POLITICS-THAILAND: A ‘Humane’ Thaksin After a Second Mandate?

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Mar 10 2005 (IPS) - As he began his second term in office, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra displayed a flair for the art of magic by revealing himself in the image of a leader who cares about human rights.

The business tycoon turned politician assured the Thai public in his first speech at a ceremony to mark this historic occasion that he would advance the principles of political and civil liberties during his administration’s second four-year term.

”I will uphold human rights in this country,” Thaksin said on Wednesday night after his post as prime minister was endorsed by this South-east Asian country’s monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

That would mean the government’s willingness to listen to its critics, change the tone of the stormy relationship the Thaksin administration had with the press during its first term and also be more sympathetic to non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

He also singled out the troubling issue of disappearances as an aspect that will receive the government’s attention in its quest to promote human rights and democracy in Thailand.

The new image Thaksin is conjuring seems all the more remarkable in the wake of the unprecedented political power he currently enjoys. His Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai) party became the first in this country’s history to form a government without having to depend on coalitions, when it won 377 seats out of a 500-member parliament at the Feb. 6 general election.

That political triumph bettered an already impressive feat he had achieved at the 2001 general elections, when his party won with a thumping majority that enabled Thaksin to become the first elected prime minister to complete a full term in office.

Wednesday’s ceremony in Bangkok also offered Thaksin another moment in history, since none of the 22 prime ministers before him had enjoyed consecutive terms in office.

Thaksin’s current political standing gives him absolute power, because the opposition in parliament lacks the numbers to bring motions and initiate debates critical of him and his cabinet ministers.

What is more, the image of Thaksin as a human rights champion marks a dramatic shift from the more familiar figure that had evolved during his first term – of a prime minister who had displayed streaks of authoritarianism.

A human rights report released this month by the U.S. State Department conveyed what life was like in Thailand during the past year. The country’s security forces were accused of using ”excessive force” and ”connected to numerous extrajudicial, arbitrary, and unlawful killings,” the report said.

Thaksin’s iron-fisted policy to crush a growing insurgency in the country’s southern provinces, where close to 600 people have been killed since January 2004, was also singled out by the report as contributing to the country’s deteriorating human rights condition.

It added to the troubling developments that Thai human rights groups have highlighted during the previous years. They range from the government’s attempts to silence the critical voices in the press, pressure brought on senior bureaucrats who disagreed with Thaksin’s policies and the administration’s dismissive stance towards NGOs.

The weeks since the February elections saw some of the government’s trenchant critics in the academia speak out against the danger of a more politically powerful Thaksin. They warned the Thai public that the prime minister may prove to be more abusive than one of this country’s notorious military dictators from the 1960s, Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat.

But Thaksin, it appears, wants to prove such critics wrong.

Yet as Thai human rights activists point out, the prime minister’s new image will not be judged by the words that have given rise to it, rather his actions. And already two formidable tests loom in his path: his stance towards the disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit, a human rights lawyer from the country’s Muslim minority, and his position on the three army generals held responsible for the deaths in military custody of 78 Muslim protesters in the south.

This month marks a year since Somchai was abducted in Bangkok. At the time, he had been spearheading efforts to expose the injustice faced by members of Thailand’s Muslim minority in the country’s southern provinces. Among the issues he had highlighted was torture in police custody.

For human rights groups here, Somchai’s disappearance has not only come to symbolise the culture of disappearances that has spread during Thaksin’s first term but also the leniency displayed by Thai authorities towards policemen linked to such disappearances.

A similar tone of leniency was conveyed this week over the three army generals found guilty in the deaths of the Muslim protesters in the southern town of Tak Bai last October. General Prawit Wongsuwan, the army commander, said the generals will not face punishment but be only transferred from their positions in the army hierarchy.

”The statement of the Thai commander-in-chief is offensive. It offends the ideal of equality before the law, and it offends the fundamentals of the rule of law and human rights,” the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission said in a statement released Thursday.

”When large-scale killings under the command of senior officers are treated as mere trifles, the security forces and society alike are sent a message that they live by different standards,” the regional rights lobby added.

These two issues will serve as a benchmark to judge Thaksin’s change of heart about human rights, Sunai Phasuk, the Thai researcher for the global rights lobby Human Rights Watch, told IPS. ”If he is serious, he will have to call for justice.”

The days ahead will be a challenge for Thaksin, added Sunai. ”From now on he will be held accountable to his promises on human rights by Thais and the international community.”

Yet few Thai rights activists are prepared to hazard a guess about the longevity of Thaksin’s new self. The reason: he has the habit of delivering on some of his pledges, such as the programmes in his first term to help the urban and rural poor who voted him back into power.