Red Monday - The Roots of Thailand's Unrest

The Red Shirts started this protest by pouring their own blood under the gates of parliament as a symbolic move. This weekend, their blood spilt for real as 17 protestors and four policemen were killed. On Monday the Red Shirts carried empty, red-coloured coffins through Bangkok.

The protestors who have filled Bangkok’s streets in recent weeks are the popular face of the supporters of the exiled previous prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. They are the rural farmers from Thailand’s north and northeast who feel that the current government of Thailand has treated Thaksin unfairly, and that the majority of Thailand’s farmers and rural poor are not being listened to in Bangkok.

They certainly have a point. In Thailand’s last general election, the party supported by Thaksin and the Red Shirts swept to power with a majority. But this party was found guilty of vote-buying and electoral offences, and was then disbanded. In the resulting horse-trading between different parties in Thailand’s parliament, the new ruling coalition was not the one supported by the electoral majority.

Yet this problem cannot be resolved easily through a new general election. The problem is that Thailand’s electoral politics are dominated by the immense wealth of Thaksin Shinawatra, who has the financial musclepower to influence elections and fund campaigns even though he is now exiled from Thailand because of corruption and abusing his power when in office. Thailand is in the unprecedented position of having its politics influenced by someone who would be imprisoned if he returned to Thailand, but whom the current government has been unable to muzzle.

It is certainly ironic that the Red Shirts are composed of Thailand’s poorest people, yet are supported by, one of their most notorious tycoons. Thaksin swept to power in 2001 on the back of a slick political campaign and a new style of politics that presented an alternative to the decades of Thai rule from the army and allies of Bangkok’s upper classes.

Thaksin was unusually rich. He had made his fortune on the back of a state-allocated monopoly on mobile phones and telecommunications during the 1980s and 1990s. He also had a popular touch. He was from northern Thailand. He launched Thailand’s first satellite. He went on to own Manchester City football club. When prime minister, he befriended the rural voters by allocating cheap credit to villages, as well as Thailand’s first universal and cheap healthcare.

But Thaksin also misused his power in office, and this allowed his enemies to dispose of him. Thaksin clumsily handled an anti-drugs campaign during the early 2000s that led to some 4,000 people – many of them innocent – being shot by police. His leadership stoked up tension between Muslims and Buddhists in Thailand’s far south. He also used his influence to increase his family’s wealth many times when he was prime minister. Most notoriously, he sold his own Shin Corporation to the rival Singaporeans in 2006, avoiding paying tax, and inciting resentment from the public. He was replaced in a military coup in late 2006 amidst rumours of him trying to influence the Royal Family, and was later convicted of being involved in a fraudulent property deal on behalf of his then wife, and sentenced to two years in jail.

Thaksin, however, did not go away, and he continued to wield influence from abroad. The 2007 general elections were won by a party that was funded by, and openly supportive of, Thaksin. When this party was disbanded for electoral malpractice in 2008, his Red Shirts then stormed political meetings in early 2009, and again in recent weeks. The Thai government’s decision to freeze 1.4bn dollars of his assets earlier this year might have been a further incentive.

But what are the alternatives? If Thailand holds another general election, it is likely that the Thaksin-supported parties will win again. Will they then pardon Thaksin and let him return?

Thaksin’s enemies are determined to prevent this outcome. The Army, in particular, were behind the coup that displaced Thaksin in 2006, and it is unlikely that they will act in a way to destabilize the current government. But there is a need to build trust in general elections to achieve two currently unachievable things: representing Thailand’s rural farmers, and excluding the influence of the exiled Thaksin.

But returning to elections will also increase the chance of unrest from Thaksin’s other opponents – the so-called Yellow Shirts – who adopt a more traditionalist, middle-class, and royalist position than the Reds. The Yellow Shirts held the country to ransom in 2008 by occupying Bangkok’s airports and surrounding parliament.

Violent events like these show how little trust the Thai people place in established forms of democracy such as elections and parliament. But on a wider level it also shows an important transition in Thailand from the age when military governments ruled with a King who was respected by all the population. The King is now 81 and Thailand is a much more complex and varied society. Stable and strong government requires elections to be representative and clean. The longer-term solution is building trust in general elections. In the short term, however, more violence seems likely.



Dr Tim Forsyth is Reader in Environment and Development at the Development Studies Institute (DESTIN) at LSE and board member of LSE IDEAS Southeast Asia International Affairs Programme.

US-Cuban Relations: Prospects for Improvement?

Hilary Clinton’s recent comments about the Cuban leadership highlights the extent to which the prospect of an improvement in relations between the two countries has largely evaporated. Washington seems determined to link the removal of the trade embargo with human rights on the island while Havana, for its part, denounces American hypocrisy and attempts to subvert the achievements of the Revolution.

