'A novelist's fantasy'

At the cost of drawing additional attention to it, it is probably worth our while to say a few words about the "response" to our White Paper that has appeared on Somtow Sucharitkul's blog. Indeed, while Somtow's retort contains little in the way of substance, highlighting its contents gives us a chance to illustrate yet again the scurrilous and fact-free nature of the reactions that our advocacy has sparked off among the government's representatives and supporters.

In a way, Somtow provides in his own words one of the strongest endorsements for the White Paper: "You may wonder why this long review doesn't actually take apart Mr Amsterdam's arguments piece by piece. It is because, by and large, the arguments are perfectly sound - they are just based on incomplete or selective evidence". We would of course welcome a vigorous debate on whatever the "complete" evidence that Somtow could provide to disprove our arguments, however in the response he chose not to deal with any of the facts we present. Instead, there is the very exhausting distraction of personal attacks and highlighting that I am retained by Thaksin Shinawatra, a fact which we have made abundantly clear in every action we have taken and every document we have published … however few can explain what this has to do with the facts presented in the paper.

Aside from mimicking the government's own reaction to our White Paper - a mixture of name-calling, racist dog whistles and conspiracy theory about the true nature of our motives - Somtow's main complaint about the White Paper is its supposed reliance on a collection of "half-truths" skilfully woven together into what ultimately amounts to a fictional account of the events of the past several years. We are certainly grateful that Somtow decided not to overwhelm us with his superior debating skills and command of the subject, sparing us the humiliation of publicly exposing all the "half-truths" the paper supposedly contains. We take him at his word that he would have been able to "win every single argument" had he chosen to engage either the facts we present or our interpretation of the evidence. We are disappointed, however, that Somtow would deny us the opportunity to be enlightened. The one "half-truth" he does identify, in fact, reveals Somtow's penchant for speaking only the full, unvarnished truth, a virtue we are anxious to see him apply to the remainder of the document.

No doubt coincidentally, Somtow takes issue with a statement that appears in the paper's first paragraph:

"The people of Thailand have been the victims of a systematic and unrelenting assault on their most fundamental right - the right to self-determination through genuine elections."

He explains to us that the purpose of the 2006 military coup was merely "to stop the country's self-destruction" and reverse its descent into "repression, darkness and corruption". We must confess we had previously failed to grasp the purity of the generals' motives. In fact, we freely admit to having failed to understand that the way out of "repression, darkness and corruption" is (in retrospect quite obviously) more "repression, darkness and corruption". Judging from the wealth of indicators suggesting that the past four years have actually seen corruption increase while freedom of expression, civil/political rights and Thailand's human rights record have steadily deteriorated, we cannot but agree with Somtow that Thailand finds itself on the right path. We sincerely regret our error.

Because Somtow does not address any of the arguments presented in the rest of the White Paper, we are deprived of the opportunity to defer to his superior, more complete version of "the truth" on the contents of the remaining 74-and-a-half pages. As a result, the "half-truths" with which we have allegedly stacked our paper will have to stand, in the absence of further guidance from Somtow. But whereas we do not see the need to modify arguments whose substance has essentially gone unchallenged by the government (or the people it relies upon to put an acceptable spin on its shameful performance), we would like to take the opportunity to offer a defence of our motives.

First, Somtow maintains that our despicable team of shyster lobbyists knows full well that "the springtime violence does not rise to the level of a crime against humanity", adding that tragedies like Kent State and Waco cannot compare to real crimes against humanity like the Killing Fields and Buchenwald. Because we have actually read the relevant statutes, we are in a position to correct Mr Somtow's misapprehension. Whether or not a "crime against humanity" has been committed does not hinge on the scale of the tragedy in question. As we detail in the paper itself (admittedly, beyond the first page), for murder to amount to a "crime against humanity", the killing must be: (1) directed against a "civilian population", (2) as part of "a widespread or systematic attack", (3) pursuant to or in furtherance of a "State or organisational policy to commit such attack", (4) with knowledge of the attack.

