Separatist talk as judgement day looms

Separatist talk as judgement day looms

Sor Por Por Lanna (Lanna People’s Democratic Republic)? What?

Part of a torn-apart banner which calls for separatism is removed from a pedestrian bridge in Phitsanulok province last week.

Many people may be scratching their heads in confusion about what it is and where the hell it is. Some may say it sounds similar to Sor Por Por Lor (Lao People’s Democratic Republic), Thailand’s neighbour to the northeast. Others may contend that it sounds as alien as Timbuktu.

All are right. Because you cannot find it anywhere on the atlas. For the time being, it exists in the sick mindsets of the red-shirt radicals in Chiang Mai and other northern and northeastern provinces.

I suspect the creator of this name is both confused and alien. The name is a hybrid acronym (Sor Por Por comes from the first letters of three Thai words, Satharanarat Prachathippatai Prachachon) and Lanna (the kingdom centred in today’s northern Thailand during the 13th and 18th centuries).

Sor Por Por Lanna hit the public spotlight last week when a group of red-shirt followers paraded around Chiang Mai on motorcycles and wearing headbands bearing the hybrid acronym and waving little red and white flags.

I guess the red-shirt leaders in Chiang Mai are still undecided or have no idea what flag the new fantasy republic should use.

Meanwhile, red cloth banners crying for a separate homeland from the rest of Thailand popped up in public in several provinces — namely Phitsanulok, Chiang Mai and Phayao.

The phenomenon coincided with caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s visit to Chiang Mai, her home town, to seek solace from her supporters and the red shirts. I wonder whether she was aware of the separatist red banners or not? And if she did, what was her reaction to it?

But army chief Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha was not amused at all. Exercising his authority in his capacity as the deputy director of the Internal Security Operations Command, he ordered all governors in the North and the Northeast to monitor the activities of these red-shirt followers to make sure they do not violate the law.

It should be noted that before the emergence of the name Sor Por Por Lanna, a parade of some 8,000 “village policemen” or volunteers, with some holding red flags, was held in Phayao province and attended by former Pheu Thai ministers, the provincial governor and provincial police chief.

Earlier on Feb 23, caretaker Interior Minister Charupong Ruangsuwan chaired a rally of red-shirt followers in Nakhon Ratchasima during which there was talk about the creation of a separate homeland for red shirts and loyalists of the Shinawatra clan and the creation of an army of volunteers to defend the new “homeland”.

Resistance to the separatism fervour was reported in Phitsanulok and Nakhon Sawan where people tore up red banners or displayed banners opposing separatism.

All of these activities by the red-shirt followers, with open support from the Pheu Thai Party, appear timed to coincide with the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s forthcoming indictment of Ms Yingluck for malfeasance in office in connection with corruption in the rice-pledging scheme. According to the constitution, once the prime minister is formally charged, she must immediately step aside and one of her deputies
will be named as the acting prime minister.

But the appointment of an acting prime minister may be aborted because it will be challenged in the Constitution Court on the grounds that such appointment is not legally possible as there are no MPs since the House dissolution, and the charter clearly states that the prime minister must be an MP. Also, the legitimacy of the caretaker government will be challenged.

If the Constitution Court rules that an acting prime minister cannot be appointed, then the prospect of an interim prime minister and an interim government will emerge. And this is what the Pheu Thai Party and its red shirt followers dread the most. Hence, all the rhetoric of separatism.

The prime minister has remained as defiant as ever while her government is steadily losing control. In Chiang Mai last week, she said that she preferred to die “in the field of democracy” like soldiers who die on the battlefield.

I presume that she vows to die defending democracy rather than submitting to the demand of the anti-government protesters for her resignation. I also wonder what does she mean by democracy. Does it mean election and nothing else but election, as most Pheu Thai members subscribe to?


Veera Prateepchaikul is a former editor, Bangkok Post.

Veera Prateepchaikul

Former Editor

Former Bangkok Post Editor, political commentator and a regular columnist at Post Publishing.

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