 So our next session is going to talk about how the crisis will shape the future political order of Thailand. We have four very distinguished people who spend a lot of time on Thailand, in Thailand, and have different perspectives, and we'll focus on it from different points of view. Our first speaker is Sunay Pasuk, who is a senior researcher on Thailand for Human Rights Watch, the Asia Division. Sunay is one of the more astute observers about Thai politics, and it's a delight to have you here. Sunay, please. Thank you, Maury, and thank you for having me here today. I would just pick on what the first panel talked about, the future of Thailand that ought to follow a peaceful solution to this conflict, make it constitutional, democratic, and nonviolent, which now seems unlikely given the development of the situation in Bangkok now. There is an attempt to stretch beyond the boundary of constitution, beyond the boundary of the law, to have a royally appointed prime minister and administration by the group that, you know, the groups of eminent persons, both in the Senate now, with the new Senate speaker, openly backing the PDRC, we have the entire commissioners of the election commission disagree to hold an election. We have rulings by the judiciary saying that the protest that obstructed an election which had clearly active role of our militias are peaceful and untouchable. We have rulings by the judiciary saying that by blocking voting in one polling station is more than sufficient to derail democratic process, to derail nationwide election. This is a context that make, that constitute a very serious, very dangerous and unprecedented challenge to the future of Thailand that always been perceived that it has been created with a self-reset button. That self-reset button is now gone because of this ongoing process of stretching an arbitrary interpretation of the laws in favor of a vision of political structure that is not in favor of democracy, is not in favor of a very core principle of human rights that everyone is equal and ought to be able to make the decision about political future of the country to democratic and electoral process. That is the future that is now being shaped by the group of the PDRC and their backers, both backers on the street and backer behind the scene and those who are not quite behind the scene anymore out in the open through the judiciary, through organic agencies under the constitution. These are the forces shaping. And then, what is left now on very tight time slot that I'm going to be very, very quick on this. What is left for Thailand? There have been lots of talks about the use of military force to overthrow and government that is old school thinking is not going to happen that way, but more of a combination of various forces together put in place with mass mobilization on the street to create an impression that there is legitimate demand quote-in-quote of the people. That creates an impression that somewhat the demand to turn back the clock for Thailand put it back to the time when people couldn't go to vote is legitimate because there's one big chunk of population backing this thought. It's wrong. The second mobilization is to make this attempt to reverse Thailand to an undemocratic society legal. So we see maneuvering by the judiciary. We see maneuvering by the anti-corruption commission, by the Senate right now going on. And to my surprise, the Thai academic community served the purpose as well by coming up with academic argument politically and legally to say that Thailand need to become undemocratic. This is a concern. And then the next issue will be the role of the military in this regard. Yes, we noticed that the military have become much more restrained than ever before. It might be less learned from 2006, but in my opinion, what more important lesson that the military has learned is from 2010 that no matter how many people they have suppressed on the street through the deployment of military forces, deployment of snipers and military crackdown through the rolling prosecution using various law, they couldn't get rid of the other side. They couldn't get rid of the literature. They couldn't suppress the ideology in people's mind anymore. So to go for a quick fix through military intervention will breed a new row of confrontation, even something that out of control. And I don't think that is what the military want to be remembered. They don't want to be tasked to deal with that challenge which is impossible to handle anymore. So it's a combination of yes, less learn and this kind of then out of the realization of a new landscape, political landscape that it's not like the 70s, it's not like the 90s when my generation were chairs around, chairs down Russian and with army shooting at us. That's not going to happen. It's not going to work. It's not going to be like 2010 even. So this is one thing. What we are worried though with the military regardless of this kind of big picture restraint is that we notice the deciding and we'll say deciding with the PDRC is in the sense by various statement of the commander in chief himself saying that the government need to understand that if the people are put in harm's way, the government will be held accountable and responsible for that. That had put the government on just very much a position where it cannot take action against protesters early on when there were violence committed and the government should have ability to intervene, to enforce the law according to international standard. That was not possible because of that siding. Another concern we have is that we just clear evidence of being many a race of military personnel taking part with military issue weapons in the camp of the PDRC. They've been arrested, but no follow-up investigation, no follow-up persecution, not even to find out why military issue weapons been allowed to taken out of the camp and end up in the protest site, why those personnel were allowed to do such thing without any accountability. That's a big question why. At the same time, we are worried as well about the inability to stop violence coming from the pro-government side. The use of, again, military-grade weapons against anti-government groups, that's going on every night. Just last night, the resident of Buddha Iswaramang, if you follow talent, you know his name, is one of the radical leaders of the PDRC. He relocated himself from the government complex after his resident there was hit with two 40 millimeter grenades. He moved back to his temple, but last night his resident in the temple was shot at with M16. No injuries. It's coming, the warning time is coming. Um, so we have this, you know, yes, the attempt to arbitrary stretch the law, set the new context for political order. In parallel, we have ongoing violence which no one seems to be able or willing to stop this violence. So making the climate very fragile, very volatile, very dangerous. The next point I was going to say is that, you know, in this climate, we see as well kind of a mixture of, kind of, you know, behavior by, you know, from the same actor that I asked, I'm very critical of the role of the military at the same time. Yet, we see something unprecedented that the Thai military trying to play a role of mediator in this process. We don't see it often that, you know, it's no longer held in back room, but this time around, we have general period publicly hosting dialogue between, you know, leaders of the two sides in the PDRC with Suthep on the one hand, former Prime Minister Ying Lak on the other hand. That failed, but we saw that attempt. This is something to be seen in the future that, you know, apart from being, you know, the guardian of the essence of Thainese, you know, the nation, religion and the king is now the military trying to play a new role as well as the mediator of the conflict. This is something that needs to be watched and whether that will be successful in this current political context which seems impossible to fix, what will be the role of military and that is something to be seen. And the next point I will say is that, you know, with the masses now on the street, the shaping of the political future of Thailand, unfortunately, is leading to a climate in which the society will become much less tolerant of differences. The two sides have been operating since, you