 Ladies and gentlemen, good morning or good afternoon technically. We think it's a sufficient number of minutes past the official start date that we've probably picked up most people who are wrestling with a standard ANU parking problem, but no doubt there'll be others coming in and out. My name's Andrew McIntyre, Dean here of the College and Director of the New Research School of Asian Pacific. Warm welcome to everybody, especially folks that have come from outside the university from across the lake or even perhaps further afield. This panel discussion today promises to be a lively one on really big issues and I just want to pay tribute at the outset to Dr. Theryl Hubbocorn and her colleagues who have worked to pull this session together bringing scholars interested in Thailand from across the university together, particularly from the College of Law and here from the College of Asian Pacific. I had the privilege of being here to push the button or cut the ribbon at the special session like this about a year ago that was organized and was struck then by just the vibrance, the intensity of the interest within the room for that session and I'm sure it'll be the same today. This is a really challenging time for Thailand, really challenging time for Thais and a challenging time for all the friends of Thailand in Australia and around the region. This panel will bring some of those challenges into focus. I'm sure there'll be vigorous debate. It can't be otherwise. These are inherently difficult human issues. They're just inherently difficult issues. Sometimes people outside universities see debate and argument inside universities as a sign that something's not working or something's going wrong. I think it's the opposite. As a dean, I would be profoundly worried if, let me indulge myself and say all my academic colleagues in whatever field, whether it be studies of Thailand, studies of Indonesia or some other field, if they were all in furious agreement, that's a sure sign that you haven't got a sufficiently diverse mix and the best universities have diverse mixes. That's what makes them strong in whatever fields they invest heavily in. So for me, lively debate, respectfully lively debate is one of the core contributions of great universities. It's one of the key things we do for society. I enjoy lively debates, I'm pretty sure that's what you'll get. Just one other thought. Some of you will be aware that the Australia Thailand Institute commissioned a report recently, a low report, on basically where Thai studies is heading in Australia. There's all sorts of interesting stuff in there. One line caught my attention. We think about how most Australians perceive and relate to Thailand. Unlike the situation with the way in which most Australians relate to some other countries in Asia, which is in a more, the way the report put it, was in a more intellectual way, the way most Australians relate to Thailand is the term they used was a more experiential way. It's by having visited Thailand as on a beach or in a bar or in a hotel, often in sort of tourist or sorts of engagements. Rather than more considered, again the term they used was more intellectual engagement, thinking about the deeper economic issues, the deeper social issues, political issues, cultural issues, strategic issues. And I think that's probably a fair characterization of how most Australians perceive and relate to Thailand. But it's not true of here. What you'll find here today is a deeply intellectual engagement with these huge challenges before Thailand at the moment. As I say, that's what universities are here for, to wrestle with the ideas. That's how knowledge advances. So I look forward to hearing what people have to say. I've got to duck out just now, but I'll be back a bit later. And in the very unlikely outcome, everyone's in agreement. Somebody's sending me a note complaining. Thanks. Terrell, over to you. Thank you, Professor McIntyre, for your comments. My name is Terrell Habercoin, and I'm a research fellow in the Department of Political and Social Change in the School of International Political and Strategic Studies, which is the school in this building. It's a great pleasure to introduce my colleagues who will be speaking today to welcome all of you. This event comes on the one-year anniversary of the protests and clashes between Thai state security forces and the red-shirted members of the United Democratic Front against dictatorship, or the UDD, which shook Bangkok and actually the entire Thai nation last April and May. At least 92 people were killed and over 2100 injured, many seriously so on both the civilian side and the state security force side. Hundreds of people were arrested and detained. Some remain in detention. Even after the violence ended, the climate remained very tense as rumor, fear, and uncertainty circulated. In the past year, there's been a dramatic upsurge in the use of Article 112, which criminalizes speech deemed to be damaging to the monarchy and the Computer Crimes Act. A year later, the struggle for legitimacy and the right to determine who counts as a subject of politics, part of what was at stake last year, remains in question. What's been added to this has been a question about what constitutes the truth of what happened last year. In the last three to four months, a number of reports have emerged, just very recently, the first periodic report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Thailand, led by Dr. Kanit Nanakon. In late January, the referral to the ICC, created by the law firm of Amsterdam and Paroff, the lawyer for former Prime Minister, Tuxing Chinawat. And most recently, this week, a comprehensive report by Human Rights Watch was released. And I mentioned this just to note that there was an article in Matichon on Tuesday, which I think highlights the importance and perhaps danger of this forum happening in Australia, in which Deputy Prime Ministers, criticized the Human Rights Watch report and noted that perhaps the foreigners would be better off solving unresolved crimes in their own countries, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Also this week, Prime Minister Apisit Feja Jeeva announced the impending dissolution of parliament, which suggests that elections are on the way. The first part of this year has held tremendous tension along the Thai-Kambodia border, although the most recent news suggests that perhaps the fighting may be easing. Other borders, including the border with Malaysia, the ongoing conflict which seemed to decline in 2009 and early 2010, appears to have intensified again, and the Thai-Burma border has also been restive. As Professor McIntyre noted, this event is also, in many ways, a follow-up to the event that we held last year, which was entitled Thailand on the Verge. And I would note that it seems to me that a year later, the Verge has long been passed, and that's where the name for this event comes from. It seems as though perhaps a limit is being approached politically, socially, historically. What happens once that limit is reached is probably anyone's guess. So the format of the rest of today's panel discussion is that each of our seven fantastic experts will speak for 10 minutes precisely. And then we'll open the floor to your questions and discussion. So I want to stop there and actually introduce Professor Peter Warf from the Crawford School of Economics and Government. Thanks, Tyrell, and thanks very much for organising this event. Could everyone hear me? I have the flu as you can probably tell, so... Anyway, it's only 10 minutes, so my voice will probably last out. Everyone believes that the parliament is about to be resolved in Thailand, and therefore we'll have an election within 60 days. So it seems, anyway. We thought that this was going to happen tomorrow, but I saw some reports in the first yesterday from Suthep that maybe there'll be a few days of delay. But anyway, the election ought to be taken place in early July. It's the most likely thing. And it's going to be a very important election for the future of Thailand. One characterisation of the contest between Tuxin-Shinawat's Piyat Hai group, on the one hand, and the Democrats on the other, is the Tuxin and his colleagues are populists. Indeed, we read reports that in order to compete politically with Tuxin's group, the Democrats have been pushed towards becoming more populist themselves. But hardly anyone says what populism actually means. And I wasn't too sure myself as of yesterday, so I did some research to try to find out. And what I'm going to tell you is what I learnt about the meaning of populism, how it might apply to the Thai situation, and what it means for the future. Want to mention, before I launch into that, that the National Thai Studies Centre will be having its Thai Update Conference last week of September of this year, after the election, so that we can review the outcome of the election of what it means for the long term. We didn't want the update before the election, because then we'd be distracted on short-term issues about who's going to win and so forth. Okay. Populism. Wikipedia says populism is an ideology, or more uncommonly a political philosophy, or type of discourse that compares the people against the elite. There's a book about populism in Asia, written by our friend and colleague, Pasuk Pongpaichit, and a colleague whose name I won't try to pronounce. It was reviewed in New Mandela some time ago. You can find the review on New Mandela. And what Pasuk and her co-author say is that it's a political philosophy emphasising the rights and power of the people who struggle against the privileged elite, usually complemented by anti-intellectualism, anti-elitism, and often anti-foreign sentiments. Okay. The Great Book on Populism. This one just recently been published. It's about populism in Latin America. It's by the UCLA economist Sebastian Edwards. You can read that. Latin America and the false promise of populism. So Edwards looks at populism in economic terms, and that's what I'm going to do as well. He describes populism as an emphasis on public expenditures that win popular support through short-term redistributions. Oops, I want the slideshow. Short-term redistributions, rather than investments that raise long-term productivity. If the short-term redistributions are matched by contractions in investment that would have promoted long-term productivity, then public expenditure doesn't get out of control. But if it's not at the expense of that, then public expenditure does get out of control, tends to be financed by monetary recreation, and that causes hyperinflation. That's a part of the Latin American story. Not a part of the Thai story so far, thank goodness. Hyperinflation is terrible. Thai populism. I was in Bangkok less than two weeks ago, and this is from Sunday 10 days ago, something like that, from the nation. Tuxin, in absentia, is giving his election agenda address to the assembled group from Puyatai. This event occurred at Rangsit University in the outskirts of Bangkok. I know you can't read the text. The first sentence begins as all nation newspaper articles about Tuxin do. Futurely former prime minister, Tuxins, you know what? They always... Any time you see those words, it's the nation. And there's the Bangkok Post coverage of the same event, and Tuxin's on video. He's in Dubai, I believe, and there are all the Puyatai people there. And Tuxin's telling us what his economic agenda is. Well, good for him. He's telling us