For most of you, our readers, you know what this first year is all about – temples and beaches and ill-advised motorbike trips. Late nights spent giggling about mispronunciations and student precociousness. It was the standard fare.

But when the buildings burned down and the protesters were shot dead in May of 2010, our introspective stupors were interrupted and we started asking questions. Less than a year later, in February of 2011, without a bit of journalism experience and not a dime to our names, we started the Isaan Record. And fortunately, many of you have stayed with us since our clumsy beginnings.

With some luck we picked up a modest grant and our readership grew. But now, 15 months later, we’ve decided to close up shop – at least temporarily. Our funds have dwindled and it’s been a struggle to replenish them. So we’re back home in the US of A, talking to some potential replacements and searching for funding, and we wanted to share with you, loyal readers, a few of our thoughts. It’s time, we figure, to lift this long-standing veil of anonymity and speak to our experience as a pair of resident, foreign journalists far outside the Bangkok expressways in the heart of Isaan. And though there is a lot on our minds, we’ve tried our best to pare things down to what we think will be most interesting. Broadly speaking, we want to describe the difficulties with our journalistic style, the easy access we had to our subjects, the equal parts skepticism and openness with which we were greeted in the field, and, of course, our relationship to the lèse-majesté law. We hope you enjoy.

Style

When we first started writing the Isaan Record, we made a few rules about style. We would not sensationalize, write first-person blog posts, or editorialize. We would deliver good, old-fashioned, hard news reporting. It was a two-pronged decision; we recognized a void of neutral, local news reporting in the region, and we also wanted a shield of professionalism and formality to hide our inexperience. We did not expect that our decision would be so loaded.

For one, our subjects were more accustomed to participating in the Thai media landscape – one in which reporters’ political leanings are often very clear. So, when we would write articles about Red Shirts without explicitly advocating for their political goals, we’d read angry Facebook posts in Red Shirt forums. After writing about a meeting on constitutional reform at Khon Kaen University, one Red Shirt posted, “I’ve read the whole article over again and again and it’s totally neutral…. Do you want more blood to be spilled? Are you the same as the media on October 6, 1976?,” he wrote in reference to the infamous military crackdown on left-wing students on Thammasat’s campus.

Our political leanings were abundantly clear. We weren’t pro-military royalists. We wrote about grassroots social and political movements – people trying to challenge the system.  We were progressives.

But since we tried to maintain a neutral voice, our very subjects often accused us of cowardice, or even abetting the “enemy.” We had two goals: to spread information about the kinds of social and political movements in the region and to do so without employing a style that isolated readers with different political beliefs from our own. Sometimes, though, our style isolated even people whose political goals we admired.

Even Thai journalists didn’t quite know what to make of us. At a forum on local journalism, a regional reporter from Prachatai, the nation’s leading alternative news source, read our name off a list and remarked, “Oh, I know them – the neutral ones.”  The reputation stuck and, frankly, we felt pretty good about it.

Accessibility

When we started going out into the field in the winter of 2011, we had very little external support and a tiny network. We figured we would start slow and try our best to get people to take us seriously. We never expected that within our first week of reporting, we would be shaking hands with former Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat and asking for his thoughts on the burgeoning Red Shirt movement in the region. What we learned very quickly remained true our entire stay in Thailand: Top-level politicians and other high-powered figures would not be an obstacle in this adventure. People in Isaan were ready to talk and foreign reporters promised wider readership. It didn’t matter that we were young and didn’t have press passes. Authorities in Isaan just weren’t being hounded by journalists as they were in Bangkok. In the Northeast, politicians still seemed to think that talking to reporters was a good way to discuss the issues that mattered to them, not a burden or a trap.

Civilians, too, were jumping at the opportunity to share their stories. When we called to schedule interviews in relevant communities, we never had any problem. In fact, the only problem we did encounter was that too many people wanted to take part. “We’d like to talk to a few rice farmers in your village about their views on Yingluck’s rice mortgage policy,” we once said over the phone to a village representative. When we arrived in Yan Yong village, we were greeted outside the leader’s home, thirty some-odd plastic chairs facing a dais. The brief interviews we had planned from our office had quickly turned into a three-hour forum of opposing views.

At first, these forums seemed like a complicated alternative to the more private, in-depth, one-on-one conversations that we had imagined. But as we grew accustomed to these large crowds of interviewees, we grew grateful for the chance to hear from a wide spectrum of voices. The attendees were eager to debate, and we got to listen. Irrespective of the story, one thing remained true for nearly all the civilians we interviewed. Whether we were talking to villagers trying to protect their land deeds, laborers fighting to gain access to basic utilities, or Red Shirts spreading their movement’s causes and goals, the local people in Isaan would all ultimately close with the same line: Thank you for coming to hear from us.

For most of them, speaking to a reporter of any nationality was a novelty.  They were unconcerned with our inexperience and relative anonymity. And many were just as naïve and idealistic as we were – hoping that better news coverage would bring greater domestic and international attention to their causes.

Just as more and more story ideas began to pile up in our inboxes and on our voicemails, our readership slowly grew as well. Among the 22 million people of Isaan, we had few competitors.

Reception

This great access to our subjects, however, was not uncomplicated. Behind the endless invitations often lay a lingering question: What were two American kids doing poking around the cities and villages of the Thai Northeast?

No matter where we ventured, we almost always raised eyebrows. We were the only foreigners with notepads and the only reporters conducting interviews with a translator. Sometimes people would tell us we weren’t “real reporters.” Most of the time people would ask where we were posted as exchange students, notwithstanding the clear indicators – notepads, microphones, cameras – of our jobs. Some Thais would tell us outright that we couldn’t possibly ever understand Thailand. Others would warn us that we needed to be especially careful: English reporting could make more waves than Thai reporting so we had better be measured and accurate.

