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Thailand update 31 May 2010
I have to confess
to being tired of Thai politics. I was arguing online with a brainwashed
friend last night. The reality is that most Thais are more interested in
shopping than democracy - and as long as they can shop in peace they have
few other concerns - at least in the city - and Bangkok is the heart of the
nation's economy.
So why not simply
forget about politics or and from of meaningful democracy?
Just accept that
Thailand is an army state and let an army led and appointed government tell
everyone what to do. We are basically there already.
Democracy across
most of South East Asia is either none existent or a sham - why should
Thailand be any different. Malaysia, Cambodia and Singapore elect
governments under effectively one party rule with a compliant media. Burma
is run by a military junta. Vietnam is run by the army on behalf of the
communist party.
Thailand is no
different; just because it is a favourite tourist destination does not mean
it has to accept western style democracy. It has failed and moved backwards
since the 1997 constitution.
So here are the
latest news items - though I will drop this update from next month unless
there is some major news:
I am sorry Du -
Whatever you do or say I just don't believe you. Like too many Dubai based
companies it is the lack of honesty with customers and the public that is so
depressing.
Du CEO Osman
Sultan told Arabian Business that the company will “definitely” broadcast
this year’s World Cup tournament.
The tournament starts on June 11.
Sultan told
Arabian Business that: “This is the greatest sporting event in the world and
yes, we will show it for sure – definitely.” He added that an official
announcement would be made, giving more details, in the "next few days".
Which is exactly
what a Du representative told me over a week ago.
The World Cup is
every four years. In much of Dubai Du has a TV and internet monopoly. Why
does it take four years to plan coverage of the world's biggest sporting
event?
Even if there is
an announcement in the next few days you can expect pricing to be excessive;
and that getting the service permissioned on your tv will be a nightmare of
dealing with Du's almost non existent customer service.
The management of
Du should collectively be ashamed of themselves.
Do you know how well the international media have been covering Thailand's
political crisis? Very well, indeed - so well that even the European
Parliament has adopted their outlook on Thailand's political crisis.
Watching a video of the European Parliament session held on May 20, one day
after the crisis came to a boiling point on May 19, I thought to myself:
''Wow, do they still also believe the world is flat?'' The people who have
reported the situation ''inaccurately'' have done a very good job of it
indeed.
The session on the ''Violence in Thailand'' was about 21 minutes long,
though you will find that after a while all the delegates were just
repeating each other, so I've summed up key points that were made during the
session:
1) This conflict is the red shirts versus yellow shirt government
supporters.
See, when the foundation of your understanding is already wrong, there's not
much hope for anything else that follows. No, it's not red versus yellow.
The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) supports Sondhi Limthongkul and
the New Politics Party, which isn't a part of the coalition government. They
haven't done anything in this crisis other than sit on the sideline talking
tough and making threats. They condemned the government's handling of the
situation at every turn.
It's just factually wrong - and I'll tell you something else that's
factually wrong. The PAD's name - going by the preaching of their leaders,
the movement should be called the People's Alliance for ''Limited''
Democracy.
2) There's mass censorship, the media has been blocked.
No, only the red media has been blocked. But to be fair, it's a double
standard. If the government is to block the red media, then it should also
block the yellow media. Better yet, it shouldn't block any media. But
definitely, there wasn't mass blocking of any media.
3) The government should've applied the road map.
How could they? The UDD turned down the road map. Somebody forgot to report
that part. Can you waltz on the dance floor if your lady has a sprained
ankle? It takes two.
4) All citizens should enjoy a free election.
Indeed, and all citizens were about to enjoy a free election on Nov 14. I
had my ID card ready, all excited to do my democratic duty - but somebody
changed their mind.
5) They spoke out against Emergency Law.
Bombings and shootings in the streets, the occupation of the business and
shopping district causing millions in damage daily, putting people out of
jobs, out of businesses, attempting to take over ThaiCom, the communication
lifeline of the country - was none of this reported by the international
media in the months prior to May 19?
If this happened in another country, what would you want to declare if not
Emergency Law? Would you make a declaration of love instead?
On an interesting note, one delegate said perhaps her words, her description
of the Thai political crisis, were ''simple and naive'' - well, perhaps that
was the most accurate thing said in that particular European Parliament
session.
So how could the European Parliament session, consisting of some of the most
advanced and enlightened countries in the world - many the very bastions of
democracy be so simplistic, so naive and so factually wrong about what's
going on here?
For one thing, the international media has done a wonderful job. Secondly,
Thaksin Shinawatra - who I always held as the most capable, the most
creative and the savviest of any Thai prime minister in modern times - has
also done a wonderful job with his marketing machine. And thirdly, the
Abhisit government has done a poor job of it.
The entire foreign policy of Thailand has been one thing: Let's catch
Thaksin. Let's hound Thaksin. Let's talk badly about Thaksin. It's no wonder
the world sympathises with Thaksin. He's like Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me
If You Can - without the good looks, of course.
The world knows he's on the run for having done some very bad things, and
yet the authorities have stumbled and bungled in such a clueless way that
the supposed criminal is being seen as a hero.
When speaking to the world, perhaps it's best to have ''friends'' helping
us. Based on findings by the Bangkok Post, most foreign investors in
Thailand do understand the situation at one level or another and are
concerned with a number of issues that would help to restore Thailand in the
eyes of the world, politically and economically.
The government must restore law and order. Establish the rule of law. The
government must start the process of reconciliation, by creating an
independent and transparent investigation into what happened. The government
must launch a strong PR campaign to restore confidence among foreign
investors.
I'm one of those who believe that a PR campaign should be based on real
substance, not a silly song and dance - and those recommendations by foreign
investors are valid and I'm sure a lot of us Thais share similar sentiments.
So what the government should and must do is, well, get it done - then we
can advertise to the world how fair and just Thailand is.
Regarding the rule of law, for example, provincial governors and police
chiefs have been transferred to inactive posts for their incompetence in
handling the crisis. Sounds good, but who then will take responsibility for
the incompetence shown in Bangkok? Another example. The yellow shirt PAD's
case has been with the Attorney General's office for two years now. What's
holding it up? Who's holding it up? I don't know. But this I do know: Prime
Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has the power, the duty and the responsibility to
speed it up.
No need for a song and dance about the evil of Thaksin and the reds. That's
just going to make them look heroic. No need for a song and dance about the
wonderful democracy we have in Thailand. We barely have a democracy, and
much work needs to be done before we can boast about it.
And definitely, don't go for the song and dance about Thailand returning to
normal. No. What Thailand was will never be, nor should it ever be, again.
We should evolve. An important point I would like to make here is: Bangkok
is rebuilding, the middle class and the elites grabbed a broom and cleaned
up Ratchaprasong, we have a huge grand sale to the joy of everyone - while
everything and anything right now is focusing on Bangkok rising from the
ashes. Upcountry they are holding funerals for their fallen. They are
weeping, mourning, angry. They are disenfranchised. We need reconciliation.
Thailand is not only Bangkok. We are 65 million strong. If we ignore and
neglect our brothers and sisters upcountry, history will repeat itself. The
motto ''Together We Can'' that is the hippest phrase around Bangkok these
days shouldn't pertain to only Bangkokians, but every Thai.
The rule of law - fair and just, swift, severe and certain - will provide
stability and will lead the way towards reconciliation. The European
parliament and the world may be misinformed, but it's not blind, deaf or
dumb. It's up to us to show them the truth.
But if we want to present to the world the ''right'' image, a PR campaign
must be based on real substance, not just a song and dance - Lady Justice
may be blind, but she's neither deaf nor dumb.
The curfew will
probably end today. It should. Bangkok was busy yesterday. A nation
rejoicing in being able to shop again. Siam Paragon was packed. Platinum was
heaving. One reason Siam Paragon is packed is that no one can go to Central
World, except for die hard photographers looking at the burned out
buildings.
It is graphic when
you see the damage up close. The gutted buildings still smell on burned
plastics. How did they burn so easily? What happened to sprinkler systems.
And who did start the fires? Who gave the orders? Who chose the
buildings that were to be burned? Central World on the south and east sides
is totally destroyed. The Siam Theatre burned out. The shops around Siam
Theatre gutted. Their owners without the time to rescue anything are now
working from tented covers along the street trying to keep their business
alive.
Sadly with the
government using the destruction to justify their clamp down on the red
shirt leaders and their supporters we will probably never know the truth
about what happened and why the buildings were unprotected and burned to
easily.
In Bangkok,
scapegoats of the rude and fatuous
27 May 2010 Roger Mitton -Today
OnlineI could not have written this better - exactly on the issue
of balance.
"My street here in Bangkok was barricaded at both ends last week, as
gunshots and explosions rang out almost continuously. Dense black smoke hung
overhead from burning tyres and torched shops, banks and restaurants nearby.
Electricity and water were cut off. We were "locked down" at 6pm and a night
curfew imposed. Most of our neighbours fled.
It was not nice.
But it has passed and we survived. Now, however, a different kind of
unpleasantness has surfaced: An attempt to malign analysts and journalists,
particularly the foreign media, by saying they never understood what was
going on during the mayhem in Bangkok and thus made a hash of reporting it.
It is the old blame-the-messenger routine from those who benefit from the
status quo.
Last Friday, Arglit Boonyai, editor of the Bangkok Post's weekly supplement,
Guru, wrote: "The international press is making a complete mess of their
reporting of the situation." Letters in the Bangkok Post that day said the
"international media has been so one-sided" and referred to the "childish
and misinformed reporting by both the CNN and BBC".
The well-known novelist and artistic director of the Bangkok Opera, Somtow
Sucharitkul, issued a critical piece in his popular blog entitled Don't
Blame Dan Rivers.
Depicting CNN correspondent Dan Rivers as being typical of the foreign
press, Somtow wrote: "A lot of people here are astonished and appalled at
the level of irresponsibility and inaccuracy shown by such major news
sources as CNN."
Actually, I was a bit astonished and appalled at the level of hateful
insults being tossed out by those who ought to know better.
The nadir came when the Bangkok Post's Sunday columnist Andrew Biggs,
writing from the safety of Los Angeles, called CNN "the world's biggest
mouthpiece for the Red Shirts". Tearing into the network's commentators
(neither of whom I have ever met), Biggs wrote: "I have watched helplessly
as Dan-somebody and the aptly-named Sara Snide - or is it Snider? -
reporting (sic) breathlessly from the Red Shirt camp."
He foamed onward: "I don't damn Dan and Sara for being deluded or even
misguided ... I don't like them for being lazy." He even stooped to
asserting that the duo made up their reporting as they went along.
That was not the end of the nastiness. On Monday, Bangkok Post commentator
Philip J Cunningham lambasted CNN for giving "undue airtime to overly
made-up, puffy-haired announcers with fancy graphics tools who make ignorant
comments about Thailand".
Wow. Journalists sticking the knife into colleagues who have been doing
their best under harrowing, dangerous conditions.
And the basis for these intemperate and nastily personal attacks?
It is that foreign reporters, while not openly supportive of the red-shirted
protesters, did give credence to their principal gripe that Thailand is run
by a privileged elite that cares little for the welfare of poor folk in the
hinterlands.
Naturally, people like Somtow and Arglit, and even Prime Minister Abhisit
Vejjajiva and his colleagues, who are members of the Bangkok bourgoisie, did
not like this.
So they responded by saying it was simplistic and belied a lack of
understanding of the situation. From there, it was a small step to say the
foreign press was irresponsible, inaccurate, and made a hash of its
reporting.
But that is preposterous. In fact, the international media was exemplary in
its brave and largely unbiased coverage of this apprehended revolution.
Regrettably, the same cannot be said of the domestic press and
government-controlled radio and TV stations.
As a columnist in Thai Rath wrote: "The Thai media's coverage of the Red
Shirts' protest has been very disappointing. To get the truth, the Thai
public must rely on foreign newspapers and TV broadcasters, such as the BBC,
CNN and Al Jazeera."
So, let's stop this spiteful hunt for imaginary scapegoats in the foreign
press and start taking action. As the Bangkok Post stated on Friday: "(We)
should not forgive. The actions of some among the Red Shirts of the past
several weeks were unconscionable."
That is true. Of the mayhem last week, the Post continued: "Someone
organised it, someone funded it and someone supported it. And they must be
punished."
That is also true. And the same punishment must apply to the Yellow Shirt
mobsters, who earlier occupied Government House for months and trashed it,
who sought violently to invade Parliament, and who shut down Bangkok's
airports and shattered the tourism industry and the nation's image.
Yet so far not a single Yellow Shirt leader has been punished. When asked
about it, Prime Minister Abhisit says the investigation is in the hands of
the police. But it has been almost two years and it is not a case for
Sherlock Holmes. We know who these people are and what they did.
They set the template for the Reds.
So instead of wasting time making nasty and tasteless personal attacks on
foreign journalists, the likes of Somtow and Arglit, Biggs and Cunningham
should campaign for the punishment of both Red and Yellow Shirt leaders
equally.
Let us have the head honchos of both sides put in the same jail together -
as far away from Bangkok as possible.
And when that is done, the puffy-haired Biggs and the aptly-named Somtow and
the overly-made-up Arglit can treat Dan and Sara, as well as the superlative
BBC crew, to a fully deserved drink or two."
Roger Mitton is a former Asiaweek correspondent and former bureau chief in
Hanoi and Washington for The Straits Times. He has reported on South-east
Asia for 25 years.
Dealing with
'the devil', the reds and looking within
27 May 2010 -
from
the Bangkok Post - and a sensible (but probably forlorn) plea for
reason and fairness.
"The images that
have been broadcast around the world of Thai military forces breaking
through barricades set up by red shirt protesters in Bangkok's central
business district (Ratchaprasong) and of the subsequent rampage by red
shirts, with major buildings in this district destroyed by arson, are truly
shocking not only for Thai people but also for foreigners like myself who
have been deeply engaged with the country for a long time.
Many Bangkokians
and supporters of the Abhisit government around the country point to a very
particular cause of the dramatic and tragic events of April-May 2010. This
cause is one person, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin has become
in their eyes the devil incarnate - a demon-like figure very comparable to
the witches in traditional societies who are seen as the causes of all
misfortunes and maladies. If only he could be permanently removed from
further involvement in Thai politics, they believe, then Thailand could
return to a calm, cohesive society.
There is no
question that Thaksin is culpable for using his wealth and influence to
support the red shirts not only for peaceful demonstrations but also for the
use of violence.
However, if the
Abhisit government and others involved in promoting reconciliation continue
to focus solely on Thaksin as the only cause of the conflict, they will be
making a strategic mistake. The path to reconciliation will soon lead to a
dead end, and further conflict will ensue.
The world economic
crisis has had a particularly strong negative impact on the rural Northeast
of Thailand. This area is "rural" because most families continue to engage
in some agriculture.
However, the basis
of the economy of this region is not agriculture, and has not been for at
least 20 years. Instead, most households depend on income from family
members who work in the industrial and service sectors of the Thai economy.
Hundreds of thousands of mainly male workers have taken up contract work in
Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, the Gulf States and Israel. In fact, it is likely
that a higher percentage of northeasterners have passports than do members
of the urban lower middle class.
While the global
economic crisis that began in 2007 has had only a modest impact on the urban
middle class, it has had a major impact on northeastern families. There is
now a large unemployed or underemployed population, most of whom are
relatively young men. This population is the source of the shock troops of
the red shirts - those who actually carried out the arson both in Bangkok
and upcountry and who were most defiant in confronting the security forces.
The Abhisit
government does not even seem to be aware of this group of young men -
perhaps because as unemployed or underemployed members of the informal
sector, they are invisible in terms of official statistics.
Unless the Thai
government does something comparable to what was done after urban riots in
the United States and elsewhere, the disaffection and discontent of
northeastern young men will continue with or without Thaksin's support.
In those other
cases, governments sponsored job-training, stimulus funding for projects
that offer significant employment, and support for community-based groups.
A second factor
that must be taken into account if there is really to be progress along the
path to reconciliation, is the deep split in society along a combination of
class and ethno-regional lines. Support for the red shirt movement is very
strong throughout rural northeastern and northern Thailand in part because
villagers and their kinsmen who work in Bangkok and elsewhere are aware of
being constantly denigrated by members of the middle class, particularly in
Bangkok.
This denigration
has deep historical roots. The people of the Northeast and North were seen
by Central Thai as "Lao" when they were first integrated into the new
nation-state of Thailand. Although the people of these regions have long
since come through participation in mass education and consumption of
Bangkok-based media to identify as "Thai" who are also Khon Isan
(northeastern Thai) and Khon Muang (northern Thai), older negative images
persist of these people being somehow less "Thai" than Bangkokians.
Negative images,
especially of northeasterners, have been used often in films and TV dramas.
In the past few years, people of these regions have been branded over and
over again by commentators on ASTV, the television network of the People's
Alliance for Democracy (PAD), in many Bangkok newspapers, and in hundreds of
blogs and Facebook pages as being stupid "buffaloes" and even more vulgar
characterisations. Somehow those who generate such media depictions seem to
believe that "villagers" are uninformed, and unaware of these
characterisations.
On the contrary,
they are very much aware of them, and this constant denigration has become
one of the primary drivers of the conflict.
The Abhisit
government has worked assiduously, although not always successfully, to shut
down community radio stations and the websites which promote a red shirt
perspective, arguing that such outlets have stirred up violence and hatred.
At the same time, it has done nothing about controlling the hate-mongering
that takes place on ASTV and in other media. Such is not only directed
against the red shirts, but also against Malay Muslims in southern Thailand
and Khmer in northeastern Thailand as well as in Cambodia.
Although the
government cannot and should not attempt to control the content of the
media, it can demonstrate even-handedness by prosecuting clear instances of
incitement on both sides. It can also increase social sanctions against
hate-mongering by supporting independent, quality media, boycotting media
outlets on both sides that continuously spread divisions between Thais, and
being more careful to avoid inflammatory language (such as casual use of the
word "terrorist") in official pronouncements.
Members of the
government, local leaders and others who are actively working for
reconciliation will need all the help they can get. While the fires may have
been put out, the country is still simmering. Many Bangkokians are furious
about the trauma their city has experienced over the past two months, and
are calling for punishment not only for those directly responsible, but also
for their supporters.
At the same time,
red shirt supporters have a deep, abiding anger about the death and injuries
of friends and relatives, and call for revenge.
In all of this,
the Buddhist value of controlling anger that is one of the Five Precepts
that almost everyone in Thailand has committed themselves to, is being lost.
There is even the danger that some Thais will pursue a path similar to that
of the Khmer Rouge, who distorted the Buddhist ideal of curtailing one's
passion into a terrifying lack of emotion when engaged in acts of violence.
It is critical
that Thais rediscover the true Buddhist value of working to cool passions.
The SEA Write
winning poet, Chiranan Pitpreecha, has written a beautiful poem entitled
Time Out (Mot Wela) that has been set to music by the famous singer Ad
Carabao. The song, soon to be widely released, warns their fellow Thai of
allowing their tears to remain festering within. Instead, the song
continues, Thai people should take "time out" so that passions can cool.
While it is too
much to expect that those leaders on both sides who seek punishment or
revenge will listen, one can hope that most Thai will heed this cry from the
heart and then turn to the slow, patient work of removing the causes for
conflict that immoral or amoral leaders have been exploiting."
Charles
Keyes is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and International
Studies,Department of Anthropology, University of Washington.
Reuters reports
that the government has extended censorship against anti-govt protesters by
banning four red shirt publications.
Thailand's army
chief Anupong Paochina signed an order this week to ban three newspapers and
one magazine associated with the "red-shirt" protesters. The bans to
"protect national security" will further stifle communications by the
protesters' United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD).
Breach of the bans carry a maximum jail term of two years.
The move follows the blocking of scores of websites, community radio
stations and the UDD's television station, People's Channel, under a state
of emergency currently in place in Bangkok and 23 provinces.
The latest bans are likely to draw criticism from media activists in a
country that has slipped from 65 in the world in 2002 for press freedom to
130 in 2009, according to the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.
The outlawed publications include the twice-weekly Truth Today newspaper,
the weekly Thai Red News and Vivatha, and bi-monthly Voice of Taksin, which
mimics the U.S. news magazine, Time, and is named after the protest
movement's figurehead, ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
"These media outlets are not real newspapers. They are tools for groups to
create chaos in the country," Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thuagsuban told
reporters.
And ASTV and the
Manager of course are fine upstanding examples of balanced print and TV
media.
flydubai's 21st
is Sri Lanka
26 May 2010
flydubai, Dubai’s
low cost airline, said on Wednesday that it will launch flights to Sri Lanka
next month.
It is expanding its network in the Indian sub-continent with flights to the
Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, starting on June 23, with tickets priced from
AED450.
The Sri Lanka route is flydubai's 21st destination launch since it started
operations last summer, the airline said in a statement.
Ghaith Al Ghaith, flydubai's CEO said: "We started 2010 with a determination
to add new and exciting destinations to our route network. With our recent
announcements of destinations as far apart as Istanbul, Lucknow, Colombo and
Karachi, we have delivered on our promise to establish ourselves as an
affordable, accessible airline with a professional service and a network to
be proud of by the anniversary of our first flight."
The new route will target the 300,000 Sri Lankans expats currently living in
the UAE as well as those looking to holiday in the tropical destination.
flydubai will operate four flights per week on Mondays, Wednesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays.
The Ministry of
Tourism and Sports on Wednesday issued a statement to assure tourists that
political unrest in Thailand has been completely under control and order in
Bangkok and other provinces has been restored. (Oh really ! Take a
trip to the south...)