know, before the overthrow of Thaksin in 2006. They are working on this kind of, you know, something similar to a crusade campaign. They operate on self-righteousness which become more and more intensified that, you know, each side came to be fighting for the ultimate good, either for, you know, to rid the country of, you know, evil and corruption. And on the other hand, you know, try to bring the country back into democracy at all costs. And if you disagree with this platform, you are very bad and can be dealt with with, you know, extreme prejudice. So, and the effects of this thinking now we see it, we witness it in the creation of the garbage collection organization which considered publicly and announced that anyone deemed to be acting against the monarchy seemed to be deemed to be offensive to the monarchy. They are no longer human being, they are garbage. That must be exterminate, this direct verbatim translation, exterminate from Thailand entirely. This has gone beyond what we saw in the 70s when student movement were branded as Vietnamese infiltrator or communist sympathizer that led to massacre in the middle Bangkok. This time they have gone beyond being communist sympathizer, being foreign infiltrator. They are not even human being, they are garbage. How the Thai society will deal with this extreme lack of tolerance. To my surprise, to my shocking, there was no strong open reaction to the creation of garbage collection organization at all. Nothing from the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand or nothing from the Thai human rights community. They tolerate this rise of extremism. The unprecedented level of the rise of extremism was tolerated. This is a very much warring climate for Thailand. So you have contesting forces in political domain. You have the very much questionable role of the neutrality and professional military whether it's there or not or what is taking a side. Maybe what can be considered scary to good, but what's the price to pay is that military remain unaccountable for whatever involvement, including act of violence in 2010. That is still out there. There is the lack of, okay, thumbs up. So what I will sum up is that the future political structure of Thailand is going to be very concerned in terms of the ability to get back to democratic process, to get back to and to become an open society. It seems to be not there. Violence is running in parallel with the political contestation that is concerned. Lack of tolerance is out there. And then I think we have another round in the afternoon to talk about policy impact to the bilateral relations with the U.S. Thank you. Thanks, Anaya. That was very great. I think we're very helpful. Thank you. Our next speaker is Dr. Duncan Macargo, who is a political science professor at the University of Leeds who is spending this year at the Columbia University in New York. Duncan is expert in the politics of contemporary Thailand. Duncan, over to you. Thanks very much. Okay, I'll just have to make a few quick points here because we don't have a lot of time. In the past, I guess I've been partly responsible for trying to understand or promoting ideas about Thai politics that center on elite conflict. I've talked about network monarchy, trying to understand key institutions in Thailand differently. Today, I'm trying to have a slightly different perspective on what's going on and think a little bit more structurally and try to talk about how it is that we saw the current phenomenon of polarization start to emerge. What I'm essentially arguing, it's all about selling phrases in academia because we don't get much fun any other way. So I sold network monarchy. Now I'd like to sell to you urbanized villagers. This is my phrase of the moment. It's already appeared in a couple of articles, but if you see me spouting this term, it's because I'm trying to get it out there. What do I mean by urbanized villagers and what's the significance of this term? What I'm really talking about here is the way in which the parties associated with former Prime Minister, Taksin Chinawat were able, very successfully, to gain considerable electoral support and to win elections from 2001 until the present day. Why have they been able to do that? A key thing that Taksin was able to do was to grasp something which so far seems to have eluded the Democrat Party and many people in Thailand's traditional establishment, which is the change in the character of the electorate. Taksin, of course, had a lot of marketing people working for him, polling experts, focus groups. He went out and really found out what was going on on the ground. What he discovered, and it should be obvious, but perhaps it's not always obvious when something's right in front of our faces, there are millions and millions of people in Thailand who are supposed to be in the countryside but are not there, or not there most of the time, or much of the time. If you get into a taxi in Bangkok, you'll often find that you're being driven by a taxi driver from Royette Province who's been driving a taxi in Bangkok for 37 years. And this is the fundamental problem, that you have what you might call a bipolar electorate, a huge number of people who are on some level rural, but in many respects, they're not rural at all because they're working away from their home villages. They're registered to vote somewhere where they don't live. Taksim was able to go to those people and say, you're not being appreciated. Bangkok middle-class people are looking down on you. They're patronizing you. There's this paternalistic attitude of the bureaucracy, of the establishment of the system. I'm gonna empower you to get what you want out of the system. So what Taksim was able to do was to put a very positive message, a message of aspiration out to these urbanized villages. And really that has been absolutely crucial to his electoral success. He was the first politician who realized the potential of talent had already made a transition to a form of electoral politics, an incompletely successful one. But Taksim was the first person who really appealed to large numbers of voters in the North and Northeast, many of whom were not actually there. Poor farmers who were not poor and not farmers, as I like to call them. These people, Taksim was able to bring under his wing and say, I can deliver for you. I feel your pain. I understand your aspirations. I know you don't want to work in the rice fields anymore. We're gonna bring in people illegally from Cambodia and allow us to do that anyway. And what you're gonna be able to do is pursue all kinds of other opportunities, business opportunities and get your kids into college so you don't have to go back and work in the rice fields again. This is essentially the Taksim message. The Democrat Party and the establishment, the upper echelons of the military, they've really struggled to understand this because they're convinced, a very distinguished friend of mine, our late and late Loutam Attatt put forward this argument a number of years ago that Thailand was two democracies, a rural democracy of people who are essentially ignorant and easily led and manipulated and bought and a sophisticated Bangkok democracy of people who know what's going on. Actually, I've always found people in the countryside knew much more about what was going on than most of my friends in Bangkok, but that's sort of by the by. But clearly, this distinction, if it ever existed, does not exist anymore. And what we've seen in this crisis is this seismic shift in Thai society become much more apparent, much more visible. And we've seen the alarmed middle classes of Bangkok, their elite allies, start to become not just nervous and anxious. And I think national anxiety, which is a phrase I've been using a lot, is a huge theme of what's going on. But that anxiety has manifested itself into projecting out onto the population at large, failing to understand where they're coming from and adopting an attitude of deriding them. We've had horrendously obnoxious rhetoric from the protest stages, closely allied with the Democrat Party. And really alienating potential support from these people. Nevertheless, taxing was able to capitalize on these conditions. I continue to believe that taxing came along just at a moment, this is a temporal alliance between tax pro-taxing party aspirations