ASIA HAND 'Crusading spirit' adrift on Thai political winds
By Shawn W Crispin
BANGKOK - As a secondary school student, Jakrapob Penkair was acknowledged by
his peers for eulogistic poems he wrote about King Bhumibol Adulyadej. More
recently, as Prime Minister's Office Minister, he oversaw the government's
650-million-baht (US$19 million) plans to build an elaborate crematorium for
the recently deceased Princess Galayani Vadhana - sister of the king - an
effort that entailed close personal collaboration with top royal family
members.
Now Jakrapob stands accused of lese majeste for views he expressed during a
public address to foreign journalists last August, charges which are now under
investigation by the police's crime suppression division and which Jakrapob has
denied. If
convicted, he faces three to 15 years in prison. After strident media
criticism, opposition and anti-government street protests calling for his
dismissal, and even threats of a possible military coup to protect the
monarchy's integrity, Jakrapob stepped down from his post on May 30 to fight
the charges.
He has formally acknowledged and maintained his innocence against the charges.
Jakrapob told Asia Times Online that he plans to launch a national campaign,
replete with CDs, fliers and press releases, around his legal defense, aimed at
disseminating his personal views about democracy, monarchy and the country's
political future. A crusading spirit, the US-educated Jakrapob says he hopes
his case sparks a broader public discussion about the monarchy's role in Thai
society, including how monarchical institutions such as the royal advisory
body, the Privy Council, work alongside democratic institutions.
It's a conversation most Thais shy away from, particularly among the
aristocratic elite who derive their power and privilege through their
association with royal institutions. Jakrapob is one of very few Thai
politicians who have, if not directly, spoken critically of the Privy Council's
role in the country's democracy. His case is thus part and parcel of Thailand's
grinding and often murky political conflict, pitting supporters of former prime
minister Thaksin Shinawatra, including the ruling People's Power Party, against
his detractors, represented most visibly by the military and opposition
Democrat Party.
The military coup-makers who ousted Thaksin's democratically elected government
in September 2006 justified their extra-constitutional intervention in part on
the politically charged accusation that Thaksin was disloyal to the crown -
allegations that a criminal court declined to hear and which Thaksin has
strenuously denied but have been resurrected with the lese majeste charges
lodged against Jakrapob, one of the former premier's most trusted aides.
Although filed by a police official, Jakrapob and others familiar with the
situation say the opposition Democrat Party is really behind the charges and
playing the royal card for its own cynical political purposes.
The Democrats in recent weeks pressured the government to investigate and
prosecute more than 25 different websites and blogs they said contained
postings critical of the monarchy. Those anti-crown allegations have recently
been internationalized with lese majeste complaints lodged against BBC
correspondent Jonathan Head, which were filed by the same police official who
accused Jakrapob and have been widely interpreted as a threat to all foreign
journalists to steer clear of drawing the monarchy into their political
reporting.
Thaksin loyalist
Prior to the coup, Jakrapob, a former television newscaster, served as
Thaksin's first English-speaking government spokesman and later as deputy
secretary general to the Prime Minister's Office. After the coup, while Thaksin
was in self-imposed exile, several of his former political allies broke ranks
over the anti-monarchy charges leveled against him.
Jakrapob stayed true to his political mentor and remained in close contact with
the exiled premier. He helped to establish the pro-Thaksin satellite television
station, People's Television (PTV), which the military immediately banned, and
was instrumental from behind the scenes in creating certain pro-Thaksin
websites that kept his message and image in the political spotlight while in
exile.
Jakrapob also spearheaded the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship,
or UDD, a protest movement that first took aim at the military-installed
government and has more recently countered the anti-government People's
Alliance for Democracy protest group now lodged in front of government house.
Jakrapob and a handful of Thaksin loyalists were briefly imprisoned last year
after the UDD clashed with police who tried to break up a protest staged in
front of Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda's personal residence.
Jakrapob has openly and frequently accused Prem of masterminding the 2006 coup,
charges which Prem has publicly denied. Yet Jakrapob's campaign against the
elder statesman effectively broke a long-held and unspoken taboo against
criticizing senior royal advisors. Unlike royal family members, privy
councilors are not protected under Thailand's strict lese majeste laws. A bid
last year to extend that legal protection to privy councilors was for unknown
reasons rebuffed by the military-appointed National Legislative Assembly.
Jakrapob has broadly accused the Privy Council of overstepping its legal bounds
through its interventions in political processes that are constitutionally
reserved for elected politicians, including its role in negotiating annual
military reshuffles. He argued more controversially that the Privy Council
needs to be structurally overhauled and that a reform process should commence
while - rather than after - the highly revered 80-year-old King Bhumibol is
still on the throne.
Jakrapob and others have expressed forward-looking concerns that the military,
and by assumed association the Privy Council, might seize power and move to
suspend democracy as long as it takes the royal advisory body to manage the
royal succession. The military-drafted 2007 constitution allows for a princess
to take the throne and the Privy Council is empowered with selecting the next
monarch in the event the succession is undecided on Bhumibol's eventual
passing.
