The Thin Line of Military Rule

It didn't take long for protests to form and test the limits of marshal law. The golden object at center on the top of Democracy Monument is a representation of Thailand's constitution. Protesters are particularly angry that the 1997 constitution was thrown out. Bangkok - 2006.

In the days and weeks following September 19, 2006, when the military deposed controversial Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, there was a palpable sense of celebration in Bangkok.

Prior to the coup the country had been locked in a dangerous stalemate; many urban middle-class citizens despised the Prime Minister, yet he commanded enough support in the rural areas to remain in office.

Most analysts worried that the political divide, aggravated by Thaksin’s failure to either step-down or negotiate with the mounting opposition, would not just keep the country trapped in political limbo but would lead to serious and bloody clashes in the streets.

When General Sonthi Boonyaratglin’s tanks forced Thaksin from power many people celebrated because they felt that the stalemate had been broken without bloodshed, and were hopeful that the political crisis was over.

Thailand was in its coup d’etat honeymoon period.

Now that two months have passed, the optimistic honeymoon period is now giving way to a much more cynical mood.

The removal of the stalemate by military muscle has revealed itself to be a temporary solution. The “unprecedented divisions in society” that the Junta cited as their rationale for moving against the government may not be so easily healed.

Worse yet, the Junta’s foray into the political arena has created a host of new problems. In order to seize power the military trespassed upon democratic terrain, declared martial law, banned political gatherings, severely censored the media, and dissolved the popular 1997 constitution.

Removing Thaksin might have been popular at first, but once people realised that the “bloodless” coup d’etat had also delivered a serious blow to civil society and democracy, the political price of the coup increased dramatically.

The coup has also raised uncomfortable memories of military rule.

In the years 1971, 1973, and 1991 Thailand experienced violent struggles between supporters of civilian democratic rule and the military.

Those violent struggles have shaped Thailand’s political arena significantly. Clearly attempting to distance themselves from that history, one of the first statements made by the Junta (re-branded the Council for National Security), was that they would install an interim civilian government and hold elections within a year.

The appointment of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont and his quasi-civilian government was seen as a good start, but one might argue that it is merely a token nod towards democracy.

The Junta has still reserved the right to dismiss the new government if they choose, so clearly power remains firmly in the military’s hands.

Anti-coup sentiment is already starting to appear on the streets of Bangkok.

The first act of direct defiance against martial law saw about 300 protesters gather around Democracy Monument to demand elections and the reinstatement of the 1997 constitution.

It was a cautious baby step as far as public dissent goes, but an important one nonetheless.

The huge anti-Thaksin protests that had rumbled around the capital before the coup might begin to trade in their old placards for anti-coup placards and return to the streets.

If this happens, the Junta will be faced with a damned if they do, damned if they don’t scenario. If they end martial law and allow protestors to gather, the numbers could swell into a dangerous challenge to the Junta’s authority.

If they quash the budding movement they will trigger historical comparisons to the brutal military regimes of the past.

There is one situation that the Junta could capitalize upon in order to retain public support. This revolves around their dramatic policy u-turn vis-a-vis the insurgency-racked Southern provinces.

Unlike Thaksin’s violent and wholly incompetent track record in the South, the Junta has pulled back the stick and extended an olive branch.

This should not come as a real surprise since General Sonthi was, before seizing power, the military commander in charge of pacifying the uprising.

He had also publicly quarrelled with Thaksin’s strategy but was bound by hierarchy to submit to the Prime Minister’s authority.

Now that Sonthi is in charge he might just be in a position to alter the course of the rebellion. This would be a monumental undertaking, however, since Thaksin’s antagonistic failures did not simply produce sympathy for the separatists, but has opened the door for real Islamic extremists, who may be intent on declaring jihad.

Despite the changing mood, the Junta might still survive their brief tenure with some popularity intact, but they are on very perilous ground.

If they can resuscitate the basic rights of the citizens, restore democracy, avoid negative historical comparisons with past military regimes, weather the challenges from civil society, and make positive changes in the increasingly bleak Southern rebellion, then they could earn a novel place in Thai political history.

But their chances for success are extremely low and there seem to be a number of pivotal forks in the road.

If, for example, the “unprecedented divisions in society” have not been healed after a year of military rule, would the Junta postpone elections? If such a delay did take place, or if any other hurdle scuttles the Junta’s exit plan, then the Junta’s reputation and governing term might quickly transform into a dictatorship.

As the Thai people are well-aware, such a dictatorship might have much darker prospects than Thaksin’s controversial tenure.

The ‘Thai body’ and its Periphery

Burmese citizens, huddled together on a rubber inner tube, illegally crossing the Moei River that separates Thailand from Burma. Mai Sot, Thailand/Myawadi, Burma - 2005.

At 8 am and 6 pm the national anthem can be heard across Thailand.

In schools children sing it, television and radio stations dutifully broadcast it, loud speakers mounted upon telephone poles in cities and villages cackle with it, and everyone within the state – even at its very edges and whether citizen or not – are expected to stop what they are doing, stand-up, and wait respectfully until the song ends.

Thailand is the unity of Thai blood and body.
The whole country belongs to the Thai people, maintaining thus far for the Thai.
All Thais intend to unite together.
Thais love peace but do not fear to fight.
They will never let anyone threaten their independence.
They will sacrifice every drop of their blood to contribute to the nation.
They will sacrifice every drop of their blood to contribute to the nation.
CHAI YO. [Cheers].

The national anthem, like the border containing the state, is a work of political fiction.

If Thailand was indeed ‘the unity of Thai blood’ with the territorial body of the state then the space created – the political state of Thailand – would be an exclusive space for ethnic Thais.

While circumnavigate the Thai border, the territorial edge of the ‘Thai body’, it is not the lack of actual ethnic Thais that is most striking but the range of ethnic diversity that is most striking.

The periphery of the state is characterized by ethnic diversity that is manifest in contested territory, contested identities, and contested politics.

The circumference of the ‘Thai body’ has very little in common with the narrow nationalist identity espoused by the state.

Yet it is not that the Thai state is particularly at fault.

The ethnic nationalism that causes alienation in peripheral communities is a by-product of the global system of demarcated nation-states.

To understand how embedded the paradigm of the demarcated nation-state is one simply has to think of one global institution – the United Nations. The Thai state is simply exercising spatial governance, with nationalism as a tool of state-craft, in a reflection of the international system of 'nations'.

