I do not agree at all with the human rights organizations which have listed the 10 steps forward and 10 steps back for 2009 and have raised the case of the Supreme Administrative Court’s temporary injunction against 65 projects at Map Ta Phut to first place in human rights progress.

This case cannot be seen simply as a ‘victory of the people’ of Map Ta Phut because of its wide repercussions to entrepreneurs, labour and the national economy.  There are people affected in other ways in what may be an even bigger impact.

The impact may even be negative for the struggle of the people’s movement if a sufficiently long-term view is taken.

The court injunction has also raised legal objections.  While one side admires and praises the judges’ bravery in making this order without fear of the implications for big business groups like PTT (and Siam Cement), I felt a little sceptical.  So I took the trouble to interview Acharn Worachet Phakhirat of the Faculty of Law of Thammasat University. 

His clear answers on questions of law gave me the ideas that I wanted.  This does not mean that I have to parrot what Worachet said.  But I already said that common sense gave me a suspicion from the beginning.  I couldn’t explain it myself and had to go to someone who could.  

Worachet spoke of the balance between two kinds of rights, community rights and the rights of entrepreneurs, and he argued that we should not be too extreme in either direction.  This is what human rights activists and the people’s movement should realize.  The law is there to protect justice and human rights.  But the law does not say that only the rights of villagers are protected, or the rights of the poor or the rights of the mob.  The law must protect the rights of capitalists as well.

With the legal issue now clear, what I now want to talk about is the attitude towards the struggle of the people’s movement and the question of whether this was really a victory for the people.  

It is not that I do not understand the viewpoint of the people’s movement.  It is not that I do not understand the suffering of the Map Ta Phut people who have to accept a poisonous legacy for their children and grandchildren.  I have been to Map Ta Phut and interviewed Suthi Atchasai, coordinator of the Eastern People’s Network and representative of the villagers.  Just getting out of the car, you have the feeling that the air you are inhaling is really bad.  After just a moment, we feel suffocated. The villagers have to suffer this all their lives – problems of water quality and fish from the sea, effects on their livelihoods and the environment.  The suffering is so severe that anything that can be done must be done quickly for the quality of life of the people doomed by irresponsible investment.

What is said here does not come from a formula because over many years I have interviewed countless NGOs – with Rosana, Saree, Withoon, Nimit, Hannarong, Dr Vichai of the Rural Doctors and Dr Nguan, and with Wanida and Suwit Watnoo, who I interviewed before their funerals.  I’ve done interviews with them on pharmaceuticals, on consumer protection, on FTAs, on opposition to anything.  I want to say that Bo Nok, Ban Krut, Bang Saphan, I’ve been there myself, without anyone telling me to (no sponsorship from the Thai Health Promotion Foundation – ha!).  [The Thai Health Promotion Foundation was initiated by Dr Prawase Wasi and is a major financial supporter of Thai NGOs. – Prachatai]

I have never set up a scene to photograph conservationists hugging trees.

So though I may not say that I understand the people’s movement (because I’ve never been an NGO person and don’t expect to be in this life), I am an ‘observer’ who has been close to the people’s movement.

After the Supreme Administrative Court’s ruling, I talked with a friend who was an ex-comrade of the Communist Party of Thailand, and is now a PAD supporter.  He cheers the PAD, although he is against both ‘filthy capitalism’ and ‘backward Sakdina or traditional elite’.

I made a legal objection and said that we should think about the impact on business.  Certainly I never paid any attention to those who said investors would run away to countries with fewer restrictions like China (which uses a dictatorship of the proletariat! to develop irresponsible capitalism with pollution overwhelming the country).  But it has to be admitted that this has an effect on confidence because investors need clear criteria that they can rely on.  Whatever the restrictions, they want clear rules. They don’t want to act in accordance with the law and then suddenly get knocked back.

It is certainly not the case that all 65 projects are committed to intentionally releasing pollutants to exterminate the people of Map Ta Phut.  Most projects may even be OK except for not following Article 67 of the Constitution, which is just a matter of process.  But the content may have passed completely.  So I want to see a systematic solution to the problem, an analysis of each project, management of those that cause pollution and then permission for those that have done things correctly to proceed with no problem.  

My friend agreed but looked at it from another angle.  