The most extreme suspicions we faced were in a remote village in Loei province. In August, we started pursuing a story in a community that claimed to be suffering effects of chemical runoff from a nearby gold mine. Our translator reported to us that prior to agreeing to an interview, community leaders subjected us to a most surprising kind of scrutiny. Were we part of the CIA, they wanted to know. Some of the last Americans to traipse through the village had been CIA men gathering information about the growing communist presence a generation earlier. As Americans, we often have an elementary school student’s attitude towards forgiveness vis-à-vis our tawdry history of military interventions in foreign countries (illicit and otherwise). Forgive and forget, right? Northeastern Thailand’s collective memory, it seems, runs deep. And when Isaan people feared we were from the CIA, we had to work a lot harder to prove ourselves trustworthy, for good reason.

Thankfully, for most of the people we were working with, the intrigue (and even promise) of our foreignness outweighed the skepticism. Overall, it seemed as if people in Isaan respected our dedication to hearing their stories, even if they thought we could never quite understand the ins and outs of their country. When we got lucky, they would even press us to compare Thai and American politics. Because we stood out, people let us in. We ran around backstage at Red Shirt rallies interviewing speakers, slept on the floors of farmers’ far-flung, wooden houses, and took tours of industrial complexes – all with warm invitations and undue generosity. The skepticism, though sometimes discomforting, didn’t prevent us from contributing to the Thai media landscape.

Lèse-Majesté

The lèse-majesté law changed our work in significant ways: we didn’t write what we heard and people didn’t tell us what they thought. It doesn’t take 15 months in the field to know that that’s what a law like this does. What did come to surprise us, though, was just how differently our interviewees would adhere to, interpret, sidestep, or just outright ignore their half of the bargain. Many chose to place the onus of censorship squarely on our shoulders, which is, of course, a most regrettable duty. Villagers were often surprisingly candid about exactly who and what they didn’t like about Thailand’s political elite – they could be refreshingly critical. Others would clam up the very moment we said the words “lèse-majesté” (which was, incidentally, the longest and most esoteric word in our Thai vocabulary). In response to a question we posed to a particularly influential Red Shirt leader about lèse-majesté reform, the woman said, “This is something that is simply not in the Red Shirts’ interests at this time and that is all I would like to say about that.” That was as far as she would go.

Still others found a comfortable compromise between these two extremes. A very well-known Isaan Red Shirt leader and Pheu Thai Member of Parliament (MP) had taken a liking to the Isaan Record and always found time to talk to us at a rally or demonstration, for which we were always grateful. Most likely the man relished the opportunity to practice his English, and he never failed to entertain us with his innuendos regarding institutional reform. He’d gesture to the sky, wink, give a knowing laugh or pat one of us on the shoulder when he talked about the power of “The Invisible Hand.”

Nevertheless, almost none of these interactions ever made it into our stories. Though we wrote a couple of articles about the Campaign Committee for the Amendment of Article 112 (CCAA 112 – a movement, in part, to reform the lèse-majesté law) in Khon Kaen, we only ever wrote one story that addressed lèse-majesté directly and it only stayed up on the site for a couple of months before we reconsidered the possible consequences of our decision.

Early on, when our readership was still small and our work was not yet translated into Thai, we ran a story about a Northeastern MP who had been accused of lèse-majesté for the comments he had made at a Red Shirt rally the week before. It was hastily written and was based solely on a thirty-minute phone interview with the accused, and really, at this point, is more a testament to our idealism than it was a gutsy exposé. Nevertheless, we agonized over what we could and could not publish. We consulted with an expert in the field and concluded that if the remarks had been published elsewhere, we could cite that publication and we’d be in the clear. But of course, it wasn’t that simple.

The MP had caught the public’s attention the month prior when during a nationally broadcast parliamentary debate he shouted down a particularly despised government politician with an idiomatic (and quite commonplace) vulgarism: “Shut the hell up!” Literally translated, it works out to “Holler for your father.” In the weeks that followed, the MP’s outburst on the House floor had grown into something of a rallying cry. Not long after the televised debate, on the stage of a Red Shirt rally the MP repeated his catchphrase at the audience’s insistence. Then he said it again with a slight alteration: “You don’t just have to holler for your father,” he said, “you can holler for your mother, too.” Two days later he was summoned to a Bangkok police station and charged with lèse-majesté.

Though to a Western audience the MP’s remarks may appear entirely innocuous (even if indecorous), Thailand’s hierarchical and familial system of pronouns allows this to be read as an affront to the king and queen, the “father” and “mother” of the country at large.

So, what could we publish? The catchphrase’s origins were on YouTube for goodness’ sake. He was simply repeating a rude colloquialism. Did that mean we could link to the video and we’d be safe? Or was writing about its repetition at the Red rally tantamount to slander? What about the reference to “your mother”? Was that crossing the line?

Most Westerners are blessed with legal systems in which innuendo and sentence constructions cannot constitute felonies.

We ran the story, but with one glaring omission. The remark about “your mother” was excised. In retrospect, it seems like an overly cautious decision, but with a long history of arbitrary enforcement comes an unhealthy dose of journalistic paranoia. Charges can be brought, dismissed, put on hold and reanimated without any rhyme or reason. Just last Thursday, the Bangkok Post reported that the charges brought against this MP and others around the same time are likely to be dismissed – 13 months later.