that he don't have a clear agenda from Democrats yet, so I'm going to focus on Tuxin. Anyway, that's where populism, the concept, is relevant. What was Tuxin's agenda? Well, here in his own turning office, Tuxin, let me oversimplify, there were three strands to his economic policies. There were huge mega-projects. There were policies intended to protect the monopolies that Tuxin happened to own, protect them against competition from foreigners and from other Thai business people. And there were redistributive policies. It's by no means the case that all of Tuxin's redistributive policies were a bad idea, not at all. One that was a brilliant policy innovation was this 35-kilometer. But there were many other cash-hand-out policies that were classic populism. Purchased short-term political support, and as I'll show later, at the expense of long-term investment. And the economic agenda that Tuxin has set out for us is more of the same. There are these huge mega-projects. Some of which may make perfect sense. Tuxin's full of ideas. And some of them will be good ideas. They have to be studied carefully. Some of them may well make sense. A 30 to 60-kilometer wall to protect Bangkok from flooding could be a good idea. Water diversion project to bring water diverted from Burma, Laos and Cambodia. Have the Burmese, the Laos and the Cambodians consulted about that yet. I don't know about that. I doubt it. High-speed train links, et cetera. A land bridge. Not the canal, apparently. A land bridge across the mainland connecting the Gulf of Thailand with the Andaman Sea. There have been numerous such projects in the past. Lots of fighting among the different provincial administrations as to whose province would get it. New electric trains. Huge capital-intensive projects. Plenty of them. Tuxin has lots of ideas like that. And then some economic policies as well. For people, anybody at all, not just farmers, but anybody at all having a debt between 500,000 and a million, but you'll get a moratorium financed by the government. There will be a revenue guarantee for local administrative organisations. Farmers will get credit cards. There will be a minimum salary guaranteed by the government, presumably. There will be a 15,000 minimum per month, minimum salary guarantee for anyone who graduates with a bachelor's degree. And so on. Tax cuts for first home buyers, tax cuts for first car buyers, free Wi-Fi in public areas. Not presuming at all that any or all of these are bad ideas, not at all, they're populism, that's my point. A minimum guaranteed price for rice. An increase in the minimum wage of 200, 300 baht per day. One of the few things that the Democrats have clarified for us about their economic policy is more or less the same thing. I think the Democrats promise to increase the minimum wage to 250 baht per day, but the two agree about that. I'll skip some of the others. Eliminate the drugs problem within 12 months. Well, that's familiar. We've heard that one, you know what his mechanisms for eliminating the drug more than 2,000 extrajudicial murders took place. The last one, eliminate poverty within 4 years. I presume that the mechanism for reducing poverty will not be the same as the mechanism for getting rid of the drug dealers. I'm sure it's not true, it's not. We heard that promise last time Tuxin was elected 2001. He was going to get rid of poverty in 5 years. Well, still with us unfortunately. That's missing. There's nothing there about education reform. The basic problem of long-term economics in Thailand is the outdated education system, particularly primary and secondary education, not the universities, primary and secondary. There's nothing there about tax reform. That's really important for Thailand because the Thai tax system discriminates against the poor and in favour of the rich. It's a regressive tax system. It's really important that that be reformed. Finally, there's nothing in there about agricultural productivity. I'm an agricultural economist. That's why I'm particularly interested in that. I think it just happens to be particularly important. Two minutes. What I want to show here is one. Forget the first table, we don't have time for that. First, the number of the poor in Thailand that are in rural areas is very high even by Asian standards. 86% of all people, according to the Thai statistics, the data comes from the World Bank, putting to the World Bank's analysis of the Thai statistics, 86% of all poor people are in rural areas, in Thailand, much higher than Indonesia, India and even higher than China. More important point is, the sources of poverty reduction in Thailand can be divided into three. Reduction within rural areas, people who are within rural areas at the beginning of some particular period, it's 93 to 2005, and are still there at the end. That's one. Reduction within urban areas. That's two. And third, poverty reduction that occurs when people move from the high poverty area rural to the low poverty area urban and become non-poor as a result. There's three things. The overwhelmingly important one for Thailand is the first. Much more important relative to the others than for any of those other countries. 91% of all poverty reduction in Thailand over that interval has occurred within the rural areas. What drives rural poverty reduction? What causes the reduction in poverty that's actually occurred, very impressive over the long term? What causes it is economic growth, ladies and gentlemen, economic growth. And there's my evidence. The top line is annual GDP growth, not agriculture total. The red line is the annual change in rural poverty incidents. If that goes up, poverty is going up, if it goes down, poverty is going down. Faster the growth of GDP, the faster the reduction in rural poverty. The red line is rural poverty. There's only one data point that's an exception for that, and that's the Asian financial crisis and I'll explain that exception in the discussion period if anybody wants it. Finally, what drives GDP growth, particularly occurring in agriculture? If you do that diagram for agricultural GDP growth, the correlation is even more so. What drives it? One of the things that really drive it is investment in agricultural research and extension, because the new technologies available in agriculture must be adapted to local conditions of that tech investment. Look what's happened. 1961 to 1994, the expenditure on those things relative to agricultural value added rose, collapsed, from 2001 to 2006. Guess who was in office during that time? The transfers that Tuxin implemented were at the expense of long-term productive investment, particularly in agriculture, classed populism. I'll stop there. Thanks a lot. I'd like to introduce Dr Andrew Walker from the School of International Political and Strategic Studies. Peter and I don't have much in common, except the first three letters of our name must be order, but I think it'll be interesting. There's very interesting parallels between what I'm talking about and what Peter was talking about, in particular the focus on productivity. I want to step back from some of the specifics of what's happened over the last year or two in Thailand and look at some of the deep drivers. I think one of the most important deep drivers is a change in the political culture of Thailand's peasants and what I'm calling middle-income peasants. And I want to do it by talking, taking you through three propositions. The first proposition is peasants in Thailand are, for the most part, no longer poor. They're middle-income peasants. Now remember Peter said that 86% of poor people in Thailand are in rural areas. He didn't say, 86% of rural people are poor. Okay, so just keep that 86% figure in mind in that context. Now, why are they no longer poor? For exactly the reasons Peter was talking about because of economic growth. Here's a graph of GDP per capita in Thailand since the 1960s. Dramatic economic growth, you can see the financial crisis of the late 1990s there. This economic growth has produced dramatic improvements in rural standards of living. Rural poverty in the 60s was 96%, now around 13%. Infant mortality declined to first world standards. Primary school completion dramatically improving. Let's look at one particular indicator and that is income. If we look at the averages, and here I'm focusing on averages, rural incomes, non-municipal incomes are on average 320% of the poverty line. Land-owning farmers on average 280% of the poverty line. Tenant farmers on average 270% of the poverty line. Even the poorest people in rural communities, agricultural workers on average double the poverty line. Now this is occurring throughout Thailand even in areas that are the poorest in Thailand, the northeast. So, you know, Tuxin did make that commitment. He didn't eliminate poverty but over that period, and since we have seen dramatic declines in poverty throughout Thailand, 4 million people being lifted above the poverty line in the northeast. So, Proposition 1, by large people in rural Thailand are no longer poor, they're middle income peasants. But, what I've been talking about is absolute poverty. We've got to distinguish that, and this is a point Peter's made many times, but we've got to distinguish that from relative poverty. And a lot of discussion in politics in Thailand would benefit from people being much more careful about the difference between absolute poverty and relative poverty. There's very significant relative poverty in Thailand. There's national economic disparity which I'm suggesting is primarily a result of the relatively low productivity of agriculture. The lower income, blue higher income, it's obvious where the red shirts come from. There's very clear regional and urban rural economic disparity in Thailand. Now, one of the principal causes of this economic disparity is the relatively low productivity of agriculture. Exactly what Peter was talking about. The blue line indicates per capita productivity in agriculture. This is what the worker in agriculture produce in terms of Thailand's GDP. You can see it's increased. It's increased in recent years and this has made a major contribution to reducing rural poverty. But it's at a much lower base and at times it's increased much lower than labour productivity in industry. So that's that graph in a sense encapsulates one of the core dimensions of Thailand's economic disparity of the relative poverty of people in rural areas. That graph's a bit complicated. Here's an easy couple of figures that I think really highlights this point and these two figures tell you a lot about what's going on in Thai politics. Agriculture contributes 12% of Thailand's GDP but that 12% is produced by about 42% of the workforce. So doing a quick little bit which I sometimes can do, labour outside agriculture is more than five times as productive as labour within agriculture. So to the extent that rural people depend on agriculture and of course they combine that with many other things but to the extent that they rely on agriculture they are relying on a relatively unproductive sector of the economy. So that's my second proposition. Not absolutely poor anymore but relatively poor due to the relatively low productivity of agriculture. Third proposition. How am I going for time, Tiro? Only half way there. I can slide down a bit. Now this is the key point. This is where we really get down to the political nuts and bolts. The Thai state now plays a central role in supporting the rural economy. Now I think