By Jaimie Seaton
Yesterday, when Thailand’s Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej declared emergency rule, I took a break from reporting, ran to the store and grabbed batteries and candles. After all, anti-government demonstrators calling themselves the People’s Alliance for Democracy were threatening chaos. They said they’d cut water and power, halt rail and air traffic and organize sympathetic trade unions to stage a crippling general strike. I awoke the next morning expecting gridlock, blackouts and chaos on Bangkok’s streets. But the threats turned out to be empty. The biggest news: one Thai Airways flight was canceled because the crew said it wasn’t 'feeling ready' to fly. Otherwise, it was a perfectly normal day. As the Bangkok Post put it, “the strike fizzled.”
Wednesday was, in fact, Bangkok’s calmest day since the PAD stormed downtown government offices (buildings they still occupy) last week. A torrential downpour slowed the morning commute somewhat, but the city’s opulent shopping malls were full of the usual fashionistas, hawkers lined Sukhumvit Road to peddle food, flowers and pirated DVDs and the Sky Train zoomed along overhead. I even encountered a lunch line outside one well-known eatery. The only inconvenience heaped upon me was that the Financial Times was delivered late to my local magazine shop. Emergency indeed.
The very ordinariness of life under emergency rule speaks volumes about Thailand’s current political crisis. For starters, it could lift much sooner that many people expect – and end peacefully –once the PAD is exposed as a spent force. Yes, the group led demonstrations that contributed to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s ouster in a military coup in Sept. 2006. But its ranks have thinned radically since then, and despite the grandiose threats (and some very real street violence over the weekend) the PAD simply doesn’t appear to have the necessary juice to topple the government. Their leader, Sondhi Limthongkul, insists that his is a sprawling grass-roots organization. If that's the case, the roots seem to have withered.
That might not be the story you’ve heard. Many dispatches paint a scarier picture. I've received calls from friends in the United States worried that my family and I are trapped in a war zone. They fret because CNN is running “Thailand under state of emergency” on its ticker under coverage of the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. During a Tuesday broadcast from Hong Kong, one of the network’s anchors interviewed Sondhi by telephone and gave him free rein to spin his tales of a government run amok that attacks peaceful protesters who dare yearn for true democracy. Such coverage casts Sondhi as a latter-day Corazón Aquino, which is incredulous for the simple reason that his PAD is campaigning to roll back – not establish – democracy in Thailand.
Worse, too many reports are suggesting, with weak factual foundation, that Sondhi calls the shots in Thai politics today. The same Bangkok Post that declared the PAD’s national strike a bust, for example, nonetheless printed Sondhi’s terms for ending the office occupations on its front page. He’ll support retreat, he told the paper, only if Prime Minister Samak steps down and he is called upon to select Thailand’s next leader.
That’s unlikely. And it’s unclear what exactly makes Sondhi believe the government could ever accept such an offer. Can’t he see that Bangkok is largely unaffected by his demonstrations? If not, I have a few candles and batteries to sell him.