There are few silver linings to be found in discussing lèse-majesté. “Uncle SMS”’s tragic passing while behind bars is yet another reminder of just how devastating the law can be. What we can say, however, is that we are amazed how in the last year alone, lèse-majesté reform came out of obscurity and started regularly making front page headlines. Finally, the conversation has begun.

Conclusion

Both of us have been back in the United States since early April, and while we’ve been looking to find new funds and potential successors, we took our time in writing this final piece. Before we sit back, though, we would like to thank all the people who made the Isaan Record possible. Without our translators, mentors, contributors, sources, and many close friends, we could never have produced the kind of reporting that we did.

And thanks especially to you, our readers, for sticking by us over the last year or so. This site was something of a laboratory for young journalists, and, as a result, you were our guinea pigs. Our hesitancy to editorialize was a tactic, a trick. We wanted you to take us seriously and we have been honored to find that you did. The site has seen well over 30,000 hits and our work has been featured in numerous print and web publications from around Southeast Asia. So if there is one legacy that we would like to leave, it is this: The work that we have done over the past year is vital, lacking, and, most importantly, doable. We weren’t the first and we certainly hope that we won’t be the last to bring you regular news from the Northeast.

And please – don’t de-friend us or un-follow us. We’re in talks to make this more of a hiatus than a shut-down. Stay tuned.

Warmly,
Glenn Brown and Lizzie Presser
Co-Editors
The Isaan Record

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Baan Na Tha Kai, situated some 14 kilometers outside of Udon Thani, is one such Thai community that began to send many men to work in the Middle East more than 35 years ago. There is little in Baan Na Tha Kai to signify the community’s rather exceptional history.  Like most Northeastern villages, Baan Na Tha Kai is comprised of clusters of traditional wooden stilt houses, many of which have been modified with concrete to resemble conventional two-story homes. Yet, just beyond the houses, paddy land adjoins a military base through a battered, chain-link fence.

The base is one of seven which housed American Air Force units during the Vietnam War. The origin of many of the bombing missions which decimated Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the base provided dollars and jobs for the villagers of Baan Na Tha Kai who previously had little opportunity to work off of their rice fields.

“Thirty, forty years ago, people were not working in Bangkok [like today]”, a retired 64-year-old former base worker and migrant to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Israel recalled. “There was mostly farming. Some people worked in sawmills or in construction in Nong Khai, Khon Kaen and Udon Thani. Then the Americans came.  People who had left the community came back to work and lots of people from other places came in.”

Having grown accustomed to the steady source of income that service, security, and manual labor jobs on the base provided for more than a decade, villagers suffered when the Americans suddenly withdrew in 1976. Even so, when a former American soldier tried to recruit labor for multinational construction and resource extraction companies in the Middle East, he found few takers. “We were scared,” the former base worker explained. “We didn’t know where these places were or what they would do to us there.”

The exception, many villagers recalled, was the late Noy Rawsiklao.  According to village lore, Noy’s heavy debts rendered him receptive to the American’s proposal.  When Noy returned home flush with money the following year, Baan Na Tha Kai took notice. It is unclear whether Noy spoke of the desert heat, the lack of amenities and women, the prohibitions on alcohol, or the exploitative working conditions about which other returned migrants would later complain. When villagers recall Noy and his triumphant 1977 return, they speak only of how rich he appeared.  A 55-year-old former migrant explained, “Noy told us, ‘Next time someone invites you to go to Saudi Arabia, you go.’”

By and large, the men of Baan Na Tha Kai took Noy’s advice to heart. Villagers recalled that at the height of the Middle Eastern migration craze in the 1980s, men from nearly every household in three of the four villages that comprise Baan Na Tha Kai were working abroad.  But now, as the government plans to rebuild the labor market for Thais in the Middle East, it will likely need to seek labor from other areas of Thailand.

In the mid-2000s, overseas migration began to fall out of favor in Baan Na Tha Kai.  A village official estimates that, today, at most 30 people from Baan Na Tha Kai’s approximately 1000 families are working abroad.

“The trucks haven’t even run through here for the past two years,” a shopkeeper confided, referring to the employment agents who used to disrupt the quiet afternoon air with recorded loudspeaker messages about riches to be earned in foreign lands.

Villagers suggest that there is one main reason that migration has recently become so unpopular: Employment agencies have significantly raised their fees for arranging migration. “The word has gotten out,” explained the shopkeeper. “People pay well over 100,000 baht to go to Taiwan. Then in two years in Taiwan they only make [around the same amount]…It’s like you worked for free.”

Expenses required for migration have historically created a high barrier to success. An old Thai aphorism describes the plight of migrants whose earnings fall short of their spendings: “On going, you lose your rice field; on coming back, you lose your wife.” Many migrants are forced to mortgage their family’s land in order to pay the employment agencies’ exorbitant fees. And, while they are away, their marriages can sometimes fall apart. Upon return, the migrants who have been wronged by their foreign employers or have encountered other financial hardships rarely have the funds to buy back their land or the ability to win back their wives. Villagers estimate that those whose migration cost them their homes and families amounted to under 20% of migrants.

“Some of them literally went crazy upon return”, a successful migrant said, explaining the fate of the less fortunate. “But most would go down to Bangkok to work in construction after losing their rice land [and homes].” Construction work often offers on-site housing for laborers.

And, as employment agencies’ fees have steadily increased, the threat of returning home without savings today is far greater than it was three decades ago.

At the same time, economic opportunity is beginning to present itself at home, further discouraging interest in working abroad. “Now you can make 200 to 300 baht a day [in construction in Thailand], 500 to 600 if you have skills,” said the shopkeeper, pointing to construction work being performed on the nearby railroad. More than that, said another former migrant, “If you have 100,000 baht [to pay for agency fees], it would be better to start a business in Thailand.”

