[Thailand] Thaksin hits poverty trail in Isan

From The Bangkok Post

Sceptism greets his plans for the poor

POST REPORTERS

Scepticism greeted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as he kicked off his five-day poverty eradication workshop in the impoverished district of At Samat in northerneastern Roi Et province yesterday. Poverty researchers and critics warned the prime minister his model of poverty eradication could not be applied uniformly across the country, or it could backfire and worsen the situation.

Mr Thaksin arrived at the At Samat district office yesterday afternoon and was promptly briefed on the local situation by the Provincial Administration Department chief, the governor of Roi Et, and the district chief.

Boasting that he was acting like a doctor curing poverty disease, Mr Thaksin suggested ways to prop up jasmine rice prices and ordered the setting up of a jasmine rice promotion centre for the Thung Kula Ronghai area, the plains of Isan.

He also instructed a military development unit to turn roads in At Samat and nearby areas into two-lane asphalt roads and study how to develop road links to nearby provinces.

Arriving at Non Somboon village for his first field visit later in the afternoon, Mr Thaksin went door-to-door visiting people who registered for state assistance under the anti-poverty campaign.

At the first house, he instructed the Foreign Ministry to ask Burma for the release of its owner, Promma Nuansamlee, arrested for fishing in Burmese waters four years ago. He also ordered job training and allocation of land for the man's wife.

At the second house, Mr Thaksin advised owner Pichit Patchasri, a farmer and tailor who earns 2,500 baht but spends 4,000 baht monthly and owes 65,000 baht to a village fund, to run a fish farm for extra income.

On his way to having dinner with locals at a village ground, the prime minister was heard to say to accompanying MPs and ministers: ''Here is an 'Orient tent', not the Oriental. That hotel can't beat this. Here we have red ant eggs, but they have cavier there. This is a homestay.''

Mr Thaksin told reporters that combating poverty at At Samat was not a difficult task because the villagers just needed to earn 3,000-5,000 baht more with government help.

He was quick to add that poverty could not be ended overnight. ''What we are doing today is educating officials on how to ask questions and make observations.

They can then apply this to individual problems, which vary greatly.''

But scholars and critics remained sceptical of the government's understanding of the problem and how to solve it.

Narong Phetprasert, director of Chulalongkorn University's political economy programme, said the causes of poverty were not universal and the government need to see through this to address the problems and develop proper solutions.

All he saw was the government trying to inject money to help farmers, who were always assumed to be poor.

Senator Niran Pithakwatchara slammed Mr Thaksin's TV reality show as window dressing with himself as the sole hero and lacking substance.

The At Samat poverty eradication model should not be applied to other areas because each area had a different character.

''Poverty is a structural problem and it cannot be wiped out by a one-man show in a short period of time,'' said Dr Niran.

Deputy Democrat leader Withoon Nambutr said Mr Thaksin was making a soap opera out of politics, diverting public attention from conflicts of interest and internal rifts in his Thai Rak Thai party.

Social scientist Somkiat Pongpaiboon, of Rajabhat Nakhon Ratchasima University, said poverty resulted from unfair distribution of natural resources and wealth. Instead of tackling these problems through reform of natural resource management, progressive tax collection and economic sufficiency policies, the government had instead turned to populist policies, which only made people poorer.