| Bangkok: International Media under Fire |
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| Written by Haseenah Koyakutty | |
| Tuesday, 15 June 2010 | |
 Thailand's elites object to their portrayal in the global press
Although nearly a month has passed since the Thai government forcefully ended the Bangkok protests by the Red Shirt followers of deposed Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, the conflict persists. Now the Thai authorities and segments of Thai society have opened up a new flank. They are on a collision course with the foreign media. The elite, like the foreign media, is a diverse group. But a few patterns can be discerned in this latest battle cry, which is dominating the discourse among Bankok's urban middle class. First, they allege, the foreign media was negligent in reporting on the so-called Men in Black who appeared to be responsible for a major share of the Red Shirts' violence, thereby rendering the movement anything but peaceful. Worse, the foreign media – Red romantics who sympathize with the underdogs or the powerless – were complicit in the violence that ensued through negligent coverage that favored the Red Shirts. Second, the critics say, the foreign media, specifically large television networks with an international reach such as CNN and BBC, report conflicts through western eyes, fitting this particular one into a standard third world archetype: A military-backed government using force on unarmed demonstrators. The western reporting, they say, also ignores cultural differences. Put another way, the foreign media do not understand Thailand. To a press participant in the two month-long crisis that ended with the expulsion of the Red Shirts, however, the media coverage was as fair as it could be under the difficult and life-threatening conditions in which many reporters operated. In-depth coverage was a luxury under deadline and budgetary pressures. CNN and the BBC are easy public targets given their global impact, especially during a crisis or with breaking news that may portray the unpleasant side of a semi-open or controlled society. The outcry is therefore not unusual. What was unusual, however, is the vitriol hurled at certain media outlets or specific reporters. "Dan Rivers of CNN was the most vilified during the recent crackdown by a section of the Thai public who expressed their anger in social networking sites, newspapers and on Thai television," said Marwaan Macan-Markar, President of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT). The club and its correspondents were excoriated when the FCCT recently organized a series of talks and photo exhibitions of the unrest. At one particularly raucous session packed with trendy "Facebook" Thais as well as long-time foreign residents, Sumet Jumsai, a leading Thai architect and social commentator and one of four key speakers invited to discuss the foreign media's reporting, described them as "intellectually bankrupt," of presenting a caricature as hacks who can be found along Bangkok's saucy Soi Cowboy, lacking both taste and curiosity. If the foreign media lacked taste, then the Red Shirts, according to Sumet, were worse than the Nazis. Some 200 Red Shirts stormed Chulalongkorn Hospital on April 29, a critical turning point in the conflict. The hospital was forced to evacuate its patients, paving the way for the government to wage its decisive onslaught against the protestors. "Babies were being carried out of the ICU (intensive care unit). Even in a full-blown war situation, you don't do that. I don't think the Nazis would even do that," said Sumet, who then went on to ask whether it was worth negotiating with "barbarians." Sumet was promptly jeered. Another controversial speaker, this time from the audience, Ze Ze Na Pombejra, a feisty Thai lawyer who petitioned against CNN on Facebook, pointedly asked reporters in the room why they have a code of ethics when they don't plan to adhere to it. In her "Open Letter to CNN International", Ze Ze's grievances ranged from what she called sensational reporting to the media's lack of reliable sources. But it was the perception that the foreign media were pro-Red that rankled the most. In the petition, she implored CNN to reverse the injustice by reassigning field correspondents to Thailand if necessary. "I'm young. I have a right to be idealistic. I have the right to ask you guys to do a good job and if you guys don't do a good job, I think I have the right to complain," she argued. CNN's Rivers, who was on assignment in Bangladesh during the talk, issued a brief statement that systematically addressed all the specific complaints. Calling the charge that CNN was pro-Red, for instance, "unfair", Rivers stated that on the day of the May 19 crackdown, CNN carried seven interviews with government officials. It is not clear if Rivers will be re-assigned or whether the environment is conducive for him to continue operating in Thailand unhindered given the strength of the campaigns against him and his network. Rivers was not available for comment for this article. A former BBC correspondent, Jonathan Head, who was charged with lèse-majesté was cleared of the indictment only after he left the country for another foreign posting. The director of the Thai Media Policy Center, Pirongrong Ramasoota, put the Thai reaction down to a lingering sense of frustration with foreign reporters who she said fail to grasp the complexity of the so-called Yellow-Red conflict or the urban-rural divide. "There wasn't a complete lay-out of the Red Shirts or how the conflict has evolved," Pirongrong said. "There were ‘October people' in the Red