In Rural Thailand, an Unappeased Opposition Bides Its Time
In Rural Thailand, an Unappeased Opposition Bides Its Time
SETH MYDANS
August 31, 2010
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Prisoners accused of burning municipal hall in Udon Thani left a courtroom after pleading not guilty.
Justin Mott for The New York Times
UDON THANI, Thailand — In front of the charred ruins of the municipal hall here, a huge poster carries the photographs of 76 people being sought in an attack on the building more than three months ago, on the day the antigovernment “red-shirt” protests were crushed in Bangkok. Only 11 have been caught.
Scores of people are in hiding, many of them sheltered by a mostly sympathetic population. Scores more, arrested at the scene, are being held without bail.
Here in the heart of red-shirt country, the government appears to have made little headway in calming or winning over its opponents, and the arrests and detentions illustrate the continuing divisions in the country.
In Bangkok, nearly 300 miles to the southeast, a sense of normalcy has covered over the wounds of the red shirts’ long occupation of the city center, which ended May 19 with a military assault in which about 90 people died.
Yet the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva says red shirt leaders are continuing to plot violence, and it has kept seven provinces, including Udon Thani, under a state of emergency to prevent any resurgence of unrest.
As part of a nationwide campaign of censorship of opposition Web sites and radio stations, the government has shut down 46 local radio stations here in Udon Thani Province. Public gatherings of more than five people are forbidden.
In this province, home to many who protested in Bangkok in April and May, critics of the government have retreated into silence.
“People here are afraid of everything,” said Pramool Chatasuk, 66, who owns a dry cleaning business here in the provincial capital. “They are afraid that the government will think they are doing something wrong. They are afraid to speak.”
Sitting on a secluded bench in front of the burned-out municipal hall, an opposition radio broadcaster who now must hold his tongue said: “If I open my mouth too much, it will bring attention to me. I think I should cooperate with what they ask me to do.”
Nineteen red-shirt leaders were indicted on terrorism charges two weeks ago in Bangkok. Here in northeastern Thailand, at least 164 lower-level sympathizers are in prison, according to the People’s Information Center, a network of academics sympathetic to the red shirts.
While striving to prevent further violence, Mr. Abhisit is pursuing a policy of “national reconciliation” that includes commissions charged with investigating the violence and finding ways to repair a broken society.
In a prison interview here, Natthayot Phajuang, a red-shirt leader who is serving a six-month sentence, said the detentions were making it difficult to find common ground.
“If he wants people in the country to love each other in harmony again,” he said of Mr. Abhisit, “he shouldn’t use prison to separate us.”
And many people here say they are not ready to reconcile. They say they are still hoping for the return of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a coup in 2006. He is believed to have been active in directing and financing the red shirts as he moves from country to country evading a Thai prison sentence for corruption.
Mr. Thaksin won the loyalty of rural voters with policies that gave them low-cost medical care and easy credit. Mr. Abhisit has continued and even enhanced some of those programs, but he appears to have won few converts here.
“Even though we know that the government has good policies, we won’t accept it,” said Urai Poulchan, 62, a small business man. “We want Thaksin back.”
The Thai economy has suffered along with that of the rest of the world, and people here remember better economic times under Mr. Thaksin. They also repeat what they call the wisdom he brought them when he empowered them as an electoral base.
“The rich have lived comfortably for many years,” said Mr. Pramool, the dry cleaner. “Now the poor people are learning the truth, and that makes the rich unhappy. When people become clever, that means it will be more difficult to govern them.”
Shalita Chandabao, 39, whose family owns a rice mill, is a “yellow shirt” supporter of the government who finds herself surrounded here by angry red shirts. During the protests, she said, some people gunned their motorbike engines and spat in front of her shop.
“If someone says something unkind to me, I just smile and turn my face,” she said, “because I know that if there is a confrontation, it will become something worse. We realize we can live together if we don’t talk about these things.”
Prisoners accused of burning the municipal hall, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death.
The fissures run throughout society, she said. “Even the children in school are divided like their parents,” she said. “Even the teachers are divided.”
The next test of strength between the two camps may come in an election that must be held by the end of 2011. Some red shirts here say that they are biding their time, confident of victory.
This also seems to be the strategy of the lawyers defending the prisoners here. If the red shirts win the election, they reason, a sympathetic government will influence the courts to rule in favor of their clients.
“We plan to drag out the cases as long as we can,” said a defense lawyer, Arkom Kumpech.
“If you fight head-on, they’ll all have to go to prison,” he said. “So the game is, they plead not guilty, and whatever the other side says, we’ll deny everything. We’ll object to everything. No matter what the evidence is, I’ll coach them to plead not guilty.”
Late last month, a judge read out indictments to five defendants in brown prison uniforms who stood with chains around their ankles.
They were charged with burning and destroying state property for the attack on the municipal hall, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death. They denied everything.
In an interview, the chief prosecutor, Sirichai Sutivirakajon, said he was using photographs and video taken during the attack on the municipal hall as evidence. He paged through a fat binder filled with images of the smoke and chaos of that day with arrows or circles marking the faces of the accused.
Forty-six people were arrested at the scene when the municipal hall was burned, the prosecutor said. The other 76 warrants were issued based on the photographs in his binder — the same faces that are posted on the billboard outside the municipal hall.
But among the police and local officials, who are mostly red-shirt sympathizers themselves, there is little enthusiasm for the arrests, a local reporter said.
“In fact they all know the people’s faces,” the reporter said. “But local officials say, ‘We don’t know this person; we don’t know that person.’ Only a few have been arrested.”
nytimes.com