‘What do you want to do with this damn country that only has corruption and where all authority is rotten – politicians, officials, the military, the establishment – and there is nothing good?  What system will we get?  There is no way.’

In his opinion, if we wait to solve problems systematically and do everything correctly, the people of Map Ta Phut will be dead already, because in the past, many places followed the law and got through the Environment Impact Assessments, but couldn’t get past the problem of corruption.  The people of Map Ta Phut therefore have the right to do anything to protect themselves and their families.  

So my friend sees that this problem needs strong medicine.  The court ruling was a shock to the system and woke up Thai society.  Surely, there may be many investors in the 65 projects who have not thought of polluting but a sacrifice is necessary to give people a loud wake-up call on pollution and alert them to the need to protect their rights because they have no hope of solving the problem systematically.  In matters large and small, corruption has deep roots reaching into the district police, the traffic police, the municipal police.  It is impossible to solve.  We can only arouse the people to manage the problem.

I hear this and I am speechless.  I admit one point: if we were from Map Ta Phut, we would not consider principles, we would not consider whether our methods were right, we would not consider legal objections, we would not consider the rights of investors, because we would be dead already.

The people of Map Ta Phut have the right to struggle in every way for themselves to get rid of polluting industries.  OK.  But if you say the People’s Alliance for Democracy has the right to use every method, including ignoring democratic principles, to get rid of the Thaksin system, then it’s not OK.

Don’t say that I’m mixing up something unrelated, because in fact it is related.

My friend’s point of view reflects the opinion of the people’s movement section in the PAD, which in fact does not respect the establishment anywhere, but says that the power of the establishment is fading while filthy capital can form a strong centre of power.  They have lost all faith in the democratic system based on elections, all confidence in the administrative system which is rotten with corruption from top to bottom.  They only believe in ‘new politics’.  This is not the 70-30 that people talk about; the real new politics that they want is for the people to intervene in power in the middle of the destruction of the Thaksin system and the weakening of the power of the establishment (chaos).  

This is an optimistic view about the PAD.  I understand their good intentions, but don’t agree with them in terms of either principles or practices.

If we go back and look at the struggle of the people of Map Ta Phut, we can see a new dimension to the struggle of the people’s movement because the people of Map Ta Phut have been fighting for 10 years.  It’s been in the news for many years but has gained strength and some success in the past 2-3 years with leaders like Suthi Atchasai, who wears two hats, as coordinator of the Eastern People’s Network and as core leader of the PAD Eastern Region and executive of the New Politics Party.

It is difficult to keep these two hats separate.  It’s like each supports the other while the people in the east are one part of the basic strength of the PAD (Suvarnabhumi is close).  The story of the Map Ta Phut people has been broadcast on ASTV and been supported by the mainstream media, academics and lawyers who are allies of the Alliance.  Suthi and the people of Map Ta Phut have access to many formal channels for their struggle, have access to leaders, have the ear of the middle class, have greater bargaining power, and have built a social support movement.  Suthi himself is on the subcommittee of the National Human Rights Commission where Dr Niran Pitakwatchara (of PAD) pressured Anand Panyarachun (PAD backer) to become chair of the problem-solving committee.

You have to ask the question: if Suthi hadn’t joined the PAD, would they have had this success?

So Map Ta Phut is a reflection of a new dimension of the struggle of the people’s movement which has high bargaining power and is beginning to share power.  This is not the picture of the people’s struggle of the past.  Those who struggled failed.  They got only sympathy and their leaders were shot dead.  Ask if I want to see this, my answer is no.  But having power and using power must take into account suitability.

Saying that the people’s movement is beginning to take power is not nonsense.  It’s true.  The army of the people’s movement (of the PAD) is nurtured by the Prawase Wasi ideology network, both the Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI) and the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (THPF).  They have media they can use: ASTV and much of the mainstream media.  They have legal eagles (like Dej-Udom Krairit of Article 7), academics in all universities ready to sign petitions, people in the independent agencies, people in the House and in the Senate.  They have connections with the nobility (and now have their own political party). 

All this is because the people’s movement (of the PAD) had an important role in getting rid of the Thaksin system and creating a system where the establishment provides weak patronage, giving the people’s movement great bargaining power.  (It will get bigger if it helps get the NPP elected.)

