Commentary: Thailand's Real Enemy Is Insincerity

[LaoPo]

Commentary: Thailand's real enemy is insincerity

Excerpts:

Beware of news editors who write about "stakeholders." The word may be popular among the staff of international development agencies, producing clouded reports about projects that they have never seen, but it is usually avoided by journalists, who are expected to be more straightforward.

Few newspapers in Thailand nowadays report or comment with any sincerity. Whereas the previous decade saw a dramatic rise in their assertiveness, the bullying and goading tactics of the Thaksin Shinawatra government encouraged renewed self-censorship. Among those writers and publishers that resisted Thaksin, many have since been shameless cheerleaders for the junta that pushed him out last September. Alternative opinions, occasionally entertained, give the illusion of continued debate; they are greatly outnumbered by narrow reporting and uncritical commentary. Yet even against this backdrop, the response to the May 30 ruling was a new low.

No doubt the former prime minister and his people manipulated laws and institutions to their commercial and political advantage. They intimidated opponents, precipitated killings and encouraged police excesses. But the superior courts were already examining and proceeding on suits lodged against him and his party prior to the military coup last year. Had they been left alone to rule on the government at that time, in accordance with the 1997 Constitution, then there may indeed have been a great day for justice in Thailand of the sort that was pronounced last week.

Instead, what happened was that a tribunal appointed by the military regime under its interim constitution was given the role of pretending to decide on something that was already settled from the moment that the army took power, applying a law established under the abrogated constitution together with an order from the coup leader. The cynical use of senior judges to do a dirty job for which the generals did not want to be directly responsible was no triumph of justice: it was a travesty that will almost certainly cause lasting damage to public confidence in the country's entire judiciary.

But there was no room for doubt about the tribunal's findings in most newspaper editorials and reports the morning after. Blinded by euphoria at the apparent end to Thaksin's political vehicle, and corrupted by the moral and legal pollution of dictatorship, editors and writers feigning objectivity sought refuge in humbug. Only here and there were cautious questions raised about the validity of the judgment and jurisdiction of the tribunal, again greatly outnumbered by those reassuring readers that from now on everything will be okay, so long as everyone just plays by the rules. Never mind whose rules.

Complete article:

http://www.upiasiaonline.com/human_rights/...is_insincerity/

LaoPo

[chevykanteve]

Commentary: Thailand's real enemy is insincerity

Excerpts:

Beware of news editors who write about "stakeholders." The word may be popular among the staff of international development agencies, producing clouded reports about projects that they have never seen, but it is usually avoided by journalists, who are expected to be more straightforward.

Few newspapers in Thailand nowadays report or comment with any sincerity. Whereas the previous decade saw a dramatic rise in their assertiveness, the bullying and goading tactics of the Thaksin Shinawatra government encouraged renewed self-censorship. Among those writers and publishers that resisted Thaksin, many have since been shameless cheerleaders for the junta that pushed him out last September. Alternative opinions, occasionally entertained, give the illusion of continued debate; they are greatly outnumbered by narrow reporting and uncritical commentary. Yet even against this backdrop, the response to the May 30 ruling was a new low.

No doubt the former prime minister and his people manipulated laws and institutions to their commercial and political advantage. They intimidated opponents, precipitated killings and encouraged police excesses. But the superior courts were already examining and proceeding on suits lodged against him and his party prior to the military coup last year. Had they been left alone to rule on the government at that time, in accordance with the 1997 Constitution, then there may indeed have been a great day for justice in Thailand of the sort that was pronounced last week.

Instead, what happened was that a tribunal appointed by the military regime under its interim constitution was given the role of pretending to decide on something that was already settled from the moment that the army took power, applying a law established under the abrogated constitution together with an order from the coup leader. The cynical use of senior judges to do a dirty job for which the generals did not want to be directly responsible was no triumph of justice: it was a travesty that will almost certainly cause lasting damage to public confidence in the country's entire judiciary.

But there was no room for doubt about the tribunal's findings in most newspaper editorials and reports the morning after. Blinded by euphoria at the apparent end to Thaksin's political vehicle, and corrupted by the moral and legal pollution of dictatorship, editors and writers feigning objectivity sought refuge in humbug. Only here and there were cautious questions raised about the validity of the judgment and jurisdiction of the tribunal, again greatly outnumbered by those reassuring readers that from now on everything will be okay, so long as everyone just plays by the rules. Never mind whose rules.

Complete article:

http://www.upiasiaonline.com/human_rights/...is_insincerity/

LaoPo

Editorial reports in the Bangkok English-language press (i.e., both newspapers) on the political situation in Thailand are obviously biased. The editors are, and have been, grinding the proverbial axe. Nobody with the slightest degree of intelligence could possibly swallow the load of <deleted> they are trying to sell. How dare they assume that the majority of their reading audience are so gullible? Anyhow, what goes around comes around, and --hopefully-- with ever-increasing velocity.

Edited June 9, 2007 by chevykanteve