there's a very important debate here and I agree with a lot of what Peter said. A lot of that support is sort of in a sense drip feed support rather than productivity enhancing support and we see the effect of that in those low productivity figures for agriculture. But let's just look at this dramatic change in the role of the Thai state in terms of the rural economy. Here's a graph that might look a bit complex but it's really very easy. This is about the impact of Thai government policies on the crop prices that farmers receive. How much can they sell their rice or corn or sugar or whatever for? Now the blue line across the top there at North represents a neutral position as if the government had no effect on prices at all. Freely operating market I suppose. So you can see in the 1970s farm gate prices were very significantly lowered by government policy and one of the main contributors to that was the rice premium that really attacks on rice growers. Really peaked in the mid 1970s. But since then the trend has been upwards whereas now, and this doesn't capture some of the recent very generous crop subsidy schemes now overall government policy has a slightly positive effect on crop prices. So essentially from pulling a lot of surplus out of the economy, the effect now is some degree of subsidy for the rural economy purely focusing here on crop prices. Another way of looking at this transformation in the government's role in relation to the rural economy government agricultural budget and this is real increase this is expressed in 2008 values in the 60s 5 or 6 billion spent on agriculture climbing up to 100 billion. You notice during the Tuxin period the growth the populous period of Tuxin the growth wasn't remarkable certainly unremarkable compared to some of the earlier periods during the 80s and 90s. So all governments of all political persuasions in Thailand have made this very big budgetary commitment to the agricultural sector and this is a lot about the changing political role of rural people So very heavy dependence in the rural economy on this agricultural budget supports crop prices, provides infrastructure provides irrigation weirs and outside the agricultural budget a whole range of social welfare and subsidy schemes some of which Peter referred to in his presentation. Now what does all this mean for political culture? Two minutes I can do it. Let me talk about this change in political culture just by looking at two sets of statements. Here's a classic statement from very famous political scientist James Scott about Asia's poor peasantry and this is the classic sort of peasant paradigm from the 60s and 70s and he starts with this quote there are districts in which the position of the rural population is that of a man standing permanently up to the neck in water so even the slightest ripple around him. Now if you're in that position that subsistence obsessed position then things like taxes and rents are potentially disastrous they can put you under you can die, you starve your household fires so Scott says that this subsistence ethic informs a particular political approach and he says taxes and rents together or individually form the twin issues around which peasant in south east Asia has classically coalesced. Now let's look at another set of statements by another classic work, soon to be classic hopefully, about Thailand's middle income peasantry completely different dynamic subsistence is no longer a primary concern. For these middle income peasants the primary livelihood challenges moved away from food security to the middle income challenges of diversification productivity and disparity and here there's a brand new political dynamic this dynamic is about not minimising surplus extraction but maximising state subsidy through the sorts of schemes Peter talked about and it's no longer the intrusive presence of the state through taxes that's likely to make people protest and get politically active it's the state's disinterest, absence or forced withdrawal. The rural community now needs that state subsidy to back up its relatively non-productive sectors and my suggestion is if we want to understand the rise of tuxin the rise of the redshirt movement amongst middle income peasants like this we need to understand the political importance of defending this relationship between rural people and the state thank you very much. I'd like to introduce Dr Craig Reynolds from the School of Culture, History and Language. My sympathies with the audience who has to put up with seven speakers popping up different disciplines different accents different topics. The title of this talk is Autocratic Rule in the Neighborhood Almost 12 months ago after the killing and the burning of the Bangkok business district had ended a prominent Thai public intellectual wrote an article in the Thai language Matichon Weekly on the culture of the army. He asked himself some questions how do armies in modern times induce human beings to overcome concern for their own lives and be bloodthirsty enough to kill other human beings in battle. His answer was that one method to carry out this grim task is to dehumanize the enemy to make the enemy into a devil he used the English word demonize why did the center for the resolution of the emergency situation find it necessary to release information about the plan to overthrow the monarchy before it's set about dispersing the crowds precisely because it had first to demonize the enemy the institution of the monarchy in Thai society has become the center of the universe for everyone's well-being the columnist said people in every occupation including soldiers are able to imagine a future for themselves in which they gradually advance to this or that goal at the very least they inspire to a degree of security even if it is only to cling to the security they already enjoy today they are privates tomorrow they are sergeants and perhaps before retirement they may reach second lieutenant the real meaning of overthrow the monarchy is the termination of this state of well-being as well as the career prospects that soldiers have come to expect this would have an inescapable impact on each and every soldier as well as his wife and children and this is one of the things that motivated the soldiers to kill they wanted to ensure the only future they knew the only future they could imagine so the columnist focuses the reader's attention on the supreme institution the pole star around which the lives of everyone in the society spins certainly a lot of political effort particularly since the 2006 coup has involved keeping attention fixed on that reference point that heavenly body this is a very inward looking perspective and it's understandable why it is so inward looking but I want to step away from Thailand briefly and look at the country as belonging to a set of countries that are historically linked with political systems that have much in common during the demonstration and violence last year the occasional comparison was made between Thailand and military rule in Myanmar but otherwise there was very little comment based among its mainland neighbors what has been missing from media and academic commentary is the regional context since decolonization after the second world war democracy has been a problem in mainland Southeast Asia governments voted into office are often one party governments authoritarian governments like elections because the leaders can then say they have come to power through the electoral process the distinction between elections and democracy is often not made participatory democracy is undermined if elections are not free and competitive vote buying candidates handing out cash and other inducements to voters is a recurrent issue leading to the widespread belief that elections are fixed and there is another problem the political culture in a participatory democracy needs to be tolerant of dissent but those in the region already in power strive to limit dissent and manipulate democracy to ensure not just their longevity in office but permanency of rule this is certainly what motivated police lieutenant colonel when he was prime minister and ran his party like a cartel let us look across the mainland in Myanmar the army has governed for nearly 50 years yes there were elections last year and there is evidence of military dictatorship easing but some kind of military rule seems inevitable even on the most distant horizon in Cambodia where they have elections a strong man is still in power decades after he was installed as prime minister by the vietnamese during their military occupation of the country in socialist laos and communist vietnam only one party is allowed to field candidates in national elections in Malaysia there is more multi-party activity but the united may lays national organization the dominant party in ruling coalition since independence and the constitution in its favor and regularly rearranges electorates to preserve its electoral advantage in Singapore the people's action party hobbles other parties if the exhibit meaningful opposition and thus maintains its one party dominance these mainland countries all inherited their internal security laws from the western imperial powers that colonized them in the case of Thailand from the pox americana in southeast Asia that lasted from the end of world war 2 until the early 1970s and this is the immediate neighborhood this region of autocratic political systems in which Thai democracy is expected to put down its roots and flourish Thailand is not an exception here Thailand is one element in a regional political field that has systemic features the juxtaposition of autocracy and democracy runs deep in the Thai elite psyche just days before the 1932 revolution that brought an end to the absolute monarchy the 7th Bangkok king mulled over the possibility of a constitution all the while clinging to the hope that the Thai people could be encouraged to support an absolute monarchy he expressed it this way this is King Prachati Poh Prabhat Som Depp of O'Klau, Jaayu Wul our country uses a dictatorship system of government but our system is not like other dictator systems on the contrary it has many characteristics of a democracy thus it is a sort of half and half and we haven't really decided which system we will follow this is May 1932 Thai and western political scientists have written many thousands of words on semi-democracy in Thailand ever since indeed semi-democracy may have come from this royal source as the decades have passed there has not been much improvement and at this point it's more like not 50-50 democracy not one quarter democracy or one tenth democracy if anything history has merely reversed a formulation as if to say our country uses a democratic system of government but it has many characteristics of dictatorship the Janus figure of the benevolent dictator the enlightened despot still looms large in the minds of Thai political thinkers as they puzzle over the real significance of the 1932 event strong leadership armed with tanks and guns is admired as much as it is resented in Thailand and there is a definite Buddhist element in this leadership style the strong man with or without a military background is sometimes of aesthetic demeanor respected for his personal discipline and powers of self-control several prime ministers and would-be prime ministers fit this description a Bangkok columnist writing in English has described this leadership variant as an amalgam of gangster and monk the strong man