So who says there is no press freedom in this country? Where else in the world could you find an op-ed article that as good as calls the government a lying law-breaker?

Of course, it helps if the article happens to be written by the US Ambassador.

The article by His Excellency Eric G John dealt with the repatriation of some 4,500 Lao Hmong. This included 158 who have been locked up for 3 years in Nong Khai Immigration Detention Centre, apparently on the simple charge of having been accepted by the UN as refugees and persisting in their desire to take up offers of resettlement in 4 countries (none of which was Lao PDR).

The law-breaking relates to laws against enforced repatriation. But Thailand has always been able to use the excuse that it has never signed the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees, so has no formal obligations on that score. And the lying has to do with how the operation was described by the Thai side.

The removal of these 4,500 men, women and children was, according to every Thai government official who has talked about it, up to and including PM Abhisit Vejjajiva, ‘voluntary’.

This presumably explains the presence of 5,000 troops and police, the jamming of all mobile phone signals, the corralling of journalists miles away from the operation and the ban on any contact between the refugees and international aid agencies.

But perhaps this is more a problem of culture than truthfulness. The concept of what is ‘voluntary’ may have a peculiarly Thai nuance, as can be seen by certain future events.

February 2010
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva looks forward to improved relations with Saudi Arabia after the decision to prosecute Pol Lt-General Somkid Boonthanom, Chief of Region 5 police, in connection with the to the disappearance of Saudi businessman Mohammad al-Ruwail, the murders of 3 Saudi embassy officials, and the Saudi jewellery theft of 20 years ago.

Thailand desperately wants to revive the employment prospects for Thai workers in the desert kingdom, where they have been effectively barred from the labour market for 2 decades.

The PM said he was sure that the Saudi government appreciated the good intentions of the Thai authorities to get to the bottom of these cases, even after 20 years, noting that Thailand had taken its latest action ‘voluntarily’.

September 2010
In the 5th such operation this year, a combined force of airport security personnel and police swept through the arrivals hall of Suvarnabhumi Airport, detaining members of gangs who have long preyed on incoming tourists by conning them into overpriced transportation and accommodation.

The well-dressed suspects were escorted to the airport police station where they insisted that they had done nothing illegal, and claimed connections with high-ranking officials in the Airports Authority of Thailand, the Ministry of Transport and the Royal Thai Air Force. They were released without charge after promising not to repeat the offences they had never admitted to committing in the first place.

When asked by reporters about the incident, PM Abhisit praised the ‘voluntary’ decision by these scammers and rip-off artists to protect the country’s tourist image by promising to abandon their livelihood.

July 2015.
Royal Forest Department officials today finally took possession of the hill-top resort home of General and Privy Councillor Surayud Chulanont in Khao Yai Thiang forest reserve. The general’s holiday home has been a matter of dispute for years when it was found that his family had come into possession of land that legally could not be bought or sold. Gen Surayud had repeatedly stated that once the Royal Forest Department issued an order, he would willingly vacate the property.

As a detachment of officials prised the general’s fingernails one by one from the door jambs and carried his squirming body into a waiting vehicle, reporters struggled to remember the numerous twist and turns of the story which at times made it seem as if the land would never be given up.

On being told that the premises had been vacated by the Chulanont family, the Prime Minister praised the General for upholding the dignity of the military and the Privy Council in relinquishing his property ‘voluntarily’.

About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).