New Mandala

A scandal of Olympic proportions has been uncovered. Here is the report from the Times Online:

As they paraded cheerfully into the Bird’s Nest stadium in their brightly coloured cultural costumes, the 56 smiling children were described as coming from China’s 56 ethnic groups.Their different hats, dresses and robes may indeed have represented the diversity of the world’s most populous nation. But an official from the children’s dance troupe revealed yesterday that the youngsters did not.

There were no Uighurs, no Zhuangs, no Huis, no Tujias, no Mongols and definitely no Tibetans. Indeed, in the latest in a series of manipulations that have soured memories of the spectacular opening ceremony, all 56 were revealed to be Han Chinese, who make up more than 90 per cent of the country’s 1.3 billion people.

I’ve been to quite a few ethnic shows in my time, including some in China itself. I’m shocked and appalled to think that some of the performers may not have been the real deal!

The National Thai Studies Centre at the ANU is hosting a discussion on Preah Vihear. Here are the details.

Thailand/Cambodian Border Conflicts: Historical and Contemporary Origins
Thursday, 21 August 2008
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

The seminar will involve short presentations from several speakers on specific aspects of the current border conflicts between the Thai and Cambodian governments, followed by open discussion. The presentations will discuss the historical origins of the current border disputes and their cultural significance. Other speakers will discuss current political events, especially in Thailand, and their relationship to the border disputes.

Speakers: Jane Ferguson, Andrew Walker, Peter Quinn and John Crocker
Venue: Coombs Building Seminar Room B (Arndt Room), The Australian National University

Indeed, it is still not clear what is the root cause of Thailand’s political conflict. Some academics suggest that it is essentially about the royalist establishment’s alarm that Mr Thaksin was building a base of public support to rival that of King Bhumibol. They may fear what will happen when the 80-year-old king’s reign ends. The PAD dresses itself in royal yellow and says it is saving Thailand from Mr Thaksin’s “republicanism”. Such matters cannot be discussed openly in Thailand because of its draconian lèse-majesté laws, which are often abused to sling mud at opponents.

- Extracted from “Run, Thaksin, run”, The Economist, 14 August 2008.

Last week I mentioned a new report that highlights the links between the Burmese jade trade and the Beijing Olympics.  The Kachin News Group has helpfully kept on the story.  They report:

…Kachin jade merchants in Ying Jiang and Ruili (Shweli) in Yunnan, and Guangzhou told KNG [Kachin News Group] today that they believe that the jade in medals of the Beijing Olympic Games are from Phakant in Kachin State in Northern Burma.  It is not true that the Olympic medal jade is from China’s Qinghai province as the Chinese government has claimed.

This is a big claim.  Unfortunately I don’t have the requisite expertise to say (but reasonably good quality pictures of some medal designs are available here and here…perhaps a jade expert among us could offer an informed assessment.  For non-experts, this brief guide to jade identification may also come in handy.)

In my time hanging around the jade industry I have regularly heard disparaging comments about China’s local jade.  Kachin jade traders delight in the exquisite quality of their raw materials and trumpet the unique beauty of the jade mined in northern Burma. 

The Chinese authorities are adamant that jadeite nephrite from Qinghai has been used, and their claims have been accepted by the 08-08-88 for Burma group and All Kachin Student and Youth Union that launched the original Blood Jade report.  That Chinese jade is, in fact, part of the Olympic medals seems highly probable…but is there something more to the claims of the (admittedly anonymous) Kachin jade merchants? [Read more →]

The motivation behind the 2006 coup d’etat can be explained from various perspectives. On the one hand it was simply the military under the command of the then army chief Gen Sonthi Boonyaratglin that staged the coup. On the other hand, the anti-Thaksin movement which emerged from 2005 reveals, at a deeper level, how three major national institutions - nation, religion and monarchy - had conspired together to form the core opposition.

What’s important is that the leader in this campaign to exploit nation, religion and monarchy was media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul, once a friend of Thaksin (The Nation, November 28, 2005: 1A). Sondhi launched an attack on Thaksin after his business suffered severe losses. His friend Viroj Nualkhair (who helped Sondhi resuscitate his business from the debts that followed the 1997 economic crisis) was not offered the chance to renew his contract as CEO of Krung Thai Bank. This also coincided with the removal of Sondhi’s Thailand Weekly television program from Channel 9 (The Nation, November 30 2005: 4A).

Sondhi’s anti-Thaksin movement, which was later joined by people from various other groups including intellectuals, aristocrats, some of the middle-class, members of the Privy Council and some parts of the military, cited issues relating to nation, religion and monarchy to oust Thaksin.