in the aesthetic in the one individual always, of course, male the current chairman of Thailand's privy council General Brem Tinsela Nong was mentioned as a case in point Major General Jam Long Simu a core leader of the yellow shirts is another example I am not suggesting that Thailand is doomed to autocratic rule it is not destined to have forever what it has now a military man in his army a national respectable Oxford educated prime minister who wears nice suits speaks fluent English and has a western nickname Thailand is struggling with the institutions history has given it institutions that one day look like dictatorship with characteristics of democracy and the next day like a democratic system with characteristics of dictatorship Thailand lives in a neighborhood of autocratic governments and these governments share with Thailand's government the dark practices of arbitrary detention killing with impunity and the suppression of dissent by means of coercive laws it's a very, very tough neighborhood to live in thank you I'd like to introduce Dr. Mark Nolan from the ANU college of law thank you Tural and thank you for the invitation to cross the college boundary as it were and to join some fellow speakers today the saddest thing about Tural is organising these wonderful events is that we don't hear a paper from Tural at these events so maybe next year before I start I'd like to acknowledge some work done for me by Sarah Bishop as a research assistant I think the ANU college of law and the College of Asian Pacific should be mutually proud of producing if I can embarrass you for a moment researchers such as Sarah who can work fluently in law and Thai legal systems as well Australian legal systems English-speaking legal systems and Thai legal systems there are a few people in this room who know how poor my Thai is and that I can't translate Thai statute and other material so thanks to Sarah I'm not a high calibre Thai study scholar like most of the people here but I have considered counter-terrorism law from a domestic perspective in the context of the international urging for us to adopt a model counter-terrorism law sometimes moral sometimes not model counter-terrorism law after 9-11 I've been critical of the need for special terrorism laws beyond normal criminal law and criminal procedure I've used the term populism as well penal populism to think about the concerns that we have when counter-terrorism law in reaction to political protest is hastily passed as it was in Australia even more so than it was in Thailand I think some of what I'm going to say today reflects on my experience on sabbatical at the law faculty of Jolongkorn University from July 2008 to February 2009 where I started to have my first dangerous thoughts perhaps about counter-terrorism law its appropriateness and its appropriateness for prosecution and mass political protests in Thailand the Truth for Reconciliation Commission of Thailand in its first interim report which has been mentioned already alarmed me when I got to the third or fourth last sentence there where it says that 145 cases of terrorism have been taken out against those who were part of the UDD protests, the Richard protests these are high rates of prosecution with counter-terrorism law and you can see that there are some other legal sources for actually prosecuting people who are involved in protest activity some of which also used terrorism related concepts of threatening the government in some fashion coercing the government in some fashion but we've probably all got our own political views about the red and the yellow mass protests and the legal responses to those protests I want you all to be thinking about what we think we know about the facts of 2008 protests and boycotts and occupations as well as the 2010 activity and I want to take you to the law because many of you may not have done that before to have a look at Thai counter-terrorism law to see a bit like in the Australian case how broad this is and how exciting it is for the over excited prosecutor because there's a lot of scope in this law I'll say at the outset though that Thailand even though it's adopted some of the shared model legislation that the UN has urged upon us the counter-terrorism committee has urged upon us as domestic policies we actually see Thailand passing less counter-terrorism law than Australia has thankfully Thailand does not have an offence of possessing a thing connected to terrorism the charge that Faheem Lodi in Australia was convicted of and is serving a substantial sentence a hand clapper a foot clapper abandonner in the family home if mass political protests were to be considered to be terrorism is not able to be prosecuted as a thing connected with terrorism in the Thai context even though it's one of the many offences that have been added in the Australian statute book so what does Thai counter-terrorism law say that if you commit an act of violence which is very broadly defined injury to body or mind by physical force or by any other means or performing any action which endangers the life or seriously endangers the body of someone or most importantly the freedom of any person now this is where the scope becomes exceptionally broad even to start with we can use any type of violence or any type of action to endanger life but also to restrict the freedom of any person I want you to be thinking about what you know about the red shirt protests and the yellow shirt protests over time committing any act which causes serious damage to the public transportation system communication system or basic infrastructure broad terms powerful laws commits any act which causes damage to any states or persons property or the environment most importantly in some of these protests causes or is likely to cause and I've been critical of the likely to cause formulation in the Australian context substantial economic injury so these are broad offences if such an act is committed with the intention of compelling or forcing the Thai government or a foreign government or an international organisation to perform or not perform any action which will cause serious injury or in order to create disorder or confusion by causing the people to be afraid similar types of triggers in the Australian context but have we already got law that easily covers a lot of the facts of the PAD protests from 2008 and UDD protests from 2010 is this an example of how penal populism gives us the ability to not use standard criminal law and criminal procedure but to think about the appropriateness of charging terrorism offences against political protesters I'm getting to some better news hopefully with the qualification interestingly in Got My My in 2008 there were two views about the PAD the yellow shirt protests firstly going through the type of law that I've just introduced you to we clearly have terrorism under section 35 slash one of the Thai criminal code but we also have terrorism related offences speech that coerces governments causing the cessation of business let's say it's one of boom to coerce the government as civil actions as well favoured by this author so on the one hand yes the yellow shirt protests easily are terrorism with criminal law and relate to civil actions that have terrorism overtones then we have police lieutenant colonel prolonged siri gun not by going through the law that I've just gone through but just conceptually socially psychologically what do we think terrorism is in some of my empirical social psychological research I have found this a fascinating issue to actually give different groups of people the same set of facts and say is this terrorism or not in a popular conception the way this article proceeds is the PAD leadership of the time and their actions like the actions of Lushka Atoiba quite a renowned and blacklisted terrorist organization not like any of the other historical examples of international terrorism PAD is not a prescribed terrorist organization so this is not terrorism anything that these protesters do even if I might share that view the thing that worries me is that the law is so much broader than that discussion a person can be arrested and denied bail because they're charged with a terrorist offence because the law is so broad this second debate is a good moral political debate to have but does it help anyone who's been charged with terrorist offences in political protest contexts here's the good news maybe as in Australia the time model provision actually says that the actions of marching protesting, raising an objection or mobilizing in order to demand help from the government or to receive justice wonderful text which is the use of constitutional freedoms problematic text is not a terrorist offence so it all sounds well and good doesn't it for people charged with political rallying for example as terrorism but the fear I have is that the constitutional freedoms that are mentioned in the political protest exemption may not be enough to protect those people charged with it why and on a quick run through here let's look at freedom of expression let's also look at freedom of association section 45 says a person shall enjoy the liberty to express his opinion, make speech, write, print publicize and make expression by other means sounds exceptionally good but as you know from the exercise of emergency decrees etc the restriction on liberty under paragraph 1 shall not be imposed except by virtue of the law specifically enacted for the purpose of maintaining the security of the state so when political protest activity occurs under the emergency decree we have a constitutional exemption to the freedom of expression don't we have a problem too with using what the Thai counter-terrorism law provides the protection of political protest wonderful around the world to see this exemption in domestic counter-terrorism law but how does it work in practice when you apply it to the facts of the case we have the similar problem don't we with freedom of association under section 63 of the current constitution a person shall enjoy the liberty to assemble peacefully and without arms and those facts have been strained in some of the protests but again as those emergency decrees and other laws for securing public convenience in use of public places or for the maintenance of public order during the time when the country is in a state of war or when a state of emergency or martial law is declared so again I have some real concerns about the best part of most modern counter-terrorism law in Thailand and in Australia we haven't had a situation even though we've had 22 successful counter-terrorism convictions in Australia we haven't had a situation of someone claiming the political protest exemption in Australia so as a domestic criminal law scholar in Australia I look to Thailand hopefully to get some extra understanding of how we should interpret that exemption in Australian counter-terrorism law maybe that's a vain hope but I have it nonetheless just finally a lot of what's called a terrorism charge in Thailand is of course a charge under the Computer Crime Act which itself does not have the same type of explicit political protest protection that we see in counter-terrorism law silent on the matter so we fall back on constitutional protections which themselves can be qualified as I've already discussed in times of emergency decree etc so isn't there an irony here that people who are charged under serious law, counter-terrorism law and the penalties are quite stiff here we have death