Oxford researcher clarifies his e-mail on Thai PM

Lee Jones said Friday that his e-mail to dean of St John's College on March 6 was private and written in haste.

In his posted at his website; www.leejones.tk on Friday, Jones said that the e-mail was leaked to the Thai website Prachatai and Thai newspapers without his permission..

He also just learnt that Pheu Thai party had called a press conference to draw attention to his email to discredit Ahbisit and his government.

He clarified this that it was never his intention in writing the email to supply ammunition to the Puea Thai Party or to publicly attack Mr Abhisit or his government. "Those who are using this email to do this are doing so unscrupulously and without my consent."

Lee Jones' e-mail :

On 6 March I wrote an email to the president of St John's College, Oxford, regarding the visit of the Thai prime minister, who is scheduled to give a talk on the 'challenges of democracy' on 14 March. In it, I expressed concern that Prime Minister Abhisit was perhaps not the most appropriate person to speak on this topic given the way his government had come to power in Thailand and given that the last few years in Thailand have been characterised by often violent social conflict, military coups, judicial activism, and the use of various laws for purely politicl purposes.

This email was leaked to the Thai website Prachatai. It was subsequently linked to from the New Manadala website run out of the Australian National University. It was then picked up by The Nation, one of Thailand's English-language dailies. Today, I discovered that the main opposition party, Puea Thai, had called a press conference to draw attention to my email in order to discredit Mr Ahbisit and his government.

I wish to make a statement about these events. The most important point is this: the email was written in haste, quickly; it was also private, a brief communication to a colleague within my own University. Consequently, the email is extremely short and rather crude in its presentation of the situation, and it contains rhetorical exaggerations. This is because it was never intended to be a public statement of my views on Thai politics. I did not sanction the release of this email to the media. I stress that it was leaked without my permission. It is now being used for purposes which I had never intended and do not endorse. It was never my intention in writing the email to supply ammunition to the Puea Thai Party or to publicly attack Mr Abhisit or his government. Those who are using this email to do this are doing so unscrupulously and without my consent.

None of these facts is being noted in the coverage of this "letter" in the Thai media. Consequently, I have received some angry emails denouncing me and criticising my lack of understanding of Thai politics. Of course, people are entitled to their opinions. However, it is unfair to judge a person on the basis of a private communication that was subsequently made public by third parties. A three-paragraph email, written in haste and in private, is clearly in no way going to reflect the rigour and care with which I conduct my academic research. That research is available online elsewhere and people can judge its standard for themselves. It also clearly will not reflect the nuances of my actual thoughts about Thai politics over the last three years. I defy anyone to be able to present a complete and undisputable precis of the national politics of any country over three years in three paragraphs.

Let me make just one thing quite clear about the intent of that email: I was not calling for Mr Abhisit to be disinvited from speaking at Oxford. I recognise that some individuals would like this to happen. I disagree. I believe the best way to defeat someone with whom you disagree is to encourage and engage in free and open debate, without any restrictions at all. I do not endorse any restrictions on free speech or academic freedom. I am on record as defending academics (including, ironically, a professor at St John's college) from calls for them to be stripped of their posts as a result of their political views, despite the fact that I profoundly disagree with those views. I am also on record as denouncing 'no platform' policies which seek to deny the right of extremists to voice their political opinions. Furthermore, I have attacked attempts to restrict the right of free protest of a political movement whose activities are directly opposed to my own. I regret that my email gives the impression that I wished Mr Abhisit to be barred from speaking. But then, as I have said, my email was not intended for public consumption and was thus not an accurate or complete reflection of my views.