The real fault is, of course, the irrational concept of a border coupled with the fiction of a nation.

A border demands that a singular polity exercises absolute sovereignty over a specifically finite space.

At the sharp edge of sovereign space another polity becomes the absolute sovereign.

The concept may not seem irrational if the border was only to contain finite geographic space but the border contains heterogeneous humanity that becomes subject to the homogeneous identity projected by a ‘nation-state’.

Majority identity (in this case ‘Thai’) vs. minorities issues are implicit in the creation of a nation-state.

To have a demonstration of Thai nationalism stressing identity singularity we can again return to the border and the national anthem.

Physically crossing over the sharp division from Burma, Cambodia, Malaysia, or Lao is to instantly be disciplined into Thai political space.

The flow of ethnic/religious/cultural/political diversity that flows over the border stops at 8am and 6pm to observe the political ritual of the national anthem.

For the average visitor the anthem might be an inconsequential event.

But for the residents of the periphery, those that are not Thai but live within the political ‘Thai body’ they are told twice daily that the land they occupy ‘belongs to the Thai people’ and not them.

Coup d'etat or Revolution?

Combat troops deployed to guard against a possible counter-coup at Democracy Monument. Bangkok - September 20, 2006.

On September 19th the Thai military, lead by General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, removed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from power.

The event was quickly labelled a coup d’etat and the international community – particularly Western states – condemned it and lamented the break down of democratic principles.

The view from the streets of Bangkok has been rather different.

The word revolution (ปฏิวัต) has been used to describe the recent events and scenes of citizens giving flowers to soldiers seem to support the idea of a popular movement against an unpopular government.

The difficulty is that ‘coup d’etat’ and ‘revolution’ are not interchangeable terms and each describes very different events.

The expression coup d’etat carries with it ideas of ruthless tyrants vandalizing democratic ideals in bloody street clashes.

Revolution, on the other had, conjures images of a people’s power movement breaking free from the iron grip of a brutal and unjust dictatorship.

If the terms coup d’etat and revolution have both been used to describe the toppling of Thaksin’s government then Thailand’s political crisis might be best understood as being a combination of both.

Was it a Coup?

The short answer is clearly ‘yes’ but the long answer is ‘yes, but…’.

Tanks did roll, combat troops were deployed, and Thaksin was overthrown by General Sonthi – that is a fact.

Yet the long answer would have to question Thaksin’s corrosive effect on democracy and the consequences of allowing him to remain in power.

Thaksin’s rise to power in 2001 as a populist billionaire was indeed a happier time in Thai democracy.

Sure, the Thai political arena is known to creatively bend the rules which results in vast sums of money exchanging hands, positions of power being doled out to cronies or family members, and blood is often spilled but there certainly are recognizable democratic traits.

At the poll booths citizens are free to choose who they like and the election process is perceived internationally as free and fair.

As Thaksin’s political problems began to mount the rules of democracy declined.

Libel suits launched by Thaksin against the media and private individuals became commonplace.

Yes, the media was free to say what they wanted but most could simply not afford it. Thaksin’s gang of lawyers had forced the media to ‘self censor’ to avoid costly and time consuming legal battles.

Thaksin had also dismantled the foundations of Thailand’s democratic institutions. The ranks of the judiciary, the Senate, and the now disgraced Election Commission were all swollen with Thaksin’s friends and family.

The most recent snap election that Thaksin called to defuse the myriad of calls for him to step down resulted in a boycotted single-party election, massive claims of fraud, a rare intervention by the king, the election’s subsequent annulment, and finally the jailing of pro-Thaksin Election Commission officials for malfeasance.

Thaksin’s stubborn grip on power had simply destroyed the democratic process.

Was it a Revolution then?

Maybe not a textbook revolution but there has been widespread public support.

The tanks forming road blocks around the seat of political power, Government House, have been covered in flowers in a spontaneous gesture by the residents of Bangkok.

The military has reciprocated with its own symbolic gesture of alliance to the people. Although the troops are combat ready, most have removed their ammunition clips from their rifles.

Yes, they are armed, but not armed against the people.

The justification for seizing power, as claimed by the military’s new Committee for Democratic Reform, was based upon welfare of the people.

Speculation that the highly polarized political crisis would lead to violent clashes was not just speculation but the public was resigned to the inevitability of violence.

Violent incidents between pro and anti-Thaksin camps were growing in frequency and in brutality in the weeks before military take over.

A large anti-Thaksin protest by the People’s Alliance for Democracy that was scheduled to take place if the military intervention had not happened had the very real possibility of massive bloodshed.

Rumours were circulating that a well armed division of Forestry Police were being transported to Bangkok put down the protest.

Because widespread violence was expected the military claims they were duty bound to intervene.

The highly influential retired General, Prem Tinsulanonda, just over a month before the military action, gave a speech to cadets telling them that the loyalty of the military is to the king first, the citizens next, and the government trailing behind in a distant third.

It seems as though Prem’s words were not just hollow rhetoric but a strategic declaration of military alignment with the growing number of dissatisfied citizens.

A final, and extremely important, indication that the military action was on behalf of the people was the action’s royal approval. It is well known in Thailand that the King’s approval can legitimize or topple a government.

During the last major conflict that brought soldiers onto the streets, in 1991, the King intervened with some ‘words of advice’ and diffused a violent power struggle.

It was vitally important for the military leaders to have royal approval but, more revealing, is that royal approval would not likely have been granted if the overthrow of the government wasn’t in the people’s best interest.

During the first week of military rule there has been a palpable sense of revolution on the Bangkok streets.

The challenge is now for the military to maintain that feeling of revolution. Yet to maintain the revolutionary goodwill it will require the military to step down and return the political realm to civilian control.

If the feeling of revolution is lost then a true textbook coup d’etat has taken place and an era of military rule, an era of dictatorship, has began.

Breaking the Horizontal Link

If the link between religious/ethnic groups in the Southern communities is broken then the conflict may become intractable. Muslim and Buddhist girls attending a festival. Pattani - 2006

The situation in Thailand’s far South, in its modern phase, is beginning to resemble many other intractable conflicts over territory that exist all around Southeast Asia and the World.