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Street art has yet to make waves in Isaan but this group of artists has made it their goal to bring the movement to the region. Recently, the Isaan Record sat down with Floyd, Baby83, and Wink – three artists from the group (all of whom preferred to be identified by their tag) – to hear more about their work and their experience painting in the city and on the outskirts.

See their work and read what they have to say below.

Wink works mainly with the idea of overconsumption. His obese and sluggish figures are meant to discomfort his audience and encourage them to question the growing tendency to blindly consume.

Also by Wink.

Floyd often paints disembodied fingers, a symbol from a Buddhist tale about Daku Angulimala – a man who engages in violence before he learns the teachings of Buddha.

Also by Floyd.

Baby 83 focuses on images that represent the tendency to lie. Here, he paints a sheep from the fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" as a way to remind his audience that lying is everywhere, though they may not know it.

Also by Baby83.

Also by Baby83.

Isaan Record: So, why street art?

Baby83: Floyd, Wink and I used to do extreme sports together – BMX-ing, skateboarding. We got to know each other through these activities and in the context of street culture. [And over time] I got to know the culture better, too. I started learning more and I discovered that modern street art is a branch of this culture. It’s a performance, and one that can be presented to people easily. You know, if we work on art inside a frame, we’re just working at home – people will only see our work when we display it in an exhibition.  But for street art, they can see our work while we are in the process of doing it, and they’ll ask questions while we work. That’s what it means to be fresh. It’s a lot of fun.

Wink: After I graduated from [the faculty of arts at KKU], I started to see that there are other kinds of work out there like street art.  Once I was out of college, I realized that there’s this large gap between art and people. I thought I should do something to bring art closer to people because our city, Khon Kaen, doesn’t have much in the way of [contemporary art] movements. I chose to present this kind [of art] as my way of expression. I came to that conclusion two years ago.

Floyd: I had seen [street art] when I was young and became interested in it, but I didn’t know how I could get involved. I started getting into BMX-ing and I was studying art at the university. After I graduated — well, it’s the same as Wink said. The art of this society is really dull, it’s also dated. There are only old people doing it. For teenagers, especially the alternative ones, it’s so old-fashioned. So we all started talking to each other about how we could make a strong impact [on people] and how we could make them confused. We decided street art was the best option. We like it. And we think that the finished product is cool, too.

Baby83: Let’s suppose that drawing on paper is like listening to music on a CD. What I mean is that working inside of a frame is a lot like listening to a CD. But the process of going out and doing street art, well, that’s like playing a concert. It’s live. Whatever we say, however we play at a concert – it’s far more powerful than when it’s on a CD.

IR: How do people react to your work in the city?

Baby83: We always ask for permission and we even show people sketches beforehand. The reason we do this is because [Thailand] is different from Europe or America. There, [artists] don’t need to ask permission because people aren’t afraid of art, it’s not talked about as if it’s scary. But here we have to ask for permission because people are afraid even though it’s just art. Ultimately, it means people can have trouble appreciating it.

Wink: Once I was painting a head on a Chinese house – one half of the face was a skull and the other half was pretty. But once it was done I had to erase it. Chinese people really hate skulls. In China, punk culture is not something that people accept, partly because of [the symbol of] the skull. So I had to take it down and paint the whole wall over again. I understand that this is a part of their culture but sometimes I can’t control myself. [Laughs] But I also know I have another responsibility – I respect the owners of the buildings so I had to make the piece softer and less frightening. I still maintained my concept, though. Since we’re sharing the space with the public, this is something you just have to accept. So I’ll only make art [that’s controversial] to a certain point. That’s what I believe is right. And I’ve learned on my own that in this situation, if the art is too frightening, society might not accept it. So, that’s our answer.

Floyd: Just to be clear – sometimes we don’t ask for permission. We just sneak around and do it because it’s exciting that way. It’s also more exciting for people who don’t know what they’re about to see around the corner…. Really, impact is our main policy in street art. Like in Banksy’s work – he got his work into a museum and made people really confused. It made people start asking questions.

IR: We see that you also make street art out in the villages. How do people there receive it?

Floyd: For me, painting in the village is better than painting in the city. It’s innocent. Villagers don’t have any silly questions, like “Who hired you to paint?”. But they’re glad that the work is beautiful and they invite me to paint often. But if I’m in the city, people have a lot of questions and I have to give them reasons. “Why do you do this?” “Do you get any money?” “Did you have to ask the municipality for permission?”

Baby83: We used to work at a school in Kaina village. Kids like this kind of work – they never really knew that painting on walls was a field of art. They always thought that artwork was just a drawing on a piece of paper that they needed to hand in to their teacher.

Floyd: Villagers look at our work with their feelings – they’re not asking for lots of reasons. This is the right approach. They still see beauty, even though they many not quite understand it.

IR: Why do you think city people might be afraid of contemporary art?

Baby83: There are restrictions on how much we can learn about other cultures. [Cultural movements] come here late. When I was studying at the university, my faculty didn’t even have a library. And that was in 2000.

Floyd: In the past, there weren’t any bookstores in Khon Kaen. The books in the library were too old and there wasn’t a movement to bring new books to the library. When we got a bookstore in Khon Kaen, it was like the whole world opened up in front of us. Still, lots of students studying at university today learn from really old books so their work is old-fashioned.

Wink: In my opinion, some people fear the work itself, and other people fear what will happen because of the work. There are two kinds of fear.

IR: How does your work contribute to the identity of Isaan?

