Discussion of All Things Political

BAAN FANG, Thailand, Jul 4, 2011 (IPS) - Across villages, towns, and cities in northeast Thailand, a mood of political empowerment is bursting to the surface, with people gathering in groups since Sunday evening to celebrate political history. After all, they helped put Yingluck Shinawatra on the road to becoming the country’s first female prime minister.

Under a starlit sky on Jul. 3, election night, a group of villagers sat on mats outside a house in this village on the outskirts of this plateau’s main city, Khon Kaen, basking in the victory of a candidate who "has given a lot of attention to the grassroots people," as one of them, Paitoon Pohnang, described it.

As they listened to news reports that Yingluck’s opposition Phue Thai (For Thais) party was gaining seats, the group broke into whoops and applause, drowning out the chorus of crickets chirping from the darkened trees on the edge of the garden.

"I believe that a woman can be a prime minister in Thailand," said an excited Sukunthai Buthawong, a 61-year-old rice farmer. "We have to try something new, not only voting for men to lead the country. I voted feeling this way. I want change. I want to make history."

It was a sentiment echoed by the nearly 30 people gathered around her, men and women who were also part of the same community of rice farmers. "Women are good with details and work carefully," added another farmer who was wearing a red shirt, the colour worn by Phue Thai supporters.

Celebrations were more vivid on Monday in the downtown market selling fresh produce in Khon Kaen, 24 km from Baan Fang. Women wearing red shirts, some wearing red bows on their heads, were dancing to the blare of local music in their stalls of vegetables and meats. "I am happy and crazy. It feels better than winning a lottery," yelled a vegetable vendor who only gave her first name, Ratree.

"Rural people got involved with politics more than before," said a calmer Phrapapai Pongpan, a fish vendor. "They were pushed out of home to go and vote after seeing the injustice in the last few years."

And the final tally from the 20 provinces in the northeast, a large vote bank of over 15 million voters of the registered 47.3 million across the country, confirmed this. Phue Thai secured a thumping 104 seats out of the 126 contested in this rural heartland.MORE

Despite the visibility of transgenders in Thailand, there are few represented in professions and public life other than in the entertainment industry. An informal survey of Thai people indicates that almost all well known transgenders in Thailand work in the entertainment industry. There are few, if any, acting as courtroom lawyers, politicians or judges.

The Lawyer Act of Thailand does not forbid cross dressing, nor does it discriminate based on gender or sexual preferences. The code of ethics of Thailand Lawyers requires only that lawyers appearing in Court dress respectfully. There is no restriction as to cross dressing. Court personnel have indicated that transgenders can practice in Thai Courts as long as they dress respectfully.

Other aspects of Thai society are perhaps less progressive. Each year thousands of men are conscripted into the military and a certain proportion of those young men are transgendered. Traditionally, transgenders have been excluded. Unfortunately one of the main grounds for exclusion has been “permanent insanity” and “mental illness”. This designation was recently challenged by [WARNING: The article linked is by globalpost. I...am fairly sure that this article is not the most respectful ever, but unfortunately it is the most comprehensive I've seen on the subject so far. Comments are pretty good though as of now] Samart Meecharoen , a young transsexual or “katoey” as they are known in Thailand.MORE

Can you please contextualize the work you do, in what has become a global system of agriculture?
We are now importing the majority of the food we eat. The overwhelming majority of workers who harvest the food we eat in the United States are not from this country. And many if not most of the workers employed in the fields in the United States are displaced farmers from their own countries (mostly Mexico but not exclusively.) So we’re seeing that many of the same pressures and challenges that are facing farmers in the US are the very same ones that are displacing small farmers in the global South and resulting in them coming in search of employment to the United States, Canada, Australia, and European Union. At the same time, farmers and sometimes their spouses in the US are looking for second jobs in more urban settings.

When Vietnam entered the global market with coffee we saw an unprecedented exodus of coffee farmers out of eastern Mexico. When NAFTA was signed, mass exodus of corn farmers – so we see a direct correlation between these international trade policies and agricultural practices and kind of the global crisis of agriculture that we’re facing.

Within that context you look at agriculture in the United States and pretty much anyone born in this country has no aspirations to work in the fields. And I think if we’re honest with ourselves, the reason is because we all know the conditions are not good, the pay is pretty bad, and there’s really no benefits. As a result we have depended on immigrant workers to come up and do the work that we haven’t wanted to do. And so if you look at the history of the United Farm Workers, we’ve had workers literally from around the world as members – from Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Yemen, African Americans and of course, Mexicans, Central Americans, and the internationalization of the work-force continues. We now have workers working under contract from Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, and it’s very much become a global workforce that is harvesting the food we eat.MORE

“The rainforest is not for sale”, was one of the most-repeated choruses in the marches across Peru commemorating the first anniversary of the Bagua massacre. 34 people died and 200 were wounded when Alan García’s government decided to clear out the Awajun people who were blocking roads in the Amazon in protest of the indiscriminate exploitation of the forest. Thousands of Awajun had been demonstrating for two months and were about to abandon the so-called Curva del Diablo, but before they had a chance to do so they were attacked by rifles on land and by air.