The argument that I have outlined, in previous posts, is that the fuel that feeds the conflict has little, if anything, to do with a conflict between opposing faiths or cultures.

The problem is fuelled by the application of modern territorial governance, the use of religion to legitimise government, the connection between militarization and the insecurity industry, and exacerbated by the incompetence of Prime Minister Thaksin.

To conceptualise the dynamics of the conflict, as explained by Dr. Chaiwat Satha-Anand of Thammasat University, it is necessary to distinguish both a horizontal and a vertical dimension.

On the horizontal plane is the community.

The South has long been a multicultural region and religious/ethnic conflict is rare, if not absent.

To understand a contested territory as implicitly peaceful may seem contradictory to reality yet that is precisely the situation.

It is not just the residents that claim a strong sense of peace in their community but it should also be considered the logical reality.

For the residents of the South to be locked into religious or ethnic conflict would contradict the reality of a community that has had countless generations living and evolving in a distinctively multicultural space.

The key feature of Southern Thailand is that it has its own unique culture that can be defined as specifically multicultural.

The vertical plane is where the Southern communities interact with the state and that is the source of mistrust, anger, and ultimately of violence.

The Thai state, emulating a homogenous nation-state, promotes a highly unrealistic ethno-religious nationalism that demands that its citizens be both ethnic Thai and Buddhist.

Instances of practiced nationalism, such as the flag raising ceremony, are also mirrored by the hiring of Thai-Buddhists in civil service and military, access to political power, business loans, etc.

The cumulative result is a sense of alienation by those who do not fit the Thai-Buddhist mould.

Such alienation is manifest in the militant’s preference for attacking symbols of the state - police, army, and government buildings.

The future of the conflict has the potential for a much greater escalation of violence.

The community link, the horizontal connection of peace and tolerance existing between religious/ethnic groups in the South, is showing signs of weakening.

The government’s continually misguided and draconian tactics have opened the door for extremists to enter into the conflict.

The growing number of bombings, shootings, and brutal beheadings that have specifically targeted ethnic/religious groups may have the ability to break the horizontal link that binds the Southern communities together.

If the horizontal link is broken the conflict will enter a new stage in which violence will not be confined between the state and militants but could be unleashed across religious/ethnic differences.

The Apocryphal 'Nation-State'

By disciplining non-state 'others' the Thai state exercises its existence. Burmese migrants being deported back to Myawadi, Burma - 2005.

“States attempt, physically and discursively, to marginalize or destroy various aspects of centrifugal otherness: ethnic solidarities, reasserted nationalisms, indigenous movements, and draft resistances, all dissonant elements proclaiming the tenuous hold of states over territories and identities”

Thailand is not a nation-state yet it is striving to become one.

In a complex process of ethnic competition and state formation a myth has been nurtured that Thailand is built around a nation of ‘Thais’.

By adopting the Westphalian model of a nation-state, Thailand has conformed to the logic of the international system at the expense of ethnic diversity within its borders.

To become a nation-state the dominant state sanctioned identity, the Thais, have had to internally colonize their territory by subjugating minority identities to create and perpetuate not only the political state but the very definition of Thai identity.

The process of Thailand’s self-colonization has striking similarities to the theoretical foundations of Europe’s colonial adventures.

As Siamese (Thai) identity was transforming under pressure from the arrival of Europeans it was placed in comparison to the state’s own subaltern identities.

Siamese comparisons followed the intellectual fault identified by Palestinian academic Edward Said in his seminal work; Orientalism.

The failings of Thai orientalism stem from classifying and applying stereotyped roles for minorities as ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ – mirroring the same sense of superiority that Europeans used to rationalize their colonial presence.

Like the colonial powers were doing across SEA, the Siamese began an orientalist study of the ethnic minorities that the state's modern borders contained.

The Siamese classified them, detailed their customs, their dress, their beliefs, and opened museums to display the ‘others’ within their borders.

By interpreting the state’s minorities as ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ the state cast itself in a rationally paternalistic roll whose dominance over minorities was implicit.

The unique utility of orientalism is the way that the classification of ‘others’ does more to identify the ‘self’ (in this case the Siamese) than that of the ‘other’ (the minorities).

If the ethnic minorities were ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ then the Siamese would be ‘advanced’ and ‘modern’.

As a tool of nationalist state-craft it is essential to have an ‘other’ as there is simply no nation if it can not be compared to an apposing minority or alternate nation.

The minorities within Thailand’s borders serve a necessary function of being the ‘other’ to Thailand’s ‘self’.

By studying and classifying the state’s minorities as oppositional ‘others’ the Thai state has been able to define who the ‘Thai’ are and what the ‘Thai state’ represents.

Non-state identities being ‘others’ within the Thai state act as a threat to the state’s identity while paradoxically giving the state legitimacy by allowing the state to express its own existence.

The ‘otherness’ of minorities is closely associated to alternate nations and, particularly if viewed through the global Westphalian system of nation-states, their presence within the state represents a violation of state order that must be either assimilated into the defined nation-state identity or be controlled by the state’s legitimate right to use force.

By disciplining the ‘others’ within their territory, the nation-state exercises its existence and its identity is brought to life.

As the modern Thai state has adopted the Westphalian model it has conformed to the logic of the international system at the expense of the country’s minorities.

Thailand has colonized itself into the international system and has/is attempted/ing to internally colonize the non-state identities within its borders.

Essentially, the very definition of Thai identity has been articulated because it is in contrast to the minorities and the state's presence is brought to life by exercising authority over the country’s minorities.

A Trip to Tong Hong

From the village of Tong Hong the setting sun falls into Shan State. Tong Hong, Thailand - 2000.

The small village of Tong Hong is located on Thailand’s far northwestern frontier with Burma.

A scattering of thatched huts and a few cement buildings are shaded within a bamboo forest resting on the top of a small mountain.

In the evening, the day’s fading light filters through the haze of slash-and-burn agriculture and the sky glows in brilliant shades of golden red.

Looking west, towards the setting sun, a series of mountain ridges shimmer in the golden light and continue rolling west beyond the horizon.

Although it is a tranquil view, the sun is setting over more than a half century of armed rebellion, an ever changing mixture of ethnic/ideological armies, vast poppy fields, heroin and methamphetamine refineries, and a huge population of internally displaced people that have been forced from their homes and are surging against the Thai border.