Floyd: Khon Kaen doesn’t have an identity. We pick up stuff from other places to use here. Like in Chiang Mai, of course, there’s so much art, and it’s easy to get into it. But in Khon Kaen, things are superficial, unprofound – it’s all business. I sure as hell don’t want to sell stuff. They can bring their business, but they’re not bringing any real culture. We still haven’t proven anything about Khon Kaen to outsiders yet. What does Khon Kaen have to offer?

Baby83: In some ways, we are trying to create [an identity]. We’re starting small, but that’s good.

For a map of selected Dude Factory work in Khon Kaen, click here. Or visit the Dude Factory facebook page for more photos.

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Profits come with mortal risks

The Thai state has been promoting the overseas employment of Thais, most of whom are drawn from the country’s poorest and least developed Northeastern region, for more than three and a half decades.  It competes with more than a dozen Southeast and South Asian states for lucrative employment positions in overseas labor markets.

In January 2012, Sri Lanka permitted its migrant citizens to return to Libya.  In response, Mr. Prawit asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to hastily verify that conditions in Libya are safe before Thai jobs were lost to Sri Lankan workers. In his February announcement, Mr. Prawit made no reference to Sri Lanka. Instead, he simply stated that the Thai Embassy in Libya had determined that conditions had returned to a state of normalcy.

However, the DOE’s responsibility for verifying the safety of destination countries is potentially comprised by its duty to promote overseas labor migration.  A new Ministry of Labor policy charges the DOE with increasing the number of Thais employed overseas by 10% in 2012 to a total of 600,000 workers.  This goal would be farther from reach if the Libyan labor market was lost.  Prior to last year’s uprising, Libya ranked as the sixth most common destination of the more than four dozen countries which receive Thai labor.

A recent Amnesty International report which depicted Libya as a troubled nation where “lawlessness” prevails stands in stark contrast to the Thai Embassy’s assessment of normalcy. The report details the continued existence of “hundreds of large militias” that are “largely out of control… their actions threatening to destabilize Libya”.  In addition, it documents how “frequent armed clashes between different militia groups” have resulted in the death and injuries of “uninvolved bystanders”.

It is not only Amnesty’s report that casts doubt on the stability of the situation in Libya.  The DOE’s new regulations which apply to Thai employment agencies supplying Libyan employers indicate that the DOE is concerned that Thai migrants may be affected by future unrest.  Now, employment agencies must ensure that migrants sent to Libya are protected with life insurance policies.  In addition, agencies must submit evacuation plans and written assurances that they will shoulder the costs of any future evacuations.

The new regulations ensure that the Thai government will not have to foot the bill for a costly evacuation as it did following the 2011 uprising. Yet while the regulations mitigate the financial risks that the Thai state incurs in the export of labor to Libya, they do nothing to lessen the financial risks assumed by Thai migrants.  As became apparent when Thai workers returned unexpectedly from Libya last year, these risks for migrants are substantial.

Paying the price for labor export  

Unfortunately, employment agencies generally charge Thai job-seekers under the table service fees in excess of the government stipulated limit.  According to Mr. Daeng Phiwdam, an Udon Thani native who has worked in Libya for most of the past fifteen years, first-time migrants to Libya are charged approximately 90,000 baht in agency fees which they typically pay with money borrowed at high interest rates.  Mr. Daeng estimates that it takes one and a half to two years for most migrants to recover their agency fees with their 10,000 baht per month Libyan salaries.

When migrants are forced to return home prematurely, they often come home saddled with debts that are difficult to recover in the domestic labor market. According to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs report, only 40 of nearly 10,000 Thai workers in Libya chose not to return home when the uprising broke out in February 2011. However, Mr. Daeng explained that the prospect of returning without money to pay an agency debt is often more daunting than that of remaining in a war-ravaged country. “If you stay you die, if you go home you also die because you are in debt and there is no way of recovering it,” said Mr. Daeng.

A second problem resulting from last year’s evacuation is that many migrants returned to Thailand with outstanding salary claims.  Given that it is not uncommon for migrant workers in Libya to be paid once every three months, the amounts owed to many migrants were not insignificant.  According to DOE statistics, nearly one year after the workers returned, roughly a quarter still have unresolved salary issues with their Libyan employers.

Returned migrants, especially those with outstanding employment agency debt, are likely anxious to resume work in Libya.  Now the DOE has given them the green light to take up residence in the still-troubled African nation.  The DOE has implemented measures to reduce the financial burden that it will incur in the event of future unrest in Libya.  It should also do the same for migrants.  The DOE should implement regulations which require employment agencies to refund most of workers’ agency fees if they are prematurely returned to Thailand through no fault of their own.  In addition, the DOE should more aggressively pursue salary claims on behalf of Thai migrant workers.  It should also consider implementing regulations which require Libyan employers to pay Thai migrants on a bi-weekly or a monthly basis.  Finally, it is high time for the Thai state to reconsider whether its labor export program is truly in the best interests of its citizens. When unemployment is less than one percent domestically, why is the Thai state concerned about losing employment positions in a war-ravaged nation?  The DOE’s efforts would be better directed toward creating more highly remunerative employment positions at home.

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By: Human Rights Watch

New York, March 16, 2012 –A Thai parliamentary inquiry that found that police used excessive force in the fatal shooting of a drug suspect should prompt an immediate criminal investigation and prosecution of those responsible, Human Rights Watch said today. On March 14, 2012, the parliamentary Police Affairs Committee announced its findings in the shooting death of Pairote Saengrit, a 24-year-old engineer, in Sakon Nakhon province.

On the night of December 27, 2011, police from the Sakon Nakhon provincial anti-drug squad shot and killed Pairote, saying he was a drug trafficker who was trying to evade arrest after a car chase. The police claimed that they fired at Pairote in self-defense, but Pairote and the two passengers in his car were later found by police to have been unarmed.