and rhetoric and the voter preferences of those people, that a more flexible political system could incorporate those people into a different order. The level of paternalism, the patronizing stance, the derogatory stance towards those people could change. And I don't want to sound naively optimistic, but I'm usually accused of being far too cynical and critical. So today, let me try to suggest that there is at least the seeds of an opportunity within this crisis. If we can move beyond the idea that people in the countryside are actually, first of all, understand that people in the countryside aren't in the countryside to a large degree, but also stop thinking of them in a certain sort of typecast way and welcome those people. Because most of the people who've been supporting taxing are not that radical. They're not trying to bring down the citadel of capitalism and the Thai establishment. They're actually banging on the doors, trying to be admitted. They would like to join the party and share in the benefits of Thailand's remarkable transformation and growth in the last few decades. So we now have a situation where those people's aspirations are aroused, their long suppressed sub-ethnic identities as Konisan or as Northerners have also started to bubble up to the surface to the great alarm of the military. And this is another dimension that we're starting to see. This unity that we associated with Tainas is fragmenting in multiple ways. But there is a way forward here if it's possible to bring those people on board if the Democrat party could actually engage in attempts to woo this electorate as opposed to alienating the electorate further as they have been doing it especially over the past few months, then there's a way forward which would allow a domestication of that latent descent which would alleviate the bipolar syndrome as I call it, afflicting so much of public life. And a lot of that way forward is about recognizing those people, acknowledging them. In many cases letting them register to vote where they live perhaps is one sort of technical aspect of it. But ultimately it's about a psychological transformation because things have come so much out into the open. The paternalism and the nastiness beneath the surface the suppressed sub-ethnic identities have really emerged in a very explicit way as a result of this crisis. There's no going back but maybe there's a way forward which would be about re-imagining Thailand as a post-paternalist nation. And that's what I'm hoping could happen. Duncan, thank you very much. Our next speaker is Colonel John Cole. He was a former military attaché in Bangkok several times actually. He was trained as a foreign area officer in Southeast Asia specializing in Thailand and was the first American officer to graduate from the Royal Thai Army's Command and General Staff College. John, over to you. Thank you very much. You're talking to someone who comes from somewhat humble background so I'm honored to see all the brain power and the smart end of what we call, with enough people in this room with the interest and background and what I'm about to talk about. I appreciate you giving me an opportunity. As the first American officer to attend their staff college, we have Fort Leavenworth where that's where American officers and selected foreign officers under the IMET International Military Education and Training Program get funded to attend. It's in the same area with the prison so I always have the caveat. It's the staff college, not the prison. But in Thailand, when you graduate from the staff college, you get an elephant badge to wear a liver patch and that's presented by His Majesty King Bumipon at the annual graduation ceremony. That badge gives you access to anyone before you and junior to you who has graduated from that institution. Now armed with a second grade, I'm talking primary school level reading and writing ability. I'm sure I was like that foreign student who was the exchange student in your high school class that everybody kind of smiled and said, well, he'll be okay. But I'm trying to give you a perspective. As perspective, I was lucky enough to stay on multiple tours to observe, make friends with, and once you graduate, your classmates are your friends for life. And that's the key. In the 1980s, we started putting US officers into foreign staff colleges worldwide. That program has recently been canceled, I understand. Bangkok's been allowed to continue. But our point here is, is that we're looking at the Thai military as an institution. From reading some of the blogosphere products, it's, they're portrayed as a monolithic lockstep institution. General Paiut Chanu Chah, the Army Commander-in-Chief punches a button and a unit stages a coup. It's far from that. It's more factionalized and it's all based on the military academy class system. They all get together at age 14 now as high school sophomores. They go to a three year military prep school. And then they, after three years of high school in a military environment, they go off to their respective academies. So for the first three years, they're together in a 500 person class. The Army, the Army section knows they're all gonna be Army cadets up the street at Chulichongklau Royal Military Academy where Princess Sirentorn has been faithfully teaching two to three days a week for the last 20 plus years. And that's the, if you will, the driving element. So without putting too much emphasis on the class system, having talked to some successful coup leaders whose past performance was perfect in staging a coup, you find that all that you need is a core group of classmates who are in command of troops. And you prepare and in the past, you could easily move and seize the government. But this one officer told me that seizing power was the easy part in the old days. It was the second day and the third day. What's the second day? You go to King Bumipon and ask for forgiveness if you haven't cleared the coup in advance. And so then they're issuing a royal decree if you will, immunizing you from any charges. And then the third day is probably the most important in today's context. You've got to restart the lifeline to the international financial system. And for all of that to happen. Now that does not mean that that's in the old days and nowadays we're all, at least we wear a Democrat t-shirt under our uniform and we're already like the Burmese. We took off the uniforms, put on Democrat t-shirts and everybody loves us. It's not quite that simple. But what I'm trying to say here is that every one of these military academy classes is not an alumni contact networking organization like many of our prominent military academies and schools. This each one is a individualized, if you will, a separate political and business action group which has very dangerous potential for future stability. So instead of locking these guys away in a closet someplace so they don't have any contact with any outsiders and understand the impact a coup would have on not only on stability but also on Thailand's international image, the military over the last 10 or 12 years has become much more insular and not as in contact with what the rest of the world has evolved into. I'm not talking about the Ukraine, I'm talking about societies where the military institution is under civilian control. So as we talk further about this situation, General Prayut Chanochah has been the army sink, the army commander in chief for he's in his last six months. He will be retiring and one blogger made it sound as though he had opted to retire. No, no, no. Everybody stays on duty until age 60. The upper out promotion system in Thailand is you're out when you're age 60. And in the past that age limit has only been extended twice. One of them was good, one of them was a terrible mistake. The royal family seems to appreciate big, tall people who look impressive in uniforms. I probably fit that category but it never helped me on the American side. One was an obscure two-star general named Prem Tinsulanon who I was his advisor. We had advisors in the 70s down to military school level and regiments. So I was, as a young captain, I was his advisor, military advisor. And the second one was a man named Atit Kamlang Egg. That was the extension past age 60, a one-year extension, that was a mistake. But we won't elaborate