The sun is setting upon Shan State, Burma and the village of Tong Hong has a front row view of the border's humanitarian crisis.

How small Thai towns and villages like Tong Hong experience border issues and conflict in Shan State might be best understood as either internal or external.

Issues inside the Thai border commonly revolve around the various ethnic minorities or ‘hill tribes’.

Although the majority of them were born and have lived their lives in Thailand they are not officially citizens of the state.

Under a staggered citizenship scheme most peripheral minorities are not classified as actual citizens but classified as residents whose rights and movements are severely curtailed.

The major challenge for residents without the same rights as regular citizens is the cycle of poverty linked to the absence of government provided education and health care.

Even though education or health care are not provided the state further discriminates against minorities by restricting their movement.

If minority groups wish to migrate for economic reasons or to access state funded education and health care they are prohibited from leaving either their districts or provinces.

The residents living along the borderlands have literally been locked out culturally and economically from Thai society.

Common external problems, emanating from Shan State, that border villages experience are refuges fleeing conflict, economic migrants fleeing poverty, and a steady flow of drugs – heroin for the international market and methamphetamines for the Thai market.

(please see previous post for description of conflict and drug production in Shan State: Between Armed Factions,Drug Production,and International Borders).

The combination of internal poverty stricken residents and the external forces of refugees, economic migrates, and drugs has resulted in both a humanitarian crisis and a heavy military/police presence.

Although there is an extremely limited effort to address humanitarian issues the frequency of police patrols and military road blocks gives the impression that the full might of Thai law enforcement agencies have been unleashed upon the borderlands.

In response to humanitarian issues revolving around the international border, the village of Tong Hong has opened a free medical clinic.

The clinic, a small building with a cement floor and a thatched bamboo roof, was opened and run by an ethnic Shan resident named Sai Sam.

Although he is not an official doctor his clinic is often the sole medical centre that minorities and migrants have access to.

Sai Sam’s clinic is operated with an extremely frugal budget supplied by international donors (one of those donors, the group that introduced me to Sai Sam, is a Canadian group called Medical Mercy Canada – http://www.medicalmercycanada.org/).

Both internal and external border issues are evident at the clinic.

Each morning a group of 20-30 patients can be seen mingling around waiting for medical assistance.

Migrant workers from Shan State make up the majority of clinic visitors.

Thai employers have a nasty reputation for exploiting migrant labour and, if labourers complain of low or withheld wages, employers are known to call immigration and have those complaining deported.

Due to the precarious legal and economic situation that migrant labourers exist in they have no access to state assistance and no resources to pay for medical assistance when they become ill.

The situation in the surrounding villages is similar to the economic migrants – a lack of medical access or the inability to afford it.

Sai Sam treats many of the ethnic minorities at his clinic but also makes ‘house calls’ to the surrounding villages.

Taking medical care to the various villages is a necessity due to the fact that there is no public transportation and patients often have to walk for an entire day to reach the clinic.

A common ailment for both migrant labourers and the region's minorities is malnutrition.

Although the hills are teeming with orchards and valley floors are partitioned into lush rice paddies basic sustenance is a constant challenge.

Migrant labourers often receive less then half of the legal minimum wage which barely affords them enough to eat.

The situation for minorities is more complicated but a combination of their remote locations, no access to fertilizers, and the 'bleaching' of the soil results in small crop production with limited nutritional value.

Although the bulk of Sai Sam's patients are economic migrants and minorities there are often refugees arriving from the frontline of conflict in Shan State.

The stories of why they have fled often revolve around gross human rights violations by the Burmese army - the Tatmadaw.

The residents of Shan State are often 'recruited' at gun point by the Tatmadaw to act as porters transporting military equipment and supplies.

While transporting supplies the porters are forced to walk in front of the armed columns to act as both human shields and mine sweepers.

Because the of the high likelihood of being killed either in conflict or from physical exhaustion/malnutrition many porters flee to Thailand.

The porters that reach Sai Sam's clinic are often severely malnourished, suffering from untreated injuries, slightly dependent upon opium used to relieve pain and fatigue, and deeply traumatized.

The curious fact of the border region is that the internal and external issues of the region are not actually locally driven issues but issues influenced by politics of countries and distant economies.

Shan State is locked into perpetual conflict because of its resistance to becoming subservient to a large state dominated by ethnic Burmese.

Thailand's minorities are forced to be residents of a large country that is alien to their culture, language, and beliefs yet is also a country that actively discriminates them.

And finally, the drug based economy of Shan State is directly fuelled by the global thirst for illicit drugs.

Although this posting has focused upon one village and how it is influenced by border issues it should be noted that Tong Hong is one of thousands of villages lining Thailand's periphery.

Each one of those villages is intimately linked to the internal and external issues that revolve around borders.

Tong Hong may have a front row view to the humanitarian crises that exists along the border but, unfortunately, so do the thousands of other villages.

The Insecurity Industry

Part of the solution or part of the problem? Heavy militarization has created more problems than solutions. Fourth Army Soldiers - Narrathiwat - 2005.

Although rarely reported, a driving force in the conflict is the insecurity industry.

As peace in the South has been replaced by conflict the traditional economic base has also been replaced by conflict related industries.

The industry of insecurity has become a self-perpetuating economy that benefits and thrives with each bomb, each shooting, and continues to grow in proportion to the violence and the number of soldiers sent to quell the violence.

The insecurity industry might be difficult to encapsulate as a singular concept due to the highly diverse revenue streams that are associated with it but it is possible to draw some simple links between violence and the economy.

The rise of daily violence forces local retail stores to employ security guards, attacks on plantations send agriculture workers to the cities to fill the security guard positions, more soldiers arrive and have disposable income for entertainment, the closure of small industries ensures that entertainment industries have no trouble finding staff, civilians are worried by daily violence so they begin purchasing their own guns, militants need weapons so they begin to fund their insurgency by selling arms to the worried civilians, influential businessmen and politicians use their knowledge of government activites/contracts to extend their economic interests while ensuring that the violent cycle continues by demanding more troops from the central government.

Because the insecurity industry is heavily weighted in illegal industries the aggregate result is increased crime.

Many of the illegal businesses are involved in smuggling, alcohol and drugs, or prostitution and all introduce a higher rate of non-insurgency related violence.

