Thailand’s regional divide

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JK29Ae01.html

By Brian McCartan

(See also Thailand crashes and burns Asia Times Online, November 27, 2008.)

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Amid rumors of a possible military coup and rocked by anti-government protesters' closure of the country’s main airport, Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat has apparently taken the


extraordinary step of moving the seat of his government from Bangkok to the northern city of Chiang Mai.

Somchai opted on Wednesday to land in Chiang Mai rather than Bangkok on his return from an international meeting in Peru, shifting his itinerary after the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protest group laid siege to Thailand's main aviation facility. From Chiang Mai he declared a state of emergency on Thursday, empowering Thai police along with the air force and navy to retake the closed facilities.

Some observers believe Somchai's decision was influenced by the risk he might be detained by the military on his arrival in Bangkok. Despite the emergency decree's provisions banning gatherings of more than five individuals, army commander Anupong Paochinda has shown no indication yet he intends to call on his troops to move against the protestors.


The embattled prime minister's choice of Chiang Mai, the country’s second city, was no accident. As the hometown of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, Somchai’s brother-in-law, Thailand's northern provinces voted overwhelmingly in favor of the ruling People's Power Party (PPP) at last December’s general elections. That factored into the government's recent decision to move the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting scheduled for mid-December to Chiang Mai from Bangkok.

While Somchai's move may have bought the prime minister some time and space amid the escalating political crisis in Bangkok, it also risks enflaming regional passions based on history, culture and political allegiances that could extend the conflict beyond Bangkok and into the provinces.

On Wednesday, a pro-government group known as "Khon Rak Chiang Mai '51" shot and killed the father of a local PAD supporter who runs a popular community radio station. The PAD threatened to send on Thursday a group of its supporters to Chiang Mai in response to the attack, but no violence was reported.

In building the country into a modern nation-state, a region split by ethnic and historical tensions, successive Thai governments have taken great pains to erase regionalism and create a united sense of "Thainess", with the country's central regions around Bangkok as the model.

Historical texts emphasize the role of the central Thai kingdoms of Sukhothai, Ayudaya and Bangkok, while downplaying the roles of other Thai or non-Thai kingdoms that existed within the borders of modern Thailand. These included the northern kingdom of Lanna, the southern Malay sultanate of Pattani and the strong influence of the Lao kingdom of Lan Xang, which once held dominion over much of the northeast.

Beyond whitewashing history, Bangkok governments have systematically bid to erase vestiges of these former independent states. Lanna, for example, was only annexed to Thailand in 1899, and the last of its kings passed away in 1939. The only remaining royal palace currently serves as Chiang Mai city's women’s prison. All the others have over the years been razed on the orders of Bangkok.

Meanwhile growing separatist movements in Isan in the early 1950s were suppressed after several leading local politicians were killed in Bangkok-sanctioned murders. The movement was later absorbed into the Communist Party of Thailand, which fought and ideological battle on regional lines against Bangkok into the 1980s.

To be Thai has over the years come to mean speaking the central Thai dialect and adopting central Thai cultural norms. Thais from other regions of the country, especially northeasterners and mountain-dwelling ethnic minorities in the north, are often denigrated as backward and crude - a perception reinforced in popular nationally televised soap operas.

Despite the government's best attempts, regional dialects are still commonly used outside of centrally-run schools and government offices. Political parties, including the ruling PPP and its predecessor, the now banned Thai Rak Thai party, have played on these regional differences and resentments to their political advantage, allowing them to establish strong regional voter bases.

The ruling PPP derives most of its power from the northeastern region, while the main opposition Democrat Party, which has loosely aligned itself with the PAD's protest call, has its stronghold in the south. The northern region is somewhat divided, but has tended to lean towards the PPP and formerly the TRT in recent elections. Bangkok has vacillated, but voted strongly in favor of the Democrats at the most recent polls, including the recent governor poll.

It is thus no accident that the prior seizure of airports in support of the PAD's protest movement occurred in the south, namely at Phuket and Had Yai. A majority of the protestors at Government House and now at Suvanabhumi and Don Muang airports hail from the south. In statements in the lead up to the airport seizures, the PAD said that it would assemble 100,000 protestors it would draw from the country’s southern regions.

The south in this context does not include the ethnic-Malay Muslims, where ethnic and religious divisions have frequently flared into insurgent rebellions, including the current battle which flared up in 2004, against central Bangkok's rule. Although the predominantly Muslim three southernmost provinces did not vote at the last polls for the PPP, nor did they do for the Democrats.

Until now Thailand’s political problems have largely centered on Bangkok, but Somchai’s apparent move to establish a government base in Chiang Mai threatens to widen the conflict into the provinces. While both the PAD and pro-government groups bused supporters - both real and paid - from outlying regions into Bangkok, most people in the provinces debated the issues privately and quietly.

Several hundred red-shirted, pro-government supporters came out to show support and guard the Chiang Mai provincial hall on Thursday when Somchai held an emergency cabinet meeting there. Many brandished iron bars and wooden clubs in case PAD supporters attempted to disrupt the meeting.

It's possible the trend spreads across the country, with the disenfranchised northeastern farmer to use his support for the PPP as a vehicle to fight for greater rights vis-a-vis Bangkok. Given the increasing tensions, it would not be much of a stretch for a Bangkok or southern PAD supporter to fight back to preserve his or her perceived rights or privileges. And as both sides to the conflict continue to play on and accentuate these regional and ethnic divisions, the risk of a wider conflict rises.

Brian McCartan is a Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast.net.

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