about 185 U.S. dollars) to keep my place open,” a woman who spoke on condition of anonymity said of the bar she runs in Bangkok. ”We cannot do anything, small people like us. The police have all the power.”

Yet victims like this female bar owner hope Thaksin will stamp out police corruption, if only because of the impression he has created since 2001 that he runs an efficient administration aimed at satisfying the public.

This is not only because he declared a ”war on corruption,” but because he has also launched high-profile campaigns such as a ”war on drugs,” a ”war on the mafia” and a ”social order campaign,” which sought to control the nightlife in the country.

”The Thaksin government is different from previous administrations due to the level of commitment in going after crime and corruption,” Kulvadee Chuensiri, a lawyer, told IPS. ”And the government has also shown how good it is at public relations by focusing on corruption, which in Thailand is a major problem.”

In that, there is an element of irony. Chuwit’s use of the media to get public support behind him to taken on the police is the very strategy the premier has used when pursuing his own high-profile campaigns.