What Europe Should Know About Thailand
From the outside, this visit may appear to be little more than common diplomacy, but for the Abhisit administration, a week in Brussels represents a vitally important opportunity to procure legitimacy from the European Union.
This article was cross-posted on the Thailand blog.
The Thai charm offensive will no doubt be in full force, and there are few faces more suited for the task than Prime Minister Abhisit, whose Oxford education, kind intelligence, and fluency in the language of peace and reconciliation will provide many European officials with exactly the words they are looking to hear.
However, I urge those delegates who are present for the smiles and handshakes with Mr. Abhisit to not take what he says at face value. For a political leader who has overseen the massacre of close to 90 opposition protesters and the imprisonment of hundreds more, some skepticism is merited. In the pursuit of successful bilateral relationship with the people of Thailand, it is incumbent upon EU representatives to ask Abhisit a few questions.
One question might be why has Thailand continued to uphold a draconian "Emergency Decree" so many months after the protests, when the legislative definition of such powers require that they be temporary and that the very existence of the Thai state be threatened? Last week Amnesty Internationalreleased a statement harshly condemning the Abhisit government on these abuses of emergency law, stating: "The government must end its frequent and abusive resort to emergency legislation that contravenes international human rights law."
Another question might be why has the Thai government not punished, but instead promoted, the military officers alleged to have specifically carried out the killings? General Prayuth Chan-ocha, one of the architects of the military's bloody crackdown on the protesters and a vocal hardliner, has been promoted to head up the military. Lt. General Daphong Rattanasuwan, who is believed to have ordered army snipers to rooftops to fire upon the crowds during the crackdown (including protesters, journalists, and innocent medics seeking sanctuary at a temple), has been promoted along with his wife.
Delegates should ask why has Thailand continued to attack freedom of expression and endanger the lives of journalists, even when the content has nothing to do with the monarchy? Prime Minister Abhisit is likely to give an eloquent speech about post-conflict truth and dialogue during the ASEM Summit, but someone should question why his government has closed more than 100,000 websites and arrested an editor of the news website Prachatai, which the Paris-based NGO Reporters without Borders describes as "unacceptable" and "worthy of a country like Burma."
However the top responsibility for European officials to address in bilateral meetings with Thailand is the status of the investigation into the death of Italian photojournalist Fabio Polenghi, who was killed on May 19, 2010 while covering the Red Shirt street protests after being shot in the stomach. Despite her anguish, Elisabetta Polenghi, sister of Mr. Polenghi, has worked diligently along with local embassy officials to press the Thai authorities for more information and results in the investigation, but their response to this killing of a EU national has been woefully deficient. Ms. Polenghi deserves the full support of EU officials present during this meeting to answer her questions.
Representatives of the European Commission may be aware that the investigations are headed into a dead end and cover up of the April and May violence. Ambassador David Lipman was quoted by the Bangkok Post, "The EU would like to see the Kanit-led [Truth for Reconciliation] panel, the Anand-chaired [National Committee for Reform] committee and the Prawase-led [National Assembly for Reform] commission be able to conduct unfettered their jobs independently and vigorously."
However Kanit Na Nakorn, who is leading the main panel, has already explicitly stated to the press that his investigation will assign no blame and will not lead to any prosecutions, which is by definition a failure on behalf of Thailand in its duty to investigate under the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). That hasn't stopped the government from persecuting the opposition with dubious criminal charges - including a trial of 19 protest leaders on absurd charges of terrorism, blaming them for the deaths of their own compatriots. Already in this trial the defendants have been denied their fundamental right to perform an independent review of evidence when the court rejected a petition for an independent medical and forensic examination of victims' corpses. If the government were so truly interested in discovering the facts, there would be more, not less, access to information and evidence.
Abhisit and his entourage, who came into power on the back of a military coup, have come to Europe to make a calculated gamble: they know that EU officials would prefer to avoid problems in the relationship, and that they need to hear certain promises of reconciliation and eventual elections. We can only hope that EU officials involved in these meetings are sharp enough to see what lies behind Thailand's captivating smiles.
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