The reason why the killings at Waco and Kent State are not crimes against humanity, while the Holocaust and the Cambodian genocide are, has nothing to do with the magnitude of the events; it has everything to do with the existence of governmental policy to systematically murder a certain group of people - it makes no difference whatsoever how many of them wind up dead as a result. We note in the White Paper that there is significant evidence pointing to the existence of such a policy of systematic persecution and violence. Incidentally, the recurrent use of qualifiers like "appears to be", which Somtow singles out as evidence of our disingenuousness, is owed to the fact that we do not presume to elevate ourselves to the role of judge, jury and executioner, as the government has been keen to do in its labelling of the red shirts as "terrorists". The threshold we set out to meet is to show that there is sufficient evidence of a crime (if you will, a strong enough "appearance" of a crime) to warrant the kind of independent and complete investigation required by international law. Apparently, every major human rights organisation around the world agrees with us on this count.

This brings us to Somtow's accusation that the White Paper is somehow an "attack on Thailand", a further assault on the victim of Thaksin's heinous "crimes" (never mind that: 1. Had it been left up to "Thailand", Mr Thaksin would still be prime minister; and 2. It took a military coup and the manipulation of a judicial system now almost universally recognised as rigged just to convict Mr Thaksin of the pettiest of offences.) Somtow's line of reasoning is consistent with the government's ongoing attempt to equate itself with the country as a whole and, by implication, accuse its critics of wanting to "destroy Thailand". In Somtow's (fantasy) world, see, criticism of Thaksin's administration is a heroic act of patriotism, while criticism of Abhisit's administration is a despicable act of treason. Still, it is interesting that a call for an "independent and complete investigation" into the deaths of almost a hundred people could earn someone the accusation of wanting to "destroy the country". Such an investigation does not pose any threat to the country, which is more mature and eager to learn the truth than Somtow and his ilk have ever given it credit for. The hysteria of the reactions that our appeal has elicited, however, has made it all too clear that the current government considers a full inquiry into the events of April and May an existential threat to itself.

Contrary to what Somtow suggests, the goal of the paper is not to seek anyone's absolution or dispensation. Note that we called for an investigation and not for a blanket amnesty - something that Thailand's establishment has resorted to before when it has found it impractical to conduct the sham of an investigation it is poised to launch in the coming months. On this point, Somtow appears to apply a different standard to the investigation into the current government's alleged crimes and the investigation into the previous government's alleged crimes. On the one hand, he expresses no sympathy for the doubts we raise about the investigative panel to be led by Khanit na Nakorn. On the other hand, Somtow still continues to argue that "Mr Thaksin's government ordered the extrajudicial killing of thousands of alleged drug dealers" in spite of the fact that an investigative panel led by one Khanit na Nakorn found no grounds for anyone's prosecution for the conduct of the "War on Drugs". We, at least, have the coherence to argue that "independent and complete" investigations should be conducted into ALL instances where there is reason to believe that human rights violations have occurred - let the chips fall where they may. Somtow wants to have the luxury to make his own judgement, in the absence of a credible investigation, about which administration is guilty of human rights abuses and which one is not - and to decide for everyone else which human rights abuses constitute "attacks on Thailand" and which human rights abuses were perpetrated in a valiant attempt to defend Thailand. This is a luxury that international law does not afford him, or anyone else for that matter.

Finally, it is beyond farcical that Somtow would be the one to accuse us of employing Orwellian language. Far from "Orwellian", the statement "there can be no reconciliation without truth" seems to us rather obvious. The reason why Thailand has no "reconciliation" today is precisely that so many previous instances of state violence were covered up in the interest of protecting entrenched powers. What strikes us as Orwellian is that the government would ground a campaign of censorship in its commitment to freedom of expression, a slide towards authoritarianism in the need to preserve democracy and a continued attempt to crush all forms of dissent in the imperative to achieve "reconciliation". It is similarly preposterous than an apologist for a government that has shown nothing but fear and contempt for its own citizens would have the nerve to urge someone who has won three, freely conducted elections to "trust the people". Say what you will about Mr Thaksin, but if the current government had "trusted the people" as much as he has consistently been willing to, the hundred men and women who died because Mr Abhisit did not feel sufficiently confident in his electoral prospects would still be alive today.

Who is Rober Amsterdam:

- January 1956: Born in New York.

- 1980: Creates Amsterdam & Peroff law firm in Toronto (Canada)

- 2005: His client, Mikhail Khodorkovsky is sentenced |to 8 years in prison.

- 2005: Arrested in Moscow on September 22nd, he is forced to leave the country.

- August 2008: His request |to gain Khodorkovsky's |freedom is rejected.

- May 2010: Hired as international counsel to former PM Thaksin Shinawatra.