Media disputes raging during the month of May ended with a damp whimper as the rainy season commenced in Bangkok this year. Efforts to uncover the truth about the bloody May 1992 military crackdown under a new freedom of information law were answered with an official government report with 60 percent of the text blacked out to protect "national security" and to conceal the names of military personnel involved in the killings.

At the same time, a new press law threatens the political independence of the media even as Thailand's only non-governmental TV station is in the process of being purchased by a tycoon running for prime minister.

Thai democracy, founded with the overthrow of absolute monarchy in 1932 and the press freedom that must necessarily go with it, has been a story of two steps forward, one step back, with progress marred by frequent coups d'état, corrupt governments and authoritarian rulers.

On the long and winding road to democracy, defenders of free speech have been forced to beat strategic retreats, but they have never gone away, and when suppressed harshly enough have burst back onto the scene with great resilience and surprisingly little rancor. Veteran democratic fighters who remember the darkness before dawn under various military regimes invoke the memory of "Black May" — a period of acute censorship and bloody political crackdown, when many dozens of citizens were killed while asserting the right to express themselves — to stress how important it is to be vigilant about press freedom.

As the eighth anniversary of the May 1992 crackdown draws to a close, defenders of free speech are fighting a two-front battle. A new broadcasting bill being drafted by the executive branch of the government has media watchdogs worried about potentially Draconian censorship.

At the same time, the non-governmental station iTV, itself a legacy of the Black May struggle, is on the rocks, having failed to make a profit in its four years of conscientious programming. The failure of Thai government-controlled TV stations to report fairly on the street demonstrations of May 1992 eventually led to the creation of a non-governmental broadcaster known as Independent TV, or iTV, in 1997. But the station created specifically to withstand political interference is falling apart financially. Quality news production notwithstanding, iTV is bleeding money and fighting for its life.

To the rescue comes the Shin Corporation, a wealthy telecommunications, satellite and media conglomerate whose founder, Thaksin Shinawatra, recently left the business world to form a political party. Does the Shin Corporation's proposed 39 to 70 percent purchase of iTV threaten the station's hard-fought-for neutrality?

In a move that was criticized by iTV management nervous about financial solvency, the iTV news team, led by Thepchai Yong, petitioned Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai to oppose the sale to the Shin Corporation. The station originally restricted any shareholder to a 10 percent maximum to protect itself from financial or political interference. But the 10 percent guideline was waived by the prime minister's office as iTV's debt tumbled out of control. With Thailand's stock market falling to new lows and the baht weak, looking for money without political strings attached is a tall order indeed. But there are important principles at stake.

The Nation Multimedia group, which produces the news for iTV, has not been shy about stepping into the fray. The media group's flagship newspaper, The Nation, has run a number of articles and opinion pieces opposing the Shin purchase on the grounds that the station would lose its political independence.

Perhaps more objective is the effort of the Bangkok Post, free of any apparent interest in iTV, to echo the Nation's campaign for editorial independence. "Keep Our Media Free of Meddlers," cried a May 19 Post editorial, invoking the spirit of Black May. "Troops were called in and a crackdown was ordered by the government — ostensibly to restore peace and order. During the week-long standoff leading up to the eventual brutal crackdown, people who tuned into any of the five state-controlled television stations for firsthand, reliable and accurate information were sadly disappointed."

Respected media specialists have also voiced concerns about the proposed Shin Corporation purchase of iTV since company founder, Thaksin Shinawatra, has made no secret of his ambition to be prime minister. The tycoon's Thairakthai ("Thai-love-Thai") party is one of the strongest forces in national politics today as it represents the new money of the booming telecommunications sector and the persuasive power of Western-style political conventions, fundraising and campaigning.

"It's as if CNN were purchased by someone who owned the leading telecommunications and satellite companies and was running for president," explains Dean Joompol Rodcumdee, dean of the faculty of communication arts at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. The debate on independent television's future has, ironically enough, largely been confined to the print media, the English-language Bangkok Post and the Nation in particular, suggesting it is still perceived largely as an elite issue. "The print media are better at handling sophisticated political issues," Joompol says. "Television's not as good at it. And academics feel it is their responsibility to monitor these issues. Many media practitioners are preoccupied with their daily work, trying to find topics that appeal to their viewers and readers."

