Enemies of the State?
SOCIAL ACTIVISM: The government says that NGOs organise villagers to protest against big state projects so as to receive more foreign funds. Villagers say they organise their own protests because the government excludes them from its plans

More than 2,000 people were in the southern city of Hat Yai last December 20 to demonstrate against the Thai-Malaysian gas pipeline project. Twelve members of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were singled out and arrested by police. The night after, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's cabinet met with members of the Malaysian cabinet for the first time.

Mr Watcharapan Chantharakajorn, assistant secretary to the Prime Minister, later apologised for the incident, but there has been continual insistence by officials that the protesters were responsible for the violence.

The Hat Yai incident was captured by a private citizen on a videotape, which showed the police pushing at protesters, pulling at NGO workers, bashing car windshields, and beating protesters with their truncheons. Police claim the video was doctored.

While television stations reported that the NGO members were detained at the local police station, they were actually in a military camp some 100 kilometres away, near the Thai-Malaysian border in Sadao district of Songkhla province. The next day, the police filed charges and requested that the court not grant bail, on the grounds that the NGOs would incite unrest in the country.

The Prime Minister said the police confiscated the following khong klang (something seized by authorities which is used in a crime ) from the NGOs: 15 softwood flagsticks, a hand knife, two catapults, a map to the JB Hotel (near where the clash erupted), and metal pellets used for weighing fishnets.

Bowing to the public pressure, a group of Prince of Songkhla University academics were allowed to vouch for the NGOs. The court granted them bail on December 23.

Public and media sentiment is mostly running against the police crackdown. Many questions remain surrounding the protest: Who ordered the police to use violence on the protesters? Why did the raiding party remove all name and position badges from their uniforms? Why did the police arrest only NGO members that night?

The next morning, Prime Minister Thaksin addressed the situation on his weekly radio programme. He said the protesters had evil intentions, and were heavily armed with

sticks, rotten eggs and the local budu fish sauce.''

The Prime Minister also said that the majority of NGOs are good. He did not say if the 12 arrested in Hat Yai belonged to the group of bad NGOs.

Bangkok Senator Wallop Tangkaranurak had this response to the Prime Minister: The government should not make general statements. Why does it not reveal who these bad people are?''

In the Hat Yai clash, 38 villagers and 15 policemen were injured. The Prime Minister later said that he was on the side of the policemen, who he said were only defending themselves.

ESCALATING TENSIONS

There has long been a certain amount of friction between the government and NGOs. Under the Thaksin leadership, this has grown to open animosity. Authorities are suspicious of the motives of the NGOs. Their presence is interpreted by state and security officials as proof that they are orchestrating the protests.

Supawan Chanasongkram, an NGO worker who was arrested in Hat Yai, responded to this charge.

We are working in the area and we have studied the project. We believe it is not wise and in the national benefit to use the gas at the moment. We realise that there will be many social and environmental consequences of the project. That was why we joined the people's protest.''

Prime Minister Thaksin's quick condemnation of NGOs was not unnoticed by members of the public and the press, who have been critical of his apparent lack of tolerance for those who disagree with him. Many in the press criticise him for using too much of his power.

The government began a move against certain NGOs last year, starting with a controversial assets investigation by the Anti-Money Laundering Office last March, which included a number of NGO members, among them Mr Banjong Nasae, the director of the Southern Coastal Management Project. Mr Banjong was also arrested in the December 20 incident in Hat Yai.

Last April 23, the Cabinet passed a resolution authorising state officials to crack down on any gatherings which violate the law, including those which block roadways.

Article 44 of the Constitution protects the right of citizens to peaceful assembly. The interpretation of what is in violation of the law can be very subjective, however.

The friction between the Prime Minister and the NGOs began to escalate when police arrested villagers in Lamphun province who were impatient with the state land reform programme. The arrest of 120 people, including an NGO worker, was approved by the state despite an agreement between the villagers and some cabinet ministers that there would be no arrest of those using idle land in Lamphun.

Last July, policemen arrested Mrs Chutima Morlaeku, an Akha activist known for her campaign for citizenship rights of ethnic people, at Chiang Mai airport and searched her house. There were no arrest and search warrants. Chiang Mai police chief Pol Maj-Gen Kasem Rattanasuthorn said he would look into the case. Six months have passed with no results.

Senator Wicha Siritham said in a report to the government last August that protests against state projects are started by NGOs and academics who want to change the management of natural resources from the state to the people, and they want people to start management immediately. The report did not mention that the Constitution's Article 56 guarantees the rights of local communities to manage their natural resources.

The Wicha report also said that NGOs and academics incite local villagers

to stand up and ask for the new norm of payment for lost of opportunities.'' The Thai government had never paid attention to lost opportunities before. But in the dispute over the Pak Moon dam in Ubon Ratchathani province, for example, the government had to pay fishermen along the Moon River for lost opportunities from fishing during the first three years of the dam construction.

During the past weeks Senator Wicha has mounted a series of attacks on NGOs connected with foreign agencies. Asked about the aim of those agencies, during a press meeting at Government House, he said:

Those agencies want the river to flow naturally.'' He didn't say what was wrong with this.

FOREIGN FUNDING

In late July last year, NGOs from all over the nation gathered in front of Government House urging the government to abolish the April 23 resolution. The Prime Minister later said in an interview that these NGOs organise protest in order to secure foreign funds.

