Page 77 - Rights beautiful : collection of Professor Saneh Chamarik

Rights Beautiful Collection of Professor Saneh Chamarik

to society at large, etc. A brief account of background leading up to the
People’s Constitution and NHRC may well be in order here, to begin with.
Upon reflection, it is largely the end result and consequences of
ongoing socio-economic transformation ever since Thailand under military
dictatorship in early 1960s stepped into development and industrialization
predicaments, just like many other developing countries. The initiative
significantly came from the World Bank and the IMF, the twin global
politico-economic Leviathan of the post-war. That brought about structural
changes and the rise of urban middle classes, along with widespread
poverty and rural marginalization, as well as natural degradation. All this is
well known global phenomenon, there is no need for further elaboration
here. Suffice it to say that the growth-oriented development and related
public policy itself is the root cause of human sufferings and thus flagrant
encroachment on the basic right to livelihood and self-development. It is
a great pity that these simple economic, social and cultural rights are still
not counted as human rights, and therefore shunned entire responsibility
by the global power that be, especially within the historically freedom
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fighters’ “liberal” circle itself. Anyhow, within a short span of time in early
1970s, there occurred mass uprisings under the combined forces of new
middle classes and student movements. The fall of the junta and military
disunity led to coup after coup, which was somehow followed by gradual
transition to civilian rule around late 1980s. Then, again, another hangover
and short-lived military coup in 1991 provoked another massive revolt

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Professor Edward Herman of Wharton School, interestingly and succinctly, has this to say:
Doesn’t a growth process in which large numbers are immiserated while a small
elite prospers necessarily entail serious human rights violations? In liberal theory,
and in the definitions used by the major human rights organizations of the West:
No. Human rights are political and personal rights ...; they do not include economic
rights to subsistence, education, health care, housing and employment. Thus if
immiseration follows from the normal workings of the market system, based on the
economic power of private organizations and banks and with the help of the IMF,
World Bank, US government, and nominally democratic regime like Mexico or Chile,
no human rights are involved. Op. cit.

OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF THAILAND 71