What's going on in Thailand

[kjun]

While the situation here is serious, the news media is, as usual, having a field day with it and their reports are often "interesting". I live here in Bangkok but the action you hear about is 45 minutes from my home.

 

A little background will help you to understand what is going on here. The problem whirls around a man named Taksin Shinawatra. Mr. Taksin (Thais are referred to by their first name in preference to the family name) was prime minister until four years ago when he was deposed by the Thai Army. Their reasons for this coup are many but it was apparently done because the business people and the army became convinced that Taksin was a crook.

 

 

Prior to the coup Mr. Taksin had talked the parliament into granting loans to most of the farmers in the country. Not a great deal of money to each but to a poor Thai farmer any amount was great. Approximately eight months later Taksin forgave the farmers their debt, turning the loan into a grant. Consequently they believe he is great. Reminds me of Huey Long.

 

After the Coup the remaining parliament elected a new prime minister without ever holding an election. There has been no election since the coup. Those you hear referred to as the Red Shirts are composed of some of those farmers who are led by a group of politicians who are Taksin's friends. Their open and primary demands are that the present prime minister resign and that an election be held. Sounds simple doesn't it. Well, not exactly.

 

 

 

Thailand has a population of about 60 million people. The City of Bangkok has a population of 12 million. The next largest city is Chiang Mai with 250,000 and from there populations of other cities go down with much of the population living in the country as farmers. The Red Shirts come from the areas out of Bangkok but not every Thai from the country is a Red Shirt. No one really knows how many Red Shirts there are but many from the country are at least sympathizers.

 

To some degree I do sympathize with the Red Shirt demands. Especially to have an election, I do, however, believe that their ultimate goal is not good. They are misguided by their leaders who want to get themselves into power and bring Taksin back as prime minister. The bastard is nothing but a common thief who stole billions of dollars while he was PM. Having been convicted of his thievery, he is on the run between Dubai, Uruguay and Cambodia. He will not return to Thailand because he is facing a two year prison sentence. His goal is to get a pardon and return to become PM again. The Red Shirts are financed by Taksin who sends money to Thailand to pay the Red Shirts to rally for his cause. This 2000 baht payment is a lot to a poor Thai and, consequently, they continue this demonstration. Also, mixed in with the regular Red Shirts are some hired thugs who have amassed weapons such as hand grenades, rifles, and RPGs. Every now and then they use them.

 

 

The present PM offered to hold elections in a couple of months and some Red Shirt leaders agreed but some did not and this stalemate just goes on and on. They are so splintered that it does not appear that they can agree on what they want. Every concession by the government brings on new demands.

 

Most of the action is in downtown Bangkok and since it is such a large city I would not even know it was going on if I did not see the news. My opinion is that this demonstration has disrupted the city for a month and it is time for it to end. The people of Bangkok are certainly tired of it.

 

 

Hopefully you are able to glean from my ramblings a reasonable picture of what is happening here.

[+ Lucky]

While the situation here is serious, the news media is, as usual, having a field day with it and their reports are often "interesting". I live here in Bangkok but the action you hear about is 45 minutes from my home.

 

A little background will help you to understand what is going on here. The problem whirls around a man named Taksin Shinawatra. Mr. Taksin (Thais are referred to by their first name in preference to the family name) was prime minister until four years ago when he was deposed by the Thai Army. Their reasons for this coup are many but it was apparently done because the business people and the army became convinced that Taksin was a crook.

 

 

Prior to the coup Mr. Taksin had talked the parliament into granting loans to most of the farmers in the country. Not a great deal of money to each but to a poor Thai farmer any amount was great. Approximately eight months later Taksin forgave the farmers their debt, turning the loan into a grant. Consequently they believe he is great. Reminds me of Huey Long.

 

After the Coup the remaining parliament elected a new prime minister without ever holding an election. There has been no election since the coup. Those you hear referred to as the Red Shirts are composed of some of those farmers who are led by a group of politicians who are Taksin's friends. Their open and primary demands are that the present prime minister resign and that an election be held. Sounds simple doesn't it. Well, not exactly.

 

 

 

Thailand has a population of about 60 million people. The City of Bangkok has a population of 12 million. The next largest city is Chiang Mai with 250,000 and from there populations of other cities go down with much of the population living in the country as farmers. The Red Shirts come from the areas out of Bangkok but not every Thai from the country is a Red Shirt. No one really knows how many Red Shirts there are but many from the country are at least sympathizers.

 

To some degree I do sympathize with the Red Shirt demands. Especially to have an election, I do, however, believe that their ultimate goal is not good. They are misguided by their leaders who want to get themselves into power and bring Taksin back as prime minister. The bastard is nothing but a common thief who stole billions of dollars while he was PM. Having been convicted of his thievery, he is on the run between Dubai, Uruguay and Cambodia. He will not return to Thailand because he is facing a two year prison sentence. His goal is to get a pardon and return to become PM again. The Red Shirts are financed by Taksin who sends money to Thailand to pay the Red Shirts to rally for his cause. This 2000 baht payment is a lot to a poor Thai and, consequently, they continue this demonstration. Also, mixed in with the regular Red Shirts are some hired thugs who have amassed weapons such as hand grenades, rifles, and RPGs. Every now and then they use them.