A guide to the perfect Thai idiot
26 May 2010 -
The Bangkok Post
Now sit back
and watch the abuse that is hurled at this writer. A shame, because it is a
thought provoking article; yes it is probably a little over the top and yes
it deals in generalisations - but no Thai or anyone living in Thailand could
say that it is not without a grounding in reality.
"In 1996, three Latin Americans wrote a best-selling book in Spanish which
was later translated into English as Guide to the Perfect Latin American
Idiot.
Hundreds of Thai volunteers take to the streets alongside city municipal
street cleaners to clean up after weeks of protest by the red shirts at
Ratchaprasong in Bangkok.
Their main contention is that Latin American problems are not caused by
outside influences as Latin Americans generally believe. Rather, they result
mainly from actions of Latin Americans themselves.
Correcting Latin American problems, therefore, must come from Latin
Americans.
Ask Thais about the causes of last week's shameful event - or of any
problems in Thailand for that matter - and they will readily point the
finger somewhere else, never at themselves.
I am a Thai so I am part of this well-practised response. But I now believe
that if we continue with this long-running charade of self-deception,
Thailand is on its way to becoming a failed state shortly.
We present Thailand as the Land of Smiles full of gentle Buddhists. We
regularly give alms to monks and often make donations to temples, believing
that those are selfless acts for the welfare of others.
Deep down, however, we do that only because we wish to get something in
return - to go to heaven or have a richer next life. It is a trade, pure and
simple, nothing kind or selfless about it.
Few of us give for the sake of giving. We are basically very selfish.
Every time we go to the temple or attend a Buddhist ceremony, we duly accept
and recite the Five Precepts as a guide to our daily lives, but we leave
them there, as we always make promises without ever intending to keep them.
Actually, we understand little about Buddhism.
Even among the ranks of the monks, most do not know the teachings in-depth
and lead their lives accordingly - all they know is how to conduct
ceremonies from which they earn easy income.
This reflects something deeper - we are generally lazy and like to take
short-cuts to the sabai (do-nothing) state. Lottery tickets, therefore,
always sell out at premium prices; prostitution is rampant and young women
readily marry foreign pensioners.
We love to talk but rarely listen. Even when we do, we often fail to hear,
as we never learn to think critically.
We cannot put up with different points of view nor can we work
cooperatively.
Many of the over 30,000 Buddhist temples were built next to one another
because when we disagreed with one, we just built another.
That the cooperative movement has never been successful here is another
indication of our inability to tolerate different points of view.
We readily forgive, so we believe, as our most common utterance is mai pen
rai (it doesn't matter) when someone makes a mistake. But that is only a
reflection of the culture of indifference and ready rationalisation.
We can always cite a well-known proverb, a famous poem or a sage's sharp
utterance to justify everything we do.
We complain so much about corruption. But we do little about it.
Worse, we keep electing the same corrupt politicians because they have money
and influence from which we hope to benefit.
Survey after survey shows that the majority of us do not mind corruption as
long as we get something out of it.
One of the surveys last year showed that almost 85% of us believed that
cheating was a normal business practice, making us practically a nation of
thieves.
When I raised the matter in this column, I received the angriest responses
from fellow Thais, using expressions so colourful that they should not be
printed nor uttered within earshot of other humans.
This long-running self-deception has created so much moral deficit, to
employ Joseph Stiglitz's terminology, that has put Thailand into a state of
moral crisis for some time now. Some of the symptoms of this state are the
economic crisis of 1997 and the protests culminating in last week's events.
Of course, we will never admit this, for we are perfect and will continue to
be very angry when a foreigner utters something non-complementary about us.
But I do hope that the events of last week shock most of us into
re-examining ourselves, our values, and start reducing the moral deficit as
well as trying to generate some moral surplus: doing more genuinely
voluntary work for the common good similar to the street cleaning carried
out by Bangkokians last weekend, but on a regular basis."
Du's World Cup
balls-up
26 May 2010
In most of the
world the football world cup is shown on free to air networks; basically
inline with FIFA directives. Not in the UAE. Worse still anyone on eth DU
network will be unable to watch the games unless a last minute deal is done
as the company has so far failed to reach agreement on broadcasting the
event.
Broadcasting rights across the region are owned by Al Jazeera Sport, and
currently be accessed either by purchasing an Al Jazeera Sports card or
through Etisalat’s pay TV E-Vision. Both are charging existing customers
about $100 to upgrade to the World Cup service.
However Du – which is the exclusive television service provider to most new
developments in Dubai – has still to agree a deal, less than three weeks
before the tournament starts.
Du provides
internet, television and land phone services through a fibre optic network
to new buildings such as Executive Towers. No alternative service is
available.
Du customers are connected to the tv service through a decoder box without a
slot for the Al Jazeera Sports cards. Thousands of homes in the UAE will not
receive any World Cup matches.
A spokesman for du told Arabian Business: “As of now we do not have an
update regarding the World Cup.” It start in just two weeks.
Du’s call centre said that “talks were on-going” but couldn’t confirm when
they would be concluded.
Al Jazeera announced last month that it had dedicated several extra channels
to broadcast the tournament.
However, UAE soccer fans are getting increasingly concerned that they may be
on one of the only places in the world where the tournament won’t be shown
on live television.
One fan told Arabian Business: “I’m actually starting to panic. There are
just days to go before it kicks off, and as yet I have no idea whether I
will be able to watch it. I have been calling Du three times a day for the
past month, and they keep telling me this will be sorted tomorrow.”
Earlier this month, Grand Cinemas announced it had struck a deal with Al
Jazeera, to show the tournament’s matches live on its cinema screens.
Andy Fordham, project manager at Grand Cinemas, told Arabian Business that
the UAE-based cinema operator plans to sell around 4,800 tickets per match
throughout the tournament.
Prices will start at AED35 ($9.52) and will increase as the tournament
progresses, with tickets for the final priced at AED100 ($27.22).
Packages for bulk and group bookings will also be available. Tickets are due
to go on sale on June 2 and can be booked through the Grand Cinemas website.
This should be
bye bye Salwan
26 May 2010
Homeowners will be
able to take complete control of the management of their buildings and
communities after guidelines allowing the implementation of the emirate’s
long-awaited “strata law” were released yesterday.
The law will mean that homeowners associations will be able to select
companies in charge of the upkeep of facilities such as lifts, foyers,
swimming pools and gardens, taking that decision out of the hands of
developers and potentially reducing residents’ costs.
“The implications of releasing these guidelines are profound and
far-reaching for owners, developers and Dubai’s property sector in general,”
said Sultan bin Butti bin Mejren, the director general of the Land
Department, adding that the recommendations would “immediately transform the
nature of ownership of a major slice of Dubai’s total property stock while
introducing a new form of ownership blending freehold and commonhold of
communal areas”.
The law allows homeowners to select their property management firms and set
maintenance fees. It also more clearly delineates rights of ownership
between owner and developer. Although the law was introduced in 2007, in the
absence of the guidelines, the rights of many homeowners associations have
not been enforced.
The amount paid on service fees has been a bone of contention for residents
in some developments in Dubai, where property prices have fallen by as much
as 50 per cent since the end of 2008.
A small group of homeowners in Discovery Gardens petitioned Sheikh Mohammed
bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, in November over
long-running complaints about service and maintenance fees. They said they
were spurred into action after receiving information that Nakheel, Discovery
Gardens’s master developer, had asked the Dubai Real Estate Regulatory
Agency for permission to charge Dh21.85 a square foot in annual fees, which
comes to more than Dh20,000 (US$5,445) for a typical one-bedroom flat.
Although details of the guidelines, which will also apply to commercial
buildings, have not been revealed, experts say they are a major leap
forward.
Michael Aldendorff, who owns a property in Discovery Gardens, said he would
like more clarity.
“My only concern is that this has been drawn up in isolation of homeowners,”
he said, adding that he and fellow owners had recently received an
invitation from RERA to attend a one-day workshop at which the strata law
would be explained, at a cost of Dh3,000 ($816) a person. Emaar Properties,
the country’s largest developer, said last November that it was prepared to
abandon its property management system once the strata law was in effect,
adding that it would recognise “the right of the owners’ associations to
choose management firms and service providers”.
Stephen Kelly, a strata title specialist with the international law firm
Clyde and Company in Dubai, said: “It’s an extremely positive step for the
industry. Developers and their advisers are eagerly waiting to view the
directions of the guidelines so they can start the implementation process.”
Ahmad Kasem, the chief development officer of Cayan, the developer behind
the Dubai Marina towers Jewels and Dorra Bay, said developers and owners
should work together during the first year after homes are handed over in
order to deal with any nagging problems.
“After that, I believe the developer should immediately leave it to the
associations,” Mr Kasem said.
People familiar with the regulations, which have undergone numerous
modifications since the strata law was enacted in 2007, said the move would
also give owner associations the right to sell the properties of members who
fail to pay maintenance fees so that arrears could be recovered.
For the average homeowner, the strata law is about service charges. These
annual fees can reach tens of thousands of dirhams in some developments in
Dubai.
The fees, which are often charged directly by the developer of the property,
pay for the upkeep of commonly owned spaces such as lobbies, hallways,
landscaping, pools and even private transit lines.
The strata law, decreed in 2007 but with regulations only now being issued,
sets out a framework for how owners deal with these jointly owned spaces.
It provides for the creation of homeowner associations, which operate like
boards of directors, to hire maintenance companies for the upkeep of their
buildings and grounds. Analysts say this subtle change in the way properties
are governed can lead to significant cost cuts for homeowners.
Powered by self-interest, the homeowner associations are looking for a
balance between low cost and high quality maintenance of properties.
Without the law, property developers can charge whatever fee they wish
without disclosing how the money is being used.
With the new regulations in place, homeowners will be able to democratically
elect representatives to make decisions.
The Thaksin
terrorism charge needs evidence
25 May 2010
I am no great
Thaksin fan. Then, I am no great Abhisit fan.
Today's
terrorism charge against Thaksin appears hasty and based on politics and not
reality.
The Bangkok Post
reports:
The Criminal Court today approved the Department of Special Investigation's
request for an arrest warrant for former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra
on terrorism charges.
The Nation as you
can see rejoiced....this is the Wednesday 26th cover.
The court approved the warrant after examining testimony given by DSI chief
Tharit Pengdit, his deputy Pol Col Narat Savetanant and Pol Lt-Col Thawal
Mangkhang, the DSI chief investigator, on Monday. The three presented the
court with additional documents and clips of Thaksin speaking from abroad
via video link to red-shirt rallies.
The court examination on Monday was held in camera. No reporters or public
were allowed in the courtroom.
So the evidence
was presented secretly. ThaiPBS late news showed one of the videos that the
DSI presented as evidence. It was of Thaksin stating to the reds that if the
army commits violence against the reds then they should gather at provincial
halls. He does not tell them to commit arson. Surely not sufficient evidence
for a warrant.
It is incidentally
also a long time since he last called in by video to the demonstrations.
Which makes his link to the violence even less clear. Checking phone records
of the red shirt leaders may be instructive.
According to Matichon, the arrest warrant was issued as Thaksin likely
committed offences against Sections 135/1, 135/2, and 135/3 of the Criminal
Code. Below is Bangkok Pundit'ss translation of these provisions:
Section 135/1 A person commits an act which is a criminal offence [if
they commit one] of the following:
(1) [The person] commits an act of violence, or commits any act which causes
harm to [a person's] life, or serious harm to [a person's] body, or the
liberty of any person,
(2) [The person] commits an act causing serious damage to a public
transportation system, a telecommunications system, or to any infrastructure
which has a public benefit, [or]
(3) [The person] commits an act causing damage to the property of any state,
or of any person, or to the environment which has caused or is likely to
cause significant economic damage.
If such acts are committed with the intention to threaten, or to compel the
Thai Government, a foreign government, or an international organisation to
do or abstain from doing any act which will cause serious damage or to cause
disorder by creating widespread fear among the public [then] that person has
committed a terrorist act.
[That person] shall be punished by death, life imprisonment or a term of
imprisonment between three years to twenty years, and a fine between 60,000
Baht to 1,000,000 Baht.
Any act of demonstrating, rallying, protesting, opposing or [being part of
a] movement to demand the state to assist or to obtain justice, which is an
exercise of [a person's] liberty as prescribed in the Constitution, is not a
terrorist act
So what action has Thaksin taken that could be proven beyond a reasonable
doubt to be terrorism. He spoke by video link to the rallies But does
that cause damage? Under the statute he would actually have to commit the
offence.
As the Financial
Times notes the Thai government has so far failed to persuade any country to
extradite Mr Thaksin under any of the pre-existing charges, and given that a
number of countries have laws prohibiting the extradition of suspects to
face charges that could result in the death penalty, these new charges could
actually make Mr Thaksin safer from arrest.
The next charge is under Section 135/2 which says a person who:
(1) Threatens to commit a terrorist act by [showing] behaviour which is
convincing enough to believe that the person will actually do as threatened,
or
(2) Mobilises people or weapons, procures or collects property, gives or
receives terrorist training, makes any other preparations or conspires with
others to commit a terrorist act or any offence which is a part of plan to
commit a terrorist act or incite the public [any person] to participate in a
terrorist act, or knows that a person will commit a terrorist act [and] does
some act to help to conceal it.
That person shall be punished with a term of imprisonment between two years
to ten years, and a fine between 40,000 Baht to 200,000 Baht (emphasis
added)
The charge against Thaksin could be under this section. Incitement does not
mean Thaksin has to be physically present, but they are going to need more
than videos telling people to gather at provincial halls if the army is
violent towards the reds. Alternatively, they could go after Thaksin for a
general conspiracy charge, but they would need to have evidence of
conspiring to commit terrorist acts rather than generalisations.
And under Section 135/3 a person who is a supporter [or accessory] of the
commission of an offence in Section 135/1 or Section 135/2 shall receive the
same punishment as the principal offender. The only proof needed here is
that Thaksin knew of the principal offence at the time he was providing
support.
To proceed with an extradition request it is likely there will need to be an
order from the Office of the Attorney-General first to proceed with the
prosecution.
PM Abhisit rather
naively plays up the international anti - terrorism message. “For terrorism,
it’s clearer and the international community sees it as an important issue,”
the prime minister told reporters in Bangkok today. “It’s more
understandable.”
The government continues to allege that Thaksin orchestrated the two-month
occupation of central Bangkok that ended May 19th. Thaksin denies the
terrorism charges.
The question that
the Nation and others fail to ask is why the authorities were able to issue
arrest warrants for Thaksin so quickly, but it is 18 months and no arrest
warrants for terrorism offences have been issued for the PAD leaders in
relation to the airport seizure.
The quickness of
the investigation reeks of political expediency and can be seen as part of a
wider crackdown on all goverment opponents.
What I fail to
understand is why they want to get him back to Thailand. His return will be
a rallying call to his supporters and a cause for more and potentially
violent riots. The trial would attract massive international media attention
on a case that could simply end up as a show trial.
By way of another
example of the current witch hunt the CRES ordered the arrest of Prof.
Suthachai Yimprasert, Professor at Department of History, Faculty of Arts,
Chulalongkorn University. The Professor is alleged to be part of a plot to
overthrow the monarchy and the authorities explain the arrest is to prevent
Mr. Suthachai and others from organizing terrorist act which violates the
emergency decree.
He stood and spoke
on a stage at the red shirt rally and is now in jail. Meanwhile Kasit stood
on the stage and spoke at the yellow shirt airport occupation and he is now
Thailand's foreign minister. Anyone doubt double standards?
How bad is the
UK debt?
25 May 2010
This great graphic
from the Independent tells you all that you need to know. gbp 6 billion of
cots cuts are no more than a scratch for all the political noise that is
being made !
Dubai Holding
may be next to restructure debt
25 May 2010 -
Reuters
"The likelihood of
a debt restructuring of Dubai Holding, a conglomerate owned by Dubai's
ruler, is mounting due to its exposure to the property sector and cash flow
problems, an analyst told Reuters Insider.
Dubai Holding is seen as the next subject of the emirate's debt
restructuring programme which started with Dubai World in November, Saud
Masud, head of research for the Middle East and North Africa at bank UBS,
said in an interview.
"We believe Dubai Holding has roughly $15 billion in loans and bonds but
this does not include any off balance liabilities arising from investor or
end-user default on properties that have dramatically declined in 18
months," Masud said.
"There is a clear cash flow risk in Dubai and I wouldn't be surprised if the
same holds true for Dubai Holding," he said.
Dubai Holding, owned by the emirate's rule Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al
Maktoum, holds a substantial portfolio of brands in the property and
hospitality sectors, organised under three main groupings: Dubai Holding
Commercial Operations Group (DHCOG), Dubai International Capital and Dubai
Group.
A debt restructuring of Dubai Holding would further dent Dubai's reputation
following the shock of Dubai World's difficulties, Masud said.
The Investment Corporation of Dubai, or ICD, is the third, large holding
company that contains assets controlled by the ruling family.
"I think the prestige risk is considerably higher with Dubai Holding as
compared to ICD or Dubai World given its direct linkage to the head of the
Dubai's ruling family," he said.
Dubai Holding may struggle to service debt and keep enough working capital
at the same time, making a debt restructuring crucial, he said.
Concerns about the overall debt burden of Dubai's state-linked companies
flared last November, after Dubai announced a standstill on repaying $26
billion in debt as it restructured conglomerate Dubai World. It unveiled a
$9.5 billion rescue plan for the firm in March.
The UAE's central bank governor Sultan bin Nasser Al Suweidi said on Monday
the worst was behind the emirate and that he could not foresee the outcome
of a potential Dubai Holding restructuring.
Dubai Holding's unit DHCOG delayed its 2009 results in April while trading
in its Islamic bond, listed on Nasdaq Dubai, was halted on May 2. The delay
was extended on May 16, with DHCOG citing complexities in consolidating
results of its units.
The Financial Times reported this month that three companies within Dubai
Holding, including DHCOG, had engaged advisers ahead of a potential plan to
restructure billions in debt."
An open letter
to the red shirts
25 May 2010
By Somtow Sucharitkul - The Nation (an unusual opinion piece for the Nation)
"I am writing you this letter because in the past six weeks I have often
been angry. I've often been disappointed, disillusioned and frustrated. But
there was only one moment in this entire agonising sequence that moved me to
tears. That was when your leader, Veera Musigapong, surrendered to the
authorities and spoke of his dreams, his disappointments and his enduring
hopes.
As the smoke dies down, you are going to be told that you were lied to,
duped, tricked, bought and betrayed; that you were tools of evil men who did
not truly care about your fate; that you are terrorists, arsonists,
destroyers of our culture, king-haters. It will be said that you destroyed
the country's international image and obstructed its economic recovery.
Worst of all, you will be told that you are all ignorant people who have
misused your political voices because you didn't understand democracy.
I am afraid that in many cases, the people who say these things will be
telling the truth. The instant rebirth that you wanted for our country has
turned out to be more of a false dawn. Many crimes have been committed and
both sides have hidden important facts from each other.
Even though these things are in many cases true, I want you to know that
they have not invalidated other truths: The truths that you carried in your
hearts when you set out to air your grievances in a peaceful demonstration.
The doors that should have opened for you years ago, when this country
became a democracy, have opened too slowly. The education that you need to
become equal participants in society has been withheld too long. The voice
that you have always had has been discovered too late, and because it was so
long pent up, it has been expressed destructively. And the worst destruction
was not that of a few shopping malls and banks; it was the destruction you
wreaked upon yourselves.
But I want you to know that when it comes to the liberation of the human
spirit, history is on your side. The road towards a more perfect democracy
may be difficult, but it is unstoppable. You did not lose this war. But I
hope you will have learned from it. The question is not whether the war will
be won, but how it will be won: Through mayhem and bloodshed, or through
slow, painful discussion and compromise - through evolution - the civilised
way.
It may be hard for you to believe this, but many people who have been
painted as your enemies share your most cherished dreams. For example, I
sincerely believe that Prime Minister Abhisit comes philosophically closer
to those dreams than a number of your leaders. If he did not - if his
mindset had been that of some of the military dictators Thailand has had in
the past - the carnage of the last few days would have been unconscionable.
I also believe that many of your leaders, like Veera, share the hopes and
dreams of those not affiliated with your movement, because they are, by and
large, the hopes and dreams of all Thais: To live in peace, not to spend
your life in a mindless struggle to survive, to have the same chance as
anyone else at realising your aspirations and becoming fulfilled human
beings.
It may be too soon to hope for this, because the mutual anger and distrust
are still too great. If Veera is found guilty of any crimes, justice will
have to be served, just as much as if Suthep were found to have abused his
authority. But it would be a beautiful thing to see idealists like Veera
playing a role in an Abhisit government. Such a compromise occurred in Italy
decades ago, and it saved the country from a potentially disastrous
internecine struggle.
You have changed Thailand forever by discovering, and showing your fellow
citizens, that you have the right to think, and to speak, and to act. I urge
you to go further. Keep thinking. But think for yourselves. Don't think what
you're told to think. Speak what you think, not what you are told to speak.
And act with your minds as well as your hearts, and in the interests of all,
even those whom you disagree with.
Not many people in Bangkok would feel grateful to you at this moment. But I
do want to thank you. What you did was really important, though perhaps not
for the reasons you think. And I want to explain why.
When you build a road, you will sometimes come to a mountain. To get to the
other side, you may have to go around it. You may have to dig a tunnel. Or
you may have to blow up the mountain. Thailand has come to that mountain.
But for at least two decades, no one has been willing to go around, dig, or
blow it up. Yet everyone knows we must get through. The mountain is in the
way. Some past governments have stolen your money to build golden hot-air
balloons so that a few individuals could get across, not caring if the rest
were stranded. Others have talked and talked, but the mountain is still
there. Of course you are impatient.