“The parliamentary committee’s findings in Pairote’s death should prompt a serious and impartial criminal investigation into possible police misconduct,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government’s nationwide drug crackdown is not a green light for the police to operate above the law.”

Denchai Saengrit, Pairote’s elder brother, told Human Rights Watch that Pairote was driving with him and Pairote’s girlfriend, Panadda Kwanma, to have dinner at the Kin Deum Restaurant near Kasetsart University’s Sakon Nakhon campus. At around 9 p.m., as their car arrived at the restaurant, a group of men in civilian clothes fired at them twice from the rear. To escape the gunfire, Pairote drove the car into the university campus.

An unmarked pickup truck chased Pairote’s car from the restaurant into the campus and then out to the main road. Denchai said that the pickup truck cut off Pairote’s car. Two more gunshots were heard and a bullet struck Pairote in the head, killing him instantly. Five men in civilian clothes then approached the car and ordered out Denchai and Panadda, who begged for her life.

The men then identified themselves as police from Sakon Nakhon provincial command and said Pairote was a wanted drug trafficker. According to Denchai, police said at the scene that they found no drugs either in Pairote’s car or on the bodies of Pairote and the other passengers.

Two days later, on December 29, Police Maj. Gen. Polsak Banjongsiri, commander of Sakon Nakhon provincial command, told the media that the police had found 198 pills of methamphetamine wrapped in a black plastic bag hidden in Pairote’s boxer trunks when police examined his body in the morgue. He also said that police in this operation had opened fire in self-defense.

The Saengrit family filed a complaint with the parliamentary Police Affairs Committee on January 11, asking for an inquiry into the matter. On March 14, the committee concluded that the Sakon Nakhon provincial command anti-drug squad under the command of Police Lt. Col. Veerawuth Siangsai used lethal force unnecessarily and excessively in the shooting death of Pairote. The committee found no evidence to justify the claim made by the officers that they were acting in self-defense because Pairote and other passengers in his car neither had weapons nor took any life-threatening action against the police.

In addition, the committee concluded that a bag of methamphetamine had been planted on Pairote’s body after his death. The committee cited statements by medical personnel at the hospital, who thoroughly searched Pairote’s body twice, including removing his clothes, and did not find any drugs. It said that the police produced the bag containing 198 pills, saying they had found it on Pairote’s body, only after they entered the morgue and ordered everyone else outside.

“The parliamentary committee’s findings are both brave and virtually unprecedented because the committee directly accuses a police anti-drug squad of an illegal killing,” Adams said. “Unfortunately, this is not a unique incident but exemplifies a broad pattern of police brutality that has gone unchecked for many years. The question now is whether the government will show political courage to ensure the prosecution of those responsible for the killing.”

The UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials provide that whenever the use of force is unavoidable, law enforcement officers must act in proportion to the seriousness of the offense with the objective of minimizing damage and injury. However, Thai police have a long history of using excessive and unnecessary lethal force against criminal suspects, particularly suspected drug traffickers and users. Human Rights Watch documented extrajudicial killings and other serious human rights violations in the context of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s “war on drugs” in 2003 and 2004. Many of those killed had been previously blacklisted by police as suspected drug traffickers.

The 2007 Independent Committee for the Investigation, Study and Analysis of the Formation and Implementation of Drug Suppression Policy (ICID), chaired by former attorney general Kanit na Nakhon, concluded that the Thaksin government formulated and implemented the “war on drugs” without respect for human rights or due process of law. The committee found that 2,819 people were killed during the government’s anti-drug campaign between February and April 2003. However, successive governments have failed to conduct a criminal inquiry into the killings reported by the committee. The current government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s younger sister, has publicly and repeatedly refused to blame Thaksin for the killings and other human rights abuses committed during the 2003 “war on drugs” campaign.

“Prime Minister Yingluck needs to ensure that the current anti-drug campaign does not lead Thailand back to the dark era of Thaksin’s brutal ‘war on drugs,’” Adams said. “Only by holding those responsible for the killing in Sakon Nakhon, and opening serious investigations into other killings during the 2003 anti-drug campaign, will the government show it is serious about upholding the rule of law.”

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MAHASARAKHAM – In 1996, a group of government officers from the Agricultural Land Reform Office (ALRO) proposed an alternative to the reigning model of chemical farming. Buoyed by their idealism and Japanese funding, they initiated a pilot program that trained and established a small network of organic farmers. The result is a community of 900 farmers in four Isaan provinces who now farm a far greater diversity of crops, reject agrochemicals altogether, and are equipped with the skills to package and market their organic goods locally.

In the last few decades, Thailand has implemented a series of government policies that incentivize farmers to produce cash crops like rice, cassava, rubber, and sugarcane. Now an international leading exporter of rice and rubber, Thailand has successfully stimulated its agricultural sector, helping reduce the national level of poverty dramatically. But with this increase in cash crop farming has come a heavy dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides – agrochemicals continue pouring into the country and Thailand’s fertile soil is slowly drying out.

High levels of agrochemicals found in Thailand’s crops last year have also brought international attention to Thailand’s farming habits. Last year, the EU threatened to ban Thai exports on many vegetables, citing dangerous levels of pesticides. In the last ten years, imports of pesticides have more than tripled in Thailand and many worry that without an official monitoring system in place, farmers are likely overusing agrochemicals in attempts to increase their yields and fill their pockets. Concerns for consumers’ health and Thailand’s environment are rapidly rising.

