GWR
05-01-08, 07:10 PM
Forces to Reckon With
By Nicholas Farrelly
January 3, 2008
Why does Thailand still need paramilitary groups?
http://www.irrawaddy.org/articlefiles/9795-Militia_Redux.gif
[Photo: The Irrawaddy - Militia Redux: Or Sor and the Revival of Paramilitarism in Thailand,by Desmond Ball and David Scott Mathieson. White Lotus Press, Bangkok, 2007.]
For those who are familiar with Thailand’s refugee camps, the trouble spots of the deep south or provincial governors’ mansions, the landscape described in Militia Redux may be recognizable. Others may find the avalanche of acronyms and details of organizational dynamics a bit of a shock.
The shock is not that paramilitary forces maintain roles in Thailand’s national security apparatus. The real surprise may be that there is “a bewildering array of such organizations” and that some continue to fill important functions in the “deep ambiguity” that exists between the roles of the police and army. It is in the murky middle ground that separates the major armed agencies of Thailand’s security apparatus that paramilitaries find continuing relevance.
In this contribution to understanding Thai paramilitaries, Australian National University’s Desmond Ball and David Scott Mathieson provide a comprehensive outline of these organizations and their myriad functions.
The predominant focus of Militia Redux is the Volunteer Defense Corps (Kong Asa Raksa Dindaen), commonly known as Or Sor and, according to Ball and Mathieson, “the largest armed paramilitary organization in Thailand,” which arose from the counter-insurgency priorities of the 1950s.
There have been few thorough analyses of Thailand’s paramilitaries and Ball and Mathieson hope to fill a large gap in the existing literature. Their contribution includes long chapters on the history of paramilitarism in Thailand, the structure of the Or Sor and the organization’s common duties.
It also offers chapters that discuss more specific issues involving Or Sor personnel. These chapters—on the Or Sor and refugees, the Or Sor and violence in Thailand’s deep south, and the Or Sor’s involvement in crimes and human rights abuses—are dense accounts that provide the evidence for Ball and Mathieson’s broader arguments. Each is a finely consolidated and well structured introduction to the relevance of the Or Sor in modern Thailand.
In Militia Redux it becomes clear that while the Or Sor perform myriad functions, including fighting forest fires, maintaining law and order in restive areas, securing government property and maintaining border security, they are, as Ball and Mathieson point out, also “widely perceived to be thugs and strongmen of local bosses.”
The Or Sor, notwithstanding their royal patronage and high-level government support, have never enjoyed a good press. Ball and Mathieson, while pointing out the human rights violations and atrocities in which the Or Sor have been implicated, are also hoping to present a nuanced picture of the organization. It inevitably includes the good, the bad and the ugly.
A provocative final chapter discusses the future of paramilitarism in Thailand. Its conclusions strike at the heart of the governmental structure created during King Chulalongkorn’s modernizing reign.
The authors take aim at “Thailand’s bureaucratic polity” and the Ministry of Interior, in particular. According to Ball and Mathieson it “is institutionally incapable of generating substantive administrative decentralization or of propagating real village democracy.”
As they put it, both the Ministry of Interior and paramilitarism would be superfluous in a government system designed to deal with “the pressures and opportunities of globalization and the demands for enhancing human security.”
Ball and Mathieson’s specific calls for the reform and rationalization of Thailand’s security apparatus are even more pointed. They conclude, unsurprisingly, that “a long-term agenda for reforming the police” is required. And they highlight what they call a pervasive “sub-culture” of corruption within police ranks that “could take generations to eliminate.” They also argue that “modernization of the Army is critical” and even suggest the abolition of the powerful Internal Security Operations Command.
Of course, none of these suggestions were likely to please Thailand’s interim military government, which has significantly increased the budget of the armed forces and the strength of its key patronage constituencies.
Ball and Mathieson show that “ultimately, paramilitary organizations are instruments of state violence, legitimated by the demands of state security, employed against the referents of human security.” Filling the middle ground between the police and army, the Or Sor provide ample evidence that paramilitaries can only be a stop-gap. They are never the solution to much deeper problems of governance and security.