imprisonment for life or imprisonment from 3 years to 20 years and a fine of 60,000 baht to 1 million baht under counter-terrorism law is it kind of exciting to be charged under counter-terrorism law if you've got a glimmer of hope of defending yourself compared to a computer crime act charge or any irony maybe in some of the cases that we're going to see coming to the Thai courts we will see some defendants making strong political protest exemption arguments but we've had the discussion of one of these such computer crime cases the acquittal of Ketong but here we don't get to the level of actually comparing the cyber crime or the Computer Crime Act against counter-terrorism law and he's really acquitted for factual reasons about the posting to the website and who did it and when and all sorts of things so let me leave you with those thoughts I'm going to be a keen watcher of any counter-terrorism prostitution in Thailand for all these reasons if Australia can learn something from it I think that's all well and good if some justice can be given by political protest exemptions or otherwise that could be a useful result as well thank you very much I'd like to introduce Dr. Jane Ferguson from the School of Culture, History and Language thank you so much Tiro for organizing I've already learned so much from the different speakers and I have yet another thing which we can debate its relevance to what's already been said so actually for my presentation I'm going to be considering the relationship of Thailand to Burma in the past couple of years and raise some questions about regime change and the questions of politics and business as usual the relationship between the military the state and capital and then in particular how does this affect migrants and refugees so skipping back a little bit in history I would like to draw your attention to a promise of the then Prime Minister Thane Singh to Prime Minister Apisit at the 2009 ASEAN meetings in Huo Hin Thane Singh vowed that he would not allow for any opposition party to the Thai Kingdom to use Burmese soil as a staging ground for anti-government activity in all likelihood this was in reference to Thaksin how he would get to Burma without changing planes in Bangkok Suwanhafum I wonder but anyway fast forwarding to just a week ago at the National Security Council Tawin Pansri had discussed the closing of the 10 refugee camps along the Thai Burma border as Tawin said the refugees have been in Thailand for more than 20 years and it became our burden to take care of them I cannot say when we will close down the camps but we intend to do it we are now in the process of discussion with the Myanmar government there seems to be an odd form of terrestrial cooperation here we are not going to house any enemies of your states or so they are saying right now there are 142,000 refugees from Burma living in Thailand border camps and approximately 2 million migrant workers working in Thailand both documented and undocumented in the bottom echelons of the Thai economy remittances in Burma constitute 5% of Burma's GDP a number double that of foreign direct investment in my contribution to these discussions I would like to consider the relationship between Burmese and Thai governments in general and in generals I suppose and the extent to which government military and business relationships have been changing in stripe independently and in response to each other part of the negotiations deemed necessary for apisit taking power was that several cabinet positions were handed to the Pumjai Thai party thus since 2009 there has been a massive increase in the country's military budget next door Burma's military spending account for over half of its national budget and despite in spite of new changes in outward government appearance this has no signs of changing in fact particularly in the shan state in Burma's northeast there have been increases in forced recruitment as well as pressures towards former ceasefire groups to become border guard forces and because of these more shan in particular have been migrating to Thailand to escape the military presses as well as the internationally funded capital intensive projects that have resulted in more military activity to clear out the areas the extent to which both national militaries will be complicit in international business at both the level of large scale intensive projects such as hydro power downs and coal mines as well as the level of migrant workers and vulnerable border crosses remains to be seen while Thailand's political leadership seems somehow much more willing to brandish its military garb the Burmese generals are much more willing to doff their uniforms in favor of starched linen shirts and silk longies in order to wield political power in their country and create an image of a democracy to the international community last October Prime Minister Abhisit made his trip to Burma where he was greeted by a military marching band which played the Thai national anthem for him if you're interested you can look this up on YouTube on the Hanthawadi news site it was really actually kind of trippy to watch Abhisit arrive in Napida and then have the whole military band playing the Thai national anthem for him part of the goal of the visit according to reports was for Thailand to assure the Burmese authorities on behalf of its business investors that things would be business as usual and odd kinds of switching roles in deja vu going back and forth here one of the aims also for this meeting was a promise for the tripling of Thai Burmese trade by 2015 the shared border has long been an important conduit for trade and during July and August of last year the closure of the Mesot Mayawadi crossing led to a loss of 10 million dollars for Thai firm 100 million dollars for Thai firms while Yangon suffered from shortages of commercial products at the larger level Thai investors were holding their breath regarding the November 2010 elections in Burma as a diplomat is quoted as saying in the Irawadi magazine a lot of small to medium businesses on both sides have been suffering due to the border crossing closures by Burma but there are bigger trade prizes on offer if less state fettered Burmese economy is permitted in the elections. Burma and Thailand certainly do have a great deal in common but what of the recent strategy of Thailand's military to take a more overt role in politics while Burma's top brass is trying to look more civilian and this also flashes back to 1989 then Thai Prime Minister Chhat Chai Chunawin promising to turn then battlefields into market places and the extent to which you have to remain in military uniform to do so up until 2010 the Burmese government would say oh sure it's great just stay in uniform you don't have to have a civilian front for this but then Thailand seems to have changed on this issue twice so is a civilian government mere window dressing and to what extent is the military and the army complicit in mediating these negotiations between capital and then the local areas so here's an image of the Salween river the longest free flowing river in Southeast Asia one of these projects is the Tatang Dam being built by a Thai company in the Shan state of Burma the company's name is MDX limited and the Burmese government has provisioned that 85% of its expected output of over 7,000 megawatts will be sold to Thailand the cooperation on the part of the Burmese government has been mainly military they have concentrated more and more troops near the Tatang Dam site whereas in 1996 there were 10 battalions in nearby townships now there are over 30 and since 1996 not just because of Tatang Dam but throughout the Shan state over 300,000 people have been displaced by the military here's the, well this is actually in Pa'au areas in the Shan state but just this past week Thai investors the Sarawuri coal mining group recently signed a contract which would allow them to export coal from the two townships in the eastern Shan state for the next 30 years this project will take place approximately 70 kilometers north of the border with the Thai province of Chiang Rai and they have begun relocating villagers and destroying existing farms and paddy fields to make way for the coal mine it's speculated that Sarawuri group plans to use the coal to as fuel and cement factories in Thailand an international labor organization survey estimated that Thailand is host to 1.8 million migrants the majority of whom are from Burma they constitute 5% of the Thai labor force and carry out the dangerous, difficult and dirty jobs that the Thais if they can help it won't do their net contribution to the Thai economy is around $53 million annually although it has been possible for workers to register the costly and time-consuming process precludes many from doing so extended permission is part of the new national verification process which would make migrants submit biographical data including Burmese registration information to Thai employment officials or more likely pay brokers to do so on their behalf if they don't go through this process migrants are faced with the possibility of deportation this process can cost 6,000 baht prohibitively expensive for many, according to a informant I talked to last February to pay the fees for both travel permit and the registry is like being hit from both sides who would have money to live on and forget about sending anything home under Toxin a mass registration and incentive program motivated 1 million migrants to register but this past year that number fell to 500,000 an interesting correlation here and one which isn't likely to make the headlines is the tension between the Thai central government and the police and the army regarding the migrants with registration fees going to the districts and provincial governance but then what of the army checkpoints in the periphery especially the army might not want workers to be registered another problem here is that there is not a long term migration policy and perhaps this reflects tension between regional political authorities the district officials and the police as well as the army in addition to the business interests would very much depend on a supply of inexpensive labor in particular it is the government illegal alien workers management committee the Kha Bal Ra which is the umbrella organization of 22 separate agencies which is relatively weak compared to the military and business interests that it must contend with in considering migration and work policies overall the Burma case and its relationship with Thailand between the military and the state as Dr. Reynolds nicely pointed out this problem is a regional issue as are the repercussions for those who are disenfranchised by all regimes involved I'd like to introduce Dr. Nicholas Farrelly from the School of Regulation Justice and Diplomacy Good afternoon everyone and thank you very much for organising such a stimulating event it is simply wonderful to see you all here so there is a pretty standard set of future gazing questions that analysts of Thai politics and society get asked these days will there be an election in 2011 who will win any prospective poll can form a Prime Minister Taksin Shinawat ever return to formal politics will there be another military coup is further bloodshed likely what happens when King Bumipon Adunya Dat dies would King Wajira Longkorn be good for Thai democracy what about Princess Sirentor could she be a real possibility for Thailand's throne is Thailand lurching towards