When Sondhi and his allies launched their attacks on Thaksin -whether at gatherings that took place in the auditorium of Thammasat University, Lumpini Park or at Sanam Luang - the slogan ‘save the nation’ was used to justify their political mobilisation. They were convinced that the Thaksin government was responsible for corruption in the purchase of the explosive detection system CTX 9000 and the Russian C 130 aircraft. Even more important was the sale of USD 1.8 billion worth of shares of Shin Corporation by the Shinawatra and Damapong families to the Singaporean state-owned Temasek Holdings on January 24, 2006 (Ukrist, 2007: 108-109). They branded this transaction a sale of national assets since Shin Corporation received access to Thailand’s satellite network. [Read more →]

Robert D. Kaplan is a journalist who loves to take on the over-the-horizon issues that are just starting to be absorbed by popular appetites.  He has the connections, and the time, and the energy to chase down important stories.  And he has decided that future American involvement in Burma is now one of those stories.  Today a New Mandala reader brought his latest piece for The Atlantic Monthly to my attention.

It is based on interviews with four Americans who know mainland Southeast Asia well.  They are assembled in this article to provide perspectives on getting around the “strategic myopia” Kaplan identifies in American Burma policy. These Americans–“The Son of the Blue-eyed Shan”, Tha-U-Wa-A-Pa (“The Father of the White Monkey”), Ta Doe Tee (“The Bull that Swims”) and Colonel Timothy Heinemann (the only player for whom Kaplan offers a real name)–have all clearly earned their stripes.  Those who know the field and the relevant personalities may see through some of these pseudonyms.  There are only so many (or so few) individuals who fit anything like these particular profiles.

For that reason this is an unusual and interesting article.

Kaplan concludes:

In his bunker in the jungle capital of Naypyidaw, Than Shwe sits atop an unsteady and restless cadre of mid-level officers and lower ranks. He may represent the last truly centralized regime in Burma’s postcolonial history. Whether through a peaceful, well-managed transition or through a tumultuous or even anarchic one, the Karens and Shans in the east and the Chins and Arakanese in the west will likely see their power increased in a post-junta Burma. The various natural-gas pipeline agreements will have to be negotiated or renegotiated with the ethnic peoples living in the territories through which the pipelines would pass. The struggle over the Indian Ocean, or at least the eastern part of it, may, alas, come down to who deals more adroitly with the Burmese hill tribes. It is the kind of situation that the American Christian missionaries of yore knew how to handle.

But read the whole thing, and make up your own mind.  Previous New Mandala coverage of related issues is available here, here and here…among other places.

Slightly more than a year ago, on 22 July 2007, Bangkok saw a violent street protest when the United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) protested in front of the compound of General Prem Tinsulanonda, head of the Privy Council. Even today this event is cited as proof of the supposedly uncontrollable violence of Thaksin supporters. Most of the Thai media has reported this event as if enraged protesters attacked police and attempted to storm the compound of General Prem. Most international media were not present, and simply copied their articles from the Thai media. At the time international attention to Thai politics had almost completely vanished. Only Asia Sentinel’s coverage showed a different, and for me far more realistic picture.

The UDD, holding Prem responsible for the military coup, had already once attempted to protest in front of his compound, but were blocked by police. At the next opportunity, however, their strategy was different. At lunchtime 15,000 to 20,000 protesters marched from Sanam Luang. A small group was already diverted on to a different route over Thewet. The main body of protesters reached the first police block on their way to Prem’s compound, but instead of the usual long negotiations they simply used their mass to press through the barricades. Police had to give way, and the protesters used the lorries from the blockade to push through the next police lines.  There was minimal violence, mostly hotheads attacking drivers of those lorries, but fellow protesters quickly stopped this. At about 3 pm the protesters reached Prem’s house, sat down, and listened to speeches from a mobile stage. By that time I had already heard about an order given to police to disperse the protesters. I was also given the possible time. After a break at home I returned to Thewet just in time to see the first police assault against protesters which was successfully fought back. After police retreated, protesters themselves quieted their fellow protesters down, and stopped them from further attacking police.

One of these photos shows protesters standing in front of police, stopping other protesters from hurling stones.

Another photo shows protesters waiing police during the clashes.

After a lull the second police attack began, which was also fought back. Also a third attack started soon after, during which the police were beaten back into Prem’s compound. What was mostly reported as an attack on Prem’s compound, was actually an attempt by protesters to block police from leaving Prem’s compound by building a barricade at the entrance. There was also a small group of police that was left over near the Thewet corner. As these officers did not engage in any further active fighting, they were also left alone by the protesters.

Shortly after, the police staged a fourth attack, preceded by a barrage of tear gas grenades. At that time the protest leaders decided to retreat, and there was no more confrontation.

My guess is that at the time of the street battles there were maybe up to 5000 protesters left, and by the end maybe 2000 who walked back to Sanam Luang.

