The Nation, 21 April 2009:
The government will launch a publicity campaign at home and abroad to counter the propaganda of the red shirts, PM’s Office Minister Satit Wongnongtoey said on Tuesday. “The media war will be designed to counter the smear campaign of the red shirts and explain the true situation to the international community,” he said.
 

Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya speaking to the Asia Society, New York, 22 April 2009

“Thaksin failed on the populist movement and now I think he has resorted to some sort of assassination attempt.”
 

Let us set aside for the moment any questions we may have about why the Foreign Minister should have a lunch appointment with Sondhi Limthongkul.  (I thought he’d renounced his law-breaking, Cambodian-insulting, criminal-associating ways once he took office; apparently not.) Let us instead praise the Abhisit administration for saying what it will do and then promptly doing it. Putting their mouth where their foot is, so to speak.
 
Of course, this does mean we have to accept that whatever the Foreign Minister says to foreign audiences is in fact ‘the true situation’, even though in this case there is not a shred of evidence to support it and even though Sondhi’s son is fingering other potential suspects for the assassination attempt on his dad.
 
Prachatai has received a video from inside the headquarters of this ‘media war’, somewhere deep in the security zone of the Foreign Ministry. The grainy footage looks like it was taken when someone accidentally left a mobile phone camera running and cannot been verified.  The identity of the participants also remains unclear.  But what follows is a rough transcript of a meeting from the heart of Operation Truth.
 
A voice thought to be that of the FM: …so because the foreign media have all been bribed by That Person, the government has to put its side of the case.
 
Doubtful Official: Well, sir, we haven’t actually received any evidence that the foreign media have been bribed.
 
FM: I would have thought that was obvious. Hasn’t that BBC chappy been sued for lèse majesté three times? That couldn’t happen if he was reporting the facts properly.
 
Doubtful Official: With all due respect Minister, they haven’t all been charged with lèse majesté.
 
FM: But look at what they write and how it is different from what we get in the Thai media. They keep going round the country, even to the red bits, asking people what they think and then reporting that as if it was somehow relevant. They repeat what we tell them and the next breath they stick a microphone in front of some pinko academic who promptly says the opposite. Sometimes they even have the nerve to show video clips that contradict what we say. 
 
Second Official: I believe that’s what they call balanced reporting, Minister. It’s regarded as the correct way to carry out journalism.
 
FM: Balanced? But it’s not the truth! How can they possibly call it proper journalism if The Nation doesn’t do it? Listen, we have to get all our embassies to contact the media in each country and explain to them what they have to write.
 
Doubtful Official: Which is …?
 

FM: The truth, of course! All the violence, the economic crisis, the traffic chaos, it’s all caused by That Man. If it wasn’t for him, the country would be happy and peaceful and united and dear old Pa Prem could enjoy a quiet retirement telling the government what to do. That Man uses bribes, threats, outlandish fabrications, just so he can get back the money he earned from corruption. That Man is evil. That man is a liar. That Man is a cheat. And his English isn’t very good either, he’d never pass the exam for this Ministry. (Knowing smiles all round.)

 
Eager Young Official Who Doesn’t Quite Get It: Sorry, but who is That Man?
 

(There is an embarrassed silence as the Young Official is escorted to the dole queue.)

 
FM: I hope there are no more questions, so just get on with it.
 
Official speaking on a phone: Excuse me, sir, but I’ve got the Moscow Embassy on the line. They want to know what this operation is called.
 
FM: Operation Truth.
 
Official: Thank you, Minister. Anyone happen to know what ‘truth’ is Russian?
 
Disembodied voice: Yes. ‘Pravda’.
 
 

About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).


And if you believe any of those stories, you might believe his columns.