For Pheu Thai, love means having to say you’re sorry

One thing unique about Pheu Thai people, from top to bottom, is that they rarely admit their mistakes. One of those glaring mistakes that countless sensible people, both Thais and foreigners, have seen and pointed out to them is the populist rice pledging scheme under which the Pheu Thai government pledged to buy “every grain” of paddy from rice farmers at a grossly unrealistic price of 15,000 baht per tonne — about 40% above market price.

Shortly after the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political OfficeHolders accepted for consideration the public prosecution’s case against former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra for her alleged mishandling of the rice pledging scheme, Pheu Thai Party deputy spokesman Anusorn Iamsa-ard issued a seven-point statement defending the merits of the rice pledging scheme.

Mr Anusorn claimed the policy was meant for the benefit of rice farmers, and the damage caused by the scheme was insignificant.

He also claimed the suicides of 16 rice farmers because they did not get paid for the pledged rice really stemmed from the People’s Democratic Reform Committee protests, as they prevented the Pheu Thai government from helping farmers.

Among his other claims are that the scheme’s estimated damage as reported by the audit panel led by Supa Piyajitti was inflated; the whistle-blower criticising the scheme, ex-Democrat MP Warong Detkitvikrom, is a bad man because he threw paper missiles in parliament.

He also claimed the rice scheme was as good as quantitative easing, an unconventional monetary policy in which a central bank purchases government securities or other securities from the market to lower interest rates and increase the money supply.

To begin with, the name of the scheme, rice pledging, is a distortion. The Pheu Thai government did not accept pledging of paddy from farmers.

It bought paddy from farmers and became the sole major buyer and exporter.

Traditional exporters had nothing to export as most rice was being kept in warehouses and left to rot. It could not be sold as the government expected to fetch unrealistic prices, prompting buyers to turn to India and Vietnam.

The claim that PDRC protesters were responsible for the suicides of the farmers is laughable.

The 500 billion baht allocated for the scheme was used up and there was no money left to pay the farmers.

There was little revenue from rice sales either because most of the stockpiled rice was sitting unsold, while many announced government-to-government rice deals were fake.

Worse, there was no expression of sympathy or sorrow from the Pheu Thai people for the families of the dead farmers.

Mr Anusorn’s claim that there was little corruption in the rice scheme is baloney.

Just wait until the court trial against ex-commerce minister Boonsong Teriyaphirom and 20 associates, who include businessmen and senior commerce officials, begins regarding the fake G-to-G rice deals with China. The worms will come crawling out of the woodwork for sure.

The rice pledging scheme was badly flawed, starting with the unrealistic pricing and the concept of buying every grain of rice at the same price regardless of quality and origin.

That was the spark for rice from Myanmar and Cambodia to be smuggled in and sold as Thai rice under the scheme.

The scheme was poorly handled, with loopholes everywhere that opened the way to corruption. Rice was not properly stored and looked after because the amount was so huge — at one stage the government went into a panic about not having enough warehouse space to store the grain and the possibility was raised that the army would have to open up some of its barracks space to make room for the grain to help the government out.

Besides the rice pledging scheme, other major mistakes committed by the Pheu Thai government include the drug suppression policy in which about 2,500 people, including many regarded as innocent, were killed, and the Tak Bai and Krue Se tragedies in the far South.

The party has never admitted these mistakes. Nor has it offered a formal apology for the incidents.

And last but not least, the torching and plundering at Ratchaprasong shopping district and nearby areas during the last days of the red-shirt protest in 2010, and the breaking up of the Asean Summit in Pattaya a year earlier.

Ask any Pheu Thai member whether their party was even just partly to blame; the most likely answer is a definite “no”.

The apparent inability or unwillingness to admit past mistakes and offer an apology is one reason why many people don’t trust the party, nor that it would not make similar mistakes in the future.

It may explain why reconciliation seems to be an unachievable goal and that an amnesty is too sensitive an issue, as parties in the conflict do not repent their past mistakes.

The party has never admitted these mistakes. Nor has it offered a formal apology.