Shirt movement. The core leaders were involved in the 14th October 1973 and the 6th October 1976 student pro-democracy uprisings. If the media had talked to enough people, they would have been able to go beyond the western formula. The foreign media, unlike the Thai media, don't have a stake in the conflict and should be fairer," she added while acknowledging that some Thais are going overboard, and they don't want the Red Shirts to be on TV at all. Pirongrong also noted that the Thai media knew of the existence of the Men in Black long before the foreign media began reporting about them. The Black Shirts were an organized armed unit that is accused by the government of being behind a wave of grenade and other attacks. They also exchanged fire with the army during a clash on April 10, killing six officers and injuring 230 soldiers, 90 of them seriously. Nobody knows if the Black Shirts were an invisible third hand in the conflict or if they were embedded with renegade officer Major-General Khattiya Sawasdipol, better known as Seh Daeng. Seh Daeng, or Commander Red, was taken out by a sniper while being interviewed by the foreign media on May 13, triggering the army's final showdown with the Red Shirts. "A lot of journalists were seeking to interview this guy (Seh Daeng). He's one of the best known gangsters around. There are about 2,000 generals in Thailand. He's one of them. The sad thing is that nobody admits that Seh Daeng was part of the Red Shirts, not even the Red Shirts. He represented the most violent part of this demonstration," said Kraisak Choonhaven, the deputy chairman of the ruling Democrat Party, a prominent politician and another speaker at the media talk. Kraisak argued it was inexcusable for the foreign media not to know that both he and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva were physically assaulted by the Red Shirts in their time in office. Marwan of the FCCT however insists the criticisms are being driven by anger and emotion and not by fact or reason. "It was a fast-moving story. The media presented a broad flavor of what happened. In any conflict, it takes a while for the truth to emerge. And how can you say there were Men In Black unless you saw them? There were security guards, some of whom were overweight in black uniforms, and they were involved in crowd control and protecting the Red leadership. Al Jazeera witnessed a man in black with a pistol and it was shown. To go with allegations without concrete proof is a problem," said Marwan. Marwan noted that the April 10 clash with the army quickly lifted the veil of innocence of the Red movement but he also implied that the government's assertion of a violent battalion of about 400 Men In Black could be overblown, given that only two soldiers died during the May 19 climax. As for Seh Daeng, "he was more of a buffoon than a militant, a drama queen. He would say outrageous stuff. It is possible that he was nasty. It is a fair criticism but to say we ignored the violence is a bit farfetched. There's no way the Red Shirts can claim to be non-violent," Marwan added. That is a view shared by Reuters news agency's bureau chief Jason Szep. "As soon as the (men in black) appeared, we were not at all shy about reporting that. We and a lot of the media were consistently reporting about factions in the military that split, and especially after the Red Shirt (movement) turned violent in April," said Szep. Media analysts agree the paucity of investigative journalism is due to constraints such as the lèse-majesté laws and the intimidating political environment of witch hunts and counter attacks. Consider these facts:
The foreign media in Thailand is so mixed that critics, according to FCCT's Marwan, have seized on an "Anglo-Saxon version" of events. (It is noteworthy that the FCCT's session with Bangkok's Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra the night before the media talk did not attract as many locals who had the chance to question their representative about the takeover and collapse of their city and didn't bother.) Whether Thailand fits a "Third World" narrative and whether foreign reporters can penetrate the opacity of Thai politics and culture are clearly red herrings to what appears to be at the heart of the media storm: clashing nationalisms. Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy once observed that traditionally when countries succeed, nationalist sentiment rises. To Kishore, the media puzzle boils down to the dominance of the western press even in an age of information revolution: "You may think what you read in the western media reflects global opinion but it reflects the point of view of 12 per cent of the world's population who live in the west. And 88 per cent of the world's population lives outside the west. And the 88 per cent is developing a different point of view which is not captured in the current global media, and that major distortion has to be addressed." Comments
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As for your assertion that the "assault on foreign media seems to be more one racially driven, than one based on facts," I am forced to ask whether you are truly as ignorant as you seem. Are you seriously asking whether only Caucasian occidental news agencies are under criticism? I would invite you to compare the coverage of Al Jazeera, or even Reuters, to that of CNN and the vaunted BBC. Compare the work of James Hookway in the Wall Street Journal. I could go on. Some Western media did far better than CNN and the BBC, but none really penetrated deeply beneath the surface. So far, that has only been done on social media.