Making a switch back to organic practices in Thailand, however, is far from simple. For one, agribusinesses can offer high prices for exportable goods and farmers are easily enticed by the promise of a greater income. In addition, the government protects its cash crop farmers far better than its organic farmers who diversify the crops in their fields. According to the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, every administration since 1995 has implemented policies that offer insurance to cash crop farmers and price guarantees for their crops. Farmers who opt to farm a variety of crops, on the other hand, are left with far more risk in a country prone to natural disasters.

With these concerns in mind, the Agricultural Land Reform Office (ALRO) contacted farmers in Sakon Nakhon, Mukdahan, Mahasarakham, and Khon Kaen. Over many years, the ALRO succeeded in teaching former cash crop farmers the benefits of going organic. Though Japanese funding has now run out, these farmers are nearly self-sustainable. They share tasks with one another in co-ops, work together to standardize suitable prices, and sell their goods at local green markets.  And they have found that with farms as diverse as the local supermarkets, debt is no longer a concern nor income a worry. The current administration, however, has shown no intention of expanding the program further.

To learn more about the program, the Isaan Record met with farmers who had worked with the ALRO to return to organic practices. Sakhon Thabthimsai, an organic farmer in Borabue district of Mahasarakham province, tells his story in the video above.

The ALRO’s project is just one of many efforts in Northeastern Thailand to rethink and reform the kinds of agriculture being practiced in this part of the country. For more information, visit the Alternative Agriculture Network’s website here.

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Last June, Acting Dean Mr. Kittibodi was notified by the Office of the President that he was dismissed from the Law Faculty due to allegations of tampering with official documents. He and many of his staff were then banned from the Law Faculty’s premises and moved to other faculties. In response, Mr. Kittibodi submitted the case to the NHRC for a proper investigation. He denies ever tampering with official documents and believes that he was being punished for his support of human rights issues and social activism.

The NHRC concluded that the University did not have enough justification to transfer Mr. Kittibodi and his personnel. Their report ultimately urges the University to officially exonerate all transferred staff members and to consider reinstating them in their former positions.

“The University should publicly apologize for its mistake, neglect, and the false information given to the University community,” the report reads. “The University should also inform the public that those who were transferred from the faculty are not guilty.”

Khon Kaen University has yet to issue its decision.

Frustrated with the University’s silence, over 100 activists and villagers took to the Office of the President on Tuesday to demand that the president admit his faults. Suwit Khulabwong, the event’s organizer, led the crowd in chants calling for KKU President Kittichai Triratanasirichai’s resignation.

“The report from the NHRC has come out and we can see clearly that the president abused his power and violated human rights,” he said in an interview. “What is the [president's] responsibility? The president has to quit.”

Mr. Kittibodi helped found the Law Faculty at KKU in 2006 and thereafter began demonstrating his commitment to community rights in Isaan. He established free courses for Isaan villagers to learn about the legal system and also regularly encouraged students in the faculty to volunteer in remote communities struggling with legal issues. Now, he is on a crusade to prove to the public that the University violated his own rights.

“I have been using my rights, the law, and the constitution as a route to find justice and now it is up to the University to take responsibility once they hear the decisions of neutral organizations that [make decisions] following the constitution,” Mr. Kittibodi said in a phone interview. “I believe that the University should demonstrate their responsibility to be an exemplar for society.”

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The program will develop an Isaan language curriculum implemented in 17 public schools, record and archive Isaan cultural dance and performance, introduce official city signage in Isaan language, and initiate a weekly ‘Isaan Day’ that encourages government employees to wear traditional Isaan clothing. The mayors of Khon Kaen, Phol, Chumphae, and Ban Phai will collaborate with a coordination team at KKU over four years in the hopes of enhancing the perception of Isaan culture and language.

Khon Kaen’s Governor, Sombat Triwatsuwan, delivered the opening address in which he talked (partly in Isaan language) about the need to preserve Isaan language for future generations and encourage people not to be ashamed of it. “Isaan people are shy to speak their own language,” he said in an interview. “I want them to be aware of its value.”

National media has given Isaan people good reason to shy away from speaking Isaan language in formal settings. According to John Draper, a sociolinguistic researcher at KKU and the Project Officer of the ICMRP, they are popularly cast as “maids, laborers, and servants, and this is made obvious through the way they speak, which is often as comic relief.” In studies which test the national perception of Isaan speakers, “consistently, Isaan people come out sounding uneducated, and naïve, however honest and hardworking as well,” he explained.

Mr. Draper (also an Isaan Record contributor) argues that this program should not only enhance the perception of Isaan speakers by publicly embracing the language, but also help close the performance gap between Isaan and Central Thai students. Research shows that people who achieve literacy in their mother-tongue language at an early age are more likely to achieve better scores in school overall.

Teaching Isaan language and culture in schools, however, is still politically sensitive. Central Thai is Thailand’s only officially recognized language and the government has long fought to keep Thais unified under one language and minority dialects out of the classrooms.

Priya Waeohongsa, Programme Officer of the European Union and an attendee of Thursday’s opening ceremony, argues that it is time for change in Thailand’s centralized education system that was initiated a hundred years ago. “One language [was used] as a medium for control – not only for education’s sake, but to control the people by imposing the central language on the schools [in a time of national integration],” she explained. “At that time it might have been the right thing, but now we found this is not the right approach and we need to revitalize local culture.”

Though some may fear that allowing regional languages in schools could disrupt the long sought after “national unity” of Thailand, programs similar to the ICMRP have revealed quite opposite results. The Asia Foundation, a nongovernmental organization focused on capacity building, has been implementing a similar language program in the Deep South for nearly five decades. “When we did a public perception survey, what the majority of people said very clearly was that they were not on a quest for independence but a quest for common understanding and respect. Our language program puts that into practice,” said Kim McQuay, the organization’s Thailand Representative.