You didn't blow up the mountain, but the tragic events that have unfolded
have convinced everyone that it is time to move on. Your people - and the
soldiers, too - did not suffer and die in vain. Though we seem to be in
darkness and chaos, a fuller democracy is closer today than it has been at
any time during the Thaksin administration and all its successors. There
will come a time when people will realise that you opened their eyes, that
you all contributed to this major turning point in Thailand's history. In
time, the rest of the nation will understand it, and come to acknowledge it,
and even embrace it. For in embracing those we thought our enemies, we
really embrace ourselves."
Somtow Sucharitkul is a renowned Thai novelist and composer.
The Washington Post comments on the briefing given to the media and
foreign officials by the Thai government displaying red shirt weapons:
"The facts speak
for themselves," said Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, speaking at a
Bangkok infantry base during an exhibition of weapons and other items that
the Thai military says it captured from vanquished "red shirt" protesters.
Among the weapons
they deployed: eight Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles, five rusty American
rifles, a dozen grenades, a crossbow, an orange plastic bucket full of
wooden slingshots and a membership card from a Las Vegas casino.
********************************
The Bangkok Post reports more media controls; as the government plans to
establish an independent media monitoring organisation as part of the road
map. The governments says the changes are aimed at preventing the media from
being used to create social divisions..ie please only publish what the
government wants you to publish. But what does this mean for ASTV and
Manager for the yellows and for the red shirt media, TV and radio stations.
But the Thai
censorship and lack of news was so poor that many Thai citizens and
residents felt compelled to watch events unfold on foreign news channels?
Even if they did not like the message that they were getting - especially
from CNN.
On many occasions,
during critical periods of the recent crisis, the main Thai terrestrial
channels were showing soap-operas and game shows. The networks did not go to
24/7 news coverage and the main coverage of the red shirt crisis was from
the CRES.
**********************************
The Criminal Court on Tuesday approved an arrest warrant for the deposed
premier on terrorism charges in connection with the violent protest of the
Red Shirts.
Mr Thaksin stands accused of masterminding and funding the violent actions
of the Red Shirts which led to grenade attacks and arson in the Thai capital
and provinces in the North and Northeast during the past week.
Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said the ministry has translated the arrest
warrant on terrorism charges into English awaiting final documents from the
Attorney-General's Office before forwarding it through embassies in Bangkok
and through Interpol via the Royal Thai Police.
This will put
additional pressure on countries not to harbour Thaksin and could make his
travel (France and Montenegro last week) more difficult.
*************************************
The FACT – Freedom Against
Censorship Thailand appears to be censored in Thailand - with some irony
- this is an anti censorship site !
SPIEGEL correspondent Thilo Thielke was in Bangkok the day the Thai Army
cleared the Red Shirt camps. It was the last day he would work with his
friend and colleague, Italian photojournalist Fabio Polenghi, who died from
a gunshot wound.
When the helicopters started circling over the center of Bangkok last
Wednesday at 6 a.m., I knew that the army would soon launch its attack. This
was the moment that everyone had been fearfully expecting for weeks. I had
always doubted that the government would actually allow things to go this
far. There were many women and children in the district occupied by the
protesters. Did the soldiers really want to risk a bloodbath?
A state of emergency had prevailed for the past six weeks in the Thai
capital, with the royalist government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva
and the army on one side, and a broad coalition of anti-government
protesters -- many originating from the poor provinces of northern Thailand
-- on the other side. Approximately 70 people had died in street fighting
and over 1,700 had been wounded. The pro-government Bangkok Post had called
it "anarchy" and the opposition spoke of "civil war."
At 8 a.m. I arrived in the Red Zone, a three-square-kilometer
(one-square-mile) area surrounding the Ratchaprasong business district,
which the army had sealed off on all sides. On that day, as on previous
occasions, it was relatively easy to slip into the encampment, which I had
visited a number of times over the past few months. Behind barricades made
of bamboo and car tires, the protesting Red Shirts had pitched their tents
and built a stage. But the revolutionary party atmosphere that had always
reigned here before had evaporated that morning.
People were stoically awaiting the soldiers. They knew that the military
would attack from the south, via Silom Road, and the braver ones among them
had ventured to as far as a kilometer (0.6 miles) from the front line. They
stood there, but they weren't fighting. Some of them had slingshots, but
nobody was firing.
A wall of fire made of burning tires separated the protesters from the army.
Thick smoke choked the street, and as the soldiers slowly pressed forward,
shots whipped through the streets. Snipers fired from high-rises and the
advancing troops shot through the smoke. And we, a group of journalists,
ducked for cover, pressing ourselves against a wall to avoid getting hit.
Pick-ups with paramedics sped by to take away the wounded.
A Devastated Urban Landscape
It was 9:30 a.m. when Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi joined us. Fabio
had spent a lot of time in Bangkok over the last two years, and we had
become friends during this time. Fabio, a good-natured dreamer, 48, from
Milan had been a fashion photographer in London, Paris and Rio de Janeiro
before coming to Bangkok to work as a photojournalist. We had traveled
together to do a feature on Burma, and since then he had often worked for
SPIEGEL. Over the past few weeks, the two of us had almost always been on
the go together.
Just the previous evening, we had walked through the city together until
darkness fell. We met on Din Daeng Street near the Victory Monument, which
symbolizes Thailand's pride in expanding its territory 69 years ago. Now we
stood in the midst of a devastated urban landscape, which revealed the
country's slide into chaos. Dark smoke hung in the air; only the outlines of
the obelisk were visible. The streets had been transformed into a war zone.
A few days earlier I had crouched here behind a small wall for half an hour,
seeking protection from the army's hail of bullets -- they had suddenly
opened fire because some show-off had strutted around with a slingshot.
Not far from the Red Shirts' encampment stands Pathum Wanaram Temple, which
was intended to serve as a safe zone for women and children during an
attack. That evening we met Adun Chantawan, 42, an insurgent from the
village of Pasana in the northeastern region of Isaan -- the rice-growing
area where the rebellion against the government began.
Adun told us that he harvests sugarcane and rice there as a day laborer --
for €4 ($5) a day. He had been here in Bangkok since the beginning of the
occupation two months ago. Abhisit's government must resign, he said,
because it has not been elected by the people and is only supported by the
military, which staged a coup to oust the former prime minister, Thaksin
Shinawatra -- the hero of the poor. He wants Thaksin to return, said Adun,
but more than anything else he wants a Thailand where the elite no longer
have all the power and others also share in the wealth. Adun never thought
that the government would so brutally crack down on its own people. He told
us that he was prepared to fight to the death for his ideals.
Dreams of Living in a More Democratic Society
Adun Chantawan was a typical Red Shirt supporter, but far from all of them
came from the poor northern provinces. There were also bankers from Bangkok
among them, who joined the insurgents in the evenings after work, and young
rowdies, too. For most of them, it was not primarily about Thaksin. They
were mostly concerned with the social injustice in the country. Many of them
dreamt of living in a more democratic society. I could never understand the
government's claims that the Red Shirts had been bought by Thaksin. Nobody
allows themselves to be shot for a handful of baht.
When we looked for Adun the next day, he was nowhere to be found. Chaos was
everywhere. Fabio and I saw the smoke, and the soldiers behind it, advancing
towards us -- and we heard an increasing number of shots. Snipers from a
side street were targeting us.
The onslaught had begun. I didn't dare go any farther, but Fabio ran
forward, across the street, where shots were regularly fired -- a distance
of roughly 50 meters (160 ft.) -- and sought shelter in a deserted Red Cross
tent. This marked the beginning of the no man's land between us and the
advancing troops. I saw his light blue helmet marked "press" bob into view.
He waved for me to come join him, but it was too dangerous for me up there.
Since the beginning of the conflict, I have experienced the Thai army as an
amateurish force. If they had cleared the street protests at the outset, the
conflict would have never escalated to this extent. Once the soldiers
attempted to clear the demonstrators, they left a trail of casualties. They
fired live ammunition at Red Shirts who were barely armed.
I observed absurd, unequal battles during those days. Young people crouched
behind sand bags and fired on the soldiers with homemade fireworks and
slingshots. The soldiers returned fire with pump guns, sniper rifles and
M-16 assault rifles.
At their camp, the Red Shirts had displayed photos on a wall of corpses with
shots to the head -- they wanted to prove that snipers in high-rises had
purposely liquidated demonstrators. These included Maj. Gen. Khattiya
Sawasdipol, a renegade officer and one of the most radical leaders of the
anti-government protesters, who had been shot in the head six days earlier,
and died shortly thereafter.
The government maintains that it has nothing to do with liquidations, and
that the demonstrators are shooting each other dead. That isn't true. Over
the past two years, during which I reported on the Red Shirts, I have almost
never seen a firearm -- with the exception of the occasional revolver in the
hand of a bodyguard.
On that morning, the first soldiers broke through the wall of smoke. From
where I was standing, it was barely possible to make them out, but you could
hear bullets whistling through the air. They were fired by the snipers, who
were working their way forward, from building to building. Some of them
appeared to be directly above us. Fabrio was nowhere to be seen.
They Had Shot an Italian
I headed towards Pathum Wanaram Temple, a few hundred meters to the west, in
the Red Zone. The occupying protesters had lost, that much was clear -- they
hadn't even fought back. It was 11:46 a.m., and they were playing the
national anthem. Women and children were fleeing to the temple courtyard to
escape the approaching troops. One of the protesters' leaders, Sean
Boonpracong, was still sitting in the main tent of the Red Shirts. He said
that he intended to carry on with the resistance, even after the army's
attack. Instead of allowing himself to be arrested, he planned to go into
hiding.
At 11:53 a.m. I tried to reach Fabio by phone. His voicemail clicked in,
which wasn't unusual. You could only occasionally get a signal. Across from
the temple, in front of the police hospital, a number of journalists were
waiting for the paramedics to arrive with the wounded. A nurse noted the
admissions on a board. It was 12:07 p.m., and she had already written down
14 names. A foreign reporter stood next to me. He said that they had shot an
Italian. Right in the heart. Over one and a half hours ago. He said that he
had taken his picture. He even knew his name: Fabio Polenghi.
Columns of smoke billowed up over the city that afternoon. The retreating
Red Shirts set fire to everything: the huge Central World shopping center,
the stock exchange and an Imax movie theater. People looted supermarkets and
ATMs. When I finally returned home, piles of tires were burning on the
street.
On the evening of the day that the government set out to restore order,
Bangkok was an apocalyptic place. And Fabio, my friend, was dead.
The Red Shirts
began as a protest by the poor but it has become a mass movement of those
who reject Thailand's elitist political culture. The clearing of the
opposition camps last week has not resolved the problems in a deeply divided
society.
What began as a protest of the poor has become a mass movement. It is more
than just farmers and laborers from northern Thailand who take to the
streets as "Red Shirts" -- business people, students and members of the
middle class are also revolting against Thailand's political culture and
against the influence of the military and the urban elite.
The Reds have no clear command structures. They are a magnet for the
disenfranchised, many of whom yearn for former Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra and feel excluded from the networks of power in Bangkok -- from a
system in which the graduates of private schools and military academies take
all the influential positions.
They are united by their anger with the current government under Prime
Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who was elected not by the people, but rather
only by the parliament -- following dubious intrigues by the military. And
they are united by a common opponent: the pro-establishment Yellow Shirts --
an alliance of civil servants and the urban upper classes who portray
themselves as staunch monarchists.
Deep Divisions Run Through the Military
But Thailand is not just struggling with the possibility of new elections --
Thailand is struggling with itself. The population, the army, even the
monarchy are divided. King Bhumibol, who has reigned since 1946, remains
silent in public -- his wife is widely seen as a friend of the Yellows. The
crown prince, on the other hand, is reputed to sympathize with the Red
Shirts.
The deep divisions that run through the military were recently revealed when
Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol was suspended because he sided with government
opponents. His death by a sniper's bullet made him into a martyr for his
followers. Even Thailand's army chief General Anupong Paochinda has acted
indecisively -- first coming out in favor of new elections, as the
demonstrators have demanded -- and then publicly siding with Prime Minister
Abhisit during a TV appearance.
The country is also divided because Thailand's parties are dominated by
influential men whose powerbases are built on cronyism in their home
provinces. That was also the case under Thaksin, the exiled
multi-millionaire from northern Thailand who is now warning of a nationwide
guerrilla war.
The Press Has Failed to Inform the Public
It is the structural problems plaguing Thailand that make the future look
grim: an army that regularly intervenes in politics (Thailand has had 18
military coups since 1932); a constitutional court that professes to be
neutral, yet allows itself to be used for political purposes; a population
that is raised to be loyal subjects -- loyal to the king, not to the
constitution. The press also fails in its duty to inform the public.
Insulting the monarchy can result in a prison sentence; this keeps critics
quiet.
The crisis has not been resolved, it has merely shifted elsewhere. The Reds
started dozens of fires late last week in Bangkok, rioted in the northern
provinces and torched town halls there. Nine bodies were found in a temple
in Bangkok on Thursday -- 16 died the previous day during the crackdown on
the revolt.
If new elections were actually held this year, then it would simply mean
that the Reds would be in the government and it would be the Yellows who
would be out protesting on the streets.
Translated from the German by Paul Cohen
Beating up CNN
23 May 2010
It is so
fashionable to beat up CNN in Thailand that even the government has joined
in.
The problem with
this is that the show referred to by the Thai foreign ministry was broadcast
by CNN's domestic US network. It was not shown on CNN intenational, who
are the employers of Mr. Rivers.
Thailand:
country needs a credible leader
23 May 2010
The Observer Editorial.
"After a week of
violence that left Bangkok's commercial heart smouldering in ruins alongside
Thailand's land of smiles reputation, there are few winners and even less
certainty about where the country goes from here than when the whole mess
began.
The coalition government looks stable for now but a lasting solution to the
fissures in Thai society and loss of faith in the political process looks
further away than ever.
The tough final military action to clear the anti-government protest site
helped prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva salvage his credentials with his
supporters. The redshirts themselves, or at least the thugs, vandals and
arsonists among them who set Bangkok ablaze, also bolstered his position.
Many in the capital who had been partially sympathetic to the red cause were
shocked by the apocalyptic turn of the endgame.
Abhisit is talking reconciliation and rebuilding. But with 82 dead and
nearly 1,800 injured and redshirts, still defiant and angry, returning to
heroes' welcomes across the north and north-east, it is hard to see how the
process begins – particularly when Abhisit, loathed by a majority of the
electorate, is unable to show his face in many parts of the country.
Not that his nemesis Thaksin Shinawatra, widely assumed to have bankrolled
the two-month protest, is any more of a unifying figure. The anarchy of the
past days has driven many previously non-committed Thais firmly into the
anti-Thaksin camp. Nationwide he still commands loyalty, but his return to
politics would simply lead to new yellowshirt protests.
The seemingly obvious way to hit the reset button would be to call new
elections and Abhisit has hinted at that, saying he will return to the
five-point road map that was to have delivered a fresh poll by 14 November.
But no sooner had he made the promise than his finance minister Korn
Chatikavanij raised doubts about the date, saying he feared violence in any
campaign. Coalition partner Banharn Silpa-archa has raised similar concerns.
In any case, it is far from clear that a new vote would change very much –
or even if the redshirts believe in that any more. One of their chief
complaints is that they keep electing governments which are either thrown
out by coups or dubious legal processes.
So while a fresh election may lance the boil in Thailand for a time, there
are no guarantees that such a decision in itself is a longterm answer to the
country's deep problems. And as the smoke clears over the rubble in Bangkok,
it is also not possible to identify any Thai political leader able to
provide the necessary circuit-breaker to bring an end to the crippling cycle
that has paralysed the country for so long."
The red threat
?
23 May 2010
The Times argues
today that there is the likelihood of a violent underground movement that
could wreck Thailand’s tourism industry. You will not hear this from the
CRES, the government of from the Thai press who are busy trying to convince
everyone that Bangkok and the country are returning to normal.
But what is
normal. These riots, airport closures, occupation of government buildings
have been going on for over four years.
The Times says
that an armed wing of the movement vowed to carry on the fight and melted
back into communities of workers and farmers. The paper claims that the
militants were acclaimed as heroes in the slums of Klong Toey, a
crime-ridden district (not sure Sister Joan would agree with that) that saw
some of the heaviest fighting but attracted the least media attention.
Continues the
Times: "It was from Klong Toey that black-clad men on motorbikes sped out to
set fire to the gleaming stock exchange building, which looks down on it
from the other side of a road junction. Later there were numerous accounts
from frightened residents of vengeful redshirts huddled in councils of war
in drinking dens and tenements.....The government seized control of
television news, suppressed photographs of dead civilians and frantically
blocked websites, leading a commentator in Thai Rath, the nation’s most
popular newspaper, to say that “few truthful accounts were published or
broadcast”.
This may be a bit
strong but do not discount it: "There is mounting evidence that the 52 dead
and 407 wounded victims of the latest spasm have created a groundswell of
hatred, leaving Thailand’s reputation as a kingdom of Buddhist harmony in
ruins....A movement that was born in raucous mass opposition to the royalist
establishment may have spawned a radical insurgency in the space of just a
week."
The government
propaganda through the CRES and media will drive the redshirts underground.
The government seems keener on retribution that reconciliation. And that is
dangerous for Thailand.
The Times says
that the Birtish embassy has collated details of some of the fighting that
has taken place outside of Bangkok and been largely un-reported. It says
that "there have been six bomb or grenade incidents in Chiang Mai, where
buses were set ablaze on its leafy tourist streets and crowds gathered to
protest at the railway station. On April 26, rival Thai mobs fought in the
coastal city of Pattaya. On the resort island of Phuket, sappers defused a
grenade left at a local television station, ASTV, on May 12. Rioting, arson
or shootings have been reported in Chiang Rai, Khon Kaen and Udon Thani.
Airports, roads and railways have all been blocked at times."
Thaksin himself
was predicted guerrilla warfare. He may get his wish.
Mangalore crash
is a Dubai tragedy
23 May 2010
An Air India
Express passenger plane crashed in flames yesterday morning after
overshooting the runway in the southern city of Mangalore on Saturday,
killing 160 people on board.
Statement of the
blindingly obvious goes to: “This incident should not have happened,” said
Kapil Kaul, who heads the Indian and Middle East arm of the Center for Asian
Pacific Aviation, a consulting firm.
There were only a
handful of survivors after the Boeing 737-800 appeared to overshoot the
runway. All the passengers were Indian nationals mostly returning to the
families after working in Dubai.
Air India Express is the budget arm of the state-run carrier Air India.
It was India’s first major crash in more than a decade, which has seen a
boom in private carriers - although the rapid growth on air travel has not
been supported by sufficient growth in infrastructure.
The black box has
been recovered from the wreckage.
But this disaster
hits the Indian community in the UAE hard.
Saudi Arabia-based businessman Sameer Sheikh lost 16 relatives, including
his wife and two children. All 16 were travelling to Mangalore to attend the
last rites of Sheikh’s grandmother who had died Friday. Sheikh was in Mumbai
and waiting to catch a flight to Mangalore at the time of the incident.
A Gulf News staff member, her husband and their daughter were also among
those killed in the disaster. They were to attend a wedding. Manirekha
Poonja, who worked in the Dubai-based daily’s finance department, was flying
with her husband and their 17-year-old daughter for her cousin’s marriage,
the paper reported.
The passengers were mainly domestic, construction and services industry
employees from Dubai, whose families in India rely on remittances from their
work. This may have been their one trip home in two years. They live apart
from their families to provide for the families. It is a tough life. And
such a sad ending.
People have been
quick to say that Mangalore is a difficult airport. But he new 06/24 runway
opened in 2006 and is more than sufficient for a 737. The weather was OK.
The IlS (ILS Cat 1) was in use. The crew will have been tired at the end of
an overnight round trip.
BTS will resume
its service tomorrow (SUN) from 8am-10pm. Only at Rajdamri Station will
temporarily close.
And the PR spin
from the government continues with a briefing to foreign diplomats which
makes the red shirt protestors sound like a heavily armed army and the army
sound like angels. The truth of course is at neither extreme but this is
playing out well to angry Bangkok residents happy to have their city back
and who never want to see another red shirt.
Emirates slide
down world airline ratings
22 May 2010
Asiana Airlines
has been named winner of the Skytrax Airline of the Year 2010 title, ahead
of Singapore Airlines (2nd) and Qatar Airways in 3rd place, at the 2010
World Airline Awards, that took place in Hamburg on 20th May.
This is regarded as the definition airline awards ceremony of the year and
with more than 17.9 million air travellers from over 100 different
nationalities taking part in a 10 month survey between July 2009 and April
2010.
Asiana Airlines President and CEO, Mr Young-Doo Yoon, said : "We would like
to express our most heartfelt appreciation to our customers who voted us for
Skytrax 2010 Airline of the Year Award. Asiana Airlines is extremely
honoured to be recognized as the world’s top airline by our customers and to
be awarded our industry’s highly esteemed accolade from Skytrax. To be the
winner of the 2010 Airline of the Year Award is even more special and holds
greater meaning, as it is 'The Passenger's Choice'."
But where was
Emirates - well it was 5th last year. And has slipped to 8th this year.
Here is your 2010
top 10 places in the Airline of the Year Awards :
1. Asiana Airlines
2. Singapore Airlines
3. Qatar Airways
4. Cathay Pacific
5. Air New Zealand
6. Etihad Airways
7. Qantas Airways
8. Emirates
9. Thai Airways
10. Malaysia Airlines
Emirates is now
behind local rivals Etihad. Why the big slip for Emirates? Growing to
quickly is a problem; Etihad will have the same issue in years to come. The
main problem is inconsistency of product. A seat in an class on an ageing
A330 is very different for the corresponding seat on a new A380 or long
range 777. Significant staff turnover is also leading to inconsistent
service.
