Unexpected roadblocks on the road to reconciliation

For a moment the road to Thai reconciliation looked promising, but in the past few days, fresh hurdles have emerged. One of them is the government’s new-found seriousness about getting Bt16 billion in retroactive taxes from the Shinawatras. The other was the confiscation of firearms linked to a key member of the red-shirt movement.
Even before these developments, efforts to bridge the ideological gulf and “heal” Thailand were under threat because of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s judicial prosecution in connection with the rice price-pledging scheme. The decision to try and get that tax money back from her family precariously adds another straw to the load of an already straining camel.
Yingluck is facing imprisonment and might have to pay the government a staggering amount of money in legal damages. This alone could derail any hope of reuniting the Thais who support the Shinawatra clan and those who abhor them. The Shin Corp tax issue, which tipped the political scales a decade ago, effectively evicting the family from power, is rearing its ugly head again, and at another sensitive moment.
After an uneasy political calm in 2016, no one expected this year to be sunny. Yingluck’s trial has to reach a conclusion somehow, and now we have the revival of the tax case coinciding with the eye-popping seizure of firearms – which the authorities defensively insist was not a “set-up”. Another issue that cannot be overlooked is the Dhammakaya Temple controversy, which is also dividing Thais along political lines.
The tension is building ominously. A fresh conspiracy theory is making the rounds, linking all of these events – the renewed attempts to collect massive tax revenues from the Shinawatras, the firearm seizure and even the zeroing in on the Dhammakaya Temple – to the slow progress of reconciliation. People are credibly asking whether the government is using the back-taxes issue to force the Thaksin camp to support reconciliation efforts.
Despite all the risky elements in play, talk about reconciliation conspicuously resumed this year. 
Several groups involved in the political conflict have participated in preliminary discussions hosted by a government subcommittee charged with clearing a path to more concrete dialogue. General Chaicharn Changmongkol, the Permanent Secretary for Defence who chairs the subcommittee, has expressed hope that the ongoing discussions will create an atmosphere conducive to further, earnest steps towards peace. 
And, for a while, there was indeed 
a glimpse of hope.
Reconciliation always was a long-term goal, but it’s become clear now that the immediate road ahead is strewn with political landmines. Wholly unexpected were the revived tax case and the confiscation of firearms, both of which have dominated headlines this past week.
The overall picture looks bleak, a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” situation imperilling the country and its future. All of these issues must be confronted sooner or later, since they entail the beliefs and ideologies that divided the populace in the first place. They are issues that can’t be swept under the rug and forgotten forever. Having enjoyed three years of peace, however uncomfortable it became at times, Thais will now have to bite the bullet.
The challenge is how to confront these matters without worsening an already fragile situation. Pessimists will continue assessing the history of our political malaise and see no hope, pointing to the dearth of sincerity in all those pledges to patch up old quarrels. Optimists, though, will see the nation achieving what it’s never achieved before – finding solutions to difficult problems without having to resort once again to violence.