Kritaya Archavanitkul Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Emerging Issues in Human Rights in Southeast Asia: Conversation with demographer and human rights activist Kritaya Archavanitkul, 10/25/96 by Harry Kriesler

Photo by S. Beth Atkin

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Human Rights Work

Let's talk about your involvement in the people's response to the political crisis that occurred [in 1992.] There was a confrontation with the authorities in Thailand resulting in the killing, by the authorities, of more than 40 people. You were involved in organizing a crisis center to respond to that situation and essentially to create a grassroots organizational response. Tell us a little about that experience and what you learned.

I must say that the work that I could do during the May Crisis in 1992 was because the democracy movement won in that crisis. If the Suchinda government had won it, we couldn't have done anything. So that's the main factor that helped us to do this job. And what we have established is a connection between the casualties that we saw and the government. We were invited to be the fact-finding committee in the government.We conveyed the names of the casualty families to the government. We tried to negotiate for them what they wanted, that's one thing. We discussed the situation with the casualty families and the NGOs, and the way that we tried to make the government listen to us was that we talked to the media. So we informed the media of our progress all along the way. And the government had to keep their promise. So that's what we did in this crisis. But I have to stress again, I myself did not do it alone. There were lots of people, lots of volunteers came to work with us.

Kritaya Archavanitkul and translator Gaye Tharawan; S. Beth Atkin photo If in our audience there are young people who listen to you and say, "I want to do that," how do you tell them to prepare for a career like this in human rights work?

I think first you need to have a heart to listen to people. I think listening is the main thing, particularly the different concepts, different ways of thinking, different ideas. So we have to listen to various groups of people. And through that listening, I think we learn. And then we know various things about the diversity in this world, different from us. And in some situations we can join in the process of making the situations better. So I think, to me, there is one clue -- listen to people, particularly to different thoughts.

So, accept the fact that there's complexity: listen. You're doing a lot of translating, I understand; you're talking to different groups to find some sort of a meeting point to solve this problem.

Not only do we have to listen to different ideas, but we have to listen to different groups of people, like those who have different skin colors, or sex, or are from another country, because in this way, sometimes you learn that things in this world are sometimes very cruel to the people and you may find something that you will not find if you do not listen.

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