further. Now, let's go to present day. Let's go to present day implications for stability. You have to understand that the military has been able to conduct under this government, has been able to run their own promotions with no tinkering from former Prime Minister Yingluck and with no tinkering or mismanagement of the budget or what equipment we buy, how we operate and all of the, if you will, the benefits, the prerogatives that the army, that the military has had to have continued without any attempt to change things. So under this government, Pryut has attempted to keep things in line. But one thing that he has done in his final year, in this year, the first year was getting all his classmates promoted. You have to remember that in this system. And this is a very positive thing because if someone hits the big time gets to be the commander-in-chief of the army, the first thing you do is make sure all your classmates are advanced. Now, remember that every one of us in this system, not me, but in this system, are people swearing loyalty to the monarch. They do not swear to uphold and defend the Constitution. That's not in the system. I figured that now that I hit age 70, the best thing I could do to kind of get a reset for my own knowledge was to volunteer to go to the Armed Forces Prep School as a teacher last semester, last fall. Their semesters are based on the old rice harvest system. It begins in May and runs until September. And my point here is I wanted to see how the demographic and the changes that have been implemented since they went from a two-year prep school to a three-year curriculum. Now they're now getting 14-year-old boys, many of them from rural backgrounds. Still a significant number of people who come from military or high-level backgrounds. And virtually little or no knowledge of English-speaking ability, so to speak. You know what you do from playing video games or watching Thai TV, but you don't have that ability to communicate, whereas in previous years, going back maybe 15 or 20 years, we had a very high percentage of people able to communicate. I've been given the boot. Thank you for listening. I hope this has been helpful. I'm willing to talk about any of the inner workings of the class system. I've taken this on as a hobby, so I follow my classmates and their offsprings progression in their Thai military system. Thank you very much. Thanks, John. Very helpful. So our next speaker is Sean Crispin. Sean is the Southeast Asia Editor for Asia Times Online, and he was the last bureau chief of the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong when it closed in 2004, but don't blame Sean for that. The last part. Good luck, Sean. You can blame me for anything I say here, though. I was tasked in an earlier session with weighing potential worst case scenarios for Thailand's current impasse, and it's a role I somewhat revel in, and so I thought I would bring it to the table here today, and actually it's an issue, and I think a very pressing one for any of you out there weighing future scenarios for Thailand that should be brought into your calculus. So I'll apologize up front if I appear to adhere a little too closely to my notes, but I need to make sure I calibrate this just right so that I can actually return to Thailand on Thursday. You're smiling, right? Okay, yeah, right. Although it has not been openly visible, I would argue that the current unrest in Thailand underscores the notion that the upcoming royal succession could be contested and potentially attended by instability and even violence. There are certain royal dynamics that have recently shifted, including the health of certain royal family members, that raise questions about what has long been the baseline scenario for the royal succession, that is that the heir apparent gets the crown, could be mutable, and that there actually may be another scenario that's being weighed at the highest royalist quarters. The initial spark of the recent ongoing PDRC protest was the notion that the toxins over control and ability to manipulate parliament for his own personal ends potentially represent a risk to how the succession plays out. Control over the National Assembly is crucial under the 1924 succession law and as well under the 1974 amendment to that law in that in any scenario where the privy council might happen to choose a she, that is a princess, rather than a he, a prince, that the National Assembly actually votes on that proposal. In the former scenario, the National Assembly effectively acts as a rubber stamp. As many of you know and John alluded to in his presentation, the Princess Sirenton is very popular in Thai society at the highest royalist quarters and among the Thai military leadership in rank and file in part due to the role you mentioned she plays in teaching at the academy. Many in Thailand actually believe she represents the best hope for maintaining the royal institution's prestige and current centrality in Thai society. After Bumipon's reign, man it's quiet in here. Some believe that apart from its call for an end to toxins family influence and politics and end to corruption and the need for political reforms, the PDRC's unspoken aim is to ensure that government and control over parliament are in royalist hands when the succession is to be undertaken. Meanwhile, we as journalists and analysts are left to grapple with the significance and the timing of Crown Prince Wajir Longkorn's decision to create his own personal guard and as to why this defense-oriented unit needed to be created and that the Kingsguard and Queensguard, which are both tasked with protecting the royal family, were not sufficient. We're also left to grapple with the significance of recent toxin-aligned redshirt protest that have mobilized his symbolism and have staged their rallies near one of his villas on the outskirts of Bangkok. This is something that the local press has frequently reported, but nobody has dared to expound upon the potential symbolic significance. In any scenario where the succession process as guided by the Privy Council is challenged, including potentially by the redshirt protest, I would argue, and I know that Ajahn Titinan feels as though a future military intervention is something that probably won't happen again, that this is a process that has played out, that the past backstops are no longer there. But I would argue that if in any scenario where the succession process is perceived to be challenged, then you can bank on the military stepping in swiftly and aggressively and to suspend any modicum of democratic governance that may remain after establishment forces are done dismantling what's left of Ying-Lock's elected administration. In such a scenario, whether presented as an outright coup or the implication of martial law to restore stability, this will obviously lead to a challenge for U.S. policymakers as to whether or not, in such a scenario, they should impose sanctions at such a pivotal point in Thailand's ongoing and tumultuous transition. And at that point, I think I'll stop. And as that's the broad topic of our next panel, leave it to them to deal with that. Great. Thanks, Sean. So we have some time now for questions and answers. So please, if you would like to ask a question, please identify yourself, wait for a microphone and ask your question. If you have it, want to address anybody in particular, please let the panel know. Professor Wethery. Now, Don Wethery, the University of South Carolina emeritus. I'd like to follow up on what you said, Sean, and maybe John can help as well. What is the order of events? I want to assume if the king should die, there's going to be a period of mourning. Which I would have assumed in a period of mourning, everything would come to a standstill. And so then what is the order of events? At what point would the Preview Council meet? At what point would there be a decision? I mean, what's the order of events? My understanding and anyone on the panel, please correct me or even in the audience, is that there is the announcement of the next monarch. And then I assume we will have a very prolonged period of national mourning when the incident comes to pass, 99 days, 999 days, something symbolically nine. And then you will have the actual crowning of the next monarch. I would think from an issue of instability, it will be that