Votes: -3
There is, however, very much an "organized campaign" to discredit some outlets, but it is not the one to which you refer. CNN and the BBC and other Western journalists absolutely deserve the criticism that they have suffered, and yet again, I am going to explain to you why: they missed the core issue, the main story, the true issue at the heart of these protests, which is that they were fundamentally a struggle for the future of the Kingdom between a pathological egomaniac and a much beloved aging monarch. The Red protesters were proxies who were used by Mr. Thaksin's patronage network, and the Royal Thai Army, as always, was forced to act to protect the Monarchy, and the patrimony of the state. The only "organized media campaign" that is currently underway is the one that has been purchased and paid for by Mr. Thaksin. Hence Mr. Amsterdam's fatuous articles in irrelevant journals that no one reads (and which I will not dignify with a link nor further mention), hence Mr. Thaksin's hiring of "human rights expert" Dutch professor GJ Alexander Knoops, and hence the increasing evidence that stooges defending Mr. Thaksin and attacking the Royal Thai government are infesting social media. I wonder whether the hypocrisy of the Thaksin entourage will also extend to an investigation of the atrocities that occurred in the South under Mr. Thaksin's watch at Tak Bai and at the Krue Se Mosque, not to mention the disappearance of the Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelapajit? Will Dr. Knoops also investigate Mr. Thaksin's perpetration of the infamous 2003 "war on drugs?" For Mr. Thaksin to descry "human rights violations" on the part of the Royal Thai government, is indeed rich, as his own record reeks, and it was Mr. Thaksin and his mafiosi cronies who manipulated the Red protesters and incited them to riot. report abuse
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 written by Harry Yass , June 18, 2010
And so the protests continued, even though some Red leaders wished to declare victory and take the process to the political arena. Mr. Thaksin pushed for a complete solution, sensing blood. And after all, it was not his blood. It is never his blood. He manipulates others to do his work for him, while he shops at the Vuitton boutique in Paris.
Votes: -1
The Reds were not engaged in civil disobedience. There is a rule book for civil disobedience. You link arms, and you sit down. You chain yourselves together. You sing songs. You chant slogans. There was none of that. The Reds were throwing molotov cocktails, and they provided cover for bad actors who were literally attempting to incite the Royal Thai Army to perpetrate a massacre, which to the dismay of the Red leaders, did not happen. Had the Royal Thai Army truly conducted itself in a reprehensible fashion, the death toll would have been in the hundreds, if not the thousands. The Army exhibited great restraint. And lest you continue in your profoundly stupid outrage that "snipers" were deployed, in any developed Western nation, the moment that protesters resisted beyond defined limits, SWAT teams would have engaged offenders, and that includes the use of precision marksmen, or as you prefer, "snipers." To express this in extremely simple terms for you, snipers would have summarily shot and killed people who were using firearms, or grenade launchers, or who were throwing stones, throwing molotov cocktails, or lighting barricades on fire. Those people would have been shot. Period. Then, buses would have rolled up, and protesters would have been arrested in an organized fashion. Alas, this is Thailand. All things considered, the Royal Thai Army did pretty well. To provide some perspective on this, consult references to the WTO riots in Seattle. Even the most "advanced" countries in the world can struggle to cope with "peaceful protesters" who provide cover for professional agitators. The Royal Thai government, however, was doubly at a disadvantage in this case, as the Royal Thai Police are a uniformed mafia, their accustomed role and purpose is to serve as enforcers, extortionists and debt collectors for politicians engaged in illegal and corrupt business practices, and they were institutionally unwilling and unable to do their duty during the protests (a fact alluded to by His Majesty the King, in fact, in one of his few statements during the protests). report abuse
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written by Harry Yass , June 18, 2010
These themes were hammered home. Anytime a Red opened his or her mouth, "democracy" and "justice" was the message that emanated, as though they had been programmed, and indeed, most of them had been. The problem is, they had been indoctrinated by watching People TV, or by listening to their leaders incite them to mayhem on the stage at the rally site, and the message was necessarily kept simple. Their own understanding of democracy and justice was confined to what they had been told. They were not capable, many of them, of understanding how they were cruelly used by the remnants of the Thaksin-era patronage networks in Puea Thai, and those corrupt members of the elite that are in decline now that their patron, Mr. Thaksin, is in exile.