another long period of dictatorship can the country ever become a republic most of these questions lead to simply impossible puzzles our tools of prognosis are so weak that a well informed answer is naturally tentative but seeking answers to these questions about the future of Thailand is a challenge that many in this room face assessing the evidence for particular futures and weighing up a portfolio of alternative scenarios is important intellectual work it tends of course to differ from other academic activities in the sense that it is profoundly sometimes comprehensively speculative from where I sit if we want to do a serious job of examining Thailand's future then much more attention needs to be paid to the fundamentals of how we go about answering these kinds of questions to illustrate my point today I have time to dwell on two of these questions at some length first what happens when King Bumibon Thailand's Rama the Ninth dies it's a troubling question I appreciate that and many ties are uncomfortable to even have it raised so where do we start with history I suggest but what history recent examples of what happens when Thai kings die are few and far between the last succession caught up in the murky events of 1946 when Rama the Eighth was found dead don't actually help us all that much it's very unlikely that King Bumibon will die in such mysterious circumstances turning back the clock even further we have events around the revolution of 1932 and the abdication that followed to consider those events show certainly that the institution of monarchy has faced tremendous transitional challenges in the past and then we have 1910 when Rama the Fifth King Chulalongkorn died he's the only king who challenges the incumbent for the mantle of the greatest in many Thai estimations he died after reigning for 42 years after Rama the Fifth's reign the monarchy struggled for decades to redefine itself and the challenge was that the King's reformist zeal had catalyzed a process of widespread social transformation but Rama the Fifth died more than a century ago can we really look to those events to understand Thailand's future I suggest that we can that we need to work much harder at it and far more attention needs to be paid to some of this history far more attention should also be paid to some of these recent events now fading quickly into our memories on the 2nd of January 2008 King Bumibon's elder sister Princess Gaoyani passed away Thailand was thus flung into a period of nationwide mourning I was there at the grand palace on the first day of that period of mourning I was taking the pulse of the crowd attempting to get some sense of the implications as analysts I think we must acknowledge that very few people in Thailand are prepared to openly talk about what might happen when the King dies nonetheless this is I suggest a fundamental question for any future gazing and it is through the reading of history that our speculation can be sharpened and our assessments given the richness that only past experience can bring the second question that I want to briefly introduce has a somewhat different flavour is Thailand lurching towards another long period of dictatorship current indications are that at least some among the ruling coalition government led by Prime Minister Apisit we want to see immediate elections perhaps the Prime Minister himself is countered among that number we may see elections called by very very soon if we do then a whole range of historical materials will become very relevant for probing the relationship between elections and dictatorship Thailand's history of elections remains ignominious by any democratic standard it is a rare government that wins an election and sees out its first term to win another it is the Thai Ruk Thai built by former Prime Minister Taksin that has most successfully mastered the art of democratic campaigning it won two big victories by explicitly playing a tried and tested game of Thai politics what is often described as Gan Leng Gan Nuo so we know all of this already and it's not much of a surprise but what we probably haven't paid sufficient attention to in the context of Thailand's lurch away from democratic institutions and processes is that the last genuinely free elections held in Thailand saw absolutely magnificent successes for Taksin's political machine the history of the February 2005 victory in particular has not really been examined all that closely and one reason is that by the time of the September 2006 military coup so many other issues had come to define Thai political debates and almost all of those issues were further defined by the dominance of unelected groups from the palace and the army but the election results still tell the story when Thais went to the polls on the 6th of February 2005 the results were really pretty clear the Thai Ruk Thai party soon to be disbanded in the 2006 coup after Marth won more than 60% of the vote it had a bumper majority of the likes really never seen in Thai political history the Democrat party did okay I suppose for a minor party not for a party that could claim to be able to form a government and Mahachon came in 3rd and 4th down a list of many other political parties which never really had a chance of getting anybody into parliament against the juggernaut that was Thai Ruk Thai if Thailand is now going to lurch into another period of some kind of dictatorship where elections become a hazy memory and paying attention to the history of Tuxin's unprecedented electoral success I think remains crucial Based on that history Papi Sitz political allies and establishment backers have reason to be pretty nervous about any future poll perhaps this explains their hesitation history shows that regardless of the obstacles nobody wins elections in Thailand like Tuxin Shinawat and his political machine so if we are going to try to answer the key questions about Thailand's political future I suggest really closely at the historical record we need to look back to some of the periods of history that have helped to define Thailand's parliament its monarchy, its army its peasantry and its business elite without more historical depth our assessments I think remain impossible if we are trying to deal with the fundamental puzzles and questions which should exercise as all and by looking to Thailand's past I'd suggest that we may find fragments that provide useful evidence for understanding the inevitably difficult years that are to come Thank you So I'd like to introduce our final speaker Dr. Pongkisut Pusparat from the School of International Political and Strategic Studies Thank you for what appropriate to end this speaker panel with a Thai Thai speaker My presentation today is going to touch upon the foreign policy of this country, Thailand and I give the topic of these presentations beyond the limit the exercise of nationalism in Thai foreign policy During the past few years we can see that nationalism has become an important element in Thai politics especially regarding external relations with foreign countries and neighboring countries in particular. Recent conflict with Cambodia over Prabhidhan Temple is the primary example of these phenomena with continuity of tension and conflict during these past years Thailand definitely has overused nationalism beyond its limit Let's see not only the when we talk about nationalism is not only the bad thing nationalism as like other public good it has the optimal utilities with a balanced attachment in national identity nationalism a country can unify and have a sense of community which helps to support nation building and a stronger economy with less national cultural nationalism attached within the national community country may fail into weak state with social disruption lack of sense of community and dedication of public work however in this case too much nationalism can also drive a country into conflict with foreign country especially neighboring country and even within its own diverse ethnic groups nationalism in current political conflict basically play a role in this political situation to legitimize and attack other political groups by way of instigating border dispute attacking other who might think differently from the mainstream an easy accusation of others as untie selling a country and disloyal to the nation against the rule of law trying to map out all the events since 2008 but actually nationalism has been manipulated before that if we record a history in 2005 Tuxin was accused of selling the Thai nation by selling his Shin Cop to Singaporean and that consequence was the government in 2007 to suspend some bilateral relation activity with Singapore when Tuxin allowed to enter Singapore and then from 2008 onward nationalism has been fired up around the disputed area of Pawee Han Temple especially since Cambodia register the Pawee Han Temple as a world heritage then Thailand saw the joint listing of the Rune with Cambodia subsequently came as a joint community in June 2008 to support this listing then we saw anti-Samaq rally against this joint community in the end of June the current government then the opposition party was bandwagoning with the pat or the yellow shirt picking this issue to mobilize political support against pro-Tuxin group Tuxin is having a personal interest with the Hun Sen government and call constitutional court to rule over this issue then constitutional court ruled over this joint communique as unconstitutional and forced Anopadon to resign a few days after the ruling military tension started from mid-July August and a little bit after that when Thai troop deployed around the disputed area Hun Sen asked ASEAN to intervene and Thai rejected Hun Sen issued ultimatum to Thailand to withdraw the troop around mid-October and right a day after that because it commented on Hun Sen in one of the pat demonstrations as crazy slave or a gangster because it also commented again during the pat closure of the Suwonapung airport in his speech he said he would use Hun Sen's blood to wash his feet which recorded Thai historical version of King Naray Soon doing the same act to our Cambodian king during the UTI period then moved to 2009 some clashes broke out in early April APICIT also announced that he would withdraw his support to the listing of the Pravehan temple then 2010 end of Jan we saw some armed conflict for five days during the end of Jan and another one in mid-April APIC gave a speech pat again and at that time it has a new politics party saying that his government would not surrender any inches to the Cambodian that year we saw seven Thai national were arrested by Cambodian authority of intruding into the territory then these stirred up the public outcry especially among conservative group over the disputed area and the rest of the Thai nationals and led to the demonstrations of a big yellow support and alliance which comprised of patriotic network against Cambodia and this time against the current Thai government soft measure on the issue they closed the government compound for almost a month this time the yellow shirt and it's a lie went farther than the democrat party initially wanted to see the demand the use of force to take the lost territories back to Thailand to place in early February then the following day there were armed clashes over the disputed area and lasted for 10 days UNSC called for C-SPI and mandated RCN to intervene then Jakarta meeting held in around the end of February both party agreed to manage this conflict peacefully and