It looks and sounds like a good thing if we cheer community rights, the people of Map Ta Phut, Ban Krud, Bo Nok, Bang Saphan, etc.  It’s like there’s nothing to object to and we have to accept the silver lining that chaos can be used to benefit the people.

This can be compared to after the coup, when Dr Mongkol was Minister of Public Health and led progressive doctors to declare compulsory licences, handcuffing the transnational pharmaceutical companies who were selling drugs at phenomenally expensive prices.  These were good deeds that I praised, even though it is a dilemma to see progressive doctors endlessly support and defend a coup.

But that was more acceptable than now, because at least it wasn’t obligatory to use 65 compulsory licences all at one go.  That’s the difference between extreme and appropriate.  

Therefore while the people’s movement cheers claims that the Map Ta Phut case is a ‘victory of the people’, I see it from the opposite side and find that this time the people’s movement and NGOs have had a negative reaction and stink.

Don’t you think that this will affect the next struggle?

As an observer of the people’s movement who hopes not to be seen as a capitalist, I want to stress that I accept that the people of Map Ta Phut have the right to fight in every way for their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren (just as the mother of Sivarak has the right to do everything to keep her son out of jail in Cambodia).  But you must accept the rights of others to criticize and express different opinions, without calling them capitalists, like without saying those who do not agree with the PAD are on Thaksin’s side.

As an observer, I want to make the direct observation that the attitude of activists in the people’s movement has had problems for a long time.

Being an activist is not easy but it’s not difficult.  You hate state authority, hate capitalists, oppose state mechanisms, oppose globalization etc. etc., use strong principles, rally, lead villagers’ mobs to wade into the police.  When you make a claim and get an inch, you ask for a yard.  When you get a yard, you ask for a mile.  To negotiate with e-e-evil politicians and ba-a-ad government officials, you fight in the place of the villagers and whatever you do is not wrong.

But when you come to look at the overall picture of society, which has both a mainstream and undercurrents, you have to take into account both capitalist development and consumers and the quality of life, and the balance and harmony between them.  You have to look more broadly and not stick to the same opinions to the end.

The attitude of the NGOs that have been with the struggle for disadvantaged people and marginalized people for a long time can’t change from there they started to a more central position.  Most have gone too far in the Prawase ideology.  They reject capitalism and globalization but cannot find any answers for society.

In the past, NGOs were an undercurrent in society.  As I have said, they always lost.  They got only sympathy, which is frustrating.  But when you start sharing power, you are not perennial losers.  You have to look at the broad picture and get an understanding of capitalism, because this has a huge effect on the mouths and stomachs of the poor.  (Or if you don’t want a capitalist system, please design a new social system for us to see.)

You have to think about it from their point of view.  Although you think that these capitalist are bastards and have never thought of our feelings, they are the representatives of the mainstream of society.  They create employment, they pay taxes, and they make the economy go round (as well as creating the consumption of booze and cigarettes so the THPF has money to support NGOs, hee hee).

I admire fighters like Suthi Atchasai, Banjong Nasae, Pinan Chotirosseranee and so on.  Thailand needs lots of people like this to build community strength, to negotiate opposition to state power and to oppose irresponsible capitalist development. 

I admire this group because ordinary people like us cannot fight like they can.  We can’t make the sacrifices or have their dedication and devotion.  We still look only for our own happiness more than sacrificing everything.

But the lesson of Mao Tse Tung, who sacrificed all for the revolution and led his country to the edge of the abyss, teaches us that being an ‘activist’ cannot depend only on feelings or principles.  

If you raise your banner and lead the people against the police in front of Government House, you can go as far toward the extreme as you want to.  Up to you.  But suppose you want to have power with the right and voice to bargain in society.  Or suppose you want to have political status, and contribute to national policy.  

Then you have to understand that to be Somkiat Pongpaiboon (of PAD), an anarchist who has devoted his life to the poor, is very different from being Lula da Silva.  It may take light years to take control of the country, and to develop a strong people’s politics as a political party that can win elections.

Suppose the New Politics Party wins the elections and becomes government, I will say congratulations to you all, and I will say the country is doomed.

The victory of the people’s movement over the Map Ta Phut is like the victories the PAD declared after the Suvarnabhumi seizure and the dissolution of the Thai Rak Thai Party.

Such victories will backfire against the people’s movement in the long run.

Map Ta Phit is play on the name of Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate.  ‘Phit’ means ‘poison’.