period of national mourning where the Preview Council will effectively be wielding royal power before the crowning of the next king, where the challenge that I speak of could emerge. And we don't know how long that period of mourning may be, but, you know, Toxin's camp has shown a willingness and a proclivity to take on the authority of certain Preview Councilors. And that when they have royal power vested in them, they will not be protected by these LM laws. And that's when the proverbial could hit the fan. Professor Weatherby, that's a great question. The succession scenarios, the facilitating and securing the succession has all been detailed planned over the last 10 plus years. And putting the right military people or helping put the right military people into key positions to oversee this has all been put into place. That's all I want to say. Meredith Weiss from Johns Hopkins SICE. Putting together some of what the panelists have said as well as Titianan in the last session, it seems that we actually have multiple conflicts or multiple avenues for restructuring. We have a succession conflict, not just what Sean Crispin has just detailed, but a larger issue of not just who should be the monarch or who should be the leaders, but the fundamental mechanisms by which Thai leaders should be chosen, both the royals, but also just in general. That's linked with structural changes, such as Duncan describes, in as much as the system is fundamentally, historically, institutionally designed to represent segments other than those now ascendant with perhaps different aspirations, different backgrounds, not necessarily on the usual rural, urban grounds that as Duncan notes, no longer really such valid delimiters if they ever were, but perhaps on class lines, perhaps in terms of other divisions. And then there's this third conflict which tends to be subsumed, which is the idea of what I loosely call a values conflict, which really gets to what Sunayi was describing. The sort of anxiety, as Duncan notes, that suggests a fundamental failure to engage constructively, this process of dehumanization rather than critical discourse. And so my question is really to push perhaps Duncan and others a little bit further. So Titianon mentions three possible avenues for change, suggesting which he thinks more or less likely. And then Duncan, you give a somewhat vague outline of that we need, maybe the Democrat party needs to change, maybe some institutional vehicles need to adapt and we need to reimagine the Thai nation. But that doesn't necessarily explain the how we would address, for instance, the issues that Sunayi details of a real limit of critical engagement, constructive engagement, willingness to engage. And so I ask the panelists, whoever wants to join in on this, to speak a little bit more about what specifically, beyond perhaps an election, beyond the possibility of a military coup, what steps might be useful. Perhaps as Colonel Cole was describing, something about the structure of leadership training needs to be rethought. But how in different venues can Thailand then move forward beyond this impasse, beyond just the angle of succession? Duncan, you want to start? Okay, clearly there's a big agenda that you've laid out there, Meredith. And I need to go and write a book actually to answer that question. But probably we don't have time to wait while I sit here and write it. So let me just try and suggest a couple of things. I mean, reimagining the Thai nation, yes. I mean, we haven't had chance and I wish there was more opportunity to talk about an insurgency that's still going on in Thailand's southern border provinces, where more than 6,000 people have been killed since 2004. This is just the most acute indication of a real problem with ideas about Thainess and unity and the breakdown of a consensus. So the Malay-Muslim population elements, certain very militant elements within that sub-region of the country have been fighting actively against the Thai state. And clearly, look, I'm not Thai, it's not for me to say what the answer to that problem is, but having looked at this conflict closely and compared it with others around the world, most people would say this is just an absolute natural issue to be addressed by something on what I call the autonomy spectrum, some kind of substantive decentralization of power. So there's a glaring possibility of a beginning of a reimagining of the Thai nation and of course, do you want to do that only for people in one specific area or are there actually very substantial reasons for doing that in a wider sense, addressing some of the concerns of what I've called urbanized villages. Part of those concerns could be addressed by actually getting some of those people to vote in Bangkok or around Bangkok where they actually are, but some of them could also be addressed by having some sort of regional assembly, some shift. If you've got problems with people in parts of your country, the easiest way of dealing with those problems in general is to shift the problems out to those parts of the country, let people sort out their own issues in their area. We're going through this debate at the moment in my own country, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which may not be quite so united at some point in the future, but these are real quite challenges for the Thai state because we've had this idea of all provincial governors are sent out from Bangkok, everything is controlled from the center and it seems to me that what the crisis is showing us that the center cannot hold in its current form and before things fall apart, some kind of preemptive move to reimagine Thailand by restructuring power and giving people a different sense of who they are, expanding a definition of Thailand and embracing greater diversity. I'm being slightly more specific than I was in my opening remarks, but clearly this is what we need is a debate in Thailand, not people like me saying what should be done, but the creation of some political space in which people from different points of view can argue these things out has been incredibly difficult recently. Sunay, I would just try to be quick on this. I think that it's as an expose that very long process of nation building Thailand through education is so unrealistic. And now it's kind of when reality cash up with this failure and it bites everyone that the country is not unified as they try to imagine and that part of it is the element that Dan can already mentioned that control for Bangkok is not going to hold anymore. People are rising up and it doesn't fit in this mindset and to make it, to give an example that with this understanding you see now, university schools and education institutions all over the country become an ideological battleground now between this new reality on the one hand, represented by members of the faculty, by some of the students, and on the other hand, the custodian of the old school thinking that Thailand is unified, monolithic and everyone living together happily no matter what. And this is now become a major challenge. So we are in Thailand now with so many reform forums talking about decentralization, liberalization of political participation, but one thing that need to be addressed is liberalization of education and make it recognize the reality of pluralism in the society. And then the appreciation, what I addressed just then, appreciation of differences, civilized exchange of discourses could be made possible instead of being suppressed even violently from above to make the Thailand as unified as it has been imagined over the past decades. Perhaps my 37 months in Western Afghanistan has muddied my perspective, but the issue of succession is not up for debate. I appreciate the intellectual firepower bringing up what needs to be done in terms of structural reorganization, but who is going to be the next monarch is not a subject for debate. Other questions? Michael? Hi, Mike Billington. I'm with Executive Intelligence Review. It's clear that people are very cautious about talking about the monarchy as Sean Crispin made clear in his pre-statement. And yet it's also clear that what SUTEP is trying to do is to restore some sort of absolute monarchy going back even before 34. So the issue was on the table. Two questions. Is there no pre-D around who's willing to take on the