regardless of that agreement armed conflict still continue in April and recently in May and end of last year last month Cambodia also announced that it will request the international court of justice to reinterpret the 1962 ruling and this is at the current state the current conflict Cambodia seems to have more cost than benefit relationship with Cambodia deteriorate people security seriously affected with death toll and casualty among civilian and military rising truth has been covered nobody know exactly how many people die and who should who first and what kind of weapons they use national dignity and the international community is tarnished benefit perhaps among the small group of political conservative group and probably Thai military to have a justification to play a role in current political scene if I want to evaluate the optimality of using nationalism during this current situation I would say that at this stage we use nationalism too much trade with Cambodia fluctuated and declines since 2009 apparently hatred among the two country people from two country increased it also has resurrected a Thai self image of superiority vis-à-vis neighboring country in which state ideological past glory is more important than truth and accepting the truth this has deep in many Thai's belief in official nationalism without carefully thinking about their act and then back to the current government's foreign policy if I were a teacher the government probably I would give three emphasis probably especially with the relation with neighboring country the promotion of human right democracy and humanitarianism and of course in maintaining Thailand's good image and attitude to Thailand conclusion this nationalism create antagonistic view toward neighbor drag Thailand into armed conflict diverse state apparatus from achieving other important goals deprive Thailand's international status and eventually limit Thailand external interest thank you one question just in relation to the conveying border situation it strikes me that the world media has been portraying Thailand as a perpetrator of the country and one of the things that struck me is how well timed releases from Asian-Chinese press in my opinion have been these instances of taking place and one of the things that has been conjectured is that the conflict was really sure and fortified the nationalistic politics that's been involved in P&D on the border but what's perhaps fundamental to the problem is deeper than that is the demarcation and the dispute of whose line counts the French law in line or the American law in line and really what we're talking about is perhaps the delta between the two lines if not Thailand and the oil and gas reserves that are known to be there my sense is that one sense actually got a big role playing this and that Thailand is getting a bad press to a certain extent for good reason is that unfair? I think of course we say we'll play a big role in this issue and of course I believe we all know that again majority can work in politics and new relations are coming and probably we always see from here the media that we say normally we will use this issue as their support but if you think that Thai media the role of Thai media actually if you look carefully read Thai media basically anything any bad comment about Cambodia would occupy more space in Thai media than what the Thai elite would comment about Boon Sen and Cambodia I think for that reason a lot of Thai normally consume mainstream media would understand that Boon Sen would be the first to describe but then in terms of military tactics I think it's quite conventional that normally it's a common practice of military around this duration even though agreement on ceasefire is discussed but on the ground military always trying to to occupy as much as possible of a strategic area and in this case it comes to media that sometimes Thai media think the Cambodian military that do the ceasefire lying by the on first but that's not the case and Thai always provoke the first party as well you can see that a lot of angles about the Thai media but I think one point that I'm really talking about the conflict and the violence itself which I think is quite a big issue so with the the case about the deaths in the Thai and also the unsolved case of warriors or child what do you think would happen or could happen after the election would there be anything improved or would still see this violence increase? depends where we are depends where we are depends where we are and I see this because both of those issues in which I'll say a little bit about the conflict and resistance we're clearly going to discuss about is extremely troubling because it comes to the fact that we didn't have a lot of power and we had a lot of opposition and we had a lot of energy and energy and it's a valuable part of the fight in which I quite said yes that people who don't want to work with any state-of-the-art I don't actually think that's a kind of issue but it's kind of not that I'm not sure about the situation in which we speak in which we speak I see a lot of things in all of Taiwan actually we look back in 2016 since 2004 there was this military and before that there was a fashion in Japan we used to be in the Shabu Shabu in Japan and now here we are in the U.S. and we always came and we said it happened but the fact that it happened not because of the fashion and saying it so in 2005 we saw it we all we look there to be represented so now for this case I would say that this is called very small total population I think that is sometimes a significant problem but actually once again it's too complicated I would say that you won't see like the very next you won't make a long answer and one thing that we discussed earlier is our general subject so I think we should ask what are the questions it's up to all just back to your point about the type of technical growth and you're asking me about the opportunity cost of not investing in agricultural productivity what has been the net effect of those direct cash trades for those kind of things for the sake of trade well these transfers can reduce poverty incidences in the short run but not sustainably because they don't raise anybody's productivity and here's my great disappointment when the way cuts in the shillow I thought about agriculture we saw it as the backward sector it just happened to be all these voters there but in terms of this contribution of the economy it was backward that was yesterday's important sectors IT, telecommunication stuff like that and so he wasn't when he talked about the future of the time economy he never talked about the contribution that agriculture can make to economic growth but that's just wrongly because agriculture really has contributed the big a major contributed to Thailand's export growth has been processed food based on agriculture this is really an important industry at the time the taxis have taken no interest in that he was more interested in my interpretation in buying political support through cash transfers to village ads and farmer debt relief things like that not interested in promoting productivity growth within agriculture and that was a big mistake the contribution to economic growth those transfers is nothing can I comment a little bit I agree with Peter on the problem with Thai agricultural productivity that hasn't improved as much as the children compared to neighboring countries the performance is very poor but I think there's a risk of stereotyping taxis policies as cash handouts they didn't give money to village heads they established village credit funds they established micro credit schemes in every village that were administered by village committees and oversighted by the bank of agriculture and cooperatives and I think the performance of those schemes has been uneven but to suggest it to make no contribution to agricultural productivity I think is wrong I'm certain in Thailand where I work the village credit funds were very important for people in buying agricultural inputs in giving them a source of money that would help them perhaps rotate other loans so I think it was an important contribution to rural credit and agricultural credit the other schemes like the important small medium large scheme where villages were given money for various types of projects yes I suspect a lot of them were village halls and things like that that don't really contribute to agricultural productivity but there are others that were directly attempting to address that in terms of various rice milling projects or crop processing projects so I think I generally agree with Peter that the performance has been not good but I don't think that there was an impression that the rural areas and rural people there was just this flood of cash there was significant economic stimulus and economic projects in villages that continued those trends that I showed in those graphs that have been happening since the 70s a question for Nicholas in view of or rather well the point about size would you expect for the next election there will be the election of the people's or labour party? Thanks Colin, it's a good question and it comes again to this perpetual issue of future gazing so who's going to win an election and what kind of policies would they likely take to it of course we still wait with baited breath for to be called assuming that was to happen soon that may be one indication that the polling that the democrat party coalition government has suggests that they think they'll win if we see them further stalling the election and thus any possible defeat they might suffer that it would be very indicative of the fact that they're getting bad numbers out of their pollsters all that said I think that the betting money for a very long time has been on a puatai thus tuxins you know what victory in an election next month or in a year's time or frankly in four or five years time there would be a range of different views in this room on exactly how effective Apisit and his allies could be in cobbling together some different kind of coalition but that will take skill which I don't think we've really seen demonstrated yet except for in that brief and very dramatic period in late 2008 when that government was first formed I think it's done right that it's a one year I've sort of thought of it how we can memorize how how we can what does it mean for the last year in the town of Eastry I suspect that we're going to recognize what's really happening I think some health and care about this is that it's a revolution or it's a desertion or it's a movement or it's a movement or it's a massacar or it's a state parliament I think there's a lot to think about I guess a lot of people can't really work with this a lot I really don't know how to put this into words but my question is that even though a lot of community confusions they really want to be talked about it does not mean that they want to fight for their lives so we're defining the second part is in their lives and I imagine the same thing as with Obama he stands that he would be here she's saying that he's a president so I guess a lot of eagerists and eager to start the discussions and other things for inspiration about that which does not really come on it's a big movement you want me to start? but look how do we remember what happened last year I think it was a very large political protest under threat to bring down the government and that powerful forces in Thailand couldn't allow that to happen I think and