In any case Thailand needs a strong people’s party, organized bottom up

19 September
PPT delivers Mark Teufel interviews Ji Ungpakorn on the UPD and other issues.

12 September
PPT delivers an Interview with Junya Yimprasert on the UPD and other issues.

PPT delivers the news… Union for People’s Democracy (UPD) formed. It seems to be rooted outside of Thailand. The email address given is the same one used by Junya at timeupthailand.net, let’s hope they are able to establish roots inside Thailand quickly.

For the sake of our health and common, economic well-being, we must strengthen and deepen our struggle for democracy: the only way we will be able to ensure all branches of government become transparent and accountable to the people.

66 million people and 3 million migrant workers, representing some 40 ethnic groups and many religions and beliefs, cannot allow themselves to be ruled by a self-centred, elitist bureaucracy.

To be able to move into the future with dignity, Thai people must grasp and embrace the concept of democracy, whole-heartedly, with both hands.

To be able to move into the future with dignity, we must work for a People’s Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Our agenda will be realised by respecting each other’s rights and establishing greater control over the means of production.

To be able to stand true on the global stage, we must increase our self-reliance by rejuvenating and strengthening our domestic economies.

To become a fully democratic country, Thailand must adopt a holistic AGENDA for CHANGE that includes the following:

Freedom of expression, freedom of association and right to collective bargaining

• All lès majesté (LM) prisoners must be released immediately, all LM charges must be annulled, and all LM laws abolished.

Equal rights for all

• [E]very person in Thailand, regardless of nationality, religious belief, skin colour or occupation, shall be respected and treated equally by law.

Justice for all

• The double-standards that are normal, common practice at every level and in every corner of the Thai judicial system must be weeded-out.

Social welfare for all

• From birth, every bona fide resident of Thailand shall have access to all necessary social welfare, including education, healthcare, housing and pensions.

Sound education for all

• From primary school to the highest level, Thailand’s corrupted, elitist, paternalistic educational structures must be soundly re-constituted.

Empowerment of women

• A nation that sells it’s young women to compensate for the absence of social welfare can only fail.

Food security

• Security depends, as it has always done, upon the vitality of our villages and the health and diversity of our agriculture.

Ecosystem rights

• The less diverse our communities the lower our potentials to adapt, the less [resistant resilient] we are [to climate in the face of] change.

Respect for ethnicity and cultural diversity

• Thailand’s failure to solve ethnic conflicts has… to do with… the insensitive, repressive remedies invented by elite nationalists in the Bangkok bureaucracy. Thailand’s well-known border conflicts are… perpetuated to justify the presence of a bloated military. De-militarisation of Thai society and the channeling of public money from the military to more constructive social purposes is another top-priority political objective.

[End] Unlawful expropriation of the people’s land and resources

• Irrespective of whether or not plans for Free Trade Zones, or housing estates, or power plants or mining or nature conservation projects are decorated by this or that royal stamp, the rights of local communities to self-determination must be respected.

People’s democracy and sustainable development

• Sustainable development is dependent upon the active participation of all women and men, and also children, in developing democratic infrastructure through, direct or indirect, active engagement in decision-making in all areas of governance, and upon the exercise of people’s rights to veto plans that might damage development of sustainable means of livelihood.