That the state of US-Cuban relations has reached this rather predictable point followed arguably unrealistically high expectations towards an Obama presidency across the region as a whole. Yet in the case of Cuba it was always hedged with a certain degree of wariness. The inability of any improvement in relations between the two countries is deep-rooted and demonstrates the persistence of path dependence. Although it did not seek out to be so, the Cuban Revolution resulted in a zero-sum game for Washington, the defeat of the Batista dictatorship sweeping away the direct political and economic investment that the US had built up over preceding decades. These actions prompted the deterioration in relations between the two countries’ leaderships, leading to the trade embargo that has remained in place despite the collapse of the Cubans’ principal international sponsor, the Soviet Union, in 1989-91.

Another path-dependent aspect of this freeze was the impact that four successive waves of Cuban immigration have had on domestic American politics – which have reinforced the existing policy. Unlike other Hispanic groups, Cuban motivations to reach the US have been as much political as they have been economic. The most active politically have tended to be anti-Castro in their views, from the rich who fled after 1959, and the more middle and working class Cubans between 1965 and 1974, to the exiles from all social classes who took advantage of the Mariel boatlift after 1980, to those who have braved the straits since 1992 when Washington tightened the embargo.

The influence of this Cuba-American lobby on US policy has been felt mainly in two ways. First, compared to other Hispanics, Cuban-Americans have tended to support more conservative politicians who support their political position. This may account for the greater degree to which Cuban-Americans identify with Republicans rather than Democrats. A Florida International University poll noted that in 2008 52% of Cuban-American voters were registered Republicans, with 62% voting for John McCain and 72% for Republican congressional candidates. This was in marked contrast to other Hispanic communities, which voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008, including in Florida, where most Cuban-Americans reside.

Second, Cuban-Americans are able to make their position count in relation to US policy towards Cuba. Being richer than other Hispanics they have more resources at their disposal, which through the use of campaign finance they are able to gain support for their views. This is most notably demonstrated by the exposition that more than $10m in campaign contributions have been distributed by groups such as the US-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee (PAC) and others since 2004. This money has reaped results: both Democrat and Republican congressmen who have been beneficiaries have modified their positions accordingly, while the anti-Castro PACs are demonstrating awareness of changing times: whereas 71% of funds were allocated to Republicans in 2004, in 2010 an estimated 76% will go into Democrats’ hands.

And yet, could the power of the anti-Castro lobby in the Cuban-American population be overstated, perhaps even coming to an end? There are at least three points that might indicate their strength will be weakened. First, although their presence is extremely visible in Florida, where two-thirds of them live, they only accounted for 3.5% of the total Hispanic population in 2008. As well as being overshadowed by the sheer size of the Mexican-Americans (66%) and Puerto Ricans (9%), they are also among the slowest growing; Cuban women accounted for the lowest levels of fertility when compared to the other two Hispanic groups. Over time this should mean that the influence of Cuban-American concerns may be diminished – or at least restricted only to internal Florida politics – as other Hispanic-specific issues become more prominent.

Second, US policy may come under greater scrutiny, especially if the Cuban-American population begins to pay closer attention to its own internal contradictions. On one hand Cuban-Americans tend to have a more favourable view of government than other Hispanic groups. This may partly be due to the more positive response by Washington to immigration by Cuban-Americans and their lower feelings of concern on the issue compared to others. On the other hand the 2008 poll revealed that a large majority (79%) felt that the trade embargo has either not worked very well or at all; when asked if they would favour re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba nearly two-thirds (65%) were in support. The differences felt by Cuban-Americans on these issues could well prompt a re-evaluation in the future.

Such a shift may already be underway. A third factor that may account for the decline in the strength of the anti-Castro groups may be evident in the diversity of the Cuban population. The breakdown of the 2008 poll revealed significant differences in respondents’ political choices. Those who were older or left the island earlier were much more likely to vote Republican, whereas among the young, recent arrivals and US-born Cubans the margin of difference between the two parties was narrower.

Guy Burton is a research associate on the Latin America International Affairs Programme at the LSE Ideas Centre.

Yemen: Secession Scenarios

Welcome to the Shifting Sands blog at LSE IDEAS. We invite PhD students and academics from throughout the UK and abroad to analyse current events in the Middle East and add to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions. Our next contributor, Christopher Swift, delves into the historical and current basis for the secession movement in Yemen.

We look forward to exploring both regional and topical issues relating to current events.
Amber Holewinski, Editor, LSE IDEAS Middle East International Affairs Programme Blog

Yemen: Secession Scenarios

By Christopher Swift

Three months after the failed bombing of Northwest Flight 253, terrorism has become the dominant theme in Yemen’s foreign policy. On 29 March, Deputy Yemeni Planning Minister Hisham Sharaf Abdullah presented a five-year, $44 billion aid plan to the so-called ‘Friends of Yemen’ group in Abu Dhabi. And earlier that same day, Yemeni Vice President Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi told a U.S. Congressional delegation that additional bilateral assistance would be necessary to confront the threat posed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The linkage between economic malaise and Islamic militancy is credible. Thirty-four percent of Yemen’s population is unemployed. Forty percent live below the poverty line. And nearly seventy percent is below the age of twenty-four. With water tables receding, oil revenues dwindling, and the population rapidly increasing, conditions are ripe for institutional collapse and popular radicalization. Yet strangely absent from this discourse are the injuries Yemen visited on itself. From endemic corruption to political repression, weak governance also contributes to Yemen’s internal unrest.