On December 21, a day after the Hat Yai clash, the Prime Minister said on his weekly radio programme:

NGOs who use the language of violence will be blacklisted by the government and face harsh law measures.''

Prime Minister Thaksin refused to allow advisers of the Assembly of the Poor to be part of his dialogue with Pak Moon villagers last December 20. This reflected his belief that NGOs are behind the Pak Moon movement, according to columnists of leading vernacular dailies.

Senator Wicha repeatedly stated in public that NGOs are

unusually rich,'' with their money mostly coming from foreign donors. Other ranking state officials claim that NGOs organise protests in order to secure continuous funding from abroad, and that in effect the funding is contingent on the NGOs producing protests. They said NGOs have to show foreign agencies that they have been doing something.

Certain police and military officers as well as senators have also publicly said that NGOs are tools of foreign agencies. Local papers have documented these statements. However, as of press time, no police or bank records have been produced to show unusual wealth or criminal records of any NGOs in Thailand.

Accusations that foreigners want to undermine Thai institutions and sovereignty by funding local NGOs are not new, although government agencies also receive foreign funding. These include the Royal Forestry Department, the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, and the Ministry of Education, to name a few.

Some foreign agencies grant money to government agencies and NGOs at the same time. DANCED, funded by the government of Denmark, funds NGO projects to help people learn how to manage natural resources as well as some Royal Forestry projects.

Other foreign donors to Thai NGOs, such as NOVIB of the Netherlands and CUSO of Canada, are open to public scrutiny. They do not expect returns on their cash donations, said Rossana Tositrakul, a prominent NGO worker.

On the other hand, some villagers note, details of the Thai government receiving billions in foreign funds from the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which have conditionalities attached to the loans, have never been made public. Most Thai people are not aware of these conditionalities even though it is they who end up facing the consequences.

NO HIDDEN AGENDA

Some people help villagers for political gain,'' said National Human Rights Commission chairman Prof Saneh Chammarik.

But NGOs help the villagers for humanitarian reasons. ''

The people are confused by the Prime Minister's words about those who help the needy in order to receive foreign funds. I wish our officials would talk with more wisdom and differentiate those who help for political gain and those who extend real humanitarian assistance,'' he said.

Prof Saneh said NGOs are a worldwide phenomenon.

Distrust and hostility will not help anything. The government should use more wisdom to discuss national problems and seek more alliance to help the people,'' he added.

NGO history in Thailand is marked by their assistance to the poor, the needy, as well as their helping people become more aware of their rights, more informed and more critical, explained Senator Wallop.

The government should not initiate moves against them,'' he added.

NGOs have been operating in Thailand since the 1960s, involved in rural development, education, health, sustainable development and other worthwhile goals.

In 1969, Dr Puey Ungphakorn, the late central bank governor and rector of Thammasat University, established the Thailand Rural Reconstruction Movement, the first NGO in Thailand. More NGOs followed. (See Page 1 sidebar).

In the late 1980s, the Thai government used up a great amount of the country's natural resources in a short amount of time in order to be classified as a newly industrialised country and take advantage of foreign trade, investment, and funding.

The following influx of resorts, golf courses and agribusiness led to land speculation and forest encroachment. The state monopoly over natural resources added to the hardship of the locals in remote communities, who could not access state facilities for health care and education.

At this time, NGOs and civic groups helped the locals to learn and help themselves and exercise their rights. NGO workers usually arrive with the orientation of respecting and serving the villagers, while most state officials expect to be obeyed and served by the villagers.

NGOs emphasise public participation and consultation in their work with the people, while state officials continue to order villagers to implement state plans which the villagers have not been informed of, such as rural development and megaprojects that seriously affect local livelihoods.

NGOs in Thailand observe an unwritten set of rules which was learned from the students of Dr Puey, who were sent to learn the basics of rural development work from the late Dr James C. Yen, founder of the Institute of International Rural Reconstruction in the Philippines. The rules establish a consultative methodology under which NGO members live and work among the peasant people.

For that reason, none of the NGOs direct or organise any form of protest against the government when they work with the villagers.

These rules are familiar to many in the Senate and the government who served the public for decades as NGO development workers: Phumtham Vejjayachai, secretary to the Prime Minister; Watcharapan Chantharakajorn, assistant secretary to the Prime Minister; and senators Tuenjai Deetes, Wallop Tangkanarak and Jon Ungphakorn.

Senator Wallop said NGOs provide a plurality of views, make people aware of their rights, and make complex issues comprehensible to the locals.

Many NGOs, such as those who work for Aids patients or children, have no problems with the state as they do not challenge its structural power.

But those who tackle structural problems face hostility because they have to make people more aware of their rights, which in some cases leads them to stand up against the state, explained Senator Wallop.

He sees NGOs as having very high credibility among the village population.

They are the ones people can rely on as a last resort. They cannot be bought. The government may not believe that there are people who live their ideologies, but I assure you that most NGOs do.''

Villagers continue to deny that any NGOs are manipulating them into protests. Alisa Manla, a village leader involved in the protest against the gas pipeline project, invites any government official to come and see how villagers arrive at decisions or organise a movement.

We have brains and hearts,'' Alisa says. We protest because we have problems. We have no need to parrot others, like our government officials do. We are not buffaloes.''

SUPARA JANCHITFAH
BANGKOK POST - Perspective
5 January 2003