question of the monarchy, either abolishing or dramatically changing the monarchy? Is there no one willing to discuss that in Thailand, let alone overseas? And secondly, could you, do you think that would change with the Crown Prince becoming the king? Do you think this extreme less majesty might be more eliminated? And on that, perhaps somebody could comment whether the economist was right in saying that the Crown Prince met with toxin in Germany or what you think that might mean. So anybody want to take that on? Yeah, not really. Yeah, not really. Some have obviously portrayed toxin as that force as the pretty and drawing on the symbolism that he is now in exile. I think many of us who actually understand the way toxin thinks, and perhaps even an allusion to what Duncan made, is that probably at his core, toxin is not an anti-monarchist, but that many people in his circle are. And that some of their views have been expressed through him, perhaps at times, even unwittingly, that in many ways, toxin was an empty vessel that was filled by some of his more prominent advisors and some of these people that were in Chacha's government at Bonn-Pizzenaloke. I would point to Poonzak Winyarat in particular, not necessarily as an anti-monarchist, but as somebody that has really steered toxin's thinking and created him. I've alluded to him as the Dr. Frankenstein in creating toxin the populist, but some of these notions of toxin as the one who's a threat to the crown, that it's actually some of his advisors, and that periodically he has sidelined and put into the shadows, but when it served his political purposes, when things are red hot, there's nothing better than bringing a little anti-monarchy sentiment to the streets to show that potentially there's grassroots dissatisfaction with the institution, particularly at this delicate juncture. But when it serves toxin, then he turns them off. He pulls the plug. We've seen it a couple of times now, so I know I don't think he represents a natural pretty at all, but he's very much perceived in high royalist quarters as an existential threat to the institution going forward, and that also includes his believed and perceived relations with the heir apparent. But jeez, there are three more people on the panel. They're dying to talk about this. So let me cut it there. Duncan? I mean just on the question of whether there's another pretty no, but what's very interesting is that there are quite a lot of very smart people in the Thai academia, and it's a particular group of law lecturers at Tamasat University known as Nithiraat led by Dr. Warajate. These people have been trying to advance all kinds of critical perspectives and ideas, and what's interesting is that people on a more royalist side, people with a very different kind of political orientation, have said very similar things about some of these issues on the Les Magistre Law. So sometimes people from different political perspectives are actually in broad agreement about certain kinds of reforms, but they can't talk to each other because we don't have this space, this comfortable space in Thailand where people who agree, for example, the Les Magistre Law might need to be reformed, or people who've said the prison sentence should be reduced to seven years, to three years. Could they agree that it would be five years? No, because they couldn't sit down in a room together and have that conversation. So sometimes people from different points of view are actually not so far apart as they seem to be because they've got themselves into this polarized politics mentality where they don't want to engage with others who are actually quite close to them in terms of their intellectual ground. But what Warajate and others at Tamasat, when I have some criticisms of it, I've written an article about them, which is coming out soon. It's still very, very interesting that there are people who have been willing to take up that kind of intellectual leadership. What we now need is political leadership, which we're singularly lacking. On Les Magistre Law, I would say that the climate now make it impossible to have an open and safe space for creative and unprocessed discussion about the need to reform Les Magistre, to review it and then deal with it, either to reform or revoke it. There's no such space anymore. And we are not talking about the so-called yellow side advocating to make the law itself, to make Article 112 of the Penal Code as sacred as the institution of the monarchy is therefore now criticizing the law is an act of Les Magistre as they try to argue it that way. But on the so-called red side, we have various members from top to bottom, the UDD, racial movement, leadership of per Thai party, actively advocating against the need to discuss Les Magistre's law, advocating together. We have Shalem Yubamrung, former deputy prime minister speaking in the parliament, supporting General Prajuchan Oshada, the army chief, that there ought to be a strict suppression of discussion about Les Magistre's law. What is going on in Thailand about the two sides of the political spectrum, as then can say, but you see it from the other side of the court, yes, there's common ground between the two sides, not just about to review and discuss about the law, but also to strengthen the law. So we have that, but the climate now, it seems to be leaning towards increasingly hostile environment to make, to remove this, you know, this Les Magistre's law, which is the most critical, the most serious chockhole on freedom of expression in Thailand. And now we don't, you know, with that, we cannot have any discussion about other serious national issues. How can now we discuss about situation in southern Thailand with, you know, ethnic Malay Muslim insurgency when the court ruled that we cannot have any critical debate about all the previous kings of Jackery dynasty? So we're going to talk about the history of Patani, the invasion of Siamese into Patani. We cannot have that discussion. And how can we come up with a meaningful solution to that crisis? Just a quick word on the economist article. I found it very interesting, although it did have some significant factual errors. The one part that I'm really appreciated was the description of General Nipah Tonglek, who is now going to be the de facto defense minister in this current situation. This guy is very qualified, he's a professional, and he's been a watermelon, a closet toxin supporter for years, and he's more professional than political, and he is someone that I think can be I feel that he would be someone you could deal with, at least in terms of if you're trying to talk about some of this stuff, either on an imminent person's level or on an official level, if we have the contacts. Hi, Ernie Bauer from CSIS. I wonder if you could talk about the role Thailand's businesses in shaping their political future. Businesses rarely sit by and just allow everything to go to hell, and they don't like that, it's not good business. It wouldn't be good for the global economy, the regional economy, U.S. Thai trade and investment, so it's a big concern here in Washington. I'd love if someone could talk a little bit about businesses thoughts and their role in the crisis, please. In the current political crisis, we see a rather unprecedented role of the business association known as the B7, all the major business association working together, trying to first try to act as mediators to the conflict, talking between going back and forth as shuttles, between Sutepe and PDIC on the one hand, and then Ying Lak and Phua Thai and various factions within Phua Thai and Thaksin Network on the other hand, talking to the military. They were rejected, and they gave up and then came out with also quite interesting, as interesting as when they enter into the scene trying to mediate a conflict. They held another press conference saying that we are giving up our role as mediator, and now they move up to the next stage, as they have seen that it is impossible to avoid the conflict, but try to mitigate the damage. So now they are taking a very interesting role together with a network called as the Reform Now Network led by the then Permanent Secretary of Justice Kittipung who then would now be transferred to an advocate post in the prime minister office. But this network has that blueprint for reform of