CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Amid rumors of a
possible military coup and rocked by anti-government
protesters' closure of the country’s main airport, Thai Prime
Minister Somchai Wongsawat has apparently taken the
extraordinary step of
moving the seat of his government from Bangkok to
the northern city of Chiang Mai.
Somchai
opted on Wednesday to land in Chiang Mai rather
than Bangkok on his return from an international
meeting in Peru, shifting his itinerary after the
People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protest
group laid siege to Thailand's main aviation
facility. From Chiang Mai he declared a state of
emergency on Thursday, empowering Thai police
along with the air force and navy to retake the
closed facilities.
Some observers believe
Somchai's decision was influenced by the risk he
might be detained by the military on his arrival
in Bangkok. Despite the emergency decree's
provisions banning gatherings of more than five
individuals, army commander Anupong Paochinda has
shown no indication yet he intends to call on his
troops to move against the protestors.
The
embattled prime minister's choice of Chiang Mai,
the country’s second city, was no accident. As the
hometown of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra,
Somchai’s brother-in-law, Thailand's northern
provinces voted overwhelmingly in favor of the
ruling People's Power Party (PPP) at last
December’s general elections. That factored into
the government's recent decision to move the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
meeting scheduled for mid-December to Chiang Mai
from Bangkok.
While Somchai's move may
have bought the prime minister some time and space
amid the escalating political crisis in Bangkok,
it also risks enflaming regional passions based on
history, culture and political allegiances that
could extend the conflict beyond Bangkok and into
the provinces.
On Wednesday, a
pro-government group known as "Khon Rak Chiang Mai
'51" shot and killed the father of a local PAD
supporter who runs a popular community radio
station. The PAD threatened to send on Thursday a
group of its supporters to Chiang Mai in response
to the attack, but no violence was reported.
In building the country into a modern
nation-state, a region split by ethnic and
historical tensions, successive Thai governments
have taken great pains to erase regionalism and
create a united sense of "Thainess", with the
country's central regions around Bangkok as the
model.
Historical texts emphasize the role
of the central Thai kingdoms of Sukhothai, Ayudaya
and Bangkok, while downplaying the roles of other
Thai or non-Thai kingdoms that existed within the
borders of modern Thailand. These included the
northern kingdom of Lanna, the southern Malay
sultanate of Pattani and the strong influence of
the Lao kingdom of Lan Xang, which once held
dominion over much of the northeast.
Beyond whitewashing history, Bangkok
governments have systematically bid to erase
vestiges of these former independent states.
Lanna, for example, was only annexed to Thailand
in 1899, and the last of its kings passed away in
1939. The only remaining royal palace currently
serves as Chiang Mai city's women’s prison. All
the others have over the years been razed on the
orders of Bangkok.
Meanwhile growing
separatist movements in Isan in the early 1950s
were suppressed after several leading local
politicians were killed in Bangkok-sanctioned
murders. The movement was later absorbed into the
Communist Party of Thailand, which fought and
ideological battle on regional lines against
Bangkok into the 1980s.
To be Thai has
over the years come to mean speaking the central
Thai dialect and adopting central Thai cultural
norms. Thais from other regions of the country,
especially northeasterners and mountain-dwelling
ethnic minorities in the north, are often
denigrated as backward and crude - a perception
reinforced in popular nationally televised soap
operas.
Despite the government's best
attempts, regional dialects are still commonly
used outside of centrally-run schools and
government offices. Political parties, including
the ruling PPP and its predecessor, the now banned
Thai Rak Thai party, have played on these regional
differences and resentments to their political
advantage, allowing them to establish strong
regional voter bases.
The ruling PPP
derives most of its power from the northeastern
region, while the main opposition Democrat Party,
which has loosely aligned itself with the PAD's
protest call, has its stronghold in the south. The
northern region is somewhat divided, but has
tended to lean towards the PPP and formerly the
TRT in recent elections. Bangkok has vacillated,
but voted strongly in favor of the Democrats at
the most recent polls, including the recent
governor poll.
It is thus no accident that
the prior seizure of airports in support of the
PAD's protest movement occurred in the south,
namely at Phuket and Had Yai. A majority of the
protestors at Government House and now at
Suvanabhumi and Don Muang airports hail from the
south. In statements in the lead up to the airport
seizures, the PAD said that it would assemble
100,000 protestors it would draw from the
country’s southern regions.
The south in
this context does not include the ethnic-Malay
Muslims, where ethnic and religious divisions have
frequently flared into insurgent rebellions,
including the current battle which flared up in
2004, against central Bangkok's rule. Although the
predominantly Muslim three southernmost provinces
did not vote at the last polls for the PPP, nor
did they do for the Democrats.
Until now
Thailand’s political problems have largely
centered on Bangkok, but Somchai’s apparent move
to establish a government base in Chiang Mai
threatens to widen the conflict into the
provinces. While both the PAD and pro-government
groups bused supporters - both real and paid -
from outlying regions into Bangkok, most people in
the provinces debated the issues privately and
quietly.
Several hundred red-shirted,
pro-government supporters came out to show support
and guard the Chiang Mai provincial hall on
Thursday when Somchai held an emergency cabinet
meeting there. Many brandished iron bars and
wooden clubs in case PAD supporters attempted to
disrupt the meeting.
It's possible the
trend spreads across the country, with the
disenfranchised northeastern farmer to use his support for
the PPP as a vehicle to fight for
greater rights vis-a-vis Bangkok. Given the increasing tensions,
it would not be much of a stretch for a
Bangkok or southern PAD supporter to fight back
to preserve his or her perceived rights or
privileges. And as both sides to the conflict continue
to play on and accentuate these regional
and ethnic divisions, the risk of a wider
conflict rises.
Brian McCartan is a
Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist. He may be
reached at brianpm@comcast.net.
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