And cost cutting
is obvious. From removing foot-rests (I think the biggest mistake made) to
reduceing food quality and quantity.
Great IFE on the
newer planes keeps passengers happy; but as the leading airlines show a more
consistent product is needed.
You can read
comments from passengers at the
Skytrax site on
their Emirates experience. Most recent reviews are poor. A couple of angry
examples:
"the food was
terrible - the purser even admitted that their product had declined
significantly over the past couple of years. Return trip overnight, again
dreadful food and constant chatter from the crew meant very little sleep.
Again a senior crew member told me that Emirates pushed their crew so hard
and have imposed such punitive conditions around scheduling to the extent
that up to 50 people a day are leaving the company, hardly surprising that
the service levels have declined if this is the case. Inconsistent product
with some of the worst food I have seen on board, Emirates should be ashamed
of itself."
"The worst
scheduled airline I have ever had the misfortune to fly with. Seats were
extremely uncomfortable, with very little padding. Felt as if we were
sitting on sharp bare metal after a few hours. We also suffered at the hands
of a very rude air steward, and when we complained to the senior steward at
his behaviour, we were told to get over it."
"Total disinterest
in the customer. Only Lunch served and no offer of drinks or snacks
following this - the crew only happy to sit and chat among themselves.
Toilet floor flooded with urine which was mopped up by a male crew member
using the table covers from dinner. If that was not bad enough, no hand
washing followed. I was totally disgusted and the senior purser seemed to
find it amusing and said they don't have much cleaning stuff on board."
"A few weeks ago,
when it was safe and sane to go for dinner in the middle of Bangkok, some
colleagues and I were in the middle of dinner at a Japanese restaurant when
a loud boom was heard in the distance.
All of three of us reached immediately for our BlackBerries. A year ago, we
might have e-mailed our editors to see what the news wires were reporting,
or checked a television set for an update. But in Thailand's fast-moving and
violent political crisis, there was no time to wait for those “old media” to
tell us what was going on.
What we needed to know was: What were people tweeting?
The information came fast and dubious. Two explosions had been heard near
the top of Silom Road financial street, where supporters of Prime Minister
Abhisit Vejjajiva had been gathering at the southern end of the sprawling
Red Shirt anti-government protest camp that consumed much of the centre of
Bangkok.
Someone tweeted that the sounds were made by bomb blasts, which would have
been a serious escalation in the violence. Others suggested they might just
be fireworks, which Red Shirts regularly used to target helicopters and
light up roofs of buildings where snipers might be hiding. Eventually, the
number of tweets about people injured on Silom Road became a body of
evidence too large to ignore. We abandoned our sushi and headed to the
scene.
Never before has a social media website played the kind of role in a
conflict that Twitter has played in Thailand's nine-week-old anti-government
uprising, keeping people informed even as it amplified the hate on both
sides of the country’s divide. Some say Twitter – or rather its users – may
have even saved lives as fighting consumed the streets of Bangkok.
More clearly, it was used by propagandists on both sides to get their
message out, and by ordinary Thais to express their frustrations at the
situation and to warn each other about which areas of Bangkok to avoid as
the city descended into urban warfare. With many websites censored and
Thailand's traditional media deeply divided into pro- and anti-government
camps, it arguably became the only forum where you could get a clear picture
of what was really going on.
“Twitter is the only place where we can say things freely,” said Poomjit
Sirawongprasert, an Internet freedom activist who sometimes updates her
Twitter feed a dozen times an hour and became one of the go-to sources for
information about what was happening in whatever neighbourhood of Bangkok
she happened to be in. “The propaganda is not good, but because of the
speed, people can check and cross-check. If you put something out there
that’s untrue, within 30 minutes the truth will come out because people will
show evidence, photos and videos.”
While Twitter was used by the opposition in Iran to organize rallies
following last year’s hotly disputed election, it was, for the most part, a
one-sided affair with millions of tweets supporting opposition leader Mir
Hossein Moussavi’s claim to have won the vote, and few backing the
legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Social media was clearly not a
field that the mullahs of Tehran understood or felt comfortable playing on.
In Thailand, Red Shirts hoping to bring down the government fought a
tweet-for-tweet information war with backers of Mr. Abhisit’s government.
Twitter also hosted front-line reports from veteran war correspondents,
first-time freelancers and ordinary citizens caught in the crossfire. Some
were enthralling; others were invention.
On at least two occasions – one of them when I was trapped inside the
supposed sanctuary of the Wat Pathum temple along with more than 3,000
civilians as it came under fire – the social networking site may have played
a role in saving lives.
With my colleague Andrew Buncombe unable to move after being shot Wednesday
night inside the temple – and other injured people dying around us from lack
of medical care – I first telephoned embassies, hospitals and the
International Committee for the Red Cross. Then I put out an all-call on
Twitter, hoping my “followers” in Bangkok would use their own contacts to
help us.
“Please RT,” I wrote, using the shorthand for “retweet,” or spread the word.
“People around me are dying because they can't get to hospital across the
road because of fighting.” I attached a picture I had taken with my
BlackBerry of three wounded men beside me, one of whom appeared near death
after being shot in the back.
“More people will die inside Wat Patum unless we get ceasefire to get to
hospital across the road,” I added a few minutes later, as my desperation
grew.
Within minutes, my pleas had indeed been retweeted hundreds, maybe thousands
of times, in English, Thai and other languages. They were posted on the
websites of Britain’s The Guardian newspaper and other international media.
People I knew only through Twitter started calling me to check on our
situation. More helpfully, others started calling embassies, hospitals and
the Thai government.
Eighty minutes later, I was carrying stretchers out to a row of waiting
ambulances. “Twitter may just have done this,” was my next update.
A similar situation unfolded the next night in another part of Bangkok when
a fire broke out in an apartment block in Din Daeng, a neighbourhood that
was the scene of full-scale urban warfare for days this week. “People can't
get out, b/c soldiers won't allow anyone to walk thru,” tweeted someone
using the account of ThaiVisa, a popular online news forum.
As at the temple a day before, the news was passed around hundreds of times,
and tweets from inside the burning building were read out on the local
television and radio. Ordinary Thais far away from the scene of the blaze
called the government and military and begged them to let fire trucks
through. In the end, firefighters got through and the people trapped in the
building were saved.
“We all become our own news wire service, breaking stories and events
instantly. Did [tweets from inside Wat Pathum] prevent a massacre? Maybe
they did. Who knows?” wrote Andrew Spooner, a London-based journalist who
waded deep into the Thailand story from afar, tweeting about events from a
decidedly pro-Red Shirt perspective.
That partisanship was the ugly side of Twitter’s role in the Thai crisis.
While the social networking site did perhaps save lives in a few specific
instances, Twitter – and the opportunity it gives to instantly broadcast
whatever is on your mind, often from behind a cloak of near-anonymity – also
gave Thais and foreigners living here the chance to broadcast vitriolic,
often hateful, thoughts to the world, raising the temperature inside this
already volatile country and arguably helping nudge the situation toward its
violent end.
It was common to read comments on my Twitter feed that compared supporters
of Mr. Abhisit to Nazis and followers of the Red Shirt movement to
livestock. Each hateful comment seemed to provoke an even nastier response,
and by the time the nine-week-old protest came to an end, each side was
cheering acts of violence against the other.
It would be easy to dismiss the hate speech as irrelevant noise if not for
the fact that both the Red Shirt leadership and Mr. Abhisit’s government
were both paying rapt attention to what was being said online. The Red
Shirts, under their official name, the United Front for Democracy against
Dictatorship, had Twitter and Facebook pages that not only distributed
announcements from the movement’s leadership, but retweeted some of the
venom.
Meanwhile, Mr. Abhisit, who has his own Twitter account and whose aides made
clear that they were monitoring tweets about the crisis, was clearly aware
of the calls nearly every minute on Twitter for him to order a military
crackdown against the Red Shirt encampment in the centre of Bangkok.
Most worrisome for the future is that the hate being spewed online
tweet-by-tweet is actually a fairly decent mirror of the sentiments in wider
Thai society. While only one in five of Thailand’s 63 million people are
online, and far fewer have Twitter accounts, the terrible things written on
the site were the same sentiments being muttered on street corners and at
dinner parties. Twitter didn’t create the hatred, it amplified it.
“To see what was going on, to see live pictures of things happening like
that fire, where people got the word out and got fire trucks to come because
of Twitter, that was incredibly important,” said Jodi Ettenberg, a Canadian
lawyer living in Bangkok who tweeted about being trapped in the Din Daeng
neighbourhood during some of the worst fighting.
“But the vitriol was just astounding. It was shocking to see the kinds of
things being said in a public forum. To understand it, you needed to
understand the feelings and anger that exist in Thai society.”
Ironically, Thailand’s obsession with Twitter was kick-started by the same
man many blame for instigating the country’s ongoing political crisis:
fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Mr. Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 military coup and later convicted in
absentia of corruption charges, remains widely popular, but has struggled to
communicate with his followers due to government influence over the Thai
media.
Last summer, he opened up an account, @thaksinlive, and began using it to
attack Mr. Abhisit and his government. Those interested in hearing what he
had to say – as well as those who wanted to shout back at him – followed him
to the social networking site, quickly creating one of Asia’s largest and
most politically charged Twitter communities.
“People were not really that interested in Twitter until Thaksin started
using it,” said Ms. Poomjit, the Internet freedom activist. “He made it a
trend.”
Mr. Thaksin has only tweeted once since the military crackdown began on
Wednesday. “I would like to express my condolences to those who are killed
and wounded,” he wrote while the fighting was still raging.
Since then, his normally active account has gone silent. But the shouting
match he started is only getting louder.
Dubai Panorama
21 May 2010
Thailand update
21 May 2010
This is how hard
it is to find out the truth in BKK at the moment - these messages were sent
minutes apart - Erawan Centre: 10 bodies found in fire-gutted CentralWorld;
identification pending autopsy by forensic experts - Deputy Bkk police
chief: No 9 bodies inside CTW as alleged.
"Compared with
their foreign counterparts, the Thai media’s coverage of the red shirts’
protest has been very disappointing.
Thai reporters
worked very hard and put their lives at risk covering the conflict, but few
truthful accounts were published or broadcast by their newspapers or radio
and TV stations.
News about
protesters killed by soldiers was suppressed by government-controlled radio
and TV stations, which gave full coverage to announcements made by Prime
Minister Abhisit and the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency
Situation (CRES).
The lack of media
outrage against the army’s suppression of protesters is deplorable.
To get the truth,
the Thai public must rely on foreign newspapers and TV broadcasters, such
the BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera.
Some Thai media
outlets discarded their independence and professionalism after being granted
licences or budgets to do state-funded programmes. This is unethical, to say
the least.
The acts of
violence and intimidation by armed soldiers must be made known to the
public. Local media that fail to do so cannot claim to be the people’s
media."
A polity
imploding
21 May 2010 -
The Economist (Should be compulsory reading in Thailand !)
"The black smoke
that had hung over Bangkok’s jagged skyline for six days grew thicker and
more noxious. On May 19th combat troops marched into the protest camp where
a few thousand anti-government red-shirt stragglers remained, defiant to the
end. Their main leaders went quietly, to howls of disapproval from diehard
demonstrators, but 13 people died and more than 80 were injured as the camp
was cleared. Angry protesters torched their tyre-and-bamboo barricades, then
set fire to the Bangkok stock exchange and Central World, one of South-East
Asia’s biggest department stores.
The dawn assault on the fortified camp was methodical, and met only
scattered resistance from gunmen holed up inside. It was not, mercifully,
the Tiananmen Square rerun that some had predicted. Most protesters took
shelter in a temple, and then were herded away to evacuation points.
Security forces had overwhelming force on their side. On the outskirts of
the camp, though, riots flared along a main road that had seen the worst of
the recent fighting. Arson attacks spread to new areas, and gun battles
erupted in the blackened underpass beneath an expressway, not far from a
port slum that has begun staging its own red-shirt rally. Protesters in the
north and north-east, where red-shirt sympathies run deepest, were quick to
resort to arson attacks in retaliation.
All this has its roots in a military coup in 2006, when the then prime
minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, a telecoms tycoon, was removed from power. He
fled into exile, but the red shirts continue to support him, and have been
demanding new elections. They present themselves as rural and poor, as
opposed to the urban elites who are closer to the revered King Bhumibol and
his family. The protests have been their way of venting their political
frustration. They have also revealed the deep social and economic divisions
in Thai society.
The prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, has failed to make any headway with
the red shirts. On April 10th he hastily sent in troops to clear another
protest site, with the loss of 25 lives. But he does deserve credit for
offering a compromise since then. On May 3rd he proposed the holding of
elections in November, a year before his term ends, as part of a
reconciliation package. That the leaders of the United Front for Democracy
against Dictatorship (UDD), the red shirts’ formal title, failed to grasp
this olive branch is tragic. They, as much as trigger-happy soldiers, must
bear some responsibility for the lives lost.
Yet even on May 18th an 11th-hour ceasefire had appeared close. But mistrust
on both sides proved impossible to bridge, and the talks failed. In truth,
this approach may have been doomed since widespread fighting erupted on May
13th after a presumed army sniper picked off General Khattiya Sawasdipol, a
rogue officer who ran the red shirts’ security. He died on May 17th.
Suspended from duty but not yet stripped of his rank, he was honoured with a
funeral sponsored by the king at a Buddhist temple, another reminder of how
much rank means in Thailand.
By then, the die had been cast. Military units trying to block off the
sprawling protest site were attacked by stone-throwing yobs who brought
along petrol bombs and firecrackers. Shadowy black-clad militia-members also
joined in, though fleetingly. Soldiers shot back without much restraint,
even at paramedics trying to bring out the wounded. Road junctions were
declared “live-fire zones”. The mayhem spread to other parts of the city.
The military cordon appeared to be breaking as red shirts defied orders to
stay away. Something had to give. In the end it was overwhelming military
force, not a political deal among the warring factions, that won the day.
As the bullets flew and the bodies fell, crocodile tears came from afar, as
Mr Thaksin tweeted his sorrow to his followers. From his luxurious exile he
denied, once again, that he was giving orders to the red-shirt leaders and
urged everyone to embrace peace. There is little doubt, however, that Mr
Thaksin holds sway over the splintered, squabbling red-shirt leadership. The
two-month protest would not have been possible without his deep pockets,
vengeful will and political network, even though the red-shirt cause has
become much larger than him. And his stubbornness seems to have undone the
peace talks, despite his protestations.
Society fractured
In April 2009,
when troops were also called in to restore order in Bangkok, red-shirt
leaders got carried away by their own rhetoric and found themselves quickly
out on a limb. Veera Musikapong, a moderate Thaksin follower, recommended
surrender instead. Tellingly, he left the red-shirt camp last week when it
became clear that hardliners led by Mr Thaksin would not accept Mr Abhisit’s
peace plan. Mr Veera’s behind-the-scenes efforts to bring the leadership
back into the fold came to nothing.
As Thailand’s crisis continues to unfold, many will wonder how it came to
this. If politics is the art of the compromise, Thais had appeared to be
experts. Various political factions, both elected and unelected, cobbled
together governments that oversaw steady economic growth even as they
squabbled and scrapped for the spoils. That pragmatic formula no longer
works. Political crises have polarised opinions within families, workplaces
and communities, and hollowed out the centre.
That is why this crisis goes much deeper than previous rounds of political
violence, including the bloodshed in May 1992 when a coup leader sent troops
out to mow down pro-democracy protesters. Then, King Bhumibol Adulyadej was
able to order a truce between the army chief and the protest leader, and
appoint an interim administration to steer the country out of crisis.
Bhumibol, who is 82 and confined to hospital, has stayed out of the current
mess. Some red shirts, and many foreign observers, believe that the palace
has already taken sides and is no longer an honest broker. The 2006 coup and
royalist yellow-shirt protests in 2008 drove home that message. But even if
Bhumibol did try to mediate this time, there is no simple fix. The prospect
of the looming succession, with an unpopular crown prince in the wings,
further heightens tensions.
Why compromise failed
The aftermath of
the May 19th crackdown will probably see sporadic unrest, both around
Bangkok’s slums and in the north and north-east. Many of the red shirts at
the rally came from the north-east, which accounts for around one-third of
parliamentary seats. Since 2001 the region has overwhelmingly voted for Mr
Thaksin and his allies. The red shirts had sought to force a new election in
the belief that voters would turf out Mr Abhisit, the darling of Bangkok’s
privileged classes.
Had the red shirts accepted the prime minister’s offer of elections, the
timetable would have been to their advantage. Now an election seems like a
liability in a climate of violence and fear. It is hard to imagine
government candidates setting foot in the red-shirt heartland without a
phalanx of armed guards. Many in Bangkok would be irate to see the protest
leaders run for office. Mr Abhisit has argued that an election, in itself,
will not solve Thailand’s political problems. He has a (self-serving) point.
A chaotic, disputed ballot, and the absence of neutral bodies to settle
disputes, could drag Thailand further down the road towards civil war, which
is increasingly talked about.
Waiting for the repercussions
Many are asking why peace talks failed, when the red shirts had little hope
of resisting the troops. Insiders say that Mr Thaksin was a serious spoiler,
as were General Khattiya and other radicals. In a dysfunctional and
factionalised movement, internal talks bogged down. Some leaders balked at
facing criminal charges without the guarantee of bail. But the leadership
was also held hostage, in part, by its own rhetoric and the emotions stirred
among its followers. Many were enraged by the April 10th slaughter and
unimpressed by the six-month timeline for elections. “The mob would not
allow them to give in so easily,” says a senior security official.
Some red shirts complain that the prime minister’s plan was too vague and
lacked teeth. They did not trust Mr Abhisit to keep his promises, and asked
what would happen if he resigned or his party were dissolved for electoral
irregularities (it faces a court case). But by far the greatest distrust,
and the hardest to overcome, is that felt by a sizeable number of Thais,
inside and outside the red shirts, towards the country’s royalist elite and
its political, military and business allies. This grouping blithely tossed
out Mr Thaksin when he got too big for his boots. That he was thuggish and
greedy was a handy excuse. But the 2006 coup failed to bury him politically
and only unleashed a wider backlash against an elite that still believes in
a divine hierarchy of which they are the agents. Mr Abhisit would object to
such a description, but his class betrays little sympathy or interest in the
aspirations of rural and working-class voters. Their attitude, says Supavud
Saicheua, an economist at Phatra Securities, is: “We are brilliant people.
We know what you want.”
Such intransigence has bred dark, violent dreams. Most red shirts swear
blind that they stick to peaceful methods, even if they have to resort to
disruptive sit-ins. Indeed, the protests were surprisingly jolly and gentle
at the start, to the relief of Bangkokians who remembered the April 2009
unrest. Their message of social and economic injustice, and of the double
standards in Thai justice, got a sympathetic hearing. It seemed that the
tide had shifted towards the red shirts and away from their yellow-shirted
rivals in the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD).
But it has long been apparent that some red followers do not believe in
gradual change in Thailand’s political order. Simply put, they think it is
not possible to play at democracy in the current circumstances. To this
group of rogue military types, armchair revolutionaries and opportunists,
the endgame is not elections, but regime change. The current violence is
only the start of a long revolutionary road. This is the unfinished business
of 1932, when the absolute monarchy ended and Thailand’s power balance began
to shift towards other forces. It is still in flux, and is likely to remain
so as long as the post-Bhumibol future is so uncertain.
Conservatives will object vehemently to this characterisation of Thailand’s
troubled politics. They will argue that Mr Thaksin has hoodwinked the world
into believing that his red-shirt rabble is poor and oppressed. Not so, they
say. Thailand’s economic growth has trickled down to the masses, all under
the benevolent gaze of Bhumibol. In recent weeks the foreign minister, Kasit
Piromya, has railed at foreign diplomats who talked to the red shirts after
the April 10th clashes, which the government says militant gunmen fomented.
He snubbed a senior American diplomat who dared to sit down to breakfast
with moderate opposition figures. He says foreign allies should be doing
more to catch Mr Thaksin, a “terrorist”, as he calls him.
When the UDD called for the United Nations to step into the crisis, Mr Kasit
retorted that Thailand was “not a failed state”. That is true. But if it
does become ungovernable, the fault will not be Mr Thaksin’s alone. Equally
culpable is the royalist PAD that Mr Kasit belongs to. He and many of his
peers could not stand the idea of an elected government loyal to Mr Thaksin.
So they helped organise a six-month protest in 2008 that culminated in the
seizure of Bangkok’s two airports, all in the name of defending the
monarchy. Two prime ministers were removed by the courts on dubious grounds.
The stage was set for Mr Abhisit to take power, enraging those who voted in
his opponents and laying out the template for mob rule which the red shirts
have copied. No PAD leader has gone on trial for what he did. The red
leaders may be less fortunate.
Sorting out this mess would require an end to the “crooked procedures” that
began with the 2006 coup, says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist
at Chulalongkorn University. That means constitutional reforms to undo the
undemocratic rules imposed by the army. It may also be helpful to lift bans
on politicians from dissolved pro-Thaksin parties, some of whom are far more
moderate than those in the UDD and not necessarily on Mr Thaksin’s side. All
of this was under discussion a year ago, after Bangkok’s last conflagration.
That Mr Abhisit failed to make these changes and frame his mission as
peaceful reconciliation is lamentable. It will only be harder now.
One Comment following the Economist article is
worth reading as well -
"Certainly,
Thaksin wants his money back, and perhaps some revenge (he seems a vengeful
sort to me), and he is using whatever means he can to achieve those ends,
including the deep grievances of the majority of the Thai people. However,
he can only do that because that sense of injustice, those grievances, are
real: did they not obtain, Thaksin would have no influence.