Votes: -1
This is not to state that they were not there to agitate for their own goals. Indeed, most of them were. The problem is, their goals coincide with the goals of the old patronage networks only to a degree. The old Thaksin-era patronage network is motivated most of all by a desire to regain its position at the apex of power in the Kingdom of Thailand. And it thinks nothing of exploiting the penury of the poor to achieve it. The remnants of that network in Puea Thai, dissident sectors of the armed forces that remain loyal to Mr. Thaksin, the Royal Thai Police almost in entirety, corrupt civil servants, and always, the old mobsters who control the Puea Thai political machine in the provinces, these are the actors that coalesced to conspire to overthrow the Royal Thai government, and soon, the Monarchy. Agonizing over "men in black," or Royal Thai Army "snipers" is ridiculous. They are not the core issue at hand. They are a distraction, a sideshow. Yes, people died. That is what happens when you engage in subversion, sedition, and yes, terrorism. Agonizing over the tragedy that "unarmed people had their brains blown out on the streets of Bangkok" is absurd. The Reds were warned, repeatedly, they were ordered repeatedly by the government to disperse, and they refused. Here is a simple statement that all should heed: if you are ordered to disperse by the government, you should do so. Refusal to do so is tantamount to putting your life on the line, and people will die. I do not want to say that the Reds had it coming, but they had made their point, they had succeeded in placing their agenda front and center in the popular imagination and the political discourse. In fact, the Reds had actually won, though they did not realize it. Because they had only won what the rank-and-file Reds were seeking, which was redress of economic disparities, and fairness in judicial proceedings. The old mobsters in Puea Thai had not attained their goal, which was the overthrow of the government, and their restoration to power. A report abuse
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written by Harry Yass , June 18, 2010
I agree with Mr. Le Fevre that the motivations that led tens of thousands of Red Shirts to "peacefully demonstrate" in Bangkok should be subjected to investigative reporting, but not, perhaps, for reasons that he would wish. I also wonder whether Mr. LeFevre is capable of understanding that there is no real mystery about the "causes," meaning the reasons why the Reds came to be sitting on the streets, and later, why so many of them lit barricades on fire, threw stones, threw molotov cocktails, or indeed, set bombs, set car bombs, fired pistols and assault rifles, threw M67 grenades, or launched M79 grenades. Indeed, the reasons why so many Reds engaged in acts of arson in the aftermath of the protests is well known. Those actions were not a spontaneous gasp of class agony, Mr. LeFevre. But I suspect that you know that very well.