Ten indigenous people were killed at the Curva del Diablo. They later retaliated, causing the death of 23 police officers. The location of one of the protestors, Major Felipe Bazán Caballero, remains unknown. All signs indicate that the minister of the interior, Mercedes Cabanillas, gave the order to open fire. A year later, no one has been found guilty of the tragedy. Shortly after the repression, four of the legislative decrees that had provoked the demonstrations were revoked and, on May 19, parliament approved the Consultation Law, which dictates that locals must be consulted before any projects to exploit community resources are approved. These are two substantial victories for the movement.

But, in addition to their legal triumphs, the indigenous people who make up the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), which brings together around 1,500 communities, obtained the recognition of Peruvian society as new and decisive actors in national political life. This is a symbolic act. On June 5, the father of the missing Major Felipe Bazán, travelled to the Curva del Diablo, near Bagua and the Ecuadorian border, one thousand kilometers northeast of Lima, to embrace indigenous people as they participated in a memorial act, baptizing the site as the “Curva de la Esperanza”.
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SANTIAGO - The time has come for Latin American countries to put an economic value on the work that women do as they take care of households, children and the elderly, says ECLAC, the United Nations regional economic agency.
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On June 4th about ten thousand Haitian peasants marched to protest U.S.-based Monsanto Company’s ‘deadly gift’ of seed to the government of Haiti. The seven-kilometer march from Papaye to Hinche—in a rural area on the central plateau—was organized by several Haitian farmers’ organizations that are proposing a development model based on food and seed sovereignty instead of industrial agriculture. Slogans for the march included “long live native maize seed” and “Monsanto’s GMO & hybrid seed violates peasant agriculture.”MORE

PRAGUE, Jul 7, 2010 (IPS) - Women’s rights campaigners say the Czech Republic’s new government has effectively told women they have no relevance to the country’s future after the new cabinet was formed – without a single female minister.

Despite a record number of women elected to parliament in elections in May and pre-election pledges by party leaders that they wanted more women in politics, women’s rights activists said they had been given a "slap in the face" after the make-up of the new cabinet was finally agreed last week. MORE

BRUSSELS, Jul 5, 2010 (IPS) - Besieged by bankers opposed to regulation of their sector, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have taken an unusual step. A cross-party alliance has called for an international campaigning organisation to concentrate on remedying the flaws of the financial services industry with the same tenacity that Amnesty International focuses on victims of torture and Greenpeace on toxic chemicals and whales.

The call -- signed by 70 of the Parliament's 736 elected members -- was prompted by concerns over how the financial lobby had marshalled its ample resources over the past few years in a bid to dilute legislation drafted in response to the global economic crisis. According to the MEPs, the pressure they have been placed under by the financial industry is so intense that it represents a threat to democracy, especially as public interest groups have generally lacked the means or the expertise to mount a robust counter- offensive to the banks' efforts
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PICHIT, Thailand, Oct 23 (IPS/IFEJ) - The view from Bhorn’s window in this northern province is as picturesque as one can find in rural Thailand. The Nan River flows majestically through the Gulf of Thailand, located 300 kilometres to the south. Mango and banana trees line the banks with expansive verdant green paddy fields beyond.

Unfortunately, for the past four years, Bhorn and her neighbours have not been able to enjoy these breathtaking sights, forced to tightly board up all openings to seal their homes and families from ash they believe is causing their skin and respiratory disorders.

Less than a kilometre from their houses, Bhorn says, sits the source of their problem. It is Thailand’s most celebrated renewable energy plant.

The 22-megawatt rice husk-fueled power plant owned by A.T. Biopower is the country’s first to be certified under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for carbon trading — one of the means industrialised nations can meet their obligations under the international agreement to reduce carbon emissions. According to the protocol, projects under the CDM are required to bring social and environmental benefits to host communities.

That is assuming that the company exercises extreme caution to ensure that its power plant does not pose any harm to the community’s health. Rice husks, after all, contain silica, which is known to cause silicosis, the world’s most common occupational lung disease among unprotected workers. Silica concentrations in rice husk ash can range from 85 to 90 percent.

A.T. Biopower is just one of many small power plants to come on line in the past decade as Thailand heeds the global call to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels — the main source of greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.

The country’s current goal is to generate 20 percent of the nation’s electricity from renewable sources by 2022, a target similar to those set by the European Union, Britain and Australia.

Bhorn, who declined to give her full name, says she is unfamiliar with new energy polices but has become increasingly aware of environmental changes obtaining in her community since the A.T. Biopower plant began to operate there in 2005. MORE