Thaksin is merely a symptom of the real sickness in the Thai body politic,
and to cast him as the ultimate cause is wrong; nor is Thaksin obviously
much worse than a long tradition of Thai dictators - army coups have
installed PMs who were dictators, and elected PMs have tended to pillage as
they presided over a feast of corruption. Thaksin was different because he
used the Thai majority to gain power legally rather than by force of arms,
or the greed-driven and costly cooperation of the Bangkok political
mobsters. That populist power base was not the Thai tradition, and it meant
he owed something to the majority of Thai people, which debt he repaid with
policies such as affordable universal health care, village development
funds, and other policies designed to divert some of the wealth of the Thai
nation to the Thai nation rather than keeping it all in Bangkok; this was
most definitely contrary to well established Thai tradition, and did not go
down well with teh Bangkok traditionalists, who abhor anything contrary to
established Thai tradition. The only thing traditional about Thaksin was
that he was self-serving, and made legal policy moves that coincidentally
(amazing Thailand!) benefited his family immensely, and he acted the man of
iron against social vice; always the easy target of scoundrels seeking to
burnish their moral credibility, it is hardly surprising that his evil wars
on drugs and draconian curtailments of nightlife and personal entertainment
choices were the very things that remained popular even with his arch enemy
the vicious Chamlong Sri Muang, leader of teh PADster Yellow mobs, who
spearheaded the fight against the Thai people in favour of the ugly Thai
traditional ways of Bangkok.
The roots of the deep divides in Thai society are to be found in its ugly
and outworn traditions.
First is the traditional pu-yai system, whereby those lower in society look
up to, and blindly respect and obey those above them, who in turn protect
them, including from justice and the legal system. An increasing number of
Thai people seem to be realising just how inherently rotten and corruption
prone is this system, and that whilst offering those at the bottom a few
scraps, it also precludes them from rising up to sit at the table and eat
the meats as equals.
Second is the traditional reign of ignorance. Draconian laws and financial
threats (Thaksin, a master at both, was not above using traditional weapons
when it served him) are used to enforce strict censorship, and this ugly
Thai tradition has now turned back on the authorities. Abhisit and his
government cannot be trusted by the Thai people because they are known to
use censorship, and the Thai people have now woken up to the fact that
censorship, all censorship without exception, is intended to create
ignorance, to prevent the spread of knowledge; when it is known that
censorship is used to preclude the possibility of knowledge over swathes of
topics of relevance to politics and the Thai people, this can only render
the authorities inherently untrustworthy. My guess is that the Thai people
now want free and open discussion on all topics that are relevant to the
current political situation and social issues in Thailand.
The traditional Thai veil of ignorance will no longer work. Unless light is
permitted to penetrate to the dark places of Thai history and politics, I do
not see how the deep divides can be healed."
Where is
turbulent Thailand headed
21 May 2010 -
Reuters analysis (not very helpful as every scenarie is deemed plausible
except for a coup!)
"Peace returned to
Bangkok on Thursday after some of the worst rioting in modern Thai history
erupted in the aftermath of military action to disperse a fortified protest
encampment in central Bangkok.
Wednesday's rioting capped a nine-week standoff between authorities and
protesters opposed to the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva who
largely support ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatrawant and want immediate
elections.
The crisis broadly pits the rural poor and urban working class against what
they call an "establishment elite" of big business, military brass and the
educated middle class.
Here are some scenarios on how the crisis may unfold.
* RESISTANCE DIES DOWN, ELECTION PLAN AGREED.
The curfew in Bangkok and affected provinces, with the military patrolling
the streets, cools passions. With the "red shirt" leadership in custody, the
movement is shattered. Under international pressure to heal Thailand's
wounds, Abhisit puts his "roadmap of reconciliation" back on the table.
The red shirts and their allies, the Puea Thai party, agree to a November
election. Thaksin endorses it, knowing that parties allied to him have won
every election in the past decade.
This is quite plausible.
MARKET IMPACT: Stocks and the baht have mostly decoupled from the political
chaos by now, after foreign investors sold off half the shares they bought
this year. Stocks actually rose slightly on Wednesday, albeit on thin
volume, even as the Stock Exchange was set afire. Peace would allow Thai
stocks, now among the cheapest in Asia at 10.5 times 2010 earnings, to
surge.
Bond yields would fall and credit default swap spreads would narrow. Yields
have been closely correlated to violence during the crisis as investors flee
to safety.
Spreads on Thailand's five-year CDS, used to insure against sovereign debt
default, have risen steadily since the protests turned violent on April 10
-- significantly higher than the Asia ex-Japan index for that period.
"The market is clearly pricing the political risks. But on its own, if you
look at the economic fundamentals of Thailand, they're perfectly fine," said
Joseph Tan, chief economist at Credit Suisse in Singapore.
* GUERRILLA WARFARE INTENSIFIES IN COUNTRYSIDE
Red shirts shrug off their leader's plea to stop rioting and mobilize local
insurrections, as on Wednesday when they set three town halls ablaze. They
attack banks, department stores and other symbols of wealth and power.
Economic targets, such as airports and seaports, are also attacked.
Blockades delay distribution and shipments. Some 3,000 tonnes of white sugar
shipments were delayed on Tuesday because of anti-government protests near
Bangkok's main port.
Foreign investors, particularly just-in-time manufacturers, should start
thinking about locating inventories offshore if the violence continues, said
Steve Vickers, president of risk consultancy FTI-International.
MARKET/ECONOMIC IMPACT
The impact on growth would be severe. The protests have already decimated
the tourism industry and hit domestic consumption, which accounts for more
than half of GDP. Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said the unrest had
already cut growth by half a percentage point and it would be two points if
the problem continued all year. A source at the state planning agency put
the impact of the turmoil of $3 billion, or about one percentage point of
gross domestic product. "What we need to see is how long it will take to
regain the confidence of foreign tourists and investors," said the official,
who declined to be identified. Tourism accounts for 6 percent of GDP and
employs 15 percent of the workforce.
This scenario is also quite plausible.
* ABHISIT IS DUMPED, CARETAKER GOVERNMENT INSTALLED
The coming days could determine whether Abhisit is viewed as the man who
restored law and order to Bangkok and began healing wounds, or as the
hapless intellectual who failed to do the job. Analysts say the military
wants to keep his government in power until it completes an annual reshuffle
of top posts, as it involves power, prestige and control of army-linked
firms.
If the military-backed coalition thinks Abhisit needs to be abandoned, he
will be dumped, but his roadmap to reconciliation might survive. This
involves early elections and reforms to heal wounds. An acceptable figure
would be named as a caretaker prime minister until fresh elections, not due
until December 2011.
It is unclear if Abhsit's offer of elections by year-end is still on the
table. Much of the debate ahead would be about election rules and who would
be eligible, with many politicians accused of various crimes. That could
prove problematic.
The longer polls are delayed, the less likely it is Thailand will get the
reforms it needs to cure a widening income gap and economic disparities that
underlie political divisions.
This is yet another plausible scenario.
MARKET/ECONOMIC IMPACT
Markets won't mind a short-term caretaker government as long as it keeps the
peace. The economy would benefit if it stopped the economically debilitating
protests, as in the first scenario.
ABHISIT DUMPED, NATIONAL UNITY GOVERNMENT INSTALLED
Talks with civil society groups yield agreement to form a caretaker
government comprised of figures from the current government, the opposition,
and technocrats. This government would oversee elections to be held by the
end of the year.
While possible, this seems unlikely. The military wants nothing to hinder
the reshuffle and a government with Thaksin supporters would be
inconvenient. A national unity government might ensure fair election rules,
but would almost certainly bring a pro-Thaksin government to power.
MARKET/ECONOMIC IMPACT
It would take time to form such a government and could delay the current
1.43 trillion baht ($44.2 billion) stimulus plan with its knock-on impact on
growth and consumption.
Foreign investors who have stuck it out might reconsider, given the
political risks it could pose over policy. Even before the latest violence,
the Board of Investment forecast foreign investment pledges this year could
fall 15 percent.
Stocks might climb, and bond yields could fall in the short term on the
perception the current wave of violence has been controlled. But the
potential for violence to resurface before or after a new election would
keep many investors sidelined.
GOVERNMENT CAN'T IMPOSE ORDER, ARMY LAUNCHES COUP
Unrest spreads in the countryside. Abhisit's government is unable to
maintain law and order in the capital, as a police force largely sympathetic
to red shirts and loyal to Thaksin, a former policeman, fails to control the
protests.
Red shirts regroup in smaller numbers, but at more locations in the capital,
hold rallies and block roads. Unrest spreads in the countryside. The public
virtually pleads for the military to act. And so it does. For the 78th time
since a constitutional monarchy was created in 1932, a coup (or an attempt)
is launched in Thailand. Martial law is declared. The army sweeps through
Bangkok and an uneasy order is restored. The military chiefs install a
compliant government.
This is unlikely. The military would much prefer to wield influence than to
try to govern itself. It wants to keep this government in power until it
completes the September reshuffle.
MARKET IMPACT: A coup would cause stocks to plunge, and the baht to slide.
Concerns about fiscal mismanagement, poor governance, and a public backlash
-- even civil war -- would curtail long-term investment. Thailand's credit
ratings would be downgraded. Bond yields would soar, and the CDS would
probably set an all-time record for a basis-point jump. There could even be
a contagion effect in Southeast Asian emerging markets."
Media under fire in Bangkok
21 May 2010
Media Under Fire:
Time Line
April 10
• Hiro Muramoto, a Japanese photo-journalist for Reuters, died after being
shot in the chest during a nighttime clash in Bangkok.
May 13
• Thomas Fuller, a journalist for the New York Times, was interviewing
ex-army officer Khattiya Sawatdiphol, known as Seh Daeng, when the latter
was killed by a shot to the head by a sniper.
May 14
• Nelson Rand, a Canadian journalist for France 24 television network, was
hospitalized after being shot in his arm, leg and abdomen.
• A Thai journalist working for Voice TV News website and a photographer for
Matichon newspaper were both shot in the leg.
• Two unknown foreign journalists were shot in the chest, but received minor
injuries due to their bulletproof jackets.
May 19
• An Italian photo-journalist, Fabio Polenghi, was shot dead in a clash
between Thai troops and Redshirts in Bangkok.
• Dutch journalist Michel Maas, working for Dutch television and newspapers,
as well as Radio Netherlands Worldwide, was hospitalized after being shot in
his shoulder.
• Chandler Vandergrift, a Canadian journalist, has undergone surgery and is
listed in serious condition after being shot by shrapnel in the head and
torso.
• British journalist Andrew Buncombe from The Independent is reportedly shot
and injured.
• An unknown foreign journalist, who reportedly looks Middle Eastern, was
shot in the chest and reportedly died.
• An unnamed American documentary film maker was hospitalized after being
shot in his leg.
• The car park of Bangkok-based Channel 3 TV station was set alight by
Redshirt protesters, destroying 17 cars.
There are some
vivid accounts of yesterday's military action in Bangkok contained in the
foreign press. These are articles (from English language media - there must
be similar in other languages) that you will not see in the Thai media. They
offer a vivid commentary on the confusion and fear of the day:
On twitter from
Andrew Bunscome this morning : "Pleasant gvt official visited me in hosp
Asked how I felt. I told him I was pretty pissed off to be shot in a temple
full of civilians."
CNN - embarrassing coverage. Its the jokes and the "aren't we smart"
comments that are really offensive. Video has been deleted. It was from CNN
USA. The video is already on YouTube - but i think you will have to find it
yourself. Even posting a link to it is unwise.
Fires-some newly
set-still burning around BKK more trouble reported from Red heartland in
north&northeast of country.
Al-Jazeera
reporting some significant rioting in Chiang Mai and the North East.
Central World,
Center One and Big C Rajdamri branch and Siam Theatre will be demolished,
said BMA
The chief public
works officer of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration said Thursday
CentralWorld and two other shopping malls as well as Siam Theatre would have
to be demolished.
He said Central World, Center One and Big C Rajdamri branch as well as Siam
Theatre had been burn for so many hours that they structures were damaged so
they would have to be demolished.
CNN headline this afternoon: Stolen paintings. So Bangkok must be very
quiet.
Amsterdam's
nonsense
20 May 2010
I guess it was
clear that I have always had some symptahy for the red cause. At least the
peaceful red cause. I do not like coups to rmeove elected governments. And i
do think that the Thai elite has been lining its pockets for far too long.
The image of the Thai elites handing out occasional alms to crouching
peasnats is too common in Thialand.
But teh reds lost
me even before the shicking arson attacks yesterday.
They lost me when
Thaksin hired Robert Amsterdam as his mouthpiece.
Suddenly this
publicity seeking lawyer has become an expert on Thai issues after being in
Thakins; pay for all of a week.
AMLawDaily (American Lawyer) has more background on this uniquely
annoying individual:
"Robert
Amsterdam is no stranger to dangerous assignments, so the client he's
recently gone to work for puts Amsterdam back in familiar territory.
The Bronx-born
international defense lawyer, best known for representing jailed Russian
businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was retained earlier this month by former
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra via supporters of the telecom
billionaire. The assignment put Amsterdam in the middle of Bangkok for three
days just as Thai troops were stepping up their crackdown on Thaksin's Red
Shirt supporters, creating some anxious moments for him.
"I just got out
of Bangkok where I was in the Red Shirt compound," Amsterdam says by phone
from Hong Kong. "I did not know if I would get out. The whole fucking thing
is just a terrible tragedy."
Amsterdam, a
founder of London-based Amsterdam & Peroff, says that Thaksin is being
unfairly vilified.
"These people
are risking their lives and the government is trying to portray Thaksin as
some kind of terrorist that they should go arrest, because he's the most
popular man in Thailand," he says. "Thaksin was popularly elected on a
number of occasions, unlike some of the individuals currently in power."
Thaksin's foes
accuse him of being the most corrupt politician in Thailand, and efforts to
go after his assets originally led him to retain Baker Botts to fight the
seizures. The firm is no longer representing Thaksin, who remains in exile.
(Michael Goldberg, chair of the firm's international arbitration and dispute
resolution practice, handled the assignment for the Baker Botts but didn't
immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Amsterdam says
he flew to Hong Kong early Wednesday (EST) with several of Thaksin's Thai
lawyers because "we could no longer function in Bangkok."
"The [Thai]
government is going to use these protests as a pretext to try to go after my
client, because they are just deathly afraid of him," Amsterdam says. "Now
we are going to investigate and document the absolutely extra-legal behavior
of the Thai government and military."
Amsterdam says
the Obama administration has been "incredibly quiet" about what is unfolding
in Thailand. "The writing is on the wall that this [Thai] government
is not long for this earth," Amsterdam adds. "Abhisit has to resign and they
have to call for elections."
I have already had
my rant about Amsterdam (see below). He simply gets the facts wrong. And the
international media is giving his nonsense far too much credibility.
Bus to work for
EK crew
20 May 2010
The Dubai Public Transport Agency of the Roads & Transport Authority (RTA)
has signed a strategic agreement with Emirates Group to commute the
employees of the Group from and to their homes and workplaces. The contract
runs for 3 years, with an option to renew it for further two years.
In simpler words -
the crew are currently transported in Avis minibuses. From June they will be
transported in RTA buses. Maybe that is the excuse that the RTA needs to now
build a road to Millennium Tower - which has been at the end of a bumpy dirt
track for 3 and 1/2 years.
Emirates has
cancelled the Avis contract - why pay a foreign company - and instead
entered a new contract with another government owned transport company.
The contract is worth about AED100 million over the three years.
Comprising Emirates Airline and DNATA among other companies, Emirates Group
needs to commute more than 15,000 employees everyday between their
residences and workplaces at Dubai International Airport, the Group’s Head
Office and other sites in Dubai.
The new contract starts early next month (June) and there will be a
fleet of 68 buses for the Emirates service on 109 routes across the city.
The dedicated buses will be distinguished with both the RTA and the Emirates
airline logos on them. They are presumable busy recruiting drivers from
Avis!
Bangkok's
torched buildings
20 May 2010 -
with thanks to RSW and updated by the Nation
1. Office of the
Narcotics Control Board (ONCB)
2. A commercial building in Bon Kai community
3. Kasikorn Bank, soi Ngam Doo Plee branch
4. Siam Paragon Shopping Complex
5. CentralWorld Shopping Complex
6. Maleenont Tower
7. Government Savings Bank, Sam Liam Din Daeng branch
8. Metropolitan Electricity Authority, Klong Toei branch
9. Metropolitan Waterworks Authority, Klong Toei branch
10. Stock Exchange of Thailand
11. Sogo Department Store in Rajaprasong area
12. Siam and Scala Cinemas in Siam Square
13. Post Publishing PCL
14. Bangkok Bank, Asok branch
15. Bangkok Bank, Victory Monument branch
16. Bangkok Bank, Chan Road branch
17. Center One Shopping Mall
18. Siam Square
19. Siam City Bank, Siam Square branch
20. Bangkok Bank, Siam Square branch
21. shops in Siam Square soi 5 and 6 22. Mahatun Plaza Building on Ploen Chit Road (false alarm - Mahatun
apparently OK) 23. Bangkok Bank, Rama IV branch
24. 7-Eleven convenient store, Sam Liam Din Daeng branch
25. Krungthai Bank next to Mater Dei School
26. Krungthai Bank, Asok branch
27. Bangkok Bank, Bangjak branch
28. Tesco Lotus Express convenient store, Rama IV branch
29. Bangkok Bank, Sathupradit branch
30. Bangkok Bank, Saphanluang branch
31. Siam City Bank, Sam Liam Din Daeng branch
32. Siam City Bank, Sunthornkosa branch in Klong Toei district
33. 7-Eleven convenient store near Victory Monument
34. Bangkok Bank, Hua Lam Phong branch
35. Siam Commercial Bank, Prachachuen branch
36. Big C Superstore, Rajdamri branch
Three Provincial Halls upcountry were hit by fires in Khon Kaen, Ubon
Ratchathani and Udon Thani
Where next for
Thailand?
20 May 2010
There is an
entertaining piece of nonsense in today's Nation likening Thai PM Abhisit to
Abraham Lincoln; except that one made his own decisionsand the other
has them made for him.There is also the small matter of the scale of
their respective crises.
Thailand's fatal flaw is that for over four years mob rule has replaced the
electoral process, which people have completely lost faith in.
It was mob rule
that paved the way for the parliamentary deal that got Abhisit into power in
the first place. Abhisit's promise on taking power was reconciliation, but
all we have seen is more chaos.
Restoring public
confidence in their right to elect their leaders is really what the Thai
authorities should be concentrating on right now. Elections will remain
pointless until the army and judiciary stop meddling with the result.
For the moment
Thailand looks like a Burma or China. There are military on the streets. The
government spokesman is on TV sat next to the man from the army. The
government is the army and vice versa. TV networks are either off air or are
broadcasting government sanctioned TV only. So the people are only told what
the government wants them to hear when it wants them to hear it. And that is
how rumours get created and spread. Because there is no other objective
information.
The good news is
that the death toll was not significantly higher - though I am sure that it
is higher than has been reported so far. At least at the outset it was
well-organized and the red shirt leaders surrendered once it became
inevitable.
Losses were
significantly less than what they could have been.
The CRES declared
victory too early - and left the city unprotected for the rash of arson
attacks that then followed. That was a significant gap in the army's
planning.
But the government
can claim that it has reclaimed Bangkok.
The local media
says that Abhisit received confirmation from Newin and Chaovarat of Bhum Jai
Thai that they were certain they could control the situation of the red
shirts upcountry.
Abhisit then gave
the order for the troops to move in. But the government and military now
need to control the situation. The likelihood is of further limited
violence, mostly fires and that the situation will be resolved within the
next week. Bangkok's shopping centres will be quickly rebuilt. And the
wreckage of the Siam theatre and the adjoing sois may have simply helped the
wrecking teams in an area that was likely to be redeveloped anyway.
But what will
remain is the anger. The government may seek to appease the nation by
ordering elections by the end of the year. By when the Democrats may have
already been disbanded by the constitutional court anyway.
As for Abhisit - I
actually feel sorry for him. We really do have no idea what he really
thinks. He may indeed be liberal leaning at heart; but he is propped up by
the ultra-rights in Thailand. If he is not pushed maybe it is time that he
said he has had enough.
The government is
more secure now the protestors have been cleared and militants largely
arrested. At least in Bangkok any opponent of the government is deemed as a
Red/Thaksin/Terrorist sympathizer. The media will help with strong support
of the current regime.
What may change
things is the reaction of people in the North East and Chiang Mai as their
people come back from Bangkok.
Clearing
demonstrators from the streets using military force is messy enough, but in
a major political conflict like Thailand's, the sweeping-out operation is
really the easy part.
Despite almost reaching a negotiated settlement with the protesters last
week, the Thai authorities have ordered security forces to overrun the main
redshirt encampments in central Bangkok, arresting major leaders and
apparently shooting dead at least four people, including an Italian
journalist, in a continuation of ham-fisted military tactics already
condemned by Amnesty International.
The decision to use force against redshirt protesters was immediately
applauded by government supporters - including many long-suffering Bangkok
residents - but the costs of such a heavy-handed crackdown will be extremely
high.
By opting for a military rather than a security solution, the government has
lost the opportunity to craft a settlement for an orderly transition. A
roadmap based on a plan for early elections in November had offered a
possible way forward, and intermediaries, including the senate speaker and
activist academics, had sought to broker further dialogue between the two
sides. The UN also made a couple of overtures of assistance, which were
immediately rebuffed by the government.
Following the death on Monday of renegade general Khattiya Sawasdipol,
better known as Sae Daeng, of wounds inflicted by a sniper, the redshirts
had lost their most hardline opponent of compromise.