Votes: -1
While no one can dispute that Thailand could have a better distribution of wealth, it is specious to claim that rank-and-file Red Shirts spontaneously transported themselves to the central business district, and then sat on the pavement in the hot sun for two months, waving their clappers as inflammatory cheerleaders incited them to riot and to arson. The rank-and-file Red Shirts were systematically indoctrinated, they were organized, they were transported, they were paid a small stipend while they were at the Rajraprasong rally site (which often compared favorably to what they could earn on their rice farms up country). They were fed, and they played the role that was scripted for them by their leaders: they were the public face of the protests, they were the pretext for the protests, and they were viral propagators of the talking points that Mr. Thaksin's public relations firms drafted for them. How many times did we hear that protesters wanted "democracy" and "justice?" report abuse
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written by john francis lee , June 16, 2010
' It is not clear if Rivers will be re-assigned or whether the environment is conducive for him to continue operating in Thailand unhindered given the strength of the campaigns against him and his network. Rivers was not available for comment for this article. A former BBC correspondent, Jonathan Head, who was charged with lèse-majesté was cleared of the indictment only after he left the country for another foreign posting. '
Votes: +8
So the lese-majeste charge was just the means to get rid of a pesky foreign journalist? We can expect it to be used against Dan Rivers as well? It really is a "swiss-army knife", isn't it? ' "A lot of journalists were seeking to interview this guy (Seh Daeng). He's one of the best known gangsters around. There are about 2,000 generals in Thailand. He's one of them. The sad thing is that nobody admits that Seh Daeng was part of the Red Shirts, not even the Red Shirts..." ' Wikipedia says of the US armed forces: "The total number of active duty general officers is capped at 302 for the Army, 279 for the Air Force and 80 for the Marine Corps... The total number of active duty flag officers is capped at 216 for the Navy." So, the United States of America has 302 + 279 + 80 + 216 = 877 generals in its armed forces, a mere 44% of the Thai total. I wonder if Thais've noticed that the sheer number of generals might be a good part of their problem. All those recalcitrant boys with guns and nothing for them to do but get in trouble. Seh Daeng might have been working for Thaksin, but Thaksin is not "the redshirts". That's another part of the Thai government line that foreign media, just don't understand Thailand : the government line is that all redshirts are paid dupes of Thaskin. The problem is that Thais expect the media to print what the governmnet tells them to. The Western media only do that for Israel and its gang. The Thais are upset that their government line isn't accorded the same "respect" the Israeli line is. And I can assure the Thais that Thailand and Israel are no longer considered poles apart by the western reading public. The Thai military killing western journalists didn't help their cause. The western response to terror unleashed by the Thai military is not to cave-in, as is the Thai response. My hat is off to John Le Fevre and the other journalists who did cover the government's massacre. I think that he understands the Thai mentality very well : "I am equally dismayed that the people who continue to harp about the media coverage are showing no concern at all that Thai Army snipers were deployed around Bangkok. That unarmed people had their brains blown out on the streets of Bangkok. That a government would deploy snipers against it own citizens. All these matters remain trivialized in their pillorying of the foreign media. " Thais don't care a whit about reality, all they care about is the cover story. Reality, to paraphrase Leona Helmsley, is for little people. I think John Le Fevre is also correct to point out that the Thai government's orchestrated campaign against any media it cannot control is an attempt try to devalue, in advance, upcoming coverage of Thailand's morph into Burma as it unfolds before our very eyes. Rewriting elections out of the military's 2006 constitution, for instance. report abuse
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written by Boon , June 16, 2010
Well said John for your comments, I totally agree. If you read Bangkokpost or any media that comes out of Thailand its well and truely controlled by these "Godfathers". There greed knows no boundaries, how on earth is Thaicom a security threat?
Votes: +14
This Army / Puppet government will do anything in its power, it will try to convince those foolish enough to believe that slaughtering Thais was justified and they were all terrorists. When they are infact the terrorists. report abuse
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written by SC , June 15, 2010
Perhaps they can also set up a small army of online propagandists just like the Chinese government has. With a bit of luck we'll even get them on here screaming that Asia Sentinal is "Thailand Bashing", has CIA links, and justifying anything questionable with some spurious comparison with something the United States did once.
Votes: +7
More seriously, it is nothing new for those in power in Thailand to distract attention and avoid dealing with issues. It never ceases to amaze me how despite being significantly dependant on the tourism industry the powers that be do nothing to reign in those responsible for the fact that Thailand is the world centre for tourist rip offs and scams, and they do not seem to understand the damage this does to their reputation. report abuse
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This excellently written article highlights the never ending accusations of media bias quite well. It also adequately highlights the priorities of some sections of the Thai society - no interest in investigating or evaluating what might have caused hundreds of thousands of people to protest in the heart of Bangkok, but concern over the reporting.