Thailand already. There's no need to, like, you don't have to ask PDRC where the blueprint, ah, it's not there, there's no content, just talk. But the real contents of blueprints already in existence based on the finding of Truths for Reconciliation Commission set up by the government of a visit and then endorsed by the government of Ying Lak. So in that sense, this reform agenda was already approved by the two sides of the conflict. And now we have the business association, all the powerful business association backing this reform agenda. So it just, if it come to kind of normalcy as they are now pushing was that try to hold back this trend rate, give Thailand some time to rethink, avoid the clashes on the street by making election possible. This is one thing that they proposed before the ousting of Ying Lak by the constitutional court and then a second impeachment by the National Anti-Corruption Commission. There was a moment then that was possible to look into this blueprint for reform, what can be done before the next general election. And then that option was missed because the impeachment happened. Then the second option that the business association look into is that how about having this kind of an interim caretaking government that will supervise the short-term reform. The problem now is that that kind of model is being hijacked by a business and then by Suteb as well with collaboration from the Senate Speaker now. So the ratio just now is not going to accept this interim unelected government to supervise the reform. So now we are pretty much stuck having a blueprint, but no one is going to endorse the mechanism to implement the blueprint for reform, short-term reform to set the ground or to reset the ground. We have to correct method to reset the ground, making an election possible again. Then we can perhaps avoid the conflict, but it's now all too late. And there's something to do as well with we all talk about the underlying factor behind these confrontations. It rendered the attempt to intervene by business association unsuccessful. In Thailand, we all know how powerful these business people are. Simply one of them representing one association, making a phone call. That's more than enough to make a change. Now we have all key leaders of the Seven Association acting together. They have not achieved much at all. Another side to that coin, and if I might, another dark cloud. There is an increasing perception among some foreign investors I meet with who come to town via some of the big investment banks that apart from and perhaps somewhat counter to what Sunai suggests is the business community coming together and calling for a middle path is this notion of polarization of the business community that certain businesses and increasingly investors are trying to ascertain which way does this business lean, red or yellow. For these particular grade of investors, stock investors, that if you believe the PDRC is soon to win, which companies may actually stand to benefit if the tide shifts yellow and not Yinglock. So this isn't entirely new. If you remember when the Reds first took to the streets in 2009, there were the grenade attacks against Gasegon Bank and Bangkok Bank branches, which I believe people wearing red t-shirts were apprehended for doing. But it kind of stopped there. And with the PDRC targeting the Shinoat family businesses, I think some investors have grown a little nervous as to how far they are going to go with that, that we obviously, the Shinoat family owned companies are fair game, but are they going to go down the line and look to target companies like Land and Houses or Asansiri, have very overt pro-toxin orientations. And so this is something that has actually entered the foreign investor community mindset and it's something they're grappling with and looking for counsel on. It'll be good for the due diligence business. Paul? Thank you, Paul Henley. Sean, handle that really well. Better you than me. That means a lot from you, Paul. Look, Sean, you had written first but more than anyone about the deal that was done that kept things stable for a few years under Yinglock, that was spoiled by the amnesty move in August. For you and Asansini, despite all these machinations over the corruption cases and things, is there no way to reach a say an appointed prime minister with the PDR, say it were with the yellow, the palace side in the driver's seat, that somehow they could bring the toxin faction into line for a deal to go ahead, instead of pointing out to everyone that this is a train wreck waiting to happen. Is there no chance for another deal? It's not exactly a reset, but a kind of deal that, well, it's going to have to be with the other side in the driver's seat as PM. Just a very brief background. I reported the day before the 2011 election. At that time, the sentiment was that if Yinglock won the military, it was going to overthrow the administration before it could even sit. And I said, no, that's not the case, that an accommodation has been reached behind the scenes, and the military will allow this government to form under certain rules and conditions. One, as I mentioned earlier, turn off the red shirt anti-monarchy machine, bow frequently and honestly to royal authority, and bring certain royalists into the inner circle, there were certain appointees to the Prime Minister's office, which effectively gave the establishment eyes and ears at the highest level. You could argue that accommodation held until toxin misread the cards and pushed for examinasty, which was not part of the deal. My understanding, Paul, is that ever since, with toxin miscalculation and the extraordinary mass mobilization that the PDRC was able to muster, at least in the early days, before they started throwing grenades at their protest sites, that behind the scenes, they were very much pressing for something like this. But the appointed administration, and you can have some representation, although not as much as us, will decide a reform path and eventually restore the country to democracy. Part of that deal was also that we will not scrutinize you or your family's assets for one year. So effectively, you've got one year to get your cash and get out, and we'll enter this new sort of accommodation. And the toxin camp, if you like, response to that initial offer was the first grenade that was thrown at the PDRC when they were marching on Selome Road. So throughout the crisis over the last few months, that's very much been, I think, what establishment forces, if you like, have been proposing, is that if she were to step down voluntarily, either under this popular pressure, true or imagined, or under the threat of the legal cases, which eventually did come down the chute against her, that we could enter a new accommodation. And those that were really looking into this, names were floated about. Foreign, former Foreign Minister Surikiyat Satiratai, who was actually Toxin's right-hand man, if Punsak was his left-hand man, at least in the early phases of the administration, was a proposed Prime Minister, and that would look very much like a compromise sort of deal in that he served Toxin, although after the 2006 coup, Toxin perhaps had no greater enemy as far as revelations as to certain of his sentiments that were revealed at high royal quarters. This was bandied about, and for whatever reason, Toxin's side just didn't take the bait, and here we are now. But they reached an accommodation earlier with a key premise, being that you stay out of the country, and I think really it's the only way out is they reached some sort of an accommodation on an appointed administration that eventually restores the country to democracy. But so far, Toxin hasn't bid debate. I will add to Sean's analysis is that apart from possibility of another row of elite deal-making, I think what the PDSC has done to the country this time made it really difficult to reach an elite deal that will get the situation back to normalcy. The blocking of election has unreally set people up against the maneuvering by the elites by blocking the voting of people, by denying the equality among people, that then even if there is another row of deals between Toxin on the one hand and the anti-Toxin forces, combination of them all together on the other hand, we might come to a situation in the aftermath of