TRCT report is about flawed rule of law

Of course, the TRCT report on the 2010 political strife, scheduled for release on Monday, could also generate a great deal of attention as both opponents and supporters of former PM Thaksin Shinawatra try to skew it to fit their respective versions of the truth. 

As stated in its mission statement, the TRCT has been striving to bridge the social divide in order to end fractious politics, but the two camps have just refused to move on because they are both trapped in the blame game for blood spilled two years ago. 

TRCT chairman Kanit na Nakorn should actually be congratulated for completing a very daunting task in reviewing the root cause of the violence and his work might be useful in that it could serve as a reminder to prevent a repeat of the bloodshed. 

When the Abhisit Vejjajiva government created the TRCT, the Democrats were probably hoping that the uncovered truth would help exonerate them from the blood spilled in connection with the crowd-control operations. 

After Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra took over last year, her administration chose parts of the TRCT reports it liked so it could justify handing out Bt7.5 million per victim in compensation for the mayhem involving the red shirts.

If the Democrat and Pheu Thai parties expect the final report to apportion blame on the red-shirt crackdown, then they will be greatly disappointed. 

In all four reports, including the final one, the TRCT has addressed the incident from two perspectives: political and legal repercussions and the impact on victims.

The TRCT is not tasked with uncovering or prosecuting the culprits, and its work will not shed light on contentious issues like identifying the men in black, the crowd-control operations and whether the red shirts and their guards were armed. 

The final report and the three previous ones should be read as a manual to overcome this rough patch and not as a verdict on either the Democrats or the red shirts. 

The gist of Kanit’s work is about the country’s flawed rule of law. He sees the lapsed performance of the justice system as a root cause behind the political mayhem. 

He outlines pertinent events dating back to 2001, when Thaksin came into power and when politics began to veer off course following the questionable decision on the former leader’s asset-concealment case. The TRCT chairman even drew an analogy in the report, saying the rule of law clouded by political judgement had led to mayhem, just like Germany’s failure to remove Hitler brought about World War II.

According to Kanit’s assessment, Thaksin is at the centre of the political rough patch. 

The aftermath of the power seizure, particularly the coup-sponsored legal wrangling that afflicted Thaksin, is undeniably one of the key factors fuelling the street protests involving the red shirts.

Yet Kanit chooses to pay little attention to the coup and instead calls on Thaksin to make a sacrifice by retiring from politics. 

However, this is easier said than done because Thaksin remains popular among the people and coalition politicians are exploiting this popularity for their vested interests.