I do not intend to expound my views on Thai politics at any length here. All I wish to say is that I am far from alone in voicing concerns about the situation in Thailand. The forces behind the Thai coup of 2006 have been considered in great depth and with fine academic rigour by a group of leading scholars in a special edition of the Journal of Contemporary Asia. The so-called "judicial coup" against the People's Power Party government has been documented at length elsewhere, as have the violent struggles of the so-called People's Alliance for Democracy on the streets of Bangkok, and the deal by which the Abhisit government came to power with fraction of the Thai oligarchy led by Newin Chidchob. The use of lese majeste against the political enemies of particular forces at work in Thai politics has spawned an international campaign for the reform of these laws. BBC reporter Jonathan Head, who wrote the just-cited report on the Ahbisit-Newin deal, has been targeted with three lese majeste complaints. The use of lese majeste has extended to journalists, novellists, and academics, Thai and foreign, and now exercises a chilling effect on free speech and academic freedom in Thailand. Journalists report harrassment in their work, indicating clear limitations to press freedom, while critical websites have been closed down or raided, despite the government's pledges to defend press freedom. Access in Thailand to foreign websites making critical remarks about Thai politics is frequently blocked. The Abhisit government's treatment of Rohingya refugees has been widely criticised of late by humanitarian groups, with the UNHCR calling for a full investigation. The existence of significant numbers of political prisoners in Thailand is a matter of record.

None of this means that the Thaksin or Samak governments were perfect paragons of liberal democracy; they most certainly were not, and in my research I am quite clear about what forces these governments represented and what they got up to. Again, this has already been made quite plain by leading scholars of Thai politics including Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker in their book, Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand and Duncan McCargo in his book, The Thaksinization of Thailand. The failings of these governments include widespread corruption, violations of human rights including Mr Thaksin's 'war on drugs', and the escalation of the conflict in Thailand's south. This is all well documented and I am not, as some people suggest, ignorant of any of these facts. Nor am I, as one correspondent absurdly suggested, "part of ex-PM, Thaksin Shinawatra's propaganda machine to discredit Thailand". To see all criticism with which you disagree with as necessarily part of some grand conspiracy is frankly very silly indeed.

The difference between the TRT and the PPP governments and the present government is that they simply represent different constellations of forces in Thai society. The TRT and PPP and their successor incarnations represent big business interests, but at least made a serious effort to reach out to the rural poor by offering populist welfare measures; this explains their consistent electoral success. Research by a Thai scholar indicates that, despite the undeniable absorption of many unscrupulous political parties, local oligarchs and political bosses, and the use of money politics, rural Thais are not simple dupes whose votes were merely bought or coerced, but rational individuals who voted for parties that they believed would advance their interests. By contrast, crudely speaking, the Democrat Party represents a section of the Thai south and, mainly the urban middle classes, who are clearly outnumbered by the rural poor. Its relative estrangement from the masses provides it with less popular support, such that it consistently lost elections to the TRT and PPP. This is why the Democrats have had to rely on Mr Newin's faction in order to form a government.

The concerns highlighted in my email, then, although hurriedly and crudely expressed and not intended for public consumption or to express anything like a nuanced viewpoint or academic statement, do not reflect total ignorance of the situation in Thailand. I cannot claim to be an expert on Thai politics, although I did conduct field research there just last year. But I do closely follow Thai politics and the work of those directly engaged in it, both as practitioners and scholars. My email thus expressed, however imprecisely, the concerns and insights already raised by leading scholars of Thailand, academics, journalists, activists, NGOs and others.

There are legitimate disagreements to be had about these issues, which are likely to revolve around how much emphasis is placed on different factors, exactly who was involved in particular events, and so on. There is much that remains opaque even to leading scholars of Thailand. There will also be disagreement about whether some of the foregoing is true or not on a partisan basis, which is only natural. The sheer intensity of social conflict in Thailand at present and the profound and deep division the last few years have created in Thai society is readily apparent and gives rise to very passionate disputes and reactions.

In response to the irresponsible leaking and circulation of my private correspondence, I have received one or two abusive emails. I have also had emails expressing passionate and partisan - but polite - disagreement. I have also received some emails expressing partisan but highly detailed, nuanced and erudite disagreements, which I appreciated very deeply. However, it is interesting that a large majority of emails I have received have been positive and in agreement with my remarks. Most of the people writing these emails also state that they lack the freedom to speak out against their own government and express fears of reprisals. This is a matter for deep regret in my eyes. Thailand is a wonderful country which I have visited for long periods several times over the last eight years. Despite what some people say, I do not hate Thailand, the king, Thai people, Thai culture, or anything else about Thailand. I only hate oppression in all its guises - social, economic and political