By Mike Billington
17 January, 2013
@ EIR
Jan. 5—Since 2006, three Thai governments, each elected by overwhelming majorities, have been removed from office by extra-legal means, or by courts acting under dictatorial powers granted by a military junta—and now a fourth such coup is underway, this time by an overtly fascist mob, demanding the end of democratic elections and of representative government, in favor of a return to a form of absolute monarchy, overseeing an appointed “people’s council” with absolute power.
Two issues—neither of which are mentioned in the voluminous media coverage of these illegal coups—are essential to understanding why Thailand has been subjected to this recurring chaos and dictatorial rule. First, each of the elected governments under former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra have played a leading role in bringing Thailand and most of Southeast Asia into a close collaborative role with China, and with the rest of East Asia generally—which is seen as a crime by those in the West gunning for a military confrontation with China. Just as Ukraine is today being targeted for destruction, for the “crime” of cooperating with Russia, so Thailand’s destabilization is intended to disrupt the growing cooperation for development with China by Thailand and its neighbors.
Not surprisingly, two George Soros-funded groups, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group, are on the scene of the demonstrations in Bangkok, as they are in Kiev.
The second issue which needs to be addressed is that Thailand is still a monarchy, which is essentially dominated by the British and related royal families of Europe. These monarchies have openly supported each coup, and are now determined to finish off Thai democracy altogether with the imposition of a fascist junta.
To even mention the role of the monarchy within Thailand risks incarceration under the draconian lèsemajesté laws. The feudal character of this monarchical system is finally, only now, becoming transparent to a growing number of Thais and some international analysts. Whether the Thais will mobilize to end this tyranny before Thailand descends into total destruction is a question of importance for all citizens of the world.
Great Projects and the General Welfare
The current Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, is the sister of Thaksin, the widely popular twiceelected prime minister, who served from 2001 until the royalist/military coup which deposed him in 2006. Every election since that time has returned Thaksin’s supporters to power, even though Thaksin himself is in self-imposed exile due to a contrived conviction against him over a petty corruption charge.
When Yingluck was elected in 2011, she began to reinstate the ambitious development programs initiated by her brother, along with his policies to uplift the peasantry from poverty and backwardness. These include:
• a massive water control project to end the deadly annual flooding, with primarily South Korean support;
• high-speed rail projects to connect the major cities, and eventually complete the “Orient Express” from Kunming to Singapore, with primarily Chinese support;
• universal health care, providing decent care at low cost to the rural poor for the first time;
• special credits to each village for development projects;
• university scholarships for the rural poor;
• government-supported increases in the price paid to peasants for rice.
Although it has not been officially adopted by the government, leading Cabinet ministers, and Thaksin himself, have also called for reviving the Kra Canal project (Figure 1), which has long been championed by EIR (see http://larouchepac.com/node/28237), this time with potential support from China and Japan.
After Thaksin was overthrown in 2006, all these programs were scrapped under the appointed government of Abhisit Vejjajiva, who was born, raised, and educated in Britain. Now, Abhisit’s Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban (most famous for his role in ordering the military to open fire on demonstrators supporting Thaksin in 2009, leaving dozens dead), has turned himself into the demogogic leader of “the people,” directing his middle-class mobs to occupy government buildings, and ordering a total shutdown of 38 International EIR January 17, 2014 Bangkok beginning Jan. 13, until Yingluck resigns. Not even Yingluck’s call for new elections Feb. 2 failed to head off Suthep’s action.
One Million Bottles of Beer
Suthep has made clear that, if he gains power, all major development programs will once again be scrapped—he calls them “boondoogles”—while the many programs to uplift the standard of living and health and education of the poor will be “frozen”—he calls them “bribes” by Thaksin’s supporters of the “ignorant masses” in the countryside.
One spokesperson for the fascist mobs on the street, Chitpas Bhirombhakdi, the heiress of the Boon Rawd company (brewer of Thai Singha beer), denounced the supporters of the government as ignorant country people who can’t understand democracy, and said that therefore democracy had to be suspended. The backlash was immediate.
A call for a boycott of Singha beer, issued by Pakdee Tanapura (a long-standing collaborator of EIR in Thailand, and a leading organizer for the Kra Canal), led to a collapse of Singha beer sales by 1 million bottles in one week, according to a source in Bangkok. The parents of the heiress were so astonished and dismayed, that they demanded that their daughter renounce the family name!
More Boycotts?
Tanapura also warned that if the mobs proceed with their threat to shut down Bangkok and overthrow the government, other companies which are known to fund the fascist movement should be included in the boycott. This could include the Charoen Pokphand Group, Thailand’s largest conglomerate, with interests in agriculture, telecom, and the Internet. In addition, Tanapura said that, if the military goes through with its veiled threat to carry out a coup, the public should withdraw its funds from the banks and refuse to make loan repayments, thereby hitting the London-centered international financial oligarchy which is ultimately responsible for the chaos.
Tanapura has informed the population in his regular TV appearances about the fascist nature of the royalist mobs, describing how Hitler and Mussolini came to power as “people’s power” advocates against elected governments. But most telling, Tanapura is reminding Thais of what happened in neighboring Cambodia in the 1970s, when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge seized power, denouncing industrial development, modern agriculture, and “Western” education, calling instead for “selfhelp”— leading to genocide.
Interestingly, the British intelligence leak-sheet Asia Sentinel published a warning Dec. 17, “Thaksin: The Thai Monarchy’s Savior?”, that the extreme actions of Suthep’s mobs, claiming to be defenders of the monarchy, may actually undermine the monarchy itself. The article notes that although Thaksin and his supporters have never attacked the King, their program of lifting the peasantry into the modern world is in direct contradiction to the King’s “self-sufficiency” policy—essentially keeping the peasantry well fed, but backward. The article also says that while it may be true that the Thai people revere the King (as is reported internationally, ad nauseam), that does not mean that they love the monarchy. The current King—the richest and longest-serving monarch in the world—is very ill and could die at any moment. The article concludes that the “current nationwide commitment to royalism is owed to [King] Bhumipol, not the palace or the elite cohorts.”
To these British analysts, it were better to let Thaksin Shinawatra back in the country than risk losing the monarchy!