Votes: +13
Having been in the middle of these events for six weeks I find it incredulous that concerns over the reporting still overshadow concern for the 88 people killed and thousands injured. An individual journalist or snapper can only be in one place at a time. What one sees in one location might be totally different to what is happening in another. Let's remember that the main Ratchaprasong protest area covered more than five square kilometers. In the final days of the protest moving around even the perimeter became difficult due to road closures by the military. I think all journalists covering the protest reported about the men in black. Obtaining their photos was difficult though as they wanted to remain anonymous, and didn't parade around the protest area during the day very much. Some journalists not familiar with the events wrongly identified the red-shirt guards, who also wore black, as the illusive MIBs. Were them MIBs? Yes. Were they armed? Possibly. Personally I never saw an MIB armed. I saw them carrying bags and sacks that possibly could have obtained weapons, but without actually seeing the weapon I can't say they were. Were there hundreds? More like a few dozen, than a few hundred. I am equally dismayed that the people who continue to harp about the media coverage are showing no concern at all that Thai Army snipers were deployed around Bangkok. That unarmed people had their brains blown out on the streets of Bangkok. That a government would deploy snipers against it own citizens. All these matters remain trivialized in their pillorying of the foreign media. There seem to be no complaints against the Thai media, who continued to broadcast soaps during the April 10 clash. In the final days of the protest I visited no less than four different locations on each day. On the final day of the assault I stayed on the frontline of the red-shirt line inside the barricade as the Thai army were advancing. The Thai army were shooting ahead of themselves at body height. No less than three snipers were on Chula hospital and three people within 10 meters of me at different times were felled by silenced rounds. I saw one handgun at Din Daeng and I saw one handgun near Sarisan Rd. I'm also aware of BBC footage showing an assault rifle being fired by someone inside the red-shirt barricade area at troops in Lumphini Park. Rather than being a complaint on the facts being presented, the assault on foreign media seems to be more one racially driven, than one based on facts. The fact that these assaults continue indicates more of an organized campaign to discredit the foreign media, than a spontaneous outburst of anger. With the Thai government running an extensive mopping up operation and a nation-wide propaganda campaign, it only makes sense that part of that strategy would be to continue discrediting the foreign media, so that any reporting on the events currently being conducted are viewed with suspicion by segments of the Thai middle-class and international community. At the worst, the attack should be seen for what it is - part of an organized propaganda campaign part of a bigger picture, or no more than the international media has been accused of by one side or another in any conflict anywhere in the world. report abuse
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written by Belle , June 15, 2010
Please read Andrew Marshall from Reuter " Thaksin and Me " You will understand how professional all these media are.
Votes: +0
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written by Democracy , June 15, 2010
Many thanks to international news media, including Asia Sentinel, to report the news that open up many people's eyes. Otherwise there would be more Thai people killed, and the secret of the manslaughter would be kept secret in Thailand.
Votes: +9
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The Godfathers in Bangkok are now going to spend several billion baht to try to buy Thaicom, the satellite operator that Thasksin sold to the Lees, back from the Lees. They want total spectrum dominance of the media in Thailand. It's the only way they can see tohave even a chance of maintaining a reign as theirs is to the interests of the Thai people.
Votes: +16
They are just another military dictatorship, albeit with an Oxonian pretty boy nominally in charge. They sooner they're gone the better for Thailand. report abuse
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If you are truly an honest individual, and not a hireling, then I encourage you to investigate some very underreported facts.
1. How many grenade and drive-by shootings took place in metropolitan Bangkok beginning on March 12, ending with the arson attacks on May 19? (I will help you cheat: there were roughly 148 of them, depending on whether you also include bombings, the RPG grenade attack on jet fuel tanks, and the attempt to drop the electrical towers outside Ayuttaya. I do not include the arson attacks themselves, as I classify them in a different category).
2. Why were primarily symbolic targets chosen for those attacks? What was their symbolism? Were the rank-and-file Red Shirts cognizant of that symbolism? If not, for whom, precisely, were the targets symbolic?
3. Why was there a "stutter" in the execution of those attacks after General Khattiya was assassinated?
4. Why were those attacks resumed with a lesser degree of effectiveness after the assassination of General Khattiya?
5. Finally, what was the significance of the discovery by the Royal Thai Police of caches of machined components of M79 grenade launchers in the days before the protests? These matters are easily researched. They were reported in both Thai and English media. What has not been done, as far as I am aware, is any systematic connecting of the dots.
6. How many people died during the so-called Tak Bai incident in the South of Thailand in October 2004? Who was the Prime Minister during that time? Should that Prime Minister consider himself subject to violations of human rights?
7. How many people died as a consequence of Mr. Thaksin's "war on drugs" in 2003? How does he reconcile his known guilt in this matter with his sudden interest in "human rights?"
I could go on, but I think that I have made my point.