FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

FCCT invasion a dangerous move

FCCT invasion a dangerous move

Thailand’s shame deepens as strong-arm tactics are used in the presence of foreign diplomats

In what is nothing less than an international outrage, military officers in civilian garb gatecrashed an event at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand on Monday and began videotaping club members, ambassadors and other diplomats assembled for a screening of the South African documentary “Drum”. The film takes its title from that of a magazine in South Africa where blacks were employed alongside whites, contrary to the prohibitions of apartheid. Irony abounded.
The excuse for the soldiers’ uninvited and highly disrespectful appearance at the event, offered by Colonel Winthai Suvaree, a spokesman for the National Council for Peace and Order, was that the club has in the past been the source of “incorrect information”. The truth was that apartheid had much in common with life in Thailand today, and its depiction in “Drum” makes comparisons too easy to draw.
“Drum” is about Henry Nxumalo, a black investigative journalist who worked at the magazine, and his efforts to bring about change under a government regarded by the rest of the world as so insensitive and backward that sanctions were imposed of such extraordinary weight that it collapsed.
Fear of the same outcome here was evidently deep enough for Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s government to dispatch a squad of soldiers to the correspondents club to disrupt the screening. As South African Ambassador Ruby Marks looked on, former club president Jonathan Head – who’s had ample run-ins with Thai authorities over the years because of his political reports for the BBC – asked the military officers to stop videotaping. It was “intimidating and unacceptable”, he told them. 
Advised by Head that their actions risked triggering a diplomatic row, the soldiers phoned their superiors and put the club’s manager on the line to explain the intent in showing the film. It might be far more productive for the club to organise a screening of “Drum” specifically for the military brass in the hope they might learn about the fatal flaws of repressive politics – and about the need for sound journalism in times of crisis. 
However, given the invasion of the correspondents club and far worse curtailments of free speech since the last coup, it’s difficult to imagine the generals’ attitude being adjusted in the flickering light of a movie screen. It is deeply disturbing that the junta appears unable to grasp the damage it is causing to the country, both internally and in the eyes of the world. Every one of those ambassadors at the club on Monday is going to be reporting this latest instance of uniformed thuggishness to their home governments, one more discredit done to Thailand’s reputation overseas.
This sort of behaviour has become so common that Thai reporters have become used to it, if not quite inured to it. Many public seminars have had plainclothes police and military officers in attendance, pretending to represent publications that usually don’t exist. They’re easily spotted from their mode of dress and close-cropped hair, but of course disguise is never the objective. They want their presence known. They want the participants of these events to know they’re being watched.
If the real reporters forgive the presence of police and soldiers, it’s because the unwanted visitors are “just doing their job”, however absurd it might seem to those being watched. Should the watchers prevent the press from doing its job, complaints are made to the chiefs and the generals, who usually listen because they want the media on their side.
No such professional courtesy can be entertained, though, when the police and the troops invade “foreign territory”, as it were. The journalists and diplomats from abroad who have been assigned to Thailand are protected by international agreements – sanctified protocols in the case of ambassadors and ethical understandings for the reporters. In ignoring such strictures, the junta is treading on dangerous ground.
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