the push for amnesty bill at the time that there was what I can say, this satisfaction across the board within the supporter of Perthai, within Perthai's constituency, within Rachel's constituencies. So a deal might prolong the survival of what remain of Perthai government if there is a new deal that works, but may not completely do away with the uprising of people who disagree with the attempt to turn back the political clock of Thailand to somewhat undemocratic and electoral. I think people will continue to oppose that and they will then question the legitimacy, question their own loyalty to Perthai and to the mainstream racial movement. That is the next level of challenge as a result of strategy and tactics used by PDRC. It has created a new level of challenge that perhaps beyond any backroom deal can solve it. Other questions? Please back there. Heidi Schultz, National Geographic Magazine. My question is, when do you think there might be public order intervention from the monarchy in all of this crisis and will they step in at all? Anybody want to take that one? I'm not sure I favor this role. I don't think it's going to happen this time because there's a risk that it doesn't work. Yeah, that was succinct. Hi, my name is Prashant. I'm a PhD student at the Fletcher School at Tufts University but now based in D.C. One of my first undergraduate projects when I was at the University of Virginia was looking at the Southern Thailand insurgency and I'm sort of sad to say that years after I started doing the research, if I ask the question, it sort of get very pessimistic responses, particularly with all the chaos that's going on in Bangkok. Usually the Southern situation is often sort of put on the back burner. But I did want to get the panel's perspectives to the extent you can give them on the future trajectory of the insurgency in Southern Thailand. Particularly the dynamics on the government side with the change in the leadership of the NSC and Malaysia's role in the recent negotiations that have been going on were sort of past the first anniversary. Just one of your thoughts on that. Thanks. Okay, yeah. I mean, I would love to have had chance to talk more about that but let me just respond very quickly. I mean, clearly there is a huge issue here and there's an intimate relationship as I've argued for many years between what's going on in Thailand at the national level and what's going on in the deep South for want of a better term. It's particularly clear at this point because the reason why Ying Lak was ostensibly the reason why Ying Lak was kicked out was because of her improper transfer of the head of the National Security Council and that leads us straight back to these Southern peace talks which have been broken by Malaysia for more than a year but in fact haven't been meeting since June of last year and so the process is not going very far and I've recently done a paper looking at that. The other thing that's very salient here is the role of the Democrat Party and people from the Upper South who have been extremely active in this national level movement. The interesting thing about the Deep South is that no Malay Muslim MP from the Democrat Party has ever been made a minister. The Democrats have never come up with a constructive plan for decentralizing power to the South and the initiative has been one that's come largely from the Protaxan parties who have been willing to open up this debate about the autonomy spectrum. It hasn't been, you know, the Democrat Party claims to have some kind of natural suzerainty over the Southern border provinces but that's not something that Malay Muslims in those provinces accept. It exists in the imaginations of leading figures in the Democrat Party in Bangkok and in the Upper South and I think to a large extent people tend to understand the conflict as a conflict between the Lower South or the Deep South and Bangkok. I would suggest that it's actually to a very significant extent a conflict between the Lower South and the Upper South. The Upper South has been the intermediary that has colonized the Deep South on behalf of Bangkok and it's the bad performance of a lot of officials and politicians in the handling of what's gone on the Lower South that has profoundly aggravated the situation and now we see in this PDRC movement a kind of uprising of the Upper South and they're further challenged to controlling things at the heart of the Thai state. And ironically, of course, the Red Shirt movement is led by people from the Upper South as well so the role of the Upper South and here I have to ask Sunay to come in because he has quite a bit to say about this too is a fascinating one in the Thai political context which needs more scrutiny at this point. I'll say as a Sultan myself, so here I am but let's go to your question first that you know with the with Tawin returning to the National Security Council he has stated of all three key agenda that he will enforce is that one is to overhaul the current approach in dealing with southern insurgency through the dialogue with support from the Malaysian government that is going to be scrapped and the publicity of the process as well is going to be scrapped which for us that you know I see it as the process needs to be announced publicly so that people know that the Thai recognize first of all southern insurgency as national security issues and also to recognize the plight the grievances of ethnic Malay Muslim with the signing of the dialogue agreement in February last February it was for the first time in centuries of Siamese occupation of southern Thailand that the Thai authority officially and formally and publicly recognize grievances of ethnic Malay Muslim that matters and by making the process the dialogue process open make it possible for people to follow the progress of the process they don't need to make it you know kind of they don't need to be press conference every single round of the dialogue but people need to know maybe every three months six months eight months a year report or progress what has become of the result but now it's back to the rise of this kind of security bureaucracy in the Thai thinking it's all going to be confidential as always we don't know who are being well we know but the public would not we never know who are being approached who are being discussed what deals are going to be made are going to be made at what cost the lack of transparency is going to be restored with the change of national security if that's one thing and in what what Ajandan can mention about the lack of of discussion since June one thing is that after the designing of dialogue agreement in in February last year there has been no fulfillment from the Thai side to address after recognizing the grievances but failure completely to address those grievances injustice human rights violations impunity none have been addressed so for the separatist movement they come up with with two very interesting measures on the one hand officially they continue to stay on with the dialogue because they are being pressured by Malaysian government by the Malaysian special branch to stay on with the process but at the same time they go they have gone on youtube addressing that dissatisfaction of the process addressing that strong adherence to the cause of insurgency that is a message to both the Thai as well as to their own concerns that they have not betrayed the cause of fighting for justice and liberation and in this situation you know you can imagine with a collapse of Ying Lak government in Bangkok it is a good opportunity for separatist movement to walk out from this process and you see now the increase of attacks since you know the instability started in Bangkok and now with total almost total collapse of the government we see the increase of attacks both in response to the power vacuum as a response to the lack now of the iron grip that forced them to stay in the process and lastly as retaliation to ongoing abuse and excessive use of violence by Thai security force which for separatists that justify their brutality against Thai civilians so this is a context now that why we are going to see the increase of violence in southern Thailand in running in parallel to instability at national level Thai politics Please join me in thanking our excellent panelists for a very interesting discussion