There are compelling precedents for that case scenario, Jakrapob contends,
including when privy councilors filled the majority of cabinet posts in the
government that was installed in the wake of the political crisis in 1973, when
soldiers opened fire on anti-government student and labor protestors.
Notwithstanding the allegations that Prem played a behind-the-scenes role in
the 2006 coup, former army commander and Privy Council spokesman General
Surayud Chulanont was made prime minister of the coup-makers' appointed
civilian government.
Jakrapob denies that he or Thaksin have ever intended to challenge the crown,
and suggests one creative solution to the ongoing political tensions would be
to appoint Thaksin himself to the Privy Council. Allegations of disloyalty to
the crown are particularly explosive in Thailand's political and social
context, where the deeply respected King Bhumibol is held by many Thais as
semi-divine. In that context, Jakrapob's now-contested comments at the foreign
press gathering have made political waves big enough for Thaksin to back away
from his confidante.
Jakrapob's downfall, some contend, is indicative of Thaksin's own waning
political clout, which has been undermined by Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej's
unexpected independent streak in leading the new incarnation of Thaksin's
disbanded Thai Rak Thai party, and the cozy accommodation he has reached with
the military, including army commander Anupong Paochinda, who was instrumental
in staging the coup that ousted Thaksin.
The former premier's political calculations have also apparently shifted in
light of the 15 court cases, including criminal corruption charges, now pending
against him in various Thai courts, many of which are presided over by judges
appointed during the military government's tenure. The military-created Asset
Examination Committee recently recommended the initiation of new judicial
proceedings to seize 76 billion baht (US$2.3 billion) worth of Thaksin's assets
now held in Thai banks.
One government insider who requested anonymity contends that particular legal
threat has pushed Thaksin into a conciliatory corner, seen in his brief and
apparently apologetic encounter late last month with Prem at army commander
Anupong's mother's funeral.
Evoking Pridi
Lese majeste charges, which may be filed by any Thai citizen, have long been
used by the military and politicians to threaten and harass their political
opponents, critics say. Many hoped that the often-politicized practice would
draw to a close after King Bhumibol's 2005 nationally televised birthday
address, in which he said that the monarchy was not above criticism.
If the police complaint against Jakrapob eventually goes to trial, it will
represent the highest-profile lese majeste case heard in Thailand since 1984,
when Buddhist social scientist Sulak Sivaraksa was jailed and tried on military
orders for perceived critical comments he penned in an article that referred to
the monarchy.
Sulak was eventually acquitted of those charges but faced a second charge filed
by coup-maker General Suchinda Kraprayoon in 1991 for comments he made at a
university lecture in Bangkok insinuating that politicians, businessmen and
multinational corporations often attempted to manipulate the royal family for
their own purposes.
Sulak was granted refuge in a Western embassy and driven into exile. He was
later twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of his struggle
for freedom of expression.
It's not clear yet if Jakrapob's lese majeste charges will generate a similar
international outcry, though the politician claims he has been harassed and
threatened by senior military officials over the charges.
His case is seen in some elite circles as potentially more volatile given the
current unsettled state of Thai politics and looming anxiety about the royal
succession. One well-placed academic who recently spoke at length with a senior
privy councilor said that the royal advisory body had requested Samak to remove
Jakrapob from his cabinet, pressures the prime minister resisted.
According to a government insider familiar with the situation, Samak proposed
instead to step down himself, dissolve parliament and hold new elections, which
political analysts believe the PPP would win even more convincingly than it did
at last December's polls and open the way for it to shed coalition partners
over which the military now exerts influence.
It's precisely those alleged top-down pressures on democratically elected
politicians that Jakrapob is keen to expose and fight back against. In our
discussion, Jakrapob readily evokes the struggles of Thai revolutionary Pridi
Phanomyong, a former prime minister who was instrumental in the 1932 revolution
that ended over 150 years of absolute monarchical rule in Thailand. Pridi was
later forced into permanent exile over never-proven accusations that he was
involved in the mysterious shooting death of King Ananda Mahidol in 1946.
Democratic-minded Thais led by social critic Sulak have in recent years
championed Pridi's historical rehabilitation, including efforts to have two
streets, a public park and a library-cum-museum in Bangkok named in his honor.
Jakrapob says that he is an avid reader and admirer of Pridi's writings on
democracy and power and does not shy from making personal comparisons to him.
"When I had power, I had no experience, and when I had experience, I had no
power," said the 41-year-old Jakrapob, quoting a popular passage frequently
attributed to Pridi. "I hope my experience is different, that my political
scars today will one day be seen as a badge of courage."
The verdict on that, and more broadly Thailand's democratic future, is still
out.
Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia Editor. He may be
reached at swcrispin@atimes.com.
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