CAMBODIA: The Grassroot Thais Will Sit Out NGO Meet

April 2, 2012

Sunny Tribune, Cambodia

Society groups from Thailand will boycott a meeting between NGOs and regional government representatives at this week’s ASEAN summit because their country’s delegate “does not represent Thai civil society”, a spokeswoman said yesterday.

Premrudee Daoroung, a representative of Thai civil society groups, said her country’s government had shown “complete disregard for meaningful engagement” shown “complete disregard for meaningful engagement” by selecting a representative who had played no part in the independent Civil Society Conference/ASEAN Peoples’ Forum, which ran from Thursday to Saturday at the capital’s Lucky Star Hotel.

“In past years … civil society groups have faced similar problems of having our own government appoint their own people to meet with the leaders of the countries. The same thing has happened again – the government has appointed its own people to [meet] with the [ASEAN] leaders,” she said.

“We condemn this undemocratic process, and we demand that the government of Thailand stop such interfering.”

A Thai government representative did not respond to questions before deadline. →