The thriving illegal business environment also demands a high level of corruption and collusion in the police and civil service.

The result of illegal industries has been a serious challenge to law and order and a perceived sense of lawlessness.

The challenge for the government is that local residents feel that law and order has broken down and that the dramatic increase in military strenght has only succeeding in introducing more lawlessness and more violence.

In essence, the massive security apparatus has been associated with the rise of crime and increased lawlessness.

The key part of the equation is that once the varied insecurity industries are running each new explosion and each new soldier is good for business.

For the government to respond to the violence by increasing troop numbers results in a catch-22 that might counter some violence but will also feed the industry that depends upon violence to exist.

The logical way out for the government is for a smaller, less visible, and locally sensitive intelligence organization (exactly the role of the Southern Border Provinces Peace-Building Command that Prime Minister Thaksin dismantled) that can address security concerns without itself becoming one of the sources of further insecurity.

Yet Thaksin’s government has so far opted to continue to pour more combat troops into the South.

The Religious Conflict that Isnt Religious

“The issue is not one of the separation of church and state…for there is no church in Islam. The issue is one of legitimacy: what kind of state and what kind of community? Does legitimacy come down from the divine to the one man, the halife, shadow of God on earth and thence to the ulema and to human society, or does legitimacy arise from a free and open exercise of political rights? The question is indeed central to Islam, and has been central from the very beginning.”

The rebellion in Southern Thailand is often misunderstood and over simplified into the primary dichotomy of Muslim vs. Buddhist.

Yet such a basic dichotomy is not an accurate representation of the role of religion in the conflict.

What lies at the heart of the conflict, in relation to Islam and Buddhism, is not an incommensurable religious difference but a conflict inspired by the use of religion in state-craft.

Thailand has consistently, through both historical and modern periods, employed Buddhist cosmological practices in the pageantry of state ceremonies and rituals.

The problem that arises in the Malay-Muslim population of the South is that Buddhist spectacles of state legitimacy are rejected, and possibly even offensive, to the Malay-Muslim community.

Such rejection of Buddhist forms of legitimacy are evident in the Malay-Muslim tendency to look towards Islamic religious symbols and institutions that supply a similar role in strengthening the Muslim opposition to the Buddhist state.

Such forms of religious state-craft may sound overly abstract yet when religion is used in state rituals it is easy to identify.

A simple example is found in the flag raising ceremony that takes place every morning in all state run schools across the country.

Students are assembled in a school’s courtyard for a brief round of exercise, to listen to school announcements, to say a Buddhist prayer, and to sing the national anthem as the flag is raised.

Although the Buddhist prayer is the most obvious ritual that may draw unease from Muslims, the Thai flag, the emblem of the country that seeks to represent the citizens, also represents Buddhism.

The Thai flag consists of five horizontal stripes of three colors.

The Color red represents the blood of the Thai people, the color blue represents the much revered Monarchy, and the white stripes represent Buddhism (designated as Buddhism in the reign of King Vajiravudh).

As the national anthem is sung, in which citizens sing of their willingness to die for the values of the nation, the flag and its representation of Buddhism is raised into the sky.

Attending a flag raising ceremony in the primarily Muslim deep South one can not only see scores of Muslim students standing in silence as the Buddhist prayer is recited but can also recognize the Buddhist cosmology embedded within such state ceremonies.

Although the flag raising ceremony is just a minor example, the use of Buddhist political legitimacy is more problematic when Buddhist morality dictates the creation of legal codes. Before the Thais extended governance in the South the Malay-Muslims where governed by Sharia law that found its legitimacy as a holy law passed down to man from God – not from a Thai-Buddhist government.

When the South was placed under Thai control there was a crude (from a Southern perspective) replacement of the law dictated by Allah to a law dictated by a state and predicated upon Buddhist forms of legitimacy.

The use of religious legitimacy in government has essentially created an artificial and singular Buddhist state where religious homogeneity is obviously lacking.

If the future of the conflict is to be defused then the legitimacy of the government should have a diluted dependency upon Buddhism and the introduction of an Islamic perspective.

What might be even more appropriate is that the strategy of religious legitimacy be reevaluated in a broader reevaluation of what the Thai state is.

Although traditional governmental sources claim the number of Muslims in Thailand is about 3.9 percent, academic sources claim that the actual percentage could be as high as 8% to 10%. If ten percent of the population rejects the state’s employment of Buddhist legitimacy then the ideology that supports the state is at risk of collapse.

Rendered down more simply, if peaceful relations between the Buddhists and the Muslims have been the norm at the community level in the South then it is the government’s own efforts of legitimacy that creates the sense of illegitimacy and is ultimately the source of conflict.

The Tragedy of Tak Bai

"For anyone willing to spend 100 Baht (€ 2) they could watch uniformed Thai security forces shoot, beat, and ultimately murder 76 Malay-Muslim citizens of Thailand." Although the soldiers pictured here were not involved in the Tak Bai incident they, and the whole armed forces, have a more difficult job assuring citizens that they are there to protect them. Fourth Army soldiers guarding a Buddhist Wat, Pattani - 2005.

If claims of abuse by the military and police had been hard to substantiate in the past, the events of October 25, 2004 turned suspicion into fact.

Malay-Muslims had gathered in protest at a police station in the far Southern border town of Tak Bai.

The protesters were angry over the arrest of local village defense volunteers whom, the police had claimed, had surrendered their government supplied firearms to suspected Islamic insurgents.

Water cannons were initially used to break the lines of protesters yet non-lethal tactics were quickly abandoned when protesters responded by throwing rocks and a firearm was rumored to have been discharged.

The security forces, comprised of both police and Thailand’s Fourth Army, trained their new American made M-16 rifles on the crowd and opened fire.

In the ensuing violence seven protesters died from gunshot wounds while hundreds were handcuffed, dragged into the police station compound, and “stacked like bricks” onto waiting trucks (BBC – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3954587.stm).

As news began to emerge from the confrontation it was revealed that 76 protestors died in the protest - the majority suffocating will stacked on the military trucks awaiting transportation.

The incident in Tak Bai drew global protest from Islamic groups, human rights organizations, foreign governments, the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, and considerable wrath from the Malaysian government.

Yet most damaging for Thaksin’s government was the fact that Thai security forces had filmed the whole violent episode.