I think there were obviously some serious tactical errors on the part of the red shirts there were groups whose role in relation to the red shirts I think is still mysterious and possibly always will be who certainly played a role in escalating that violence but just look at the death tolls and I hope it's so uneven this was the state's military forces deployed against political protestors as we can argue about grenade attacks or black shirts or whatever like that but I think that big picture is there now why did that happen I think that you're sort of hinting at the psychology of the protestors and the political motivations I think the research on that certainly goes on and they're still to be done I think the big for me the big picture driving politically energizing sentiment is this desire for a productive relationship with the government on the part of rural people I think this old notion the government is a matter for Bangkok and the rural people elect the government the city people get rid of the government I think that is now being fundamentally challenged and I suppose what I'm suggesting is a very sensible economic basis for that because the rural economy is now very dependent on all sorts of government support and it's a very important relationship to defend from my perspective I might say something since I haven't said anything I'm not a political scientist and I'm not a person who follows the police and the military but one of the things that struck me about what's happened in the last year is how the military particularly the army has become even more important in this complex thing that people call the state or the government of course there was a military crew in 2006 you know something about the history since then I'm just struck by and Nick wants to talk about history helping us see the future historians don't much like talking about the future if we're thinking about the past and one of the things that happens at the end of a reign is that particularly at the very end of the reign is that the palace guard groups around the monarch and one of the explanations for the military coming forward taking charge well the previous military upon upon last year was a little bit ambivalent about how we should handle the protests but now we have for you we have a very different situation this is all very reminiscent of the kinds of things that happen at the end of the reign so yes we have elections yes we have popular protests but we also have this other thing going on which is shaping this particular historical moment and we don't know how long this historical moment will last that's what the historians I'll just say something quickly because I must go to teach unfortunately so I will be rushing away after this statement but maybe an inherent question is that we can look back on say the red shirt protest and say that there was an homogeneous group there that had one motive and thankfully Thai counter-terrorism law require us to say that the person being charged with counter-terrorism is advancing one political, religious or ideological cause Australian counter-terrorism law does that but still to the extent of counter-terrorism prosecutions are constructions of social reality and protest actions I think there is a little bit of a danger in your question of saying that the red shirt protest or even the 2008 yellow shirt protest can easily be labelled as one particular movement of a particular type and just from the perspective of the danger for some defendants facing counter-terrorism actions I think you need to be much more subtle about that if justice is to be done actually my question was regarding Mars coming to me before the crash of Gorgon one or two more seconds they don't say that's a beautiful half an hour I'll give you the question and you can level five you mentioned the large number of people who had been charged apparently will be charged with various offenses and I just wondered what you think the motivation is for that red large number of people who shouldn't be charged with other offenses and I had a second question you probably won't have time for perhaps other participants to write a few comments on this and that is the justice system and the use of the criminal justice system in violent political purposes what is the current situation and what the trends seem to be in that respect I'm not answering the first question in a definitive manner but of course the use of any counter-terrorism or any jurisdiction sometimes this is much about interrupting and disturbance of particular groups than it is about wanting to follow the prosecution through to a conviction or counter-terrorism law as well especially something like that which is about breaking up groups with values about giving them a whole compassion for life and to me that's one of the challenges to the justice system when we have these quite powerful counter-terrorism laws used nearly to detain and to have people like Contemporary Trial when standard criminal law that have been done with the ban on judicial informality direction is much more standard that's a good way of suggesting I'm going to go on with this I must go I think I need to wait for a second sorry I might respond you should respond spaces you see in terms of increasing actualization for example one thing that freedom of expression is a challenge we have 6,000 you know 23 radio stations which tend to be there's increasing what I see is increasing divide where are the spaces where there can be dialogue which can enable progress to work this future there may be in my system of rights for the last 2 years the royal situation is resolved do you see any spaces where that dialogue is possible because it seems to be increasingly possible to have participation in dialogue which is such a huge opportunity in the work we're doing well I think time has painted itself into a corner because the whole sort of prohibition on discussion of the royal we're going to have King the Gerald Oncorn on the throne in the last thing they can afford to have is open public dialogue he simply wouldn't survive that so I think they've created a situation where open public dialogue on political issues and it's going to be extraordinarily difficult to create because through their own creation there's a great backlog of stuff that they simply can't afford to come out in public on the first half of the question you know to some extent do we need dialogue to resolve division I don't think we do in a sense I think we need institutions that can manage division and I think that's the problem there's this discourse in Thailand about the importance of national unity what it's related to the royal narrative well who cares the nature of modern democracies is to be able to have institutions that can deal with the difference of opinion and I think that's what Thailand needs respect for those institutions rather than trying to arrive at some national consensus because that's just such a problem yeah I know you all agree that the situation in Thailand would have sat down and actually which is very problematic people just on that and I suppose a gentle follow up to what Andrew already suggested there is a tidal wave lurking just over the horizon of all kinds of things which I'm sure in there sleeping hours in some of their waking hours as well give the absolute heebie jeebies to use the technical phrase to all kinds of people in Thailand who are absolutely petrified of what might be out there that may at some stage in the not too distant future have all kinds of really serious implications for the economy and politics and everything else that they've built out and that's why any tolerance for different kinds of perspectives is just frankly impossible to answer next question I think perhaps part of the difficulty of having Andrew space in the dialogue is that this is a speech that has been supposedly criminalized in the years since the making of the 2006 group and both were officially penalized and the effects I think of being at another death prosecution is that your primary prosecution has been in a tremendous amount of work and that it was out when they were in jail for any fair action and so I think that as much of our treatment as after an affair I come up with a number of institutions that are least sufficient to get the criminal justice system functioning properly and having them shutting down speech for example holding criminals into the right so that would be a really important step for achieving this base for this not for me and you so I'm sorry I missed your name American gentleman yet Australia 20 years we're very interested in your analysis of the regional context and you didn't mention Indonesia which is probably the most successful example of the democratic transition over the last 10 years relative tolerance of dissent and you could debate the role of the military still plays but does the Indonesian model provide any lessons for the Thailand? Well I purposely left it out because I was thinking of Thailand's neighbors so I talked about the neighborhood Indonesia is an exception to this picture that I was painting but it hasn't always been done it had a long stretch of the authoritarian rule people also forget the Philippines too in discussions and again it's passively significant that these are both island nation states and and although they're each dominated by a particular part of the country the capital Indonesia things have changed and there is more dispersal of power but you're quite right I mean at the moment that's what it looks like I mean but who knows I mean you'd have to ask Indonesian folks what they thought about the prospects for the future but you're quite right it doesn't fit my model We have a final question Given the some kind of difficult for me in the whole range of areas economic, policy, farm, policy, politics where should Australia be in the future? Australia Australia should be pitching its efforts to promote the fullest and openness discussion of Thai issues possible and avoid the inducements of the Thai government and Thai embassy to do otherwise Or we just correct the houses Hey, if there are other things Australia can be doing the endorsement goes with Andrew's suggestion I think we can also be as best we can and I appreciate that at an official level Thailand doesn't loom particularly large necessarily in Australian eyes we can just be paying a great deal more attention to what's been going on in Thailand and what's likely to happen in the future we all know the statistics on Australian trade with Thailand it's a big deal these things need to be taken into consideration but perhaps in five or ten years time we'll be looking at this period and wondering just how it all went so very, very right it's not as though this is a situation which inevitably goes in disastrous directions and a government like Australia I'm sure has a role to play in staying engaged and keeping up to date Great question Australia has long term interests in common with Thailand in particular with both major agricultural and sportive so we have an interest in working together with the Thai government whoever that is to promote open access internationally for the export agricultural commodities and we do work with them the Thai's will decide who the government is we work with whoever that is we respect the rights of the Thai's we make that decision and we stay out of it we respect their right to determine their future of course whoever the government is we work with them Thank you so much