> ìÓNews from International Herald Tribune:
>
> Reformer makes waves in Thais' 'still water'
> By Jane Perlez (IHT)
> Thursday, July 1, 2004
>
>
> BANGKOK: Supinya Klangnarong, a 31-year-old campaigner for a free press,
is
> gutsy, well versed in media law and, in a refreshing way, not too
impressed
> with herself.
>
> Her specialty in the media goes to the heart of a delicate issue in
> Thailand: the fact that the country's biggest media and communications
> company, Shin, was founded by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and is
> controlled by his family.
>
> Last year, Klangnarong dared to say publicly what was obvious from the
> stock market - that the corporation had profited handsomely since Thaksin
> won the 2001 election. She accused the company of using the profits to
> enhance the fortunes of Thaksin's political party.
>
> Two months after her critique appeared in the Thai-language newspaper Thai
> Post, the corporation sued her for libel. The company's success was due to
> its business acumen, not its political connections, the suit argued. The
> company denied that it had helped the ruling Thai Rak Thai party.
>
> Last week, the criminal court here ruled that it would accept the case, a
> decision that took some by surprise but that Klangnarong said she viewed
as
> a sterling opportunity. "My lawyer can ask the prime minister and his wife
> to come to court," she said with a smile at the book-crammed offices of
the
> Campaign for Popular Media Reform, a small nongovernmental organization
> where she carries the title of secretary general. "If they come, they will
> be equal to me."
>
> The case against Klangnarong carries special weight because it comes
> against a harsh backdrop of violence against environmental and human
rights
> activists who organize in communities across Thailand.
>
> Last week, the newspaper Nation published a list of 16 people it called
> "the dead and the missing" since 2001. Among those killed and missing,
> presumed dead, were campaigners against logging, dams and wastewater
> projects. The list also included Somchai Neelapaijit, a lawyer who
defended
> Muslim militants in Thailand's south. He disappeared in early March.
>
> The latest victim was Charoen Wat-Aksorn, who was shot and killed last
week
> after leading a long-running campaign against a coal-fired power plant
> project. Charoen, a former fisherman who coined the phrase "I don't want a
> coal plant near my home," had just been in Bangkok testifying before a
> parliamentary committee on questionable land deeds on the Gulf of Thailand
> when he was gunned down on his way home.
>
> Nongovernmental organizations staffed with courageous and gritty advocates
> for democracy have played a vital role in Thailand over the years. In the
> 1970s, the movement was brutally suppressed. It revived in the 1990s, most
> notably in pushing for passage of a new constitution in 1997.
>
> Since Thaksin - who some newspaper columnists here have likened to Silvio
> Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister - came to power, those voices find
> it harder to be heard. No one is suggesting that the government is picking
> off local activists. Rather, a climate of commerce-at-any-cost has
> blossomed that gives criminals, whom the government actually says it wants
> to eliminate, the leeway to protect their interests with impunity. "This
> government would like politics to be completely stable, like still water,"
> said Pasuk Phongpaichit, a professor of economics at Chulalongkorn
> University here. "But the nongovernmental organizations active in
defending
> the rights of people at the grass roots, and pushing ahead with political
> reform as laid down in the constitution, their activities cause ripples."
>
> The politicians, she said, do not appreciate pesky intruders in their
> elegant Thai "still water." "So attempts are made to quieten them down."
>
> Klangnarong said she believed she had been sued because the corporation
> considered her an easy target, "just an activist."
>
> Indeed, an economist, Somkiat Tangkijvanich, at the Thailand Development
> Research Institute, said much of what Klangnarong is being sued for at a
> seminar last weekend. Shin shares benefited markedly from the "political
> connection factor," Somkiat said.
>
> "We get our facts and knowledge from the academics but we use stronger
> words," said Klangnarong. In Thailand, she said, there is a hierarchy of
> punishment. "If you act too much you'll be killed. If you talk too much
you
> will be sued. If you're an academic, you might be discredited."
>
> She developed her interest in the politics of the media, and in particular
> access for the public to broadcasting, while studying for an undergraduate
> degree at Chulalongkorn University. A professor, Ubonrat Siriyuwasak,
> described Klangnarong as "extraordinary." "She has the courage; she
> understands the situation."
>
> One of her main objectives, Klangnarong said, was to press for fulfillment
> of Article 40 in the 1997 Constitution, which calls for the reallocation
of
> broadcast frequencies so that Thailand can have public television akin to
> the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States and the BBC in
Britain.
>
> At the moment, the government controls the major television channels. The
> one private channel, ITV, was taken over last year by Shin, which also
> dominates the satellite and mobile phone business. "We think it's very
> dangerous when one company controls all ownership of communication tools
in
> Thailand," she said.
>
> Last year, Klangnarong won a scholarship from Westminster University in
> London for a graduate course in media law. The World Association for
> Christian Communication gave her living expenses - "though I'm a
Buddhist,"
> she said. When news spread about the Shin suit, she was invited back to
> London to brief Amnesty International and Article 19, a group that
promotes
> freedom of expression.
>
> She reminded those audiences, she said, that more than 2,000 alleged drug
> suspects were killed in a three-month "war on drugs" by the Thaksin
> government last year, a move that prompted the U.S. State Department to
> criticize Thailand's "worsened" human rights record.
>
> Part of her job abroad, she said, was to explain that Thailand was not
just
> the paradise for tourists that many Europeans and Americans admire.
>
> "The prime minister wants the country to be modernized, and to be
> developed, but he doesn't want to hear different voices," she said. "They
> welcome investors. 'We're open,' he says. But actually it's not open for
> freedom of expression."
>
> Jane Perlez can be reached at pagetwo@iht.com.Tomorrow: Michael Gordon
> writes about the 9/11 commission.
>