The video footage was leaked to the public and cheap VCD's of the incident were sold in the markets across the country. For anyone willing to spend 100 Baht (€ 2) they could watch uniformed Thai security forces shoot, beat, and ultimately murder 76 Malay-Muslim citizens of Thailand.

As the video footage was replayed across Thai TV screens the country was both shocked and outraged.

Anger at the government and sympathy for the victims were common sentiments expressed in Bangkok. Yet the way the video was perceived in the deep South was a little different.

Obviously shock and anger were felt but many Southern residents looked at the video as proof to claims that the Thai state was actively persecuting Malay-Muslims.

It is not hard to imagine that the video created a new flood recruits into the ranks of militant organizations.

Although the video was a clear public relations disaster in the effort to pacify the South, Prime Minister Thaksin further enraged Southern residents, and arguably the country, by refusing to at least offer a public apology.

Between Armed Factions,Drug Production,and International Borders

Thai Rangers on border patrol near Mai Sot.

“Burma is currently a land where there is no human security and where several millions are displaced externally as refugees or illegals in neighbouring countries. Burma and Shan state is a land where hundreds of thousands are dispossessed, dislocated, and hunted down like animals by army columns and search and destroy patrols. It is a country where almost everyone is without hope, living lives of utter desperation in abject poverty, without a shred of dignity or human rights of any kind” - Chao Tzang Yawnghwe

On the opposite side of Thailand’s far northwest border, in Burma, is a large mountainous region called Shan State.

Everyday refugees and drugs flow across the border from Shan State into Thailand.

In order to understand what refugees are fleeing from and why drugs continue to flow across the border it is necessary to understand the dynamics of drug production, resistance armies, and Thai policy towards refugees.

Burma is the second largest producer of heroin in the world and the majority of its poppy fields and drug refineries are located in Shan State.

Shan State is also home to a bewildering array of armed factions and most of them have been locked in a seemingly intractable conflict with the government of Burma.

How the politics of drug production mingle with the politics of armed resistance is often misunderstood and insurgent armies are mistaken for narco-armies.

In order to understand the various armed factions it is important to first clarify drug production in Shan State.

Along with the more traditional opium/heroin production there is a booming methamphetamine industry.

Yaba (ยาบัา or ‘crazy medicine’ in Thai) is produced from a cocktail of chemicals, with minimal labour, in drug labs lining the Thai border.

The primary motive is profit, the market is largely confined to Thailand and China, and the business is dominated by apolitical drug runners.

Opium, in contrast, is an agricultural product that a large number of peasant farmers depend upon for their livelihood.

It is transported by farmers to local market dealers who then take the raw opium to a broader network of dealers, primarily Chinese, who render it down into a more concentrated form or refine it into heroin 'number 4’.

It is then transported by large drug syndicates across the Thai and Chinese borders where it then joins the world market.

The armed factions that operate in and around Shan State cross the whole political spectrum from ethnic nationalists to the Burmese military to multi-ethnic communists to Chinese Nationalists to well armed criminal gangs.

All armed factions are somehow linked to the drug trade.

Ethnic nationalist armies are primarily associated with opium/heroin through the taxation of trade goods passing through their territories.

Many of the ethnic nationalists, such as the Shan State Army, have/are attempting to wean their economic dependence away from drug profits and to end the growing of poppies within their spheres of control.

The Burmese government and its military, the Tatmadaw, may not be active in drug production yet they are a main beneficiary of the profits and are directly responsible for creating a drug based economy in Shan State.

The grotesque economic failure of ‘Burmese socialism’ dismantled the country’s economy to such an extent that paper currency, the Burmese kyat, became worthless. The economy reverted back to the bartering of commodities.

In Shan State, opium became the principle commodity because it is easy to transport, can be stored for long periods, and is far more valuable than any other agricultural crop farmers can grow.

The opium economy in Shan State has also been encouraged by the Tatmadaw’s brutal 'four cuts' military campaign.

The four needs of insurgent armies were deemed to be access to food, finance, recruits, and intelligence and the Burmese military launched a campaign to eliminate those resources.

The campaign directly targeted the civilian population with search and destroy patrols that murdered, tortured, raped, and confiscated land and property from peasants in order to cut any supplies from reaching insurgent armies.

Opium became the single commodity that peasants could take with them when fleeing from rampaging Tatmadaw patrols.

Flourishing in the chaotic environment are the remnants of the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalists) army and various criminal gangs.

The KMT have been involved in drug production in Shan State since retreating from China after Mao’s victorious communist revolution in 1950.

Being capitalists, and rationalizing their need to purchase arms as well as being apathetic to Shan nationalist aspirations, the KMT were uniquely qualified to revolutionize the opium trade.

Their global connections to Chinese diaspora afforded them both the global reach and capital to reap enormous profits from drugs.

Criminal gangs, with various allegiances and ethnicities, account for the rest of the drug trade.

As many Shan State residents are internally displaced by the political chaos and endless conflict they are being pushed up along and over the Thai border.

How refugees are received in Thailand is a reflection of the Thai held stereotype that everyone from Shan State is either a drug runner or an insurgent soldier.

Refugee camps lining the border are filled with Shan State residents who have fled conflict and the Tatmadaw but live as prisoners surrounded by barbwire fences and bristling with Thai military sentries.

More worrying has been Thai Prime Minister Thaksin’s ‘war on drugs’.

In a reactionary and ineffectual response to the flow of drugs, particularly the near epidemic use of yaba in Thailand , Thaksin launched a draconian extermination campaign against drug dealers.

Because Shan State is a major source of drugs, the power of the police and military has been unleashed and focused upon the border.

Low level drug dealers, suspects in rural and poverty stricken villages, and often those with out any connection to drugs, were not just at risk of mass arrests but were at risk of state-sanctioned assassination.

Approximately 3000 extrajudicial killings have been carried out by joint military/police patrols under the orders of Prime Minister Thaksin.

The aggregate result of both drug production and politically diverse armies in Shan State and the hostile reception that refuges receive in Thailand has been the immense suffering of peasants caught between armed factions, drug production, and international borders.

The one simple truth, and articulated in the opening quote, is the abysmal conditions forced upon the average resident of Shan State.

A Modern History of the Rebellion

As the signs of Southern unrest began to appear Thaksin’s only solution was to flood the South with combat troops – not reinstate the SBPPC. Fourth Army soldier on patrol with a Buddhist monk - Pattani. 2006.