Sae Daeng and his contingent of men, serving as a self-appointed security
detail for the redshirts, had been a key factor in resisting earlier
attempts to disperse the protests. The government now had the upper hand in
any talks, and the demonstrations were probably within a few days of
collapse.
The authorities' show of force today inflamed intense feelings of
frustration, resentment and rage among the protesters, who had camped out
for more than two months in 90F (32C) temperatures. Bangkok today is an
angry city of impossible contradictions and unfathomable hatreds.
The end of the formal protests solves nothing; indeed, it seems to be
ushering in a new and even more disturbing phase of random violence and
mayhem. The deep-rooted tension between pro- and anti-Thaksin networks have
not gone away.
These conflicts date back several years, reflecting a basic divide between
two competing colour-coded patronage-based networks. The redshirts are
broadly allied with former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. They remain
incensed that he was ousted in the disastrous September 2006 military coup
which did nothing to dent his electoral support, especially in the populous
north and north-east.
Opposing them are the yellowshirts, who are a royalist movement sympathetic
to the present Democrat Party-led administration, the military and the
bureaucracy. For them, Thaksin represents the dark side of Thai capitalism,
seeking cynically to subvert the country's traditional institutions and
values for his own advancement and advantage.
The divide between the two sides transcends social class and regional
origin, splitting families and households across the nation.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issues – and the popular image of the
redshirts as non-violent pro-democracy underdogs is woefully simplistic –
normalcy will not be restored in Thailand until a genuine accommodation is
reached between the two sides. Such an accommodation might take the form of
a political deal, a power-sharing arrangement, or some kind of substantial
decentralisation. Elections are needed, sooner rather than later, as part of
this process.
Nobody should be fooled into thinking that this conflict is over. Whether
the fires are quickly extinguished or continue to burn for many nights to
come will depend on the willingness of the Thai authorities to act
pragmatically, and to listen to voices of reason.
Duncan McCargo is professor of south-east Asian politics at the University
of Leeds and author of Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in
Southern Thailand (Cornell University Press), which won the inaugural 2009
Bernard Schwartz prize from the Asia Society
"When the red
shirts came to Bangkok on 12 March many thought that their rally would
disperse after a few days, or at least no more than a week or so. The crowd
was impressive – one of the biggest Bangkok had ever seen – though its
impact was diminished by over-confident predictions by red-shirt leaders
that one million rural protesters would descend on the capital. After the
debacle of April 2009, when the red invasion of the ASEAN summit in Pattaya
degenerated into street confrontations and an ignominious withdrawal from
Bangkok, many thought, or hoped, that the red shirts would be satisfied with
a short, sharp show of numerical strength.
But things have turned out very differently. The red shirts demonstrated
remarkable resilience and logistical capability, and their protest activity
paralysed parts of central Bangkok for more than two months. In late March,
they managed to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to the negotiating
table. The talks broke down, but the fact that Abhisit had “blinked” gave
the red shirts hope that they may be able to push him further. Remarkably,
the red crowd weathered the failed crackdown of 10 April, which left
twenty-one protesters dead, some with their brains literally blown out by
unseen snipers. Four soldiers also died in a grenade attack in what looked
like a deliberate hit on a senior officer with close connections to the
country’s queen. Extraordinary images emerged the next day showing
protesters tearing apart armoured personnel carriers abandoned by
inexperienced troops.
The 10 April violence hardened the resolve of the reds, making their
campaign against Abhisit more personal than ever. They consolidated their
protest at a downtown site in the midst of glittering shopping malls,
offices, embassies and hospitals. Their numbers fluctuated, but buoyed by
music, fiery speeches and the collective effervescence of a common cause the
protesters maintained a strong presence behind their bamboo and tyre
barricades. In true Thai style, street stalls selling food, drinks and
red-shirt paraphernalia sprang up around the protest site. The government’s
warnings and ultimatums were brushed aside.
What the past two months have shown is that the red shirts can move very
effectively from grassroots mobilisation to the national political stage.
But the movement has proven much less adept at withdrawal. Given the forces
now arrayed against them, this proved a fatal flaw indeed.
On 3 May, Prime Minister Abhisit made a final offer, laying down what he
described as a road map for national reconciliation. The centrepiece of the
offer was an election on 14 November 2010, more than a year ahead of
schedule. For a few days it looked like a peaceful resolution was in the
offing. The reds took their time considering Abhisit’s offer, and their
delays and qualifications appeared to be motivated not by intransigence but
by a desire to step down from a position of strength. Then the deal came
badly unstuck, seemingly over the theatrical technicality of precisely how
the deputy prime minister (and security coordinator), Suthep Thaugsuban,
should be called to account for the deaths of 10 April. The reds wanted him
to report to the police; he insisted on reporting to an investigations
office that fell under his own jurisdiction. The red-shirt leaders were also
concerned about how the charges of terrorism against them would be handled.
These very serious offences can be punished by life in prison or the death
penalty in Thailand.
With the red shirts refusing to shift, and with talk of further
reinforcements moving in from the provinces, things quickly spiralled out of
control. Prime Minister Abhisit withdrew his offer of an election, issued a
final ultimatum to clear the protest site and then sent in the troops on the
afternoon of 13 May and gain on 19 May. Conflict continues even after the
army’s blockade around the main protest site precipitated a surrender from
red shirt leaders. Credible reports indicate that army snipers have been
shooting protesters. The red shirts responded with homemade fireworks,
molotov cocktails and a seemingly endless supply of burning tyres. Roaming
gangs of red shirts and rough-and-ready motorcycle taxi drivers succeeded,
for a time, in establishing new sites of protest and disruption, building
barricades or burning tyres and harassing the army in an urban battle with
no clear front line. Among the protesters were some more conventionally
armed men who are using pistols and M79 grenade launchers; the origins of
these “men in black” is mysterious, but they may represent disgruntled
elements in the army or pro-red members of the paramilitary organisations
that are part of the formal Thai security apparatus.
Despite the surprising level of resistance shown by the red shirts in these
engagements, it has been an uneven contest. So far, almost all of the dead
have been protesters, bystanders or medics attending to the wounded. The
death toll looks certain to rise as the clashes continue and as other parts
of Thailand are potentially drawn into a wider civil conflict; some are
already sceptical that the official count reflects the true number of
fatalities.
So why didn’t the red shirts withdraw when Abhisit put his 14 November
election offer on the table? All the signs pointed to a win by the red
shirts’ political allies, the opposition Pheua Thai (For Thailand) Party, at
a November election. Why couldn’t the red shirts wait just a few more months
to achieve their political objective? Many lives may have been saved.
In the coming weeks and months much will be written about what went on
within the red-shirt leadership during the early weeks of May 2010. There
are strong signs of a split between moderate and hardline forces. There is
much government-led speculation about the role of exiled prime minister
Thaksin Shinawatra in scuttling the deal. Many of the protesters remain
fiercely loyal to Thaksin and there is little doubt that his financial
backing has assisted the massive logistical effort involved in staging such
a long protest. Some assert that Thaksin is interested in stoking chaos;
others suggest that his interests would have been much better served if his
political allies could form government after a November election. Much
remains unknown and sorting out the details of what went on as the red
shirts debated their response to Abhisit’s deal will have to wait until the
fog of war clears a little.
But there is a much more fundamental reason for the failure of the red
shirts to withdraw and the violent immolation of Ahbisit’s road map:
Thailand has lost faith in electoral democracy.
Abhisit’s offer of a November election may have seemed reasonable, perhaps
even generous to some, but it was essentially meaningless in a country where
respect for electoral decisions has evaporated. The red shirts don’t need
long memories to recognise the flimsiness of his offer. Just four years ago,
in March 2006, following an earlier round of street protests, Thaksin
Shinawatra called a snap election. The Democrat Party, led by Abhisit,
decided to boycott the election, because they knew that they would lose. In
the end Thaksin’s party received about 60 per cent of the votes cast but the
result was cancelled by the courts on a dubious technicality.
Another Thaksin victory was likely in a repeat election scheduled for late
2006. That’s why the army staged its coup on 19 September 2006, pushing
aside the most electorally popular government Thailand has ever seen.
Although Abhisit said that he disapproved of coups, he has been the main
political beneficiary of Thaksin’s removal. But he still couldn’t manage to
win an election. In the post-coup election of December 2007 the
Thaksin-aligned People Power Party won just short of an absolute majority.
Many in the Bangkok elite wouldn’t accept that result either. The
anti-Thaksin yellow shirts took to the streets when the new government was
only a few months old, occupying Government House and eventually shutting
down Bangkok’s international airport. This campaign to overthrow the elected
government had the backing of Abhisit’s Democrats, and they got their way
when the ruling party was dissolved by the Constitutional Court. With some
army-led arm-twisting, Abhisit was finally able to stitch together a
parliamentary majority.
Given the chain of events that brought Abhisit to power, why would the red
shirts place their faith in his offer of an election? Powerful figures
within the government are extremely reluctant to subject themselves to
electoral judgement, so how could red-shirt leaders persuade the doubters in
their midst that the road map could be trusted? With the yellow shirts
openly hostile to the deal, how could the red shirts be confident that they
wouldn’t seek to disrupt it?
And even if an election went ahead, recent history underlines the likelihood
of extra-electoral intervention, either on the streets or in the courts, to
overturn the result. Repeatedly vilified as Thaksin’s crowd-for-hire, how
could the red shirts be confident that their future votes wouldn’t be
dismissed once again as the product of money politics? Could they rely on
the palace to add its moral authority to a defence of the electoral process?
Of course not.
The red shirts may have made a fatal error in not accepting Abhisit’s 14
November deal. But their decision is just one facet of a much bigger
problem. Thailand’s fatal flaw is its loss of faith in the electoral
process, which has opened the way for hardliners to pursue violent
alternatives. Even after the surrender of red shirt leaders on 19 May there
is potential for further conflict and bloodshed. Sabotage, reprisals and
protests in other parts of the country are now being reported. Violence on
all sides is deplorable, but remember that those who condemn the red-shirt
provocations most vigorously are also those who have consistently denied the
legitimacy of their peaceful statements at the ballot box. "
Andrew Walker and Nicholas Farrelly are Southeast Asia specialists in the
College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. In
2006 they co-founded New Mandala, a website on mainland Southeast Asian
affairs.
What next for
Korea?
20 May 2010
A North Korean
attack was always the most likely explanation for the two month old attack
on the South Korean gunshio, Cheonan. But the South Koreans and her allies
were careful not to immediately escalate the situation. The last thing that
prosperous South Korea needs is to be back fighting with North Korea.
But, finally an
official statement has been made that evidence overwhelmingly proves North
Korea fired a torpedo that sank a South Korean warship in March, killing 46
sailors, investigators said today.
South Korean
President Lee Myung-bak vowed "stern action" for the provocation and called
an emergency security meeting for Friday, the presidential Blue House said.
But what can he
do? North Korea has warned that any retaliation over ship sinking will
trigger 'all-out' war
The long-awaited
investigation results from a multinational team said a torpedo caused a
massive underwater explosion that tore the Cheonan apart on March 26.
Fifty-eight
sailors were rescued from the frigid Yellow Sea waters near the Koreas'
maritime border but 46 perished — South Korea's worst military disaster
since the end of the three-year Korean War in 1953.
Fragments
recovered from the waters near the Koreas' maritime border indicate the
torpedo came from communist North Korea, investigators said.
"The evidence
points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the torpedo was fired by a
North Korean submarine. There is no other plausible explanation," the South
Korean-led investigation team said.
The civilian and
military investigation team included experts from South Korea, the U.S.,
Australia, Britain and Sweden.
North Korea has
denied involvement in the sinking of the 1,200-ton warship. Vice
parliamentary speaker Yang Hyong Sop earlier this week criticized Seoul for
"unreasonably" linking his country to the incident, according to the North's
state radio station.
The report's
release is likely to further increase tensions on the divided Korean
peninsula, where the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, rather than a
peace treaty. The land border is the world's most heavily armed, and the
western sea border has been the site of several deadly naval clashes since
1999.
North Korea
disputes the maritime border drawn by the United Nations at the close of the
war in 1953.
Thailand
updates - 20 May 2010
Morning
Update
No BTS or MRT
today.
Banks closed
400-500 protesters
have been reported transported home yesterday - many were left overnight in
the Patumwanaram temple - where there may have been as many as 3,000 people.
Gunshots ring out
near temple in heart of protest zone in BKK, soldiers are advancing on foot
along elevated train track: AFP
Siam Square Soi
4-5 have been gutted.
Col Apiwan told
Spring News 9 were shot dead at Patumwanaram Temple last night. AFP reported
the same number.
Police officer on
TPBS says security situation much improved but concerns remain about
Ratchaprasong, Klong Toei and Din Daeng area.
Fires under
control.
Red-shirt leaders
Korkaew Pikulthong and Veera Musikapong to turn themselves in to crime
suppression police today.
Curfew extended to
Saturday, shortened to 9pm-5am, effective in all Emergency Decree declared
areas throughout Thailand.
Higher Sukhumvit -
business as normal. Shops, supermarkets, pubs all open. Curfew will still
apply at night.
Government: 44
dead so far
Reality check
19 May 2010
I am truly fed up
with the nonsense from Mr. Robert Amsterdam:
And the following
is my comment sent to the Australian web site which will probably never get
published:
"Mr. Amsterdam is the hired hand of a convicted criminal living in exile who
also happens to be an ex PM of Thailand.
I am no fan of military coups. I am no fan of Abhisit's government but Mr
Amsterdam needs to do some research into his client.
For an alleged human rights lawyer he conveniently forgets the thousands
dead under Thaksin's war on drugs; the abuses at Tak Bai; Thaksin's constant
abuses of press freedoms, and rampant vote buying.
Thaksin conveniently altered the laws so that his Shin Corp profited hugely
and could then be sold without any payment of tax.
The man is corrupt. And he was tried and sentenced.
The red shirts do have the right to vote - after all they elected Thaksin
and his surrogates. The Democrats do lead a legal coalition government under
the Thai constitution (just as the Tories and Lib Dems area allied in the
UK) and another election is due before the end of 2011 So Amsterdam's last
para has is already fully available to the red shirts.
How does Amsterdam justify Thakin's red shirt militia torching buildings in
BKK and the provinces in what are clearly planned attacks?
The Klong Toei slum area is home to 300,000 people and close to the MEA and
SET fires as well as the channel 3 fire. Tesco Lotus on Rama 4, also
torched, backs onto a slum community. If fires had spread into those
communities the casualties would be huge.
Amsterdam's rants (in any paper that is desperate enough to print them) are
making a bad situation worse.
Honestly, Mr. Amsterdam, if you really are a human rights lawyer you would
end this travesty now and be embarrassed to have been paid for it."
It has been a very
long day. And in all reality an appalling day for the red shirted people.
There hugely reduced numbers were easily rounded up around the main stage
and they will rot in jail for minimum two year terms without trial. SO much
for justice. But their hero, Thaksin, was not great on the judicial process
either.
Meanwhile the
arson attacks across Bangkok and in some provinces will have alienated
anyone who might have sympathised with the red shirt cause. This should be
the end of their movement. No one can support or sanction the huge
detsruction of property that has taken place.
And with no red
shirts support Thaksin is now an exile for life. And he will need to keep
hiding.
Here are the days
main events:
12.00am Power and
water cuts at Siam may have meant that the Central World sprinkler system
did not work as it should. So army actions contributed to the prorlwm.
11.30pm BMA
official: After 9 hrs of fire at Central World, the ZEN section has been
totally gutted.
11.15pm "The fires
irrevocably ends the reds shirts movement for now, while Thaksin cannot
conceivably ever return to politics or even to Thai soil." I think this is
right.
11.05pm Someone
rightly notes that it is quite clear from that list of buildings burnt -
stock exchange, banks, TV stations, shopping centres - this was not random
or mindless
10.05pm Thai PM is
on TV in Thailand - at last
9.35pm Rumour - is
facebook is now blocked in Thailand? No.
9.15pm Someone
asked - how are you supposed to keep count of how many died, when the
army take away the dead before anyone can get near?
9.00pm 6 points on
fire 1) Siam Theatre 2) Paragon 3) CWT 4) Centara Grand Hotel 5) Bangkok
Bank 6) Siam City Bank
8.55pm Sounds like
many people are still trapped in Wat Patum
8.45pm Mark
MacKinnon Medics around me say 7 dead 10 injured inside Wat Patum temple,
which was supposed to be sanctuary. I'd guess 1500 to 2000 terrified ppl
8.30pm This looks
much more like a rebellion or an uprising. The red shirts provide a rallying
point for all sorts of dissidents, militants, disenfranchised, and angry.
And even a few Thaksin supporters. As long as the army does not split or
join the rebellion then I don't see a civil war.
8.15pm Reuters
Analysis: Thailand's military and police have a congenital inability
to keep out of politics -- there have been 18 actual or attempted coups in
the past eight decades. The longer it takes to quell violence and unrest,
the likelier a coup becomes.
8.00pm Curfew starts now - in 21 provinces - troops can shoot on site
if suspect arsen, looting or incitement. Otherwise if you are out you can be
arrested and imprisoned for two years.
7.50pm RIP Siam
Theatre - 44 years ago the first movie screened at Siam was "Rot Tung
Prachan Ban", charging only Bt7 for a front-row seat.
7.50pm Government
spokesman Panitan says on pooled TV the authorities ask for public
cooperation in helping maintain public order and report to the authorities,
on 199, any arson attempts and other destabilizing conducts during the 8
pm-6 am curfew on Wednesday night
7.50pm The Bank of
Thailand declared Thursday and Friday would be bank holidays around the
country for reaons of public safety and all Thai financial institutions will
be closed, it said in a statement
7.50pm Thai
authorities ordered all TV stations on Wednesday to only broadcast
government-sanctioned programmes, instead of normal broadcasts.
7.50pm Foreign
tourists and Thai travellers will be allowed to go to Bangkok airports on
Wednesday night, getting a waiver from a curfew imposed by the authorities,
government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn.
7.50pm The BBC
says there is only silence and smoke left after protesters surrendered. What
was once a glitzy shopping area has been devastated.
7.30pm Ubon
Ratchathani town hall burned down.
7.10pm 7:06pm:
Charnvit Kasetsiri, a prominent political historian who specialises in
modern political movement, described the latest phenomenon to Reuters as
"the most widespread and most uncontrollable" political violence Thailand
has ever seen.
7.10pm
Bangkok burning: protesters torched at least 17 buildings, including the
Thai stock exchange and Central World, Southeast Asia's second-biggest
department store complex and operated by Central Pattana PCL. The store was
gutted by fire and looked like it may collapse, said a Reuters witness.
7.05pm Andrew
Spooner on Twitter "Source tells me elite/military blocked Redshirt govt
amnesty that would've sealed Road Map deal - says things were "very
complicated""
7.05pm Bank of
Thailand ordered all banks, financial institutions closed May20-21 for
safety reasons
7.05 pm Collateral
damage as one person send this message: "My poor landlady in DinDaeng: her
puppy broke his neck when a grenade went off & he was startled & fell. She
is heartbroken :("
Have to go out
- follow Reuters for updates.
Curfew: Curfew
in BKK for tonight from 8pm-6am - This curfew is the first time in 18 years
since Bloody May in 1992
4.00pm Bulldozers
and heavy equipment are already cleaning up the main rally site.
4.00pm This may be
accurate - "Looks like carefully chosen arson & violence attacks. Someone
stays in control. Who. Bet next are targeted killings." The targets do look
like a planned attack.
4.00pm Ch 3 off
the air, TAN, Bangkok Post, Nation evacuating their staff from their offices
in Bangkok.
4.00pm Will non
reds need to arm to protect themselves - when will the PAD come out ?
3.45pm "The
government may be able to retrieve the Rachaprasong intersection by using
troops, but it will face a tougher task in winning the hearts and minds of
the rural people whose relatives were attending a relatively peaceful rally
and have been killed or wounded in the crackdown." Boonyakiat Karavekphan,
political scientist, Ramkhamhaeng University
3.45pm ThaiPBS
reporter states there is fire at Siam Square. Cinema is on fire; fire has
spread to MK restaurant in Siam Square
3.45pm Troops are
using live rounds on protesters in Chiang Mai - multiple sources
3.30pm ThaiPBS
reporter states there is fire at Siam Square. Cinema is on fire; fire has
spread to MK restaurant in Siam Square
3.25pm SET on
fire. BKK Post and Nation evacuating. Channel 3 TV building under attack.
Surely the CRES
Mission Accomplished announcement was a little premature. Situation is not
under control. Arson attacks throughout the city.
3.10pm Central
Ladphrao and Central Bangna are both closed.
3.05pm TV footage
shows fire at Udon Provincial Hall. Hundreds of reds runing amok. - Nation
3.00pm 5 red-shirt
leaders brought to undisclosed location; Jatuporn uses MP status to provide
immunity from charges - TNN.
2.40pm Giant
clouds of smoke at Din Daeng, CentralWorld and Paragon. Regular explosions
and gunshots.
2.20pm
New York
Times - "Television footage showed soldiers opening fire at the backs of
protesters running for cover."
2.20pm AFP: A
curfew is to be imposed across Bangkok on Wednesday night, defence minister
General Prawit Wongsuwon said.
2.15pm
"Suppression without accommodation results in a better armed movement."
Thitinan Pongsudhirak
2.15pm INN:
Dindaeng red-shirt protesters announce independence from main gathering
2.15pm - Bangkok
burning
2.10pm People left
very quickly from the main site - Al-Jazeera reports that food is still
cooking.
