There has been a studious effort by the State and Defense
Departments to avoid referencing the bloody civil breakdown in
Thailand that has endangered the security of this key ally of
American interests in Southeast Asia. As pockets of armed
resistance continue to be sought out and mopped up in the rural
north, the question exists as to whether the Red Shirt resistance
movement that recently brought thousands of violent demonstrators
into the streets of central Bangkok will regroup once again to
launch another attack on the Thai government.
The Red Shirt movement began among the rural poor — and
urbanized factory workers. There is little doubt that what
originally was a small grass root dissidence eventually was given
direction by the money and organization of Thaksin Shimawatra,
the exiled former prime minister ousted in a 2006 military coup.
Originally convicted on corruption charges, the wealth telecom
mogul, Thaksin, fled to Dubai. He is now wanted under Thailand’s
terrorism statutes and will be sought on international
warrants.
The bloody demonstrations led by the
Thaksin-financed “United Front for
Democracy Against Dictatorship” held on to 740 acres of
downtown Bangkok for six weeks and sporadically brought violent
protests elsewhere in the city for at least a month earlier.
Finally wearying of dealing with the defiance of the
Thaksin-encouraged activists, the Thai army and special riot
police attacked the demonstrators’ barricades and cleared the
city center. Estimates vary, but 82-85 protestors died in the two
months of fighting, fourteen of whom fell at the time of the
government assault. The military and police forces announced
eleven dead on their side over the sixty-day period. Hundreds
were wounded and injured in total on both sides.
To a hardened world this may seem a low number of
casualties for such a lengthy confrontation, but this must be
viewed in the context of the turmoil and anti-government clashes
that have been going on for the last several years. This occasion
brought on the torching of the stock exchange, the country’s
largest shopping mall, and stores and cinemas in Bangkok’s main
commercial district. Unlike in the past, King Bhumibol Adulyadej,
82 years old and ill, has not been able to act as Thailand’s
unifying and peace-preserving figure.
There are two elements that have held together Thailand’s
form of government that they like to refer to as their unique
democracy. The first element is the armed forces in its several
forms — and the second is the king and the institution of the
monarchy. For the most part the two have been well linked in the
past to preserve the peace and prosperity that has come over the
years to this nation. Democracy is seen as following from that
linkage.
There has been a political consensus formed around the
monarchy and its role as patron protector of Thailand’s
democratic governance. This conservative anchor was not only
important for the nation itself, but it provided a strong
pro-western national structure on which the United States and its
regional partners could count. From a military standpoint
Thailand has acted as a bulwark against communist expansion in
general and Chinese growth of power in Southeast Asia in
particular.
Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, the king’s heir, however,
does not have a popular following nor is Thailand an acquiescent
society desirous of a monarchy continuing to act as national
arbiter and source of crises resolution. The concept of the
monarchy may still be enjoyed, but a king backed by his army is
not the republican form of government that most observers believe
modern Thailand now seeks.
Thailand is now divided socio-economically between the
generally well-off royalist class and the large body of
farmer/worker political groupings. The latter may respect their
old king but no longer have a sense of depending on the throne
and its traditional elites to guide them. The old structure is
definitely being challenged.
The United States under many administrations has accepted
the effective military/monarchy partnership as essential to the
maintenance of the Thai form of democracy. Washington may have to
accept an altered construct in the future in order to insure
Thailand’s continued strategic alignment.
This power shift in Thailand is a major factor in Southeast
Asian affairs even if the myopic White House is unable or
unwilling to recognize this fact. The impression is given that
the Administration simply wishes these nettlesome issues, such as
those in Thailand, Philippines, and even the ever-belligerent
North Korea, would just go away so that Washington’s inner circle
can concentrate on perpetuating their own self-perceived
monarchy.