The recent history of rebellion begins with the election of the Thai Rak Thai political party and its billionaire leader Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin’s rise to power was based upon populist rhetoric and his support base was primarily rural, and specifically the rural poor.

As Thaksin was busy wooing Thais in the central and northern regions he was quietly alienating the Southern residents.

One of the many criticisms of his tenure, and a particular tactical blunder, was the dismantling the long standing security force know as the Southern Border Provinces Peace-Building Command (SBPPC).

The SBPPC had long been credited with keeping a lasting peace through its highly specific understanding of the challenges facing Southern governance, its ability to gain local trust, and to mediate conflict between the state and the South though peaceful means.

As the signs of Southern unrest began to appear Thaksin’s only solution was to flood the South with combat troops – not reinstate the SBPPC.

The steady flow of military strength over the last two years transformed the South into a highly militarized war zone.

Combat troops poured into the streets, sandbagged road blocks controlled traffic, Buddhist wats (temples) were transformed into fortified military bases, and the local police began to resemble swat teams clad in black bullet proof vests and bristling with new assault rifles and grenade launchers.

The threat of violence that had once been subdued by a small intelligence force was replaced by daily violence aggravated by a large and often clumsy combat force.

The view from the South, regarding the large number of armed troops, has been extremely negative.

Either for Malay-Muslims or Thai Buddhists, there has been a near uniform agreement that heavy militarization is not just ineffective but does more to instigate violence.

The Thai Buddhists (and also the sizable ethnic Chinese population) are now faced with the very real threat that troops sent to protect them are, in fact, attracting unwanted attention.

The concern is not just that troops draw violent attacks from militants but they also force a division based upon ethnic and religious lines.

If the troops are associated with the Thai-Buddhists there is an accentuated partitioning of ethnic/religious groups that had once coexisted.

How the Malay-Muslims are weathering the military occupation is much more worrisome.

The large military force, according to Southern residents, is incapable of distinguishing between the minority of violent militants and the majority of peaceful residents.

The result has been a widespread mistrust between the Malay-Muslim population and the government of Thailand.

Coupled with the sense of persecution in the Malay-Muslim community has been numerous reports of gross human rights violations. Reports of residents disappearing and extra judicial killings have been daily events in the conflict.

The mistrust between the Malay-Muslims and the government has not only created the dichotomy of an ‘ethnic/religious minority vs. government’ situation but provides an endless supply of disenfranchised residents that are turning to militant groups to express their feelings.

Essentially, militarization has not prevented violence but has encouraged it.

Many Thai Buddhists claim that their safety has been compromised and many Malay-Muslims claim they are being persecuted.

The heavy military presence has resulted in a forced division of ethnic/religious groups which is precisely the goal that militants are espousing.

Thaksin's government has not only ignited wide-spread discontent in the South but has essentially orchestrated and fuelled the rebellion it claims to be combating.

A Paradox of Histories

Selective interpretations of history have allowed both the government and the separatists to claim rightful ownership over the south. Students waiting for school in front of the reflecting Pattani Mosque - 2005.

A conventional historical narrative of the contested southern region might start with either the Islamic Sultanate called Pattani (roughly the current Thai provinces of Pattani, Narrathiwat, Yala, and Satun) or the kingdom of Siam (Thailand).

But to properly understand how the deep south has multiple, and seemingly logical, claims of rightful ownership a brief understanding of pre-colonial governance is far more valuable.

Before the Europeans arrived the paradigm of territorial governance in Southeast Asia had little, if any, resemblance to today’s world of demarcated nation-states.

The concept of a border that would sharply divide one polity from another polity was not used but a system called mandalas existed.

Each mandala was a circular ring of political influence – not territory – that emanated from each kingdom.

The mandala system was ambiguous, almost unconcerned, with territoriality. What was important to the various kingdoms was the allegiance of surrounding settlements and allegiance, demonstrated through ritual tributes, of smaller kingdoms that existed within a more powerful kingdom's mandala.

The sultanate of Pattani was in a tributary relationship with the more powerful Siamese (ethnic Thai and political Thailand before 1941) kingdom in Bangkok.

The tributary relationship meant that Pattani demonstrated allegiance with tributary gifts to acknowledge that the Siamese mandala exercised its power over the region but Pattani was not part of Siamese territory and was still a sovereign Islamic sultanate.

The complication and confusion surrounding Pattani’s sovereignty or subjugation to Siam began when the colonial British began to squeeze their colonial possessions of Burma and British Malaya into the European nation-state mold.

For what had once been ambiguous and irrelevant – territory – was to become specific and extremely relevant.

In order to make a nation-state a border must be drawn on a map and that country’s governance is extended to that geographic border.

What the British, and later the French, ended up doing while mapping Malaya, Burma, and Indochine was to, by default, also draw modern day Thailand into existence.

Because of Pattani’s tributary status the British and Siamese determined that the far south would be a part of Siam.

Despite Pattani's 80% Malay-Muslim population it became a rather awkward appendage of a Thai-Buddhist country.

Because the traditional mandala was non-territorial and the modern nation-state is specifically territorial there is no easy answer whether the south should or should not be part of Thailand.

From the rhetoric of both the Thai government and the separatists it is obvious that selective interpretations of history are employed to bolster each side’s claims to sovereign right.

Yet the paradox of the European idea of spatial governance replacing the older mandala system is that both sides can be simultaneously right and wrong in their claims of ownership.

And, if there is such a historical catch-22, the opposing claims over the deep south's history will never be resolved through history.

Southern Insurgency

There has been a low-level separatist insurgency in the deep South since the region was included on maps of Thailand in 1909.

But in 2004, during the governing tenure of the controversial Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, there was a clear escalation of violence.

The predominantly Malay-Muslim South has historically demonstrated a fierce determination for autonomy while various Thai governments in Bangkok have sought to exercise sovereignty there.

The recent surge of violence began after a series of clumsy, verging upon incompetent, decisions by Thaksin's government turned political discontent into a separatist rebellion.

Responding to reporters in February 2005, when questioned how he would deal with separatist violence, Prime Minister Thaksin claimed; “I will never allow anyone to separate even one square inch from this country, even if this land will have to be soaked with blood.”