The ICMRP’s Project Officer, Mr. Draper, is confident that this program will maintain the support of government officials like Governor Sombat Triwatsuwan of Khon Kaen by garnering regional interest in mother-tongue education. “Sustainability will come from the top down,” he said. “But the know-how and the knowledge to implement it in a way that people will welcome it will come from this program that was launched today. It will serve as an incubator for larger-scale deployment later.”

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Though the organizers’ procedural sleight of hand could be easily overlooked, it is emblematic of the treacherous pas de deux that Thai intellectuals and universities have been practicing ever since the CCAA 112 began its controversial campaign in mid-January.

Indeed, the previous meeting of CCAA 112 at the campus hotel on January 29 saw its headlining speaker and KKU academic Dr. Buapun Promphakping drop out at the last minute. The Associate Professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science later clarified his absence by saying that Manager Online reporters had incorrectly identified his faculty to be one of the event’s organizers and Dr. Buapun, “thought the [faculty] would not be happy with that.”

This Monday afternoon, however, Dr. Buapun sat in on the forum, though he was the only KKU professor in attendance. After last month’s confusion, he chose not to address the audience.

“The upcountry universities are very careful about this sort of thing,” said Dr. Buapun. “Khon Kaen University is not like Thammasat University or Chulalongkorn University [in Bangkok]. We are a [provincial] university and we seem to understand that we are part of the government. Government policy is concerned with security, so [KKU] is more concerned with security than freedom of speech.”

On February 13, Thammasat University decided to officially allow Article 112 activities on campus after its ban on such activities two weeks earlier created much controversy.  The decision by Thammasat, notoriously the most politically active campus in Thailand, has not visibly influenced other state-run schools in the provinces.

In addition, Dr. David Streckfuss, the foremost scholar on Thai lèse-majesté law and a resident of Khon Kaen, gave a short presentation on lèse-majesté laws in other constitutional monarchies. He did not, however, utter the word “Thailand” even once.

When asked why he had chosen not to speak about lèse majesté in Thailand, Dr. Streckfuss responded without mention of self-censorship. “Thais might have less access to different kinds of laws or other kinds of provisions [on lèse majesté] from other constitutional monarchies,” he said. “Thailand, or at least the new government, has made a case of wanting to follow international standards of human rights. If that’s the case, then we would look at what those standards are and how they are observed in countries that are members of the European Union, for instance, and how these countries handle lèse majesté.”

Even though Monday’s event proceeded with much circumspection, its student organizers were not distressed by the kind of caution exercised by students and academics alike. Instead, they saw it as integral in their campaign to spread information about Article 112 and the proposed reforms.

“We’re not afraid of anything, but we evaluated the situation and we didn’t want there to be pressure that would have disallowed us from holding the event at all, like the last time when a professor had to remove himself [from the panel],” said a student organizer from the Thai Undergraduate Student Union. “Next, we’re looking to go to Loei or Sakon Nakhon, or if there are people in villages who want to know about 112, we can even set up talks in small communities.”

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The Red Village movement garnered media attention last July when just a few hundred villages celebrated Red inauguration ceremonies in Isaan. Now, the Federation of Red Villages is aiming to expand its reach nationwide to 30,000 Red Villages within the next couple of years.

Representatives from the Federation of Red Villages hand out signs for newly inaugurated Red Villages for Democracy.

On and offstage on Sunday, local politicians and Red Shirt leaders touted the movement’s success in encouraging the free flow of ideas among Red Shirts fighting for democracy.

“In truth, the idea of the Red Villages did not come from the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, but rather from the people themselves after the protests in Bangkok,” shouted the Member of Parliament (MP) and Red Shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan. “Finally, the people are capable of moving forward by themselves.” In response, thousands of red clad supporters burst out in cheers.

Surathin Pimanmekin, Udon Thani MP and Chief Consultant for the Federation of Red Villages, also spoke of the movement as one that encourages grassroots mobilization. “We want the Red people to take steps forward by themselves,” he said in an interview. “They should have their own political ideology and political thoughts without just following the direction of certain leaders.”

According to the head of the Federation of Red Villages, Kamonsil Singhasuriya, a given village can request a Red Village title if 50% of its constituents sign a petition in favor of the Red branding. Some local Members of Parliament, however, prefer to see a larger show of support. Party List MP Cherdchai Tantirin from Khon Kaen, for example, believes a village should receive a Red title only if more than 70% of the constituents give support.

Though critics have blamed the Red movement and particularly the Red Village movement for inspiring disunity among Thais, Mr. Kamonsil insists that the opposition groups in Red Villages are rarely uncomfortable with the title.

Before the ceremony kicked off, a Red Shirt performer sat with posters demanding constitutional amendments.

“People who are not Red Shirts are beginning to understand that Red Shirt activities are good for democracy,” he claims. “The opposition tries to blame the Red Shirts, but our fight is peaceful.”

In recent months, the Red Village movement has expanded into the North (with several hundred already inaugurated in Lampang) and the South as well. Local politicians and the Federation of Red Villages have also begun to inaugurate certain districts as Red.

As the sun set behind the Provincial Hall, Red performers led the crowd in song and dance. Between chants and cheers, Red supporters chatted about constitutional amendments and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s imminent arrival in Udon Thani.

“I like being a part of this movement because I want to see a return to a fair constitution in Thailand,” said Samanjit Khotchomphoo from Nong Khai. “It’s as if our rights were stolen after the 2006 coup.” Huddled under a tent, five new friends nodded behind her in agreement.

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