THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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Three years after coup, Isaan people offer verdicts on junta rule

Three years after coup, Isaan people offer verdicts on junta rule

Three years after Thailand’s latest coup, the arch-royalist military is firmly dug-in.

Dissent is banned, a junta-appointed legislature makes the law – and awards the Army an ever-burgeoning budget – while a new constitution gifts the military power to write the script for the country’s next 20 years.
But discontent lingers and is at its sharpest in the poor but populous Northeast, where the lacklustre economy and strict curbs on free expression are biting hard. 
People here voted in droves for Yingluck Shinawatra, before her elected government was toppled on May 22, 2014, by Army chief turned premier Prayut Chan-o-cha.
These days junta critics risk arrest if they speak out – while soaring prosecutions under the country’s draconian lese majeste law stifle debate even further. 
But in conversations with AFP reporters, opinions from Isaan varied from outright anger at Prayut’s autocratic agenda to acceptance of Army rule as a bitter tonic to years of violent street protests.
Yet all expressed a longing for a return to democracy and a chance to have their voice heard once again.
The elderly man 
“I want democracy, but the junta won’t let it happen,” said a 73-year-old man from Buri Ram province, who requested anonymity for fear of arrest. 
“Nowadays we are under them, we cannot speak much. Even talking like this can land me in jail.”
“I cannot do anything, speaking in groups of five or six people is not allowed,” he said, referring to a junta ban on political gatherings to head off protests. 
“The prime minister talks a lot but he doesn’t achieve anything,” he said of junta chief Prayut and his televised Friday primetime addresses to the nation. 
“I’m not sure if [other Thais] want democracy because I don’t know what is in their hearts. But I want it.”

The rice farmer
“At first we thought [Prayut] was a dictator, said 53-year-old Wassana Leepan, a farmer in Khon Kaen province, a heartland for the now silent red shirt movement.
“But later he did what previous governments have done, which was help rice farmers. It’s a way for [the Army] to campaign for themselves. They do good things and then villagers like them.”
Farmers from the Northeast formed the bedrock of support for the ousted government, which lavished Thailand’s poorest region with 
agricultural subsidies and other 
rural stimulus programmes. 
The junta has tried to stave off fresh political unrest with more than $1 billion in cash handouts of its own.
“The junta gave us three things: Bt800 per rai [1,600 square metres] to harvest rice, money for fertilisers and then money when we had a drought,” explained Wassana.
“I admit that they helped,” she said.
“But I still want an election. We want to be able to express what we like, who will be good for us.
“With elected politicians, if they are not good then at least they will not stay in power for more than four years anyway.”

The professor 
“If we want to conduct seminars, in terms of environmental issues or in terms of decentralisation issues, we cannot do that. We have to ask for permission [from authorities]. Mostly they do not allow us,” said Sataporn Roengtam, an assistant professor of public policy at Khon Kaen University. 
“We have to be really concerned about the presentation of our ideas.”
“The first thing that you cannot do is [violate] lese majeste,” he explained, referring to a draconian law that carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison per offence.
“The second thing you have to be really concerned about is critiquing the prime minister,” he said. 
“We are not free to express things that we should be able to voice, such as when we think something is unfair.”
“This government always claims that they are working for the public interest, but in terms of local interest they don’t care about who will lose out from their projects, where those people go or what will happen to their families.”

The somtam seller
“It’s good that it’s peaceful and there isn’t any chaos. But [ingredients] are at least 50 per cent more expensive,” said Srisupan Boonprom, who sells Isaan’s famous spicy papaya salad. 
The junta has taken the most heat for failing to revive the Kingdom’s flagging economy, which is one of the worst performing in Southeast Asia. 
“Other people also complain that the economy is getting worse. My customers come here and eat and I hear them complain that the economy is bad,” said the 52-year-old, who runs a restaurant in Khon Kaen province. 
“I haven’t seen much profit [since the coup] because things are so expensive.
“I want elections and a return to democracy, because then many 
things will be better like they were before when we used to have elected representatives.” 

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