Last week, not long before he was taken into custody by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), consumer activist Ittiboon Onwongsa looked totally free from worries as he sealed parcels of pamphlets with duct tape. The 20 boxes were to be transported to Songkhla province in time for the Aug 19 start of a 950km protest walk from Hat Yai all the way to Bangkok.
Boonyuen Siritham and Ittiboon Onwongsa campaigning in Bangkok earlier this month.
Organised by a group called the Partnership on Energy Reform, the walk was staged to criticise the current monopoly on formulating energy policy and plans to build polluting power plants in the South. The pamphlets, containing suggested energy-sector reforms, were to be distributed to people attending public forums planned along the route as the walkers slowly proceeded towards the capital.
Despite their smooth manner and smiling faces, NCPO representatives seemed determined to stifle the protest right from the very start. Earlier this month, soldiers sauntered into a Bangkok venue where the Partnership on Energy Reform was holding a press conference and asked Ittiboon and another activist, Veera Somkwamkid, to call off the meeting with journalists. But the pair remained calm and continued with the proceedings.
Ittiboon later spoke to Life about the situation. Not long afterwards, military personnel arrested him and 10 other activists for alleged violation of martial law.
"I am not surprised; this doesn't go against my expectations," Ittiboon said of the press conference incursion. He went on to remark that he felt the NCPO was overreacting and said that the Hat Yai-to-Bangkok walk was neither politically motivated nor a threat to national security.
"It is just a campaign to call for the public to be allowed to participate in national energy reform. This matter is too big and has too wide-ranging an impact on our society, economy, environment and way of life [for the drawing up of energy policy to remain in the hands of a few individuals]," he said.
The Partnership on Energy Reform still keeps going despite the obstacles that have been put in its way, he vowed. The Foundation for Consumers, for whom Ittiboon has worked since 1997, has announced its support for the energy-reform campaign, he said. The foundation has been monitoring state energy policies and business practices, Ittiboon continued, since it feels that some business ventures have had a destructive effect on the country's natural resources and environment and on consumers' rights.
"You cannot suppress people and stop them from expressing their opinions and ideas for very long. Look at history and you will learn that Thai people never tolerate that kind of situation for long; the more they are suppressed, the stronger the eventual backlash and momentum for counteractive measures tends to be."
Defying the authorities and questioning the Establishment has always been part and parcel of Ittiboon's modus operandi. He says there are many activists in Thailand like feel, like him, that the powers-that-be, whether it be a junta or an elected government, are alike in that they tend to favour projects which attract investment at the expense of community rights.
"Based on our experience, all governments are alike when it come down to energy policy. The previous Democrat and Phue Thai administrations, even though they were democratically elected, and even the coup-staging NCPO, will always side with technocrats and companies and rarely, if ever, with the consumer."
Born into a military family in Lop Buri, a province long associated with the men in green because of the number of large army bases there, Ittiboon become interested in social activism while he was studying at Ramkhamhaeng University back in 1991.
"The rural development camp I joined [while at Ramkhamhaeng] was unique in that we were taught to look at socialism and Marxism not as a political ideology. We are taught to look at all problems linked to the distribution of natural resources and ownership. We tended to ask questions from a who-owns-what and who-does-what perspective when we looked at issues in terms of political ideology.
"That perspective helps us keep up with modern day capitalism, with all those oligarchies."
His sceptical attitude towards business monopolies led him to find work with the Foundation for Consumers, a rights protection group. The foundation has filed several historic cases against the government including a lawsuit to prevent the privatisation of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) and another legal action to force PTT, the state-owned oil and gas company, to return to public ownership a national gas pipeline which was built and paid for using taxpayers' money. The foundation won both these cases.
Despite his slight frame and mild-mannered demeanour, Ittiboon has played an active part in street protests in the past. He spent nine months as a speaker representing the views of the Student and People Network for Thailand's Reform (STR), appearing at many public gatherings in 2013 to protest against the policies of the Yingluck Shinawatra government. He was sued by the PTT for trespassing on company premises when an STR stage was erected in front of PTT headquarters on Vibhavadi-Rangsit Road late last year.
Even away from the limelight, the man does seem a bit obsessed with energy matters. He regularly checks oil and gas prices, then plots trends in a graph format. His up-to-the-minute familiarity with the regional energy sector would certainly qualify him for a job as a newspaper reporter on the energy beat.
Needless to say, a lot of people have asked him whether he avoids PTT petrol stations when his car needs a refill.
"That's a silly question," he responds, giving a little chuckle before assuring me he holds no personal grudge against the company. "I regularly avail of the services of PTT. It would be childish to try and boycott this monopoly because every single drop of petrol sold in Thailand comes from the PTT.
"I just want the general public to realise that they have rights and that they are the true owners of this country's natural resources. ut energy resources and businesses have been privatised, given to companies or turned into monopolies, over the past few decades. The people no longer know what they own.
"For me, it's analogous to being a slave in one's own home."
Activists prepared for a long walk from Songkhla to Bangkok earlier this month before the authorities stopped them.
