Thai PM hits back at national human rights criticism

Thai PM hits back at national human rights criticism

Agencies, Bangkok

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra rebuked the National Human
Rights Commission on Thursday for a scathing verdict that his
three years in power have spawned a "culture of
authoritarianism".

"The Commission should have made constructive comments, not
acted like the opposition," Thaksin told reporters. "Such a
reprimanding report has been dispatched all over the world. Do
they feel that the country isn't already damaged?"

In particular, the 11-member commission laid into Thaksin for
his 2003 "war on drugs" in which 2,500 people were killed.
Brushing aside past criticism, the government insists most of the
deaths were internecine drug gang reprisals.

The Bangkok Post and the Nation splashed the three-year-old
parliamentary body's blistering verdict across their front pages.

But elsewhere in the Thai media, the commission's inaugural
report -- which also leveled accusations of media interference
through "networks of cronies" -- was more noticeable for its
absence.

The mass circulation Thai Rath tabloid made no mention of the
report, while the ITV news channel, set up in 1990s as a neutral
and national information source, touched only briefly on the
subject and declined to delve into its conclusions or findings.

Analysts said the report did not contain many new findings or
criticisms, but said the coverage it produced reflected the
control the former telecoms tycoon has managed to exert over the
media since coming to power in 2001.

"The government has been very shrewd in politicizing, co-
opting, coercing and weaseling the Thai-language press," said
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a former Nation journalist and now a
political analyst at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.

"There has not been a democratic period in which the media and
public space have been so monopolized and manipulated," he said.

Despite an economically damaging bird flu crisis and the
eruption of violence in the mainly Muslim south this year,
Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) political faction
remains wildly popular.

Sucking up politicians from smaller parties, it is virtually
assured a thumping majority in elections due early next year on
the back of sweeping populist policies which have divided or
neutralized any opposition voices, analysts say.

Promises of lavish handouts and soft loans to rural folk -- 60
percent of Thailand's 63 million people live on the farm -- have
created a strong Thaksin support base outside the wealthy urban
centers.

They have also stymied opposition from non-governmental groups
by convincing them Thaksin has the plight of the poor at heart,
said Giles Ungphakorn, an associate professor at Chulalongkorn
University.

"The social movements are in a state of shock," Ungphakorn
said. "They don't know how to come to terms with this government.
They don't know how to analyze the populist measures, which go
hand in hand with a degree of repression."

Meanwhile, a second volume of Seeing Through Thaksin, an
expose on Thai prime minister's three years in power, was
launched on Thursday, adding to a growing list of critical books
being published about the controversial Thai leader.

Volume two of Ruthan Thaksin, or Seeing Through Thaksin, is a
compilation of essays by 16 well-known academics, writers and
public figures that sells under the slogan: "Don't Like Thaksin,
you must read it. Like Thaksin, must read it even more."

The first volume, launched last April, sold out its initial
run of 5,000 copies within weeks and had to reprint 60,000
copies, according to the Bangkok Post newspaper.

Ruthan Thaksin Volume II, published in the Thai language, was
launched less than a week after the publication of Thaksin - The
Business Of Politics In Thailand, by husband and wife team Chris
Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit.