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Published on October 9, 2007

Why are you against the internal security bill?

Because it will give absolute power to the Army chief who is also director general of the Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc). Rather than solving human rights problems, it's going to create insecurity among the people.

The bill was proposed under the old paradigm of state security. It didn't start from human security. It will give power to groups such as the paramilitary to act with impunity. Gen Sonthi Boonyaratglin said countries like Malaysia and Singapore also have this bill and their societies are "orderly" as a result.

I think he probably misunderstood. In Malaysia and Singapore, the bills were passed during the Cold War and people in charge are not the military but elected politicians. In Thailand, the Isoc director general is not elected.

Sonthi also said earlier that he could lift martial law in the remaining provinces if the bill is approved. Which is a better choice?

I think both are evil because if we look at the internal security bill, it is copied from martial law and the state of emergency act. However, for both martial law and state of emergency act, some reasons need to be cited before it can be declared. The internal security bill has no time limits in granting power to those in charge and no geographical limits so the jurisdiction will cover the whole country. Also, we already have 35 laws related to security and anti-terrorism.

The move towards pushing for the internal security act has been rather quiet lately. Your group appears to have become inactive.

At the moment we want the bill to be dropped even from the Council of State, which is preparing the bill. And since Thailand is going to have an election in December it should be an elected government that considers such a bill.

I think we have wide support from academia. We managed to gather 101 signatures within a week. We have a bit of an impact so we hope this bill will not be a priority. If we need security reform we have to look at the whole process and not the bill alone. We recently had a seminar and discovered that Thais in the conflict-torn South also disagree with the idea of having an internal security bill. They don't think it will solve the violence.

Aren't there any positive aspects about the bill?

To be fair, it's the military's way of thinking that they do not have enough power so they cannot solve issues such as the conflict in the south. They feel they cannot order officials of the Interior Ministry. They probably feel that Isoc doesn't have much work so they need new work.

Some fear that through the bill, the military will re-establish its dominance over Thai society. Is this a valid concern?

They probably think they can run the country. The military hasn't changed their paradigm about security.

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation