Farmer unrest dogs Chuan's government

Farmer unrest dogs Chuan's government

By Anchalee Koetsawang

BANGKOK (Reuters): The moment of truth is almost at hand for
Thai premier Chuan Leekpai and his government as thousands of
poor farmers prepare to descend on Bangkok to air their
grievances today.

For Chuan, a humble grassroots leader, it will be painful to
see the farmers, their anger stoked by the opposition, march into
the capital and accuse his government of helping the rich at the
expense of the poor.

Anti-government rallies by farmers in Bangkok occur almost
annually, but this protest comes at a critical moment.

The gap between rich and poor is widening, making for a
potential threat to the credibility and survival of Chuan's
government as Thailand struggles to overcome its worst economic
crisis in decades.

The protest, timed for the first reading in parliament of the
nation's 1998/99 (October-September) budget, will be the biggest
faced by the six-party coalition government since it took power
last December.

Foreign investors are worried about the scale of the protest,
fearing that social unrest in the heart of the capital could rock
international confidence in the country.

"These protests occur every year but this time around it is
different because they come along with a sharp decline in economy
and negative sentiment arising from that. So it is being watched
closely," an Asian diplomat said.

"The government seems ready for it and so far it seems to be
contained," he added. "The government has held informal
negotiations with the protest leaders but nothing major has
emerged. It is left to be seen how it will turn out."

Thai stock and money markets are also nervous about the fall-
out of the planned protest.

The farmers, mainly from the impoverished northeast, have
threatened to bring Bangkok to a standstill if the government
fails to grant them relief from hundreds of billions of baht in
debt owed to a state-owned farm bank.

The Northeastern People's Organization (NPO), an umbrella
group of the farmers' groups, and seven political activists
backed by the main opposition New Aspiration Party (NAP) have
vowed to bring at least 20,000 farmers to parliament.

NAP leader and former premier Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, whose
government collapsed amid the economic crisis last November and
was succeeded by Chuan, has vowed to lead the rally.

Despite claims that the disgruntled farmers might have been
misled by politicians, some of their complaints were valid,
analysts said.

"Many of them have been pushed out of their original peaceful
environs to make way for new dams and commercial structures
without proper explanation and compensation," said columnist
Suthichai Yoon in the English newspaper, the Nation.

"Others have found the adjustments impossible and have been
looking for social safety nets which were either non-existent or
never materialized despite promises by local politicians and
officials," he wrote.

Most farmers are heavily in debt.

Farm groups say they have been denied financial support while
the government has enacted measure after measure to save the rich
businesses whose failure sparked the crisis.

The government last month approved decrees to enable it to
borrow $18 billion locally and abroad to fund financial sector
bail-outs which triggered a public debate about government
helping the rich at the expense of the poor.

In a bid to demonstrate that his government was not ignoring
the plight of the poor, Chuan recently allocated 10 billion baht
for rural programs, besides setting up agencies to care for them.

He defended his government's policy of helping business,
saying that if the economy collapsed, both rich and poor would be
badly hit.

Somphob Manarangsan, economic professor at Chulalongkorn
University, said the government would have to work faster and
more efficiently to dispel the feeling of the underprivileged
that they were being ignored.

"This protest will pose a big threat to the government because
there will be lots of participants in the rally. It will provide
ammunition for the opposition to create a perception that this
government is anti-poor even though the opposition has shown it
cannot handle the problem either," he said.