Nicholas Farrelly is a graduate student at Balliol College, Oxford
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9795
By Nicholas Farrelly
January 3, 2008
Why does Thailand still need paramilitary groups?
http://www.irrawaddy.org/articlefiles/9795-Militia_Redux.gif
[Photo: The Irrawaddy - Militia Redux: Or Sor and the Revival of Paramilitarism in Thailand,by Desmond Ball and David Scott Mathieson. White Lotus Press, Bangkok, 2007.]
For those who are familiar with Thailand’s refugee camps, the trouble spots of the deep south or provincial governors’ mansions, the landscape described in Militia Redux may be recognizable. Others may find the avalanche of acronyms and details of organizational dynamics a bit of a shock.
The shock is not that paramilitary forces maintain roles in Thailand’s national security apparatus. The real surprise may be that there is “a bewildering array of such organizations” and that some continue to fill important functions in the “deep ambiguity” that exists between the roles of the police and army. It is in the murky middle ground that separates the major armed agencies of Thailand’s security apparatus that paramilitaries find continuing relevance.
In this contribution to understanding Thai paramilitaries, Australian National University’s Desmond Ball and David Scott Mathieson provide a comprehensive outline of these organizations and their myriad functions.
The predominant focus of Militia Redux is the Volunteer Defense Corps (Kong Asa Raksa Dindaen), commonly known as Or Sor and, according to Ball and Mathieson, “the largest armed paramilitary organization in Thailand,” which arose from the counter-insurgency priorities of the 1950s.
There have been few thorough analyses of Thailand’s paramilitaries and Ball and Mathieson hope to fill a large gap in the existing literature. Their contribution includes long chapters on the history of paramilitarism in Thailand, the structure of the Or Sor and the organization’s common duties.
It also offers chapters that discuss more specific issues involving Or Sor personnel. These chapters—on the Or Sor and refugees, the Or Sor and violence in Thailand’s deep south, and the Or Sor’s involvement in crimes and human rights abuses—are dense accounts that provide the evidence for Ball and Mathieson’s broader arguments. Each is a finely consolidated and well structured introduction to the relevance of the Or Sor in modern Thailand.
In Militia Redux it becomes clear that while the Or Sor perform myriad functions, including fighting forest fires, maintaining law and order in restive areas, securing government property and maintaining border security, they are, as Ball and Mathieson point out, also “widely perceived to be thugs and strongmen of local bosses.”
The Or Sor, notwithstanding their royal patronage and high-level government support, have never enjoyed a good press. Ball and Mathieson, while pointing out the human rights violations and atrocities in which the Or Sor have been implicated, are also hoping to present a nuanced picture of the organization. It inevitably includes the good, the bad and the ugly.
A provocative final chapter discusses the future of paramilitarism in Thailand. Its conclusions strike at the heart of the governmental structure created during King Chulalongkorn’s modernizing reign.
The authors take aim at “Thailand’s bureaucratic polity” and the Ministry of Interior, in particular. According to Ball and Mathieson it “is institutionally incapable of generating substantive administrative decentralization or of propagating real village democracy.”
As they put it, both the Ministry of Interior and paramilitarism would be superfluous in a government system designed to deal with “the pressures and opportunities of globalization and the demands for enhancing human security.”
Ball and Mathieson’s specific calls for the reform and rationalization of Thailand’s security apparatus are even more pointed. They conclude, unsurprisingly, that “a long-term agenda for reforming the police” is required. And they highlight what they call a pervasive “sub-culture” of corruption within police ranks that “could take generations to eliminate.” They also argue that “modernization of the Army is critical” and even suggest the abolition of the powerful Internal Security Operations Command.
Of course, none of these suggestions were likely to please Thailand’s interim military government, which has significantly increased the budget of the armed forces and the strength of its key patronage constituencies.
Ball and Mathieson show that “ultimately, paramilitary organizations are instruments of state violence, legitimated by the demands of state security, employed against the referents of human security.” Filling the middle ground between the police and army, the Or Sor provide ample evidence that paramilitaries can only be a stop-gap. They are never the solution to much deeper problems of governance and security.
Nicholas Farrelly is a graduate student at Balliol College, Oxford
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9795