What Do Political Assassinations Tell Us About Southeast Asia’s Political Landscape?
On 8 July 2022, Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated while giving a speech in the Nara Prefecture. Not only was Shinzo Abe the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history, emerging victorious in ten general elections since 1993, but he was generally well-liked and cemented his affiliation with the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (LLP), Japan’s dominant political party. His assassination sent shock waves across international news, bringing widespread attention to the phenomenon of political assassination in Asia. Socio-economic diversity in Southeast Asia creates wildly different political landscapes that can be investigated through the lens of political assassinations.
There are broadly two types of political assassinations. As in the case of Shinzo Abe’s death, the first is the assassination of a leading political figure as a desperate message sent by the people to society through extreme means. Before we return to his case, we will shift the spotlight to a less recognized type of political assassination, one that is backed by government authorities against their opposition and their own citizens. In June 2012, Musa Mako Tabuni, a young Papuan activist, was shot by a group of plain clothed Indonesian police. In the Phillipines, Jose Doton, a leader of the campaign against the building of San Roque Dam, was shot by two motorcyclists suspected to be affiliated with the military. Meanwhile in Thailand, Dr Charnchai Silapauaychai, president of Phrae Prefecture was fatally shot in October 2007. There have been almost 500 cases of assassinations against local politicians and council officers between 2000-2009 in Thailand alone. In many of these cases, many assassinations are either “strongly suspected” to be affiliated with government authorities, backed by state military or carried out by civil servants themselves.
This form of political assassination is relatively straightforward, with extrajudicial killings carried out or defended by the state to suppress political opposition either within party politics or wider society. Dr Charnchai’s assassination in 2007 is suspected to have been linked to a power struggle with his intra-party political opponent Ms Siriwan Prassachaksattru. Interestingly, the assassination did not lead to desired results for Ms Siriwan, for neither her nor her party chairman have been elected to any local political positions since then. An assassination signals the victory of a power struggle, yet in this case it failed to achieve its intentions. Why is this?
First, the extent of political chaos in Thailand extended violence to the local level, but it does not mean these politicians have significant enough control over party loyalty and electoral results. Second, there is some degree of democratic function in local elections. The most effective assassinations of this sort come from extreme power centralization; such killings appear in the forms of sudden heart attacks or plane crashes between Moscow and St Petersburg. The fact that locals were able to effectively suspect her involvement and prevent her from being elected reflects the political decentralization amidst chaos that potentially created room for local democracy to function. Thailand is a constitutional monarchy: political power struggle is restricted here to a local level. In this way, the relative freedom and local character of these assassinations created a consequence unique to Thailand. An industry of contracted killings dominated by moonlighting police and military personnel is thus created. Their political connections and professional training meant they are extremely difficult to contain and are able to expand the assassinations to other illegal economic activities such as drug trafficking and money laundering.
Another form of political suppression of society involves extrajudicial killings of socio-political activists. The Philippines is known for leadership personalities heavily influencing politics. Political assassinations in the Marcos administration (political opposition) are wildly different from Aquino administration (activists). There were almost 400 cases of such killings in 2001-2010, and over 5000 since Duterte took office in 2016. Doton’s case was one of the few fortunate to receive media attention due to his affiliation with international human rights groups and the San Rogue Dam being a Japanese-funded project. Manila suffered from massive international pressure for justice to be brought to the case. Even so, there are barely any reports in current media. Political killings in the Philippines share a few common features: community leaders were eliminated by government-backed paramilitary groups; community-based movements are seen as cause for suppression; internationally related movements attract pressure on the government. The local economy depended on feudal labor relations for plantation production. Grassroots and resistance-based movement therefore threaten the stability of the exploitative nature of these relations and the interests of local elites. In general, the more influential the business sector is over the central government, the more prevalent are these types of assassinations, possibly under the guise of “leftist movement”.
This is different from Indonesia, where most assassinations targeted the KNPB, a grassroots organization advocating for the self-determination of the West Papuan people. From 2010-2020, over 40 KNPB leaders were killed by state authorities. This is unlike the Philippines, where killings are not on a case-by-case basis but an organized effort to remove political opposition. This is reflected in the way they were assassinated: Theys elluayb was kidnapped and found dead a few days later; Martinus Yohame was found in a river inside a plastic rice bag dragged under by heavy rocks; Musa Tabuni was shot by police officers who subsequently forbade medical officials from administering treatment, leading to his death. One would believe these to be civilian murders more so than coordinated state assassinations. The power of making the decision to assassinate and carrying out the actual assassination is likely devolved to local civil authorities and under their discretion. This reveals not simply the disregard of human life, but the shamelessness of the state in their lack of attempt to hide their involvement and arbitrary power over civilian’s lives even at the lowest-level of civil authorities. It is blatantly ironic that these Papuan leaders were assassinated under the democratic regime of Indonesia.
The second case is understood as mass political assassinations of indigenous leaders to neutralize the indigenous community for resource exploitation. On 1 September 2015, men, women and children of Sitio Han-ayan, in the Diatagon barangay of the Phillipines, were woken by the Magahat Bagani paramilitary group to witness the execution of their community leaders, Dionel Campos and Juvello Sinzo. School children and teachers would also discover the gutted, bloodied body of their beloved schoolmaster Emerito Samrca, who was murdered that morning. The Indonesian killings had some superficial investigative claims- it was simply non-consequential, but it was illegitimate. Contrary to previous assassinations, this type of killing is the only considered legitimate under state law. Under the Aquino Administration, over 70 indigenous leaders were killed. The Mindanao’s indigenous people, the “Lumad”, maintain a tribal community-based lifestyle in the Philippines. The publicized massacres of these community leaders effectively disrupted the community and led to their forced displacement. The land resources could then be used to extract resources and bolster other economic activities. This type of political assassination is simply colonization on a localized scale, though this is by no means unique to the Philippines. Similar events are just as prevalent in North America and Latin Americas. The most shameless of all forms of assassination, the naked barbaric greed of the state compensates for its own corruption, inefficiency and lack of economic responsibility; there is no power to struggle, no voices to oppose, no threat to the state. If you do not give, I will rob.
Shinzo Abe’s assassination is the type of political assassination that comes to most people’s minds. The individual responsible claimed his motives were due to Abe’s affiliations with the Unification Church, which he considers a cult that scammed his mother out of her life savings. These assassinations are usually carried out by an individual or a small collective with extreme beliefs. A message is sent to the society through the death of the targeted figure and with it, the death of the assassin as well. In some ways, it is akin to a murder-suicide, motivated by desperation and a certain social savior complex. In Abe’s case, the message was to criticize religious liberty in Japan and (unintentionally) revealed a series of corruption scandals in Abe’s cabinet. After Abe’s death the LLP integrated terms such as “avenge his death” in their electoral campaign, painting Abe as a political martyr and seeking to gain pity votes for the election, which was arguably successful. It was not just Abe: the aftermath of Aquino’s assassination in 1983 painted him as a martyr for overthrowing the Marcos administration and even Trump attempted to create a martyr complex after the recent alleged assassination attempt prior to the election. However, there is a more significant political culture of martyrdom and assassinations in Japan. The irony is, the assassin, in exchanging his life for a desperate lash out at the government, glorified the one he aimed to destroy.
Image courtesy of Kent Nishibura via Getty Images, ©2016. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