2.05pm CRES
Briefing underway - CRES via Col Sansern: center had to reclaim Lumpini Park
as it was a known terrorist hideout
Sansern calls
red leaders who have surrendered - Jatuporn, Nuttawut - as terrorist
leaders. General situation under our control - we have stopped troop
advancement operations.
2.00pm More
explosions reported at chidlom. I doubt that reds at khlong toei will follow
nattawuds request to surrender. They are agitated
1.55pm Key Red
Shirt leaders Nuttawut and Jatuporn are arrested by police (Thai PBS)
1.52pm A lot a
very angry people in chiang mai
1.49pm Nattawud:
Don't worry. We won't lose our freedom for a long time. Everyone go home
safely.
1.45pm Leaders
surrender - but I suspect the fighting is not over. Good decision. Avoids
unnecessary loss of life.
1.45pm Jatuporn
seen paying respect to image of HM the King before walking inside to meet
police interrogators
1.45pm Bulldozers
already moving in to red stage site
1.30pm I am not
sure that a surrender by moderate red shirt leaders will actually stop the
fighting.
1.30pm Nattawud:
we have tried our best for the sake of the country, but when we see so much
death, it has to stop. (Shouts of protest.) Our struggle is not finished,but
we cannot allow u here to give your lives for us today.
1.23pm Opposition
chief whip Witthaya said seven UDD leaders will surrender to police at
1.30pm today /BkkPost
1.20pm Must be
time to surrender and avoid further loss of life. But even if moderates
surrender will that stop the militants
1.17pm Thai News
Agency reports at least 5 people have been killed including an Italian
journalist and over 50 people have been wounded.
1.13pm Elite Thai
troops deployed in #Bangkok have been authorised to shoot on sight people
looting, committing arson or inciting unrest
1.10pm Protesters
torch both buildings of Udon Thani city hall; shots heard
1.10pm TAN network
- 7 red leaders to surrender: Jatuporn, Nutthawut, Weng, Jeng Dokjik,
Korkeaw,Wiputalang, Nisit
1.05pm BBC: army
ordered to shoot to kill, journalists injured
1.00pm Khong Toey:
many explosions!! Shots very near by MRT !!! Its dangerous!!
12.17pm Red shirts
are surrounded - surely time to wave the white flag. Save lives and let
people leave. That must be what the army wants. Red shirts say that they
have at least 7,000 at the main stage.
12.15pm Exiled
ex-PM Thaksin said on Wednesday he fears a crackdown on anti-government
protesters could lead to guerrilla warfare across the country. "There is a
theory saying a military crackdown can spread resentment and these resentful
people will become guerrillas," Thaksin told Reuters in a telephone
interview, declining to say where he was.
Where is Thaksin?
12.14pm 4 people,
including Italian jounalist, killed, at least 50 wounded during clashes -
MCOT
Quick update -
some 300 troops are very slowly and carefully marching from Silom/Saladaeng
towards the main stage at Ratchaprasong. Meanwhile the red shirts continue
to make speeches and play music on the stage.
Sensible army
approach - trying to minimise casualties.
Other red shirt
groups - mainly red militia - have set up stages and barricades elsewhere in
the city - in Bon Kai for instance. The likelihood is of guerilla type
battles around the city.
12.10pm Al-Jazeera
- 5 people dead.
12.10pm Dominic
Faulder on Al-Jazeera "A big green elephant to crack a little red mouse"
12.05pm Comment on
Reuters blog - This is a power play at the highest level with the "red
shirts" as pawns.
12.00 pm Bangkok
burning
11.58pm In Khon
Khaen. Redshirts are storming the City Hall (TPBS) - will there be trouble
in other Thai cities
11.58pm Various
Thai media confirming that soldiers slowly approaching Ratchprasong stage;
not many protesters left in front of stage
11.54pm Thai news
agency says 4 people killed, more than 50 wounded in morning operation
11.35pm The govt.
has set up an assembly point at the National Stadium, for those protesters
who would like a free lift home
11.35pm We are
waiting, not for death, but to see if troops will leave, Somchai says.Don't
do anything yet, he tells crowd. Govt may change its mind.
11.35pm Wire
agencies saying foreign reporters injured, possibly one killed in bkk. Very
worrying news.
11.35pm Al Jazeera
saying troops continued to fire on medical staff as they attempted to help
those injured.
11.35pm AP
photographer sees 3 foreign journalists shot during Bangkok army operation,
1 appears dead.
11.35pm Closing in
on Red stage at protest centre. As soldiers advance, Reds still defiantly
sitting on ground, playing music.
11.35pm Security
Forces cleared Sathorn Rd, Silom Rd, Rama IV Rd to Lumpini & Lumpini Park.
Break for sleep.
8.14 am
Al-Jazeera reporting as four APCs on Rama IV road try to break through the
barricades. The APCs all have machine guns on them which are being used to
fire into the red camp.
8.00am BBC says
that army has soldiers on the BTS rail tracks between Chitlom and Siam - the
rail track is on an elevated bridge over the main protestors site.
7.55am Reuters
witness say the thick black smoke seen on TV is from the main protest
barricade in Central bangkok on the Rajdamri road area
7.52
Watching a huge smoke cloud over BKK - on ThaiPBS via internet
7.45am Redshirts
ask reporters to leave media area at main stage in Ratchaprasong
7.40am Thai troops
fire guns into encampment of protesters in central Bangkok - AP
7.35am Seh U/Gen
Lertlad, Appointed Senator & mediator last night, is interviewed on Ch 3.
Estimates 100 dead; 1000+ injuries if military goes in.
7.30am Thai PBS:
Troops totally seized control of Sala Daeng Intersection. Troops ceaselessly
fired into the sky to intimidate protesters
7:22am Reuters
report on the tear gas fired at protesters. Witness said the tear gas was
aimed at demonstrators close to the Rama IV statue in front of Lumpini park.
6.52am Suddenly
the CRES does not want to tell its version of events: "I will not answer any
questions," spokesman Sunsern Kaewkumnerd told AFP.
6.50am AFP:Twelve
APCs with machine guns mounted on top arrived inSilom, troops wearing
balaclavas and carrying weapons/riot shields.
Crackdown
coming
19 May 2010
This does not look
good. 6am in Bangkok and their are Armoured Personel Carriers on Silom. Just
a show of force I hope.
CNN is reporting
that : "Dozens of troops waiting in alley looks like crackdown is about to
happen in Bangkok."
Reports of 40
tanks at Victory Monument. Not confirmed.
Gunshots heard as
Thai army uses loudspeakers to order protesters to leave immediately –
Reuters, local TV
5000 pro-democracy
protesters in Bangkok are under attack from an army larger than the one the
UK used in Iraq
And friendly fire
appears to have killed the only military to have died in the fighting as the
Bangkok Post is reporting this morning that a flight sergeant was shot
dead and another air force officer injured late on Sunday night when they
drove a pickup truck along Silom Road and clashed with government forces.
Flight Sergeant Pongchalit Thipyanonthakarn, 51, was hit in the head and
later died, while pilot officer Apichart Chongyong, 26, sustained injuries
to his hand. Police believe the gunfire might have stemmed from a
misunderstanding. Several shots were heard shortly after the two officers
drove into the area.
Red Shirt
protestors had agreed to negotiations with the government mediated by the
senate. The government said that it would not negotiate while the protests
continued.
The Long
Winding Red Road to Ratchaprasong and Thailand’s Future
18 May 2010
published in the Asia-Pacific Journal on May 17, 2010 Philip J
Cunningham
"The sniper shooting of Seh Daeng, Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol, on May 13,
2010 by an unknown assailant while chatting with foreign reporters has
brought to rupture the standoff between Reds and Yellows in the heart of
Bangkok and signals a new stage in the movement and its repression. Seh
Daeng, whose nickname means “red commander”, was the reddest of the red
shirts. His daughter, who sat at his bedside in the hospital until he
succumbed to his grievous wounds on May 17, 2010, has been a staunch
supporter of the yellow shirts, illustrative of the convoluted politics of
the era. To better put in context the convoluted color-coded politics of the
present day, and to identify some of the key heroes and villains and
historic reference points being talked about on both sides of the barricades
in Bangkok, a brief review of Thai political activism over the years will
follow.
The road to the red-shirt takeover of the Ratchaprasong intersection in the
heart of Bangkok’s busiest shopping district is a long and winding one.
Political activists are not unlike historians in that they frequently point
to events in the past to understand what is happening in the present. Key
milestones on Thailand’s winding, bloody road to democracy are introduced to
illuminate the democratic and revolutionary claims and historic pretensions
of the red and yellow shirted activists today.
The bloodless coup of 1932 marked the end of absolute monarchy and is
regarded as the birthdate of Thai democracy. Pridi Panomyong, later forced
into exile to China by co-conspirator Pibun Songkhram, remains a hero
wronged by history to Thai leftists, while Pibun, who yielded top-down
authoritarian power for much of the 1940’s and 1950’s is viewed as a bulwark
of establishment power.
Bhumibol Adulyadej, the present king, was coronated while Pibun was prime
minister, but given Pibun’s republican leanings and history of participation
in the 1932 coup, he was not particularly supportive of the monarchy.
Thanks in part to the US-stoked hysteria of the Cold War, the chameleon-like
Pibun, who welcomed the Japanese with open arms in World War II, and then
welcomed the US with open arms in 1945, was not perceived as anti-communist
enough and was replaced in a 1957 coup by the self-styled “royalist”
strongman Sarit Thanarat.
Sarit, ruthless, authoritarian and exceedingly rich, was succeeded by his
close associate Thanom Kittakachorn, another staunch anti-communist who
likewise enjoyed generous US support.
The 1960’s saw Thailand grow under authoritarian rule, with a concomitant
rise in the countryside of the Thai communist party, especially in the Isan
region, which ironically was the homeland of Sarit.
One of Thailand’s brightest thinkers, an independent scholar named Jit
Phumisak, who was hired by the US embassy in Bangkok to translate the
Communist Manifesto, but more importantly was the author of numerous tracts
on Thai feudalism and lyricist/composer of songs that are still sung by
protesters today, was threatened, jailed and hounded by the Sarit regime
until he joined the newly formed Thai communist guerilla movement in the
mountains of northeastern Thailand in the province of Sakol Nakorn.
Jit was shot to death in the ricefields of a contested area on the side of a
dirt road on May 5, 1966, an event memorialized in the haunting and
melancholy song, Jit Phumisak, sung by the folk rock group Caravan. Simply
put, Jit Phumisak is the Che Guevera of Thailand.
On October 14, 1973 student demonstrations erupted over corruption and the
constitution, leading to the fall of the hated Thanom government which
inaugurated a three-year freewheeling hiatus in which US troops were asked
to leave and a home-grown democracy was tested and attempted but failed to
sink deep roots.
In the case of 1973 the King intervened on the side of the students, but
when the military staged a coup three years later in the face of Thammasat
University student demonstrations protesting the return of Thanom from
exile, the monarch sided with the military.
After the brutal crackdown of October 1976, many students went into exile or
joined guerillas in the Communist Party of Thailand in the “jungle.” Typical
of this generation, Caravan lead singer Surachai Chantimatorn and his fellow
band members who started out as bards of the 1970’s protests, then
radicalized and went into exile in China and Laos where they joined the
United Front of the Thai Communist Party after the October 6, 1976 military
crackdown. Things had gotten so bad in Bangkok that for Caravan, and
hundreds of other “Ocotober people,” the hardship of life in the jungle
seemed a reasonable choice.
Chamlong Srimuang and Samak Sundaravej, both of whom later served respective
terms as mayor of Bangkok, and eventually became bitter archrivals during
the Thaksin years, were on the wrong side of history, the military side, in
1976.
General Prem Tinsulanonda, who ruled Thailand with a steady hand for much of
the 1980’s after replacing military factions directly responsible for the
1976 coup, bought peace and a measure of prosperity through a successful
amnesty deal that brought the activist youth of the 1970’s back into the
fold of society. Since then, Prem has come to represent the pinnacle of a
supple establishment, serving as an elder statesman and a leading member of
the Privy Council serving the monarchy.
Seventies activists dropped the revolution as the CPT withered as a result
of the Sino-Soviet split within the fledgling movement and amnesty offers
from General Prem. Theirs is a lost generation, characterized by wild
extremes. Many willingly gave up the armed struggle, which did not suit
Bangkok’s best and brightest student leaders anyway, but they had nowhere to
go. Some gave up hope and idled in drugs or drink, others reinvented
themselves and became academics, poets and writers. Others still, with input
from the 1976 class student leaders such as Sutham Saengpratum, who were
imprisoned until amnesty was offered by Prime Minister Kriangsak Chomanon
under the urging of Jimmy Carter, became politicians in their own right.
Perhaps to atone for this historic misjudgment, Chamlong studied Buddhism,
lived an ascetic lifestyle and became a key activist in the anti- coup and
anti General Suchinda Kraprayong demonstrations of 1992, which culminated in
the Ratchadamnern street killings of “Black May.”
Again the monarchy intervened, reprimanding both parties. Chamlong and
Suchinda crouched for the cameras at the King’s feet, then withdrew from the
struggle. A royalist interim PM was appointed, and eventually elections were
held, effectively neutralizing Suchinda’s military faction, which, after
all, had been entirely responsible for massacre of the demonstrators.
Neutralized, perhaps, but not accounted for. The disgraced General Suchinda
took a profitable sinecure position in the telecoms industry.
The interim PM, Anand Panyarachun, helped restore normalcy, especially to
jittery markets, and willingly stepped down as soon as elections were
scheduled. But the democratic period that followed has been full of fits and
starts, resulting in a series of short-lived coalition governments, the most
accomplished of which was led by Chuan Leekpai of the Democrat Party, where
the young Abhisit was being groomed for a future leadership role.
During the Chuan years, and then the Thaksin years, there were scattered
protests, most of them peaceful and some involving sustained camp-outs in
public places. Many leftists of the October generation (1970’s activists)
and the veteran activists of Black May (1992) were supportive of such street
activism regardless of who was premier. Caravan, in particular, has a
decades-old tradition of supporting demonstrations, especially on behalf of
the poor, and they have played tirelessly at student commemorations of
democratic milestones and at countless street gatherings, including mass
demonstrations of the Assembly of the Poor, held in front of Government
House, which created the template for long-term protests at public
intersections, complete with food service, stage and security. The
predominantly rural demonstrators adapted quickly to life in the open, and
created vital tent cities of the kind that yellow shirts and red shirts have
since emulated.
To say the red-yellow divide represents a class struggle is fundamentally
inaccurate, a willful interpretation that plays into the hands of a divisive
populism, though accusations of class bias do indeed resonate in Thailand’s
deeply unequal, hierarchical society which keeps alive, through music and
memory and a free press, the dream of equality and justice.
Many grassroots members of the red shirts happen to be Northeasterners from
Isan, but that is not to say that Isan people are red-shirts. It has long
been the poorest part of the country, but some poor people turn out to be
extremely conservative politically, dictator Sarit was from Isan and popular
in the way that fascists sometimes are, but for the most part the people of
Isan have been pragmatic and tend to show support for the status quo just to
keep their heads above water.
The Northeast today might better be described as a mosaic, with huge
yellowshirt strongholds, such as Ubon city, though right across the river on
the rural side of the bridge, one can find a red hotbed. Similar
complexities can be found in most of the provinces rimming Cambodia,
including Buriram, a pro-government “blue shirt” stronghold who finds its
patron in Thaksin-turncoat Newin Chitchob, while the more northerly Isan
towns such as Udon and Khonkhaen in the north can be more fairly described
as redshirt strongholds.
There is ample evidence of vote-buying and rent-a-mob activity, but there is
also compelling evidence of poor people getting sick and tired of the status
quo and joining the fray, which in recent years means putting on a color
coded shirt and joining a demonstration.
Isan has a rebel tradition which goes back at least to the 1950’s, when its
politicians, at the risk of their careers and very life, opposed the Bangkok
dictators, a pattern repeated in the 1960’s with Jit Phumisak’s generation
of guerilla activists (he was born in what is now Cambodia but most of the
guerillas were from Isan) and in the 1970’s with the students who went into
the jungle along with the Caravan generation. Not surprisingly, Caravan’s
lead singer is from Khorat province in Isan, and the lyrics for Jit Phumisak
were penned with the help of Khamsing Srinawk, a writer from Isan who
focused on the poor and disenfranchised of the region.
Folk-rockers Caravan, and a band influenced by Caravan known as Carabao,
whose lead singer was educated in the Philippines but served briefly as a
messenger for the CPT, have produced dozens of songs about social injustice
and the plight of the poor, setting the stage for the mix of politics and
music today.
Prominent, pro-Isan leftists such as Therdphum Jaidee, and Kraisak
Chunhawan, son of the elected prime minister deposed by General Suchinda in
the events leading up to Bloody May, are outright anti-Thaksin, if not
yellow shirt supporters, and many of the rank and file led by the socially
prominent newspaperman Sondhi and the ascetic Chamlong were drawn from both
former activists and Bangkok’s poor and middle classes.
Thus October people can be found on both sides of the red/yellow divide, as
can poor people from Bangkok and Isan people. This is not surprising, as
divisive color-coded politics have divided many a family right down the
middle.
As noted earlier Seh Daeng, was the reddest of the red shirts, while his
daughter, who kept vigil at his side in the hospital following the attempt
on his life, is considered a yellow shirt. Seh Daeng died on May 17, 2010
just as this article was being posted.
Another example of shifting alliances is the founder of the yellow shirts
himself. Sondhi Limthongkul was a business associate and political ally of
Thaksin before turning against him and organizing the potent yellow shirt
demonstrations. Sondhi, who survived a still-unsolved assassination attempt
that took place just after red shirt demonstrations of April 2009 were
quashed, has come out of political silence to express sympathy for the more
grievously injured Seh Daeng, briefly bridging, through shared tragedy, a
sharp political divide.
In recent years, some well-known October people and former jungle fighters
have become Thaksin supporters and MPs under his tutelage.
Although many of the red shirts like to draw a direct line between 1973 and
1976 and 1992 with the red cause, and there is some continuity of personnel,
the same could be said for the yellow cause which was also influenced by
earlier waves of social activism.
Furthermore, some very prominent democracy activists will have no truck with
either camp. Just to mention two, October 14 heroes Seksan Prasertkul and
Thirayut Boonmee, both respected academics, have been conspicuous by their
absence from activities both red and yellow.
But more surprising is the absence of the new generation of students. Where
are the young people today? The red crowd is distinctly middle aged, if not
middle class, and students are few and far between.
The presence of older demonstrators, especially from rural areas, on the
streets of Bangkok is hailed in some quarters as a new kind of political
consciousness, but there is also opportunism at play.
This year, as last, the red shirt rallies were crucially timed for the
March-April-May period which coincides with the dry season. Soaring
temperatures alone make this choice seem odd, until one considers the labor
pool. This is the one time of the year the countryside becomes truly idle,
and rural folk have some time on their hands due to the temporary halt in
agricultural activity. This year, as in other years, all sorts of rural
people descended on Bangkok in March, for all sorts of reasons. Many were
seeking to supplement their meager incomes, which for some means work as day
laborers or driving a tuk-tuk or taxi. For a few thousand others, there’s
been the novel opportunity of joining a demonstration that says the peasants
and poor are the heroes of the nation. For many, this means an all expense
paid song and food gala at Ratchaprasong intersection, where the only price
of admission is to sit and listen to speeches until the crackdown comes.
Then there are red leaders, and Puea Thai party members who are loyalists to
a billionaire in exile. They include core leaders Veera Musikapong, Nattawut
Saikua, Jatuporn Promphan, along with others such as Chaturon Chaisaeng and
Jaran Ditta-apichai, the latter two “October People,” former communist
guerillas with close ties to Thaksin.
“Nak su, thuli din” a rousing anthem attributed to Jan Kamachon can be heard
when red shirts die and their deaths are memorialized. When the death of Seh
Daeng was announced on May 17, it immediately brought the militant crowd to
its feet, and to tears.
“We are treated like dust on the ground,
but fortune will reverse itself...
Don’t give in to them, that’s all that matters...
We will die side by side…
Use blood to wipe away social decay…
Ahead of us, a future that is beautiful...
the fire has been lit, it will spread…”
The tragic visions of fire and blood ring all too true. And sadly, the
hierarchical habit of treating other people like dirt and dust underfoot
will persist long after the smoke finally clears at Ratchaprasong.
What has been happening in the streets of Bangkok will be an open wound for
some time to come, but selected elements of the struggle will no doubt
coalesce to become not just the stuff of legend, but different legends, for
different camps, for different reasons.
It is almost certain that Bloody May 2010 at Ratchaprasong will remain
divisive and controversial in a way that contrasts with the one-sided
military massacres memorialized by earlier generations of peaceful
activists. For all its claims to the moral high ground as peace-loving
democratic movement, the red shirt program is in certain respects more akin
to fascist populism, influenced by modern media technique and traditional
barrel of the gun tactics of the Thai communist guerillas.
In April and May 2010 a significant number of red shirt demonstrators and
sympathizers were armed and belligerent, and if their techniques were
traditional and low tech—everything from slingshots to bamboo spears and
Molotov cocktails—there also were armed agents in the shadows, standing on
red-held ground, using handguns, rifles and hand grenades to create mayhem
and new cycles of violence and rage. It should be stressed that the identity
and provenance of the “black-shirt” provocateurs remains murky.
In any case, the “Seh Daengs” and the known militant wing of the red shirts
have much to answer for, as do the moneymen and policy makers directing
events from a distance.
There is so much blame to go around on both sides of the barricades. Army
crackdowns in the name of law and order almost invariably take innocent
life, deepening the tragedy. General Anupong Paochinda in particular, was
outspoken in favor of a political solution and demonstrably reluctant to use
force against the protesters.
