Civil disobedience can be slippery slope to violence

After a three-day absence from the red-shirts' stage, fugitive former PM Thaksin Shinawatra came back with a bang on Thursday to conduct his normal phone-in. As usual, he spent most of that time claiming that the two-week-old rally by his supporters was no longer about him. What has happened to him, he said, was trivial now, but the red shirts must fight on to achieve the noble goal of making sure the same things don't happen to anybody else.

To the authorities, though, the phone-in would have been uninteresting but for a few words he uttered towards the end.

For the first time, Thaksin issued the threat of civil disobedience. The threat was loud and clear, and despite the vague statements by red-shirt leaders on the Phan Fa stage, his statement offered a big hint as to what the protesters might resort to next.

If the rally has not lost its momentum and is capable of sustaining itself in a more compact and flexible form, the willingness to participate may already have peaked. Thaksin and the other red-shirt leaders know that they have to change the game or the movement will eventually shrink and wither as the government has been hoping.

Civil disobedience, however, is a broad term, and in the modern context, it can be peaceful or cause quite a lot of trouble.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was known worldwide for advocating non-violent civil disobedience when he led a campaign for India's independence from the British Empire. However, after Gandhi, so-called advocates of civil disobedience ended up blurring the line between non-violence and deeply disturbing protests.

We witnessed a slippery slope when the yellow shirts were campaigning against Thaksin and his so-called nominee governments. And the slope was slippery for both sides of the conflict. The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) began its crusade peacefully, but its action intensified over time, leading to the seizure of Government House and Suvarnabhumi Airport.

In between, a brutal government crackdown led to many deaths and injuries of PAD members during what was supposed to be a peaceful march to Parliament.

Nobody knows for sure what Thaksin has in mind regarding "civil disobedience". His thinly veiled threat to orchestrate such a campaign, however, will almost certainly inflame diplomatic controversies that have hounded Thailand and countries giving Thaksin permanent or temporary sanctuary.

Even without Thaksin's declaration of the civil-disobedience plan, the United Arab Emirates keeps getting complaints from Bangkok over the fugitive using Dubai as a base to attack the Kingdom. Relations with Cambodia, meanwhile, look like they may become even more awkward than they already are.

And now, the newest guest to this party is Montenegro. The uproar in Thailand over Thaksin's Montenegrin citizenship and his big investment in a hotel business there has become a political issue in that country, which has always been criticised locally and internationally for serving as haven for questionable foreign characters.

Following criticism, the chief of Montenegro's Interpol Office, Dejan Djurovic, was quick to announce that Montenegro would not be extraditing Thaksin.

"He is our citizen, and Montenegro can only extradite its citizens to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague," Djurovic said.

It may not just stop at Montenegro. Thaksin is rumoured to be holding passports of Uganda and Nicaragua as well. He may get away with his daily phone-ins or mild threats of civil disobedience, but road blockades or power-plant seizures could prompt the world to review their notions of human rights or political victims in exile.

That, however, is a long-term issue. Thaksin has proved himself to be someone who should be dealt with on a daily basis. So, the immediate question on everyone's lips is: "Where is he now, actually?"