English language papers serve a dual function in Thai society. To foreigners they present detailed information about Thailand in the international language. To the Thai elite, many of whom hold degrees from universities in the U.S. or U.K., the English papers are the journals of record and purveyors of serious political and economic news. Thai-language newspapers tend to be more folksy, populist and lean towards crime-oriented tabloid-style coverage. Thai columnists and editorial writers who write in English at the Bangkok Post and the Nation can sway events at the national level with their written words.

Both the broadcast bill and the impending sale of iTV have academic media watchers speaking out as well. At a May 26 seminar about iTV's future held at Thammasat University, media critic Ubonratana Siriyuvasak made an emotional plea to keep the airwaves free, lending support to Thepchai Yong who has been at the vanguard of protesting both the media bill and proposed sale of iTV. But public interest in the debate has been almost nil, a fact bemoaned by Thammasat University journalism professor Piyagul Lawansiri as the lively and instructive seminar concluded.

The Shin conquest of iTV appears all but inevitable, but the shouting continues. Feedback from newspaper opinion pages, academic forums and the June 1, 2000, inauguration of the Nation Group's 24-hour cable news service (limited to urban subscribers) will continue to provide a spirited, though somewhat stopgap, defense of the airwaves.

In a country where dictators ruled in recent memory, it is encouraging to see contentious issues batted back and forth freely in forums and in print, allowing for the hope that Thai civil society is firmly enough rooted to make tycoon/military-backed coups a thing of the past.

Thailand's currently free and feisty press can help the Council of State fine-tune the law in a way that augments press freedom, especially in the broadcast realm, which has long been dominated by the military. But there is still a chasm of difference between defenders of "The Nation" wielding pens and defenders of the nation wielding guns.

"I took a look at the second draft of the controversial National Broadcasting Bill earlier this week," wrote Nation group editor-in-chief Suthichai Yoon, "and I froze. Some of the clauses, which are supposed to have been an improvement on the first version, remind me of the bad old days of press censorship all over again."

The early draft would have restricted television broadcasters from airing anything that: 1) offends the heads of state of foreign countries; 2) causes divisiveness among the Thai people, insults any ethnic group or is detrimental to peace and order or public morals; 3) jeopardizes foreign relations; 4) is disrespectful of any religion or desecrates revered places; 5) flouts good traditions and culture; 6) is sexually provocative.

The clumsy attempt to spell out what could and couldn't be broadcast created an immediate uproar in media circles. At the broadcast bill hearings, Suthichai's brother Thepchai Yong also opposed the guidelines, saying "it would be difficult to judge if programs were unbiased, misleading or constituted slander." He added that the bill "was quite subjective and could deprive the media of freedom of expression."

Chulalongkorn's Dean Joompol added, "Things like barring news that 'offends the heads of state of foreign countries' ought to be dropped. I expect the final law will look very much like the status quo we have now under the constitution."

Thanks to this kind of input, the unpopular Article 32 dealing with censorship guidelines has been sent back to the Council of State for a rewrite. But no matter how much free speech is permitted in theory, certain structural problems remain. The Thai military enjoyed a half-century monopoly on radio and TV broadcasts until iTV was created in 1997. The military continues to cling to its turf, citing the usual national security concerns, but in fact the military brass has gotten very rich over the years by renting out the electromagnetic spectrum to wealthy subcontractors.

The Council of State is unlikely to oppose the vested interests of the military, partly because that would be an invitation for a coup d'état, and partly because the Council of State, a hand-picked executive body, already represents the interests of the elite, including the military. The council is somewhat akin to a cabinet, but it does not change membership with each prime minister.

The media bill calls for tight regulation of fledgling commercial broadcasts, but does not take on the vast electromagnetic empire of the military and the public relations department. When this discrepancy was pointed out at a hearing, a PR spokesperson responded that such broadcasters need no watchdog as they are supervised by the "government, which in turn is controlled by parliament and the people."

But the public relations department has a legacy of dependence on whoever happens to be in power, underlined by the fact that during Thailand's frequent coups d'état, the PR department was on the short list of government installations to be taken over.

Debate about control of the airwaves, editorial independence and the parameters of censorship are critical issues that generate much heat in Thailand even as the cooling monsoon rains get underway. The Council of State has taken the laudable step of establishing hearings to fine-tune the broadcast bill before it becomes law, but the elitist tendency to respect vested interests remains. Hopefully, the vibrant free speech currently enjoyed in Thailand will exert a moderating influence on new laws that govern the media, helping the nation to move out of the shadow of Black May. But as the government has yet to deal candidly with the tragedy of Black May, keeping politics out of broadcasting in Thailand will require constant vigilance.

AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE MEDIA.

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