In the days after, I spoke with many police officers, of both high and low ranks, who took part in the clashes. I also spoke with plain clothes officers who were in the mass of protesters. All officers stated that the decision to attack the protesters came directly from the army. In the opinion of police, violent tactics should not have been used because the UDD protesters would have left anyhow during the night as they did not have sufficient people to continuously block Prem’s compound like the PAD did at Government House before the coup.

In conclusion, this protest, if analysed dispassionately, showed several positive developments. The police did not use lethal force, there were no deaths; there was nobody injured beyond mending. The worst injury was the broken leg of a police officer. The protest leaders mostly controlled the protesters very well, and also managed to stop the protest when it was in danger of descending into further levels of violence. In every modern democracy there are protests, and often violent protests — looking at the recent WTO protests, which are often far more violent. The importance issue is how these protests are dealt with by the government authorities — non-lethal force, or all out confrontation by shooting protesters, as has been done often in Thai history.

Here, police used tear gas, both grenades and pepper spray, batons and makeshift missiles such as bottles and stones (I was nearly hit by a bottle that came flying out of Prem’s compound, and the elderly protester in the photo that is helped up by two fellow protesters was hit by a missile that was thrown out of Prem’s compound), while protesters used whatever came handy - bottles, stones, pieces of wood and iron. In this sense, I would judge the events at Thewet as a clear step forward, even though I am equally of the opinion that violence could have been avoided if the army-installed government had used a softer approach.

Obviously in the aftermath both sides politicised this event tremendously. The very one-sided and partial reporting in the Thai medias stems most definitely from the fact that at the time every Thai news outlet still had military officers as censors in their offices. International media was mostly not present, the few who were there were on the ground only very briefly.

It was about half-past four on a blazing afternoon that I again stood on the fo’c’sle on the look out for the mouth of the Me Nam Chow Phya–the Most Noble Mother of All Waters, she who had poured her mud-stained issue for countless millions of years into the Gulf of Siam.  The hot deck burned through my shoe soles, the air was like a draughtless furnace, the boiled onion smell was mixed with the scent of burning joss sticks; and the distant mangrove swamps were not yet in sight.

The water was getting browner, and ahead there were many acres of grey green seaweed.  Steadily we chugged on through the seaweed at which I glanced at first incuriously–and then was suddenly spellbound.  The seaweed was alive–it was snakes!  Millions and millions of knobbled, writhing, poisonous, useless, green bodies which the ship’s bow wave cut into and rolled over obscenely. 

I see them now, as it were but yesterday, and as though their eyes looked into mine and their million voices said “Death–on our terms–if your ship founders–here.”

- Extracted from S. Conyers-Keynes (1950), A White Man in Thailand, London: Robert Hale, pp.21-22. 

Here he is describing his first entry to the Kingdom of Siam.  Conyers-Keynes lived there during much of the first half of the twentieth century.  As a related point, in Chapter 36 he describes in 1924 “[t]he recognition by other powers that the newly opened aerodrome at Don Muang, just north of Bangkok, was likely to be of world importance” (p.243).  For that reason few of us today have ever entered Thailand via the river route. 

But, of course, if anyone has lurched into Bangkok from the Gulf of Thailand it would be great to hear your story.

If Thaksin and his wife have indeed done a runner, as is looking increasingly likely, it may well be a blessing in disguise for Samak’s government.

Opposition forces in Thailand rely heavily on the imagery of a government that does not control its own destiny. The spectre of the all-powerful puppet-master Thaksin adds great symbolic strength to the opposition’s attacks on the government. And it helps to hide the opposition’s own lack of any coherent political strategy.

But when Thaksin and his wife failed to board their Thai airways flight in Beijing, the Thaksin imagery lost some more of its potency. This may hurt Samak’s ruling party, given that PPP has benefited from electoral good-will toward Thaksin. There may also be some awkward moments as the government has to explain why Thaksin and his wife were allowed to leave the country in the first place, given their uncomfortable legal position.

But Thaksin’s no-show in the Supreme Court could be most costly for the PAD and the Democrats. Running a scare campaign is not so easy when the bogeyman flees with his tail between his legs.

The regime survived 1988 as it had those earlier dangerous moments; now it hopes that the coincidence of the opening of the Beijing Olympics will divert the world’s attention from the 8-8-88 anniversary. But the Burmese people, supported by Burmese demonstrators around the world, won’t let it be forgotten. They know that this is a pathological system which - like that whose collapse was heralded by the fall of the Berlin wall - cannot survive. Democracy is stronger than bullying. Burma’s people are stronger than their rulers. When the next moment in an epic struggle for democracy arrives, the Shiseishii Ayédawpon [the '88 revolution] will be its foundation.

- Extracted from Kyi May Kaung, “Burma: waiting for the dawn“, Open Democracy, 8 August 2008.