 

 

The present PM offered to hold elections in a couple of months and some Red Shirt leaders agreed but some did not and this stalemate just goes on and on. They are so splintered that it does not appear that they can agree on what they want. Every concession by the government brings on new demands.

 

Most of the action is in downtown Bangkok and since it is such a large city I would not even know it was going on if I did not see the news. My opinion is that this demonstration has disrupted the city for a month and it is time for it to end. The people of Bangkok are certainly tired of it.

 

 

Hopefully you are able to glean from my ramblings a reasonable picture of what is happening here.

 

The lower classes must be paid attention to, and the economic gains of Thailand must spread to the poor as well. How that is done short of these protests, I don't know. I am not sure if the protests will accomplish much given the bad leadership that they seem to have.

[fedssocr1]

Just a couple of historical corrections for anyone who might care:

 

There have been elections since the coup. The military junta was in charge for a little over a year and elections were held in late 2007. That election brought to power Thaksin's successors. His party Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) or TRT was ordered disbanded and its leaders banned from holding office for 5 years. So they slapped a new name on the party and rounded up some new leaders who won the election. But everyone knew that the new government was basically a puppet for Thaksin.

 

Of course this turn of events was opposed by the same people who had been protesting against Thaksin since early 2006....the PAD (Peoples Alliance for Democracy) or the yellow shirts. As 2008 went on the PAD protests grew and towards the end of the summer they occupied Government House which is where the PMs office is located. A Constitution Court decision removed then-PM Samak Sundaravej for holding a job outside of his position as PM which is not allowed under the new 2007 constitution. That job was being host of a TV cooking show. With Samak out of his job the party then installed Thaksin's brother in law Somchai Wongsawat as PM. At Somchai's urging a crackdown was ordered on the protesters in October(?) 2008 and a couple of people died. This was seen by many as an unwarranted overuse of force. But they stayed in power.

 

Then in late November 2008 the yellow shirts stepped up their protests by occupying and blocking access to Bangkok's two airports. I was one of the people who got stuck in Thailand for an extra week as a result. Somchai tried to get the army to crackdown but basically they refused to do so. Then another court decision was issued (on a case that had been pending for a while) which also disbanded the PMs party for a variety of vote-buying charges in the previous year's elections. This rendered all of the protests completely pointless and unnecessary. The yellow shirts declared victory and stopped their protest. But the damage to the country's reputation had already been done, and it also showed the other side that mob rule apparently works in Thailand. Whether the court's decision would have been the same regardless is an open question I suppose.

 

After Somchai was out as PM (and the party renamed yet again) the parties that had been in coalition with the Thaksin-oriented party switched their allegiance to the Democrat party forming a new coalition that installed Abhisit Vejjajiva as PM. Since the Thaksin party had not achieved an absolute majority in the 2007 election a coalition was needed to run things. The red shirts like to complain about a lack of "democracy" in how Abhisit came to power. But this was simply a parliamentary maneuver that was certainly not undemocratic.

 

I think this thing has blown up beyond Thaksin at this point. For sure he is still an important part of the puzzle. But now it has gotten more to the root of class warfare and the grievances of the poor. But they are being manipulated to an extent by the rich and powerful leaders of the movement who seem to be more in it for their own potential enrichment. No one outside the protesters really believes that their lives will be changed or improved even if they had been successful.

 

Now that their protests have largely been discredited and are destroying the country's economy it will interesting to see if they get much support outside of their strongholds in the next election (whenever that may be).

 

And Thaksin has had his base in Dubai. But has also been spending time in Montenegro which has issued him a passport, Nicaragua which has done the same, and other places like Fiji. He has effectively been banned from Western Europe.

[MsGuy]

From GayThailand.com

 

I have no way of knowing if this guy knows what he's talking about but he appears to have first hand knowledge and to have given Thailand's current problems quite a bit of thought:

 

"The street riots which culminated with the arson of Bangkok's central business district have been put down as inevitable. Both the ragtag red shirts' perpetrators of violence and the more organised armed "men in black" were no match for a uniformed army supported by armoured columns in the end.

 

The 70-odd death toll so far from the Ratchaprasong-centred protests over the last two months exceeds each of the previous crises - the entwined Octobers of 1973 and 1976 and the straightforward pro-democracy uprising in May 1992.

 

On the other hand, the arson attacks have set back the Bangkok-concentrated capitalist boom by at least a decade. The symbolic damage could be more costly as the knock-on effects on tourism and investment come to the fore.

 

While all stakeholders assess the mounting costs, several troubling questions warrant clarity in the days during the immediate aftermath of the Ratchaprasong rage and rampage.