As the death toll continues to rise it seems that Thaksin has kept is word.

To learn about the state of Thailand's Deep South, please follow the ' Southern Insurgency' labels.

From Mandala to Westphalia

Royal Thai Rangers on border patrol along the Thai/Burma border near Mai Sot.

To understand how the introduction of borders was a dramatic alteration to mainland Southeast Asia (SEA) it is necessary to illustrate what the implications of borders are.

When the colonial powers arrived in SEA it was a region characterized by borderless kingdoms that were territorially ambivalent.

When the Europeans were finally chased out, the region had been demarcated into states. What follows is a brief account of how mainland SEA made the transition from mandala to Westphalia.

In a previous post - A Paradox of Histories - there was a brief explanation of how pre-modern SEA was politically organized along the mandala paradigm When the colonial powers of England and France began carving their possessions out of Asia they introduced a dramatically different idea of governance – the Westphalian nation-state.

Although the origin of the nation-state does not have an exact date it is often associated with the Peace of Westphalia.

Fatigued by war on their continent, European leaders gathered in 1648 in what is now the German town of Westphalia to bring peace through a new form of territorial governance.

The nation-state, a work of considerable political fiction in which a homogenous population would live peacefully within a sovereign state, was subscribed to.

Although history clearly demonstrates that the nation-state is more often the cause of war than war’s resolution, the political paradigm has thrived and is now the norm for an entire globe demarcated into nation-states.

As the European powers sailed into Asia they began transforming kingdoms into colonies based upon the nation-state model – albeit with each nation subservient to European control.

Borders based upon European conquest, rather than following local political/ethnic/religious reality, began to be drawn.

There was some congruence with local politics, as Europeans often co-opted local rulers in their quest for colonies, yet resemblance to traditional political structure was often negated by the colonial powers tendency to maximize their territory beyond traditional boundaries.

The rise of various SEA nationalisms before World War II, the dramatic region-wide Japanese military take-over during the war, and the determined efforts of powerful independence movements eventually dislodged the Europeans from SEA.

Yet the young states that independence leaders had fought to control had essentially been drawn into existence by European cartographers.

It is not that there wasnt powerful kingdoms and sultanates across SEA but what the independence leaders wrestled from the Europeans were dramatically different political entities than had once existed.

Thailand is often cited as the historical exception in SEA because it was never officially under colonial rule yet the story is essentially the same.

The cartographers that had drawn the borders of British Malaya, Burma, and French Indochine had, by default, also drawn Thailand into existence.

The country’s kings, succeeded by various constitutional governments, did the work of self-colonization modeled exactly (often directly administered by European nationals) upon the western nation-state paradigm. T

he Kingdom has taken a different historical path yet arrived at the same destination as the rest of Southeast Asia – a distinctly territorial polity striving to be a nation-state.

The old mandala political structure was erased by the colonial powers and then the new polities were focused by the region’s nationalist leaders into modern states.

The local political structures that had once been ambivalent about territory and distinctly multi-ethnic had been reinvented into unconditionally territorial nation-states.

The last transformation, and a transformation that is still in progress, is the attempt to create ethnic homogeneity out of a region characterized by heterogeneity.

The Apocryphal 'Nation-State'

“states attempt, physically and discursively, to marginalize or destroy various aspects of centrifugal otherness: ethnic solidarities, reasserted nationalisms, indigenous movements, and draft resistances, all dissonant elements proclaiming the tenuous hold of states over territories and identities”

Thailand is not a nation-state yet it pretends to be.

In a complex process of ethnic competition and state formation a myth has been nurtured that Thailand is built around a nation of ‘Thais’.

Such an idea is utter non-sense.

By adopting the Westphalian model of a nation-state, Thailand has conformed to the logic of the international system at the expense of ethnic diversity within its borders.

To become a nation-state the dominant state sanctioned identity, the Thais, have had to internally colonize their territory by subjugating minority identities to create and perpetuate not only the political state but the very definition of Thai identity.

The process of Thailand’s self-colonization has striking similarities to the theoretical foundations of Europe’s colonial adventures.

As Siamese (Thai) identity was transforming under pressure from the arrival of Europeans it was placed in comparison to the state’s own subaltern identities.

Siamese comparisons followed the intellectual fault identified by Palestinian academic Edward Said in his seminal work; Orientalism.

The failings of Thai orientalism stem from classifying and applying stereotyped roles for minorities as ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ – mirroring the same sense of superiority that Europeans used to rationalize their colonial presence.

Like the colonial powers were doing across SEA, the Siamese began an orientalist study of the ethnic minorities that the state's modern borders contained.

The Siamese classified them, detailed their customs, their dress, their beliefs, and opened museums to display the ‘others’ within their borders.

By interpreting the state’s minorities as ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ the state cast itself in a rationally paternalistic roll whose dominance over minorities was implicit.

The unique utility of orientalism is the way that the classification of ‘others’ does more to identify the ‘self’ (in this case the Siamese) than that of the ‘other’ (the minorities).

If the ethnic minorities were ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ then the Siamese would be ‘advanced’ and ‘modern’.

As a tool of nationalist state-craft it is essential to have an ‘other’ as there is simply no nation if it can not be compared to an apposing minority or alternate nation.

The minorities within Thailand’s borders serve a necessary function of being the ‘other’ to Thailand’s ‘self’.

By studying and classifying the state’s minorities as oppositional ‘others’ the Thai state has been able to define who the ‘Thai’ are and what the ‘Thai state’ represents.

Non-state identities being ‘others’ within the Thai state act as a threat to the state’s identity while paradoxically giving the state legitimacy by allowing the state to express its own existence.

The ‘otherness’ of minorities is closely associated to alternate nations and, particularly if viewed through the global Westphalian system of nation-states, their presence within the state represents a violation of state order that must be either assimilated into the defined nation-state identity or be controlled by the state’s legitimate right to use force.

By disciplining the ‘others’ within their territory, the nation-state exercises its existence and its identity brought to life.

As the modern Thai state has adopted the Westphalian model it has conformed to the logic of the international system at the expense of the country’s minorities.

Thailand has colonized itself into the international system and has/is attempted/ing to internally colonize the non-state identities within its borders.

Essentially, the very definition of Thai identity has been articulated because it is in contrast to the minorities and the state's presence is brought to life by exercising authority over the country’s minorities.