These self-inflicted wounds manifest in two distinct insurgencies: a sectarian rebellion in the north, and a secular secessionist movement in the south. The former pits Yemen’s Sunni regime against Houthi militants from the Zaidi Shi’a community. The latter perpetuates tensions lingering since the 1994 Yemen Civil War. Although the two conflicts have little in common from a sociological or even ideological perspective, each undermines the integrity and legitimacy of the Yemeni state.

Against that backdrop, Yemeni President Ali Abdullal Saleh’s recent truce with the Houthi rebels is an encouraging development. That truce is tenuous at best. Since 2004, Sana’a and the Houthi have entered and broken four similar agreements. More significantly, the issues driving the rebellion - religious differences, political disenfranchisement, and economic dislocation - remain unresolved. Yet even a temporary respite from this recurring conflict would free Yemeni security forces for operations against AQAP. And to the extent that the truce quiets sectarian strife, it may also dissuade future interventions from Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Developments in southern Yemen are far less auspicious. Since 2007, the so-called Southern Movement has organized demonstrations and other forms of civil disobedience to protest Sana’s policies toward the six provinces that once comprised the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). Yet starting in 2008, those protests grew increasingly violent, with government security forces killing and wounding scores of protestors. By 2009, armed factions within the Southern Movement were responding in kind, with sporadic gun battles breaking out in cities and towns across the south. With tensions mounting, a growing number of southern political figures now demand independence.

Those demands stem from three mutually-reinforcing sources of resentment. The first is the Yemeni government’s alleged appropriation and misallocation of the south’s oil wealth. The second is alleged discrimination against southerners with respect to government employment, educational opportunities, and other forms of political patronage. The third is the systematic and sometimes brutal repression of political dissent by the Yemeni security forces - repression that invites apprehension from Western donors and condemnation from prominent human rights organizations. These conditions undermine national unity. According to a poll conducted by the Yemen Centre for Civil Liberties in January 2010, seventy percent of Yemenis living in the former PDRY now favour independence.

History also informs secessionist impulses. Although the 1990 merger between the two Yemen’s was initially amicable, integrating the two political and economic systems quickly proved contentious. By 1994, the Yemen Socialist Party had broken with the coalition government and reasserted independence. The resulting civil war produced unconventional alignments. Wary of Saleh’s support for Iraq during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Saudi Arabia reversed its support for the more traditional north and intervened on behalf of the socialist South. The North responded by recruiting Yemeni veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War in a bid to crush the rebellion.

Those alignments are now reversed. Wary of Yemen’s potential collapse, the Saudi government has stepped up bilateral cooperation with Saleh’s beleaguered regime. Yemen’s Afghan Arabs, in turn, have seized upon North-South tensions to advance their own agendas. Foremost among them is Tariq al-Fadhli, who broke a 15-year alliance with Saleh in April 2009 to join the secessionist movement. AQAP has also entered the fray, with leader Nasser al-Wahayshi calling for the south’s secession and the creation of an Islamic state in the region in May 2009.

Working from that basis, some pro-government observers now allege collaboration between the Southern Movement and radical Islamist syndicates. Yet a common cause does not necessarily imply a common scheme. For the socialists, secession portends a return to political power. For tribal leaders like al-Fadhli, independence promises greater autonomy. And for AQAP, sustained civil conflict provides a means of radicalizing and recruiting ordinary Yemenis into its ranks. In this sense, the current convergence of interests masks a set of distinct and ultimately diverging agendas.

Those agendas offer some insight into both the character and consequences of civil conflict in Yemen. Although the Southern Movement may dream of an independent state, it lacks the institutional infrastructure and military apparatus possessed by the Yemen Socialist Party in 1994. And while Saleh’s government may wish to preserve national unity, dwindling revenues and mounting resentments undermine the patronage system on which that unity depends. Thus neither the North nor the South is likely to realize its ambitions. And rather than fracturing into two independent polities, the steady erosion of social and political cohesion seems more likely to produce a Yemen that resembles neighboring Somalia.

That scenario may empower tribal leaders. To the extent that national governance becomes intolerable or ineffectual, traditional social and political structures will invariably fill the void. This observation may help explain al-Fadhli’s break with Saleh and subsequent calls for independence. Yet the real beneficiaries are al-Wahayshi and his allies in the Hadhramaut valley. So long as Yemen’s internal conflicts remain unresolved, the state will be unable to address the social and economic hardships that undermine public order. And so long as that order is in disarray, AQAP stands to profit from the discord.

Christopher Swift is an attorney in the Washington, DC office of Baker Botts, LLP and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Politics & International Studies at the University of Cambridge. His research examines convergence and divergence in contemporary Islamic militancy, with an emphasis on the relationship between al-Qaeda and indigenous Muslim insurgencies. He has conducted fieldwork in regions including southern Afghanistan and the North Caucasus.

Next Week: RMA: The Revolution in Military Affairs and the changing nature of warfare in the Middle East