 

First, had the various peace overtures run their course? On the eve of the crackdown, a senate-sponsored peace deal appeared in the works. Leading senators were shown on state-run and army-owned television stations in discussion with the leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship.

 

Perhaps the UDD hardliners hijacked and vetoed the negotiations. Perhaps convicted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra told the UDD hardliners loyal to him to pull the plug. Perhaps the rank-and-file protesters at Ratchaprasong were intransigent to any deal, having been indoctrinated day in and day out on the stage rhetoric of social injustice and al leged murders of their fellow demonstrators from the April 10 clash.

 

But it was clear that the UDD moderates were intent on standing down. Might more time allotted to them for persuasion of their crowds and bargaining with their opposing hardliners have helped bring a peaceful way out?

 

And the failures of earlier olive branches need to be explained.

 

What happened to the promising negotiations brokered by Bangkok Governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra? Was it scuttled by the Thaksin hardliners, rejected by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, or both? Mr Abhisit came up with a five-point peace proposal with a concrete election timetable for November polls just two weeks before street riots spiralled out of control. This proposal was accepted by the UDD with the additional condition that Deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban turn himself in to police to own up to the civilian deaths on April 10.

 

Why did Mr Suthep surrender to the Department of Special Investigations instead of to the police when he was certain to be freed because no charges had been filed against him? Such gamesmanship and leveraging between the two sides have incurred sombre costs in the streets of Bangkok. And why did PM Abhisit withdraw his peace offer and election timetable if he was intent on finding a peaceful exit out of the brinkmanship? This reversal may have strengthened the hand of UDD hardliners and tipped the balance among the UDD leadership towards a more violent outcome.

 

Second, should the Abhisit government preside over what its finance minister calls a "healing process" when it has been party to the conflict and is culpable for the dead and injured?

 

Early government noises suggest more pacification policies and campaigns to placate the reds in the countryside. But we have been here before. After the Songkran riots in April 2009, Mr Abhisit pledged reconciliation and reform. The consequent recommendations for con stitutional amendments came to naught. Further antagonism and alienation of the reds have partly brought on the Ratchaprasong protests. He and his government had the entire year in 2009 to bridge the divide and bring the red shirts on side, but the result has been the opposite. What can the Abhisit government do this time that they did not do after the reds' rioted in April 2009?

 

Third, what now happens to the reds? Having been forcefully dispersed and roundly condemned for the burning of Bangkok, will the rank-and-file reds simp ly go home and sit quietly? For the reds, nothing has changed. They rioted then and now in April 2009 and May 2010. Their grievances remain unaddressed. What they see as injustice, including their systematic disenfranchisement through the judicial dissolutions of their poll-winning parties not once but twice, the banning of their politicians, and the street-based ouster of their elected governments in 2008, persists. Will these claims of injustice be accommodated by the pro-Abhisit coalition? If not, will the reds come to Bangkok in rage again? Or will they resort to underground activities, including an overtly armed insurgency, and establish their own Thailand away from Bangkok in enclaves of the North and Northeast?

 

Finally, will the arson and looting of the capital be condemned as vehemently in the North and Northeast as in Bangkok? Will the net effect from the protest and crackdown further divide or begin to reconcile Thai society? More questions will emerge while answers will be hard to come by. Picking up the pieces from the last two months will be arduous, and this is all just a beginning.

 

In the eyes of Bangkokians, the reds are disgraced yet again. But the reds may not care because they no longer accept the Thai state such as it is and the political system it upholds, because the system is seen as rigged and stacked against them.

 

The onus rests squarely now on the Abhisit government to bring the reds back into the fold beyond Thaksin. Lumping all the reds under Thaksin's long and manipulative tentacles has been a mistake all along. Accommodating the rank-and-file reds and working with their more moderate leaders, including some of the banned politicians from 2007, may offer a way to bypass Thaksin.

 

If Mr Abhisit is too compromised and tainted for this task, he should consider his position and make a personal sacrifice to enable others to be put in place for the healing to take place.

 

Troubling questions after Operation Ratchaprasong "

 

Link to gayThailand.com: http://www.gaythailand.com/forums/GT-f1/Gay-Thailand-f3/Should-Prime-Minister-Abhisit-Step-t5532.html

[+ Lucky]

There are probably as many opinions in Thailand right now as there are people. Just as groups of all kinds have dissent within their own ranks, the red shirts often found it difficult to come up with a common voice. This became a problem as the talk of negotiations became louder. They simply could not agree on what their goals were and how to go about them. As soon as they thought they had agreement, it fell apart. A lot of this was due to Thaksin in the background trying to both protect himself and advance his political future. Then add in the blackshirts who were determined to carry things to violence and death.

I think the Thai government did the best that they could. The problems will continue to fester until each side agrees that they have to give something to get something. The wealthier Thais have to realize that they must spread the wealth, and the poorer Thais must realize that they were used by Thaksin and his forces and resist this attempt in the future.