the(new)mediaslut

Thailand’s new Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej (often referred to lovingly as Jabba the Hutt) has almost from day one of his new job found himself embroiled in his role in events surrounding the 6 October 1976 student massacre.

A few weeks ago, days after taking office, he repeatedly told CNN and Al-Jazeera that only one person had died in the event and that he had nothing to do with it.

However, at the time he was not only Deputy Interior Minister but also had a radio show which fired up anti-communist sentiment.

After the massacre of “communists” (a.k.a. pro-democracy, anti-military student protesters), that saw hundreds missing, an official count of 41 or 46 dead (depending on who you ask) and of which Jabba said that only one had died. he was promoted to Interior Minister by the military government that subsequently took power.

Now, all that would have been long forgotten if it were not for the CNN interview. But more recently, on Friday, 22 Feb, Jabba, when confronted with pictures of him and the Military junta, changed his story.

“I was responding to the foreign journalist. It is within my rights, my freedom of speech, to say what I want to foreigners,” he told the press that have turned virtually every press conference into an inquisition on the October massacre since.

The question, Smartbrain asks, is that is it alright to blatantly lie to foreign journalists? That seems to be Jabba’s defense right now as the stability of the government is haunted by ghosts from the past.

This reminds Smartbrain of his first interview with Thailand’s former ICT Minister, Professor Sitthichai Pokaiudom, lovingly referred to as Dr Death as, quite apart from his collection of guns, carries with him a mask and canister of carbon monoxide so that he can commit suicide if he is ever terminally ill.

In that press conference, Dr Death spoke of the on again, off again privatisation of the two state owned telecom companies, CAT and TOT.

“As we are all Thais in this room, I will tell you that they will never be privatised,” he said. “However, a few days ago I was talking to the Farang (meaning Ang Moh or Western) journalists and I told them that privatisation would happen when the time is right.”

It begs the question then, what role foreign media has in a country’s internal affairs? Are the foreigners the unbiased, neutral observers that can objective call shots as they are? Or are they hopelessly biased, up to their nostrils in Western thinking and not seeing the reality on the ground for all their gung-ho views on elections being the be-all and end-all to everything?

Singapore has similarly announced that it is a privilege and not a right for foreign media to circulate in the island/city/state/dot.

Sadly, today successions of Thai politicians now feel it fair game to say whatever they want to foreign media and generally get away with it with little sanction, at least in the case of Dr Death, though Jabba’s fate remains to be seen.