Questions after the Riots

The Bangkok Post today has an interesting opinion article which brings up some disturbing and challening questions.

The street riots which culminated with the arson of Bangkok's central business district have been put down as inevitable. Both the ragtag red shirts' perpetrators of violence and the more organised armed "men in black" were no match for a uniformed army supported by armoured columns in the end.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva speaks at a news conference held at the 11th Infantry Regiment in Bangkok on Friday. Mr Abhisit said he was committed to national reconciliation but made no offer of fresh elections, two days after troops quelled the worst political violence in modern Thai history.

The 70-odd death toll so far from the Ratchaprasong-centred protests over the last two months exceeds each of the previous crises - the entwined Octobers of 1973 and 1976 and the straightforward pro-democracy uprising in May 1992.

On the other hand, the arson attacks have set back the Bangkok-concentrated capitalist boom by at least a decade. The symbolic damage could be more costly as the knock-on effects on tourism and investment come to the fore.

While all stakeholders assess the mounting costs, several troubling questions warrant clarity in the days during the immediate aftermath of the Ratchaprasong rage and rampage.

First, had the various peace overtures run their course? On the eve of the crackdown, a senate-sponsored peace deal appeared in the works. Leading senators were shown on state-run and army-owned television stations in discussion with the leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship.

Perhaps the UDD hardliners hijacked and vetoed the negotiations. Perhaps convicted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra told the UDD hardliners loyal to him to pull the plug. Perhaps the rank-and-file protesters at Ratchaprasong were intransigent to any deal, having been indoctrinated day in and day out on the stage rhetoric of social injustice and al leged murders of their fellow demonstrators from the April 10 clash.

But it was clear that the UDD moderates were intent on standing down. Might more time allotted to them for persuasion of their crowds and bargaining with their opposing hardliners have helped bring a peaceful way out?

And the failures of earlier olive branches need to be explained.

What happened to the promising negotiations brokered by Bangkok Governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra? Was it scuttled by the Thaksin hardliners, rejected by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, or both? Mr Abhisit came up with a five-point peace proposal with a concrete election timetable for November polls just two weeks before street riots spiralled out of control. This proposal was accepted by the UDD with the additional condition that Deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban turn himself in to police to own up to the civilian deaths on April 10.

Why did Mr Suthep surrender to the Department of Special Investigations instead of to the police when he was certain to be freed because no charges had been filed against him? Such gamesmanship and leveraging between the two sides have incurred sombre costs in the streets of Bangkok. And why did PM Abhisit withdraw his peace offer and election timetable if he was intent on finding a peaceful exit out of the brinkmanship? This reversal may have strengthened the hand of UDD hardliners and tipped the balance among the UDD leadership towards a more violent outcome.

Second, should the Abhisit government preside over what its finance minister calls a "healing process" when it has been party to the conflict and is culpable for the dead and injured?

Early government noises suggest more pacification policies and campaigns to placate the reds in the countryside. But we have been here before. After the Songkran riots in April 2009, Mr Abhisit pledged reconciliation and reform. The consequent recommendations for con stitutional amendments came to naught. Further antagonism and alienation of the reds have partly brought on the Ratchaprasong protests. He and his government had the entire year in 2009 to bridge the divide and bring the red shirts on side, but the result has been the opposite. What can the Abhisit government do this time that they did not do after the reds' rioted in April 2009?

Third, what now happens to the reds? Having been forcefully dispersed and roundly condemned for the burning of Bangkok, will the rank-and-file reds simp ly go home and sit quietly? For the reds, nothing has changed. They rioted then and now in April 2009 and May 2010. Their grievances remain unaddressed. What they see as injustice, including their systematic disenfranchisement through the judicial dissolutions of their poll-winning parties not once but twice, the banning of their politicians, and the street-based ouster of their elected governments in 2008, persists. Will these claims of injustice be accommodated by the pro-Abhisit coalition? If not, will the reds come to Bangkok in rage again? Or will they resort to underground activities, including an overtly armed insurgency, and establish their own Thailand away from Bangkok in enclaves of the North and Northeast?

Finally, will the arson and looting of the capital be condemned as vehemently in the North and Northeast as in Bangkok? Will the net effect from the protest and crackdown further divide or begin to reconcile Thai society? More questions will emerge while answers will be hard to come by. Picking up the pieces from the last two months will be arduous, and this is all just a beginning.

In the eyes of Bangkokians, the reds are disgraced yet again. But the reds may not care because they no longer accept the Thai state such as it is and the political system it upholds, because the system is seen as rigged and stacked against them.

The onus rests squarely now on the Abhisit government to bring the reds back into the fold beyond Thaksin. Lumping all the reds under Thaksin's long and manipulative tentacles has been a mistake all along. Accommodating the rank-and-file reds and working with their more moderate leaders, including some of the banned politicians from 2007, may offer a way to bypass Thaksin.

If Mr Abhisit is too compromised and tainted for this task, he should consider his position and make a personal sacrifice to enable others to be put in place for the healing to take place.