Thai folklore, future history, future poetry and song, will no doubt be
replete with new-arch villains, people’s heroes and unforgettable martyrs,
as has been the pattern in the past.
Like the Taiping rebellion in the late years of the Qing Dynasty, the red
shirt uprising may best be understood not just as a cause of a nation’s
distress but as a symptom of suppressed rage, unrest and unease in a deeply
divided society that is groping unsteadily towards the future.
Thailand will continue to examine its past, and attempt to put into historic
perspective current troubles, in order to better map out a new kind of
future."
Philip Cunningham is a professor of media studies who has taught at
Chulalongkorn University and Doshisha University. He is the author of
Tiananmen Moon: Inside the Chinese Student Uprising of 1989. A long-time
student of Chinese and Thai affairs, his blogspot is here:
http://jinpeili.blogspot.com/
He wrote this article for The Asia-Pacific Journal.
Note from
BP's blog:
When you open your eyes (beyond what CRES shows and claims), there are
plenty of videos showing unarmed people being shot and killed.
Here
is just one example (English subtitles provided).
Now, of course,
this does not mean what many of the protesters have done is also not
unlawful, but two wrongs don't make a right. Also, the wrong of killing
unarmed civilians is much greater than firing a slingshot.
Op-ed piece from
Peter Hartcher in today's Sydney Morning Herald pulls no punches ! Wont do
much to help relations between Oz and Thailand either. Since it discusses
the role of the head coach I will not link to it.
Thaksin's new
lawyer interviewed today on Al-Jazeera
Sun, sea, sand
and sleep
17 May 2010
Last week I was
fortunate enough to be able to travel with one group of Emirates crew - to
Bangkok and onto Sydney. I was also able to spend three sunny days in
Sydney. For the crew this is a tough week - five days or nights of flying;
with three overnight flights and 6 hours of time change each way. Crew
fatigue is an issue for discussion another day.
26 years ago I
spend four months working in Sydney thanks to my first full time employer -
Pannell Kerr Forster - and I was working mostly at News Corporation's Sydney
headquarters. My two colleagues and I had an apartment on Lamrock Avenue - a
minute's walk from Bondi Beach.
I remember being
happy there - the Aussie winter is for the most part mild - although the
days are short and dark comes early.
I arrived in 1984
on a Garuda flight - Sydney was the seventh stop and it was 36 hours from
Gatwick. Friends in Sydney met me and my introduction to the city was a
sunny afternoon on the lawn of the Watson's Bay Hotel drinking too much beer
and bbq-ing out own huge t-bone steaks.
Working with
Reuters took me back to Sydney at least once a year - and it was always a
possible holiday destination from Singapore or Hong Kong.
My most recent
visit was back in 2003 and was a short stay while heading for Melbourne. So
it really was time to go back !
In many ways one
of the pleasures of Sydney is that it does not change too much. It gets
bigger. But the harbour is unspoiled; the botanical gardens manicured and
the bridge and opera house still dominate. No other bridge has been built;
no one has tried to create a new landmark. Even Luna Park on the north side
is still there.
The city prospers;
old piers have been renovated. New hotels appear. The Darling Harbour area
has become popular, busy and fun. 26 years ago the only Asian travelers were
the Japanese; the city's duty free shops at the harbour used Japanese staff
and signage. Now the languages you hear most are Mandarin Chinese, Korean
and Thai. Chinatown in busy. There are smaller Thai and Korean towns that
combine to form a downtown Asia.
The weather was
spectacular for three days Blue skies and sunshine. And when the sun shines
Sydney moves outside. I walked the cliff walk from Bondi Beach to Bronte and
watched the surfers. Tai and I had a day at South Head - and a lunch at
Watson's Bay; where sadly they have concreted the old garden and maid one
large rather soul-less patio. There are some smaller beaches at South Head
including Sydney's only official nude beach - which seems to be the only
harbour beach without a shark net? You can stand on South Head and gaze east
across the Pacific and north to North Head and Manley or west back to the
City in the distance.
Imagine the views
that greeted Cook when he first charted Sydney Cove or Capt Phillip and the
first fleet when they arrived in 1788.
We ate well -
Italian in the Rocks one night and Korean BBQ the following night; washed
down with a glass or three of wine.
The first night
was almost sleepless - not helped by a 6.15am wake-up call and being thrown
out of the hotel at 7.15 so the the crew could head for Christchurch and
back. After that we slept a lot.
One catch with
Sydney - it is an expensive city. Food and drink prices are at the high end
of international prices. But it is imported stuff such as electronics and
books that are criminally priced. A new book that I wanted in Syndey was
A$32.95 and in Bangkok was Baht 490. Not far off half the price.
Public transport
is not cheap either. Which may account for why traffic is still so bad.
But it is a city
that has so much going for it that niggling grumbles seem out of place.
Banning the
burqa - a bad idea...
17 May 2010 - The Economist
"When Jack Straw,
a British Labour politician, said a few years ago that he would prefer
Muslim women to uncover their faces during appointments with him, because he
“felt uncomfortable about talking to someone ‘face-to-face’ who [he] could
not see”, liberal opinion was scandalised. He had no more right to request
this than he did to ask a teenager to take out a tongue-stud or anything
else that might offend middle-aged men: indeed, arguably less because the
covering was for reasons of faith, not fashion. Today, however, some
European governments are going further than Mr Straw ever wanted to.
Starting with Belgium and France, they plan to ban the face-covering niqab
or burqa altogether (see article).
Europeans’ hostility to the burqa is understandable. It doesn’t just deprive
them of the beauty of women’s faces; it offends the secularism that goes
deep in European—and especially French—culture. Its spread goes hand in hand
with the growth of a fundamentalist version of Islam some of whose
proponents have attacked the secular societies they live in; and, at a time
when those societies feel under threat, the burqa makes it harder for police
to identify security risks.
For people raised outside the Gulf or Afghanistan, dealing with somebody
whose facial expressions are hidden is uncomfortable. Unlike the headscarf,
the burqa appears, in itself, to be a restraint on female freedom, and also
symbolises what many Europeans see as the repression that women can suffer
in Islam. And although many, and probably most, Muslim women wear the
headscarf out of choice, some tell the police that they were forced to wear
the burqa against their will.
Nor do democracies give absolute rights to citizens to wear what they like.
The consensus about what is tolerated and what deemed offensive or dangerous
varies. People cannot, in most countries, walk the streets naked. And
Europeans clearly favour a ban. A recent poll found that a majority backed
one in France (70%), Spain (65%), Italy (63%), Britain (57%) and Germany
(50%). In America, with its stronger culture of religious freedom, only a
minority (33%) was in favour.
Tolerate the burqa with pride
Yet the very values which Europeans feel are threatened by the burqa demand
that they oppose a ban. Liberal societies should let people wear what they
want unless there is a strong argument otherwise. And, in this case, the
three arguments for a ban—security, sexual equality and secularism—do not
stand up. On security, women can be required to lift their veils if
necessary. On sexual equality, women would be better protected by the
enforcement of existing laws against domestic violence than by the enactment
of new laws forcing them to dress in a way that may be against their will.
On secularism, even if Europeans would prefer not to have others’
religiosity paraded on the streets, the tolerance that Westerners claim to
value requires them to put up with it.
European governments are entitled to limit women’s rights to wear the burqa.
In schools, for instance, pupils should be able to see teachers’ faces, as
should judges and juries in court. But Europeans should accept that, however
much they dislike the burqa, banning it altogether would be an infringement
on the individual rights which their culture normally struggles to protect.
The French, of all people, should know that. As Voltaire might have said, “I
disapprove of your dress, but I will defend to the death your right to wear
it.”"
A not very odd
couple
The coalition’s prospects may be better than the Liberal Democrats’
17 May 2010 -
The Economist
"Change, indeed.
On the campaign trail, David Cameron and Nick Clegg often sounded nebulous
as they pledged a break from the past. They could not have envisaged keeping
their promise in such concrete and spectacular fashion. As Conservative
prime minister and Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, they now run the
first coalition government that Britain has seen since 1945.
Some kind of collaboration between previously antagonistic politicians was
likely after the May 6th general election returned a hung parliament.
Despite a fanciful attempt to cobble together a Labour-led coalition by
Gordon Brown, who resigned as prime minister on May 11th, the Tories, as the
largest party, had the political high ground in forming a new
administration. But minority Conservative rule, backed on a bill-by-bill
basis by the Lib Dems, seemed likelier than joint government.
The deal, reached after days of tortuous haggling, gives Mr Clegg’s party
five seats at the cabinet table and several junior ministers. The Tories’
George Osborne will run the Treasury but Vince Cable and David Laws, both
Lib Dems, will also fight the economic and fiscal crises as business
secretary and chief secretary to the Treasury respectively. Some basics have
been agreed upon: Ł6 billion ($9 billion) of savings will be made this year,
and various welfare goodies will be withdrawn from higher-earners. An
emergency budget is expected in June.
The coalition makes strategic sense for Mr Cameron, who pushed for it from
the start. Fiscal retrenchment will enrage voters; the Tories can now share
the flak with the Lib Dems. The immemorial threat of Liberalism and
Labourism combining to lock the right out of power has also been seen off
for some time. More prosaically, some of the Tories’ less fetching ideas
(such as exempting all but the richest from inheritance tax) and people
(namely Chris Grayling, who never convinced as a potential home secretary)
have been bloodlessly cut loose as part of the compromise.
There are benefits for the Lib Dems too. Real power for the first time in
the better part of a century is no small bauble. If the coalition works,
voters may warm to the idea of power-sharing, and to the proportional voting
systems that inevitably give rise to it. (A referendum on the
alternative-vote electoral model, which the Lib Dems prefer over
Westminster’s first-past-the-post system, is part of the deal.) And the Lib
Dems got all this despite flopping at the polls. Their vote share, 23%, was
sizeable but barely more than they won last time.
When the dust settles, though, the coalition may not strike them as such a
coup. One of their cabinet posts, secretary of state for Scotland, has been
anachronistic since powers were devolved to Edinburgh in 1998. Their most
substantial brief, that held by Mr Laws, is the ultimate poisoned chalice.
It will be his job to decide where the budgetary axe will fall.
The Lib Dems are passionate about their pro-Europeanism, their liberal take
on crime and their dovishness on military and foreign matters. But with
Tories in charge of home affairs (Theresa May), foreign affairs (William
Hague), defence (Liam Fox) and justice (Ken Clarke), they will not get their
way on these issues. Welfare and the big public services are also in Tory
hands. And many of the Lib Dem policies that have been accepted by the
Tories, such as aiming to free low-earners from income-tax and contemplating
cuts to NHS spending, are ones no centre-right party would struggle to
swallow anyway.
But there is a deeper, almost existential problem looming for the Lib Dems.
Many of their voters are left-leaning; some back the party only because
Labour is not competitive locally. Once the novelty of power wears off and
the agony of austerity begins, these voters could migrate to a Labour Party
rendered more Liberal-friendly by a non-tribal leader such as David Miliband
(the former foreign secretary and favourite to take over the party).
None of this is to suggest that Mr Clegg has been foolish. The left curse
his “betrayal” but a deal with a defeated Labour Party was never a serious
option, as plenty of grown-ups on both sides understood from the start. The
parliamentary numbers were not there; neither was the moral legitimacy.
Still, he must know that his gamble could bring about another, this time
foreseeable, death of Liberal England.
The coalition itself may not survive the full five-year parliamentary term
pledged by the parties. Disagreements between them on European integration
and the balance between liberty and security remain quite profound, despite
cosmetic agreement to resist the euro (hardly a controversial judgment at
the moment) and pass a rather overblown “freedom bill”. But if the coalition
does not endure for five years, neither is it certain to implode as quickly
as Labour might hope.
For one thing, the parties have in common not only some specific policies
but a broader critique of the state as over-centralised and bureaucratic.
The Lib Dems stress good old-fashioned local government, while the Tories
are keener on avant-garde ideas to hand over money and responsibility to
people directly. But it all amounts to giving power away. (Tellingly, Mr
Clegg did not disparage the Tories’ “big society” theme during the
campaign).
Secondly, personalities matter. The inevitable drollery about “Nick Cameron”
and “David Clegg” will do the rounds whenever the two men appear together
but they really are, in background, age and temperament, very similar (see
Bagehot). Their lieutenants are also eminently compatible, as the
negotiations showed.
But what really argues for a lasting coalition is base politics. Neither
party wants another election in the next few years. Austerity will be
crushingly unpopular. The Lib Dems face a reckoning with their left-wing
voters. From a certain angle, the coalition could begin to look less like a
1931-style national administration than a government of the southern rich,
by the southern rich, for the southern rich.
The problem is that, although compromising to keep the show on the road
might be the “new politics”, it could make for bad economics. Often over the
coming years, the exact opposite of compromise, difference-splitting and
cosy half-measures will be needed to deal with a debt crisis big enough to
make even the drama of the past week look like a frivolous sideshow."
Mark MacKinnon
from the Globe and Mail commented - "Sitting in PM Abhisit's "cabinet" room
inside 11th Infantry HQ, clear Thai army and govt now fully merged."
5 options left:
Annihilate reds, PM resigns, House dissolves, King intervenes, or Coup...one
of these before Friday
CNN's Dan Rivers:
Thai government failed to follow through with their threats and deadlines.
CNN's Dan Rivers:
Both sides are completely deadlocked. Neither side seems to want to back
down.
Thai PBS reports
troops have moved closer to Ratchaprasong & now staying at MBK
Intense clashes
reported near Bangkok's Ramkamhaeng U, some say students vs. Red Shirts.
Shots fired.
Slingshots
versus gunshots
16 March 2010
Dan Rivers on CNN
said he has personally seen protestors with "sticks, staves, and batons, and
slingshots and rocks ready to throw" but not guns.
How is it then
that a trained and heavily armed army appears to be outfought and out
thought by the stick wielding red shirts?
Tactically the
army appears to have decided against an all out attack perhaps because of
the potentially huge number of casualties. Instead the army appears to
prefer the potentially more insidious approach of using snipers to pick off
protestors one at a time.
There have been 33
deaths in the last three days and hundreds injured. There are no soldiers
and police among the dead, so far.
But this battle
has now gone far beyond political doctrine; it is now street warfare between
thugs. It is not a place you want to be living or staying right now. On the
one side angry young men with fireworks, slingshots and molotov cocktails.
They no longer take any of their orders from the red shirt leaders. The
leaders have lost control. On the other side; a young conscripted army and
an unwilling police force. They may be decently armed. But for the most part
they are under trained and have little experience. It is unclear who they
are getting their orders from; politicians or army leaders.
In the end
gunshots have to prevail. But when and after how great a toll is unknown.
And if the red
protestors are cleared what next. A round up and imprisonment of all the
leaders. Create martyrs. New leaders will emerge.
Somehow there
needs to be a sense of justice to right the massive sense of injustice. But
with such hatred on both sides there seem few who are willing or able to
take the middle ground and seek some form of long term solution that is
acceptable to all Thais.
CRES gives red
shirts 24 hours to surrender, after 3pm tomorrow the real crackdown begins.
Journos in redzone
nervous after gunfire close to Maneeya Centre balcony & BBC biker threated
by guy in black w/ knife - Security in the building told the tv crews they
cannot do live broadcasts on the balcony because of risk of snipers.
(Maneeya Centre is the home of Bangkok's Foreign Cor
Guests at
Bangkok's Dusit Thani hotel told to shelter in basement after building hit
by gunfire- AFP (hard to imagine that there are still guests in the hotel
given the location!)
Censorship alert -
CNN's iReport confirmed to be blocked on True ISP within Thailand.
Bangkok's war
zone
15 May 2010 -
from Reuters/AP/AFP/Getty
The strangest
picture is the warning of a Life Firing Zone - meant to be a Live Firing
Zone but it may as well have been named a Life Ending Zone. There is worse
to come. How will this end? When will it end?
Thailand’s sideshow is over
15 May 2010 -
New Mandala
"For those who though yesterday’s event was bad, think again. The real fight
is just unfolding. Yesterday’s clashes gave forces from both sides a good
feel of one another’s strength and resolve. Like two cautious pugilists
meeting in the ring for the first time after a much hyped promotion, clashes
between the Government troops and red demonstrators thus far is probably
only a prelude to what’s in the offing.
The next few days are likely to see heavy fighting. The ground zero is still
teeming with reds and others outside the perimeters of Ratchaprasong
intersection are getting organised. At least one source indicates that some
taxi and tuk-tuk drivers are getting organised at Suan Phlu, which is
adjacent to Lumpini/Silom area. The areas saw heavy clashes yesterday.
Drivers of motorcycle taxis along Sathorn road are also telling some
pedestrians on the street to go back home as they expect more clashes.
Whichever it plays out, eventually from a physical perspective, the reds
will inevitably bow down. They can create mayhem (reports are coming in
indicating they have set fire to some buildings around the Lumpini boxing
stadium), but that’s probably the furthest they can go. Of course, the much
vaunted black-clad paramilitary troops haven’t made their grand entry. If
they do, it would perhaps prolong the battle a bit more. On the other hand,
the shadowy group might perhaps remain shadowy now that their alleged head
Maj. Gen Khattiya Sawasdipol’s influence had been incapacitated by a
well-placed .308 bullet.
But physical battle is just part of it. The real fight is politics. Who will
emerge victorious from a PR perspective is the key to understand how things
will unfold. Both parties (as well others in the game) will be shuffling
their steps and doing verbal gymnastics (more than then the usual, that is)
to get the positioning right, so that when everything settles down, they are
able to get out of this mess with relatively less taint.
What I have written thus far is of course conventional wisdom. But will
conventional wisdom rule the day in a country where politics has become so
convoluted that no serious political analyst/journalist can actually write
something without ever having a second thought? I am not too sure. There are
simply too many political players and the dynamics in terms of political
interest against political resources is changing so quickly that probably
only the main leaders might have an inkling of what’s happening. While the
reds and the Government forces are having a go at each other, the unseen
hands of the Privy Council, PAD (yellow-shirts) and the army/police are
actively at work. And of course we should also not discount the health
conditions of the two key protagonists in the drama – Thaksin Shinawatra and
King Bhumibol Adulyadej. How will that play out?
This simply means that whatever the outcome of the battle in the next few
days, one thing is sure, the war is still on. It is a war which not only has
the boxers in the ring slugging it out, but also with the real possibility
of having the umpire (police/army), cornermen (yellow/multicoloured faction)
and the crowd (Privy Council and other forces, including foreigners)
entering the ring to get a piece of the action. The smart money is that the
Government of the day led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva will be the
first casualty.
But everyone is fighting it out without considering the enormous economic
and political ramification to Thailand as a whole. Thailand’s economic
growth for the year will be badly hampered if matters prolong. As it is this
year’s drought will have a telling impact on country’s exports of
agri-produce. The tourism sector is in sorry state. FDI numbers are being
affected by the Map Tha Phut case. Political instability will further erode
FDI numbers, which is Thailand main engine of growth apart from exports. In
fact personal feedback from members of Thailand’s powerful Joint Foreign
Chamber of Commerce in Thailand (JFCCT) indicates the unstable political
conditions are making them very wary of investing further in Thailand.
On a political/social level, the ideological undertones of this political
crisis are too deep to be put aside. Thaksin’s current role on the red’s
movement is enormous but somewhere along the way, it appears the reds’
struggle has expanded beyond Thaksin (though they would still need his money
to remain a potent political force) and is now positioned as a class
struggle.
As such, the wounds inflicted on Thailand’s psyche and image in the next few
days could have a lasting impact on Thailand future growth as a nation.
That’s a greater wound that all the grenades, .308 bullets and armoured
personal carriers can inflict on the Thai people. Is our boxing ensemble
ready for that?"
Don't take
offence at our coalition. Its aims are liberal
Nick Clegg
argues that a Lib-Con deal was the only responsible choice. He has lost me -
and many other social/liberal democrats. I believe he put power before
principal. And that come the next election the LibDems will be extinct. This
is his defence.
15 May 2010 - Nick Clegg in The Guardian
"The third runway
at Heathrow has been cancelled. ID cards have been scrapped. There will be
no more child detention. And reform is now under way to make taxes fair for
millions of ordinary people.
These are some of the early achievements of a government that had its first
cabinet meeting just two days ago. A new government but, more important, a
new kind of government: plural, diverse; a Liberal Democrat-Conservative
coalition that defies the rules of old politics.
I know the birth of this coalition has caused much surprise, and, with it,
some offence. There are those on both the left and right who are united in
thinking this should not have happened. But the truth is this: there was no
other responsible way to play the hand dealt to the political parties by the
British people at the election. The parliamentary arithmetic made a Lib-Lab
coalition unworkable, and it would have been regarded as illegitimate by the
British people. Equally, a minority administration would have been too
fragile to tackle the political and economic challenges ahead.
So, given that the people told us, explicitly, that they didn't want just
one party in charge, we had a duty to find a way for more than one party to
govern effectively. And we have.
That's the pragmatic analysis. But what I think has surprised all of us in
the government this week is the strength of the agreement on principle, too.
No government – whether it's a coalition of parties, or a coalition of
rivalries as in the Blair-Brown governments – is able to survive without a
core set of common assumptions and aspirations.
David Cameron and I both understand that this government's unifying
realisation is that power must be dispersed more fairly in Britain today:
from the Whitehall centre to communities; into the hands of patients,
parents and pupils in our public services; protecting the rights and
freedoms of people from arbitrary state interference; mobilising social
mobility through greater fairness in the tax and school system. In short,
distributing power and opportunity to people rather than hoarding authority
within government.
That is why this government will transform the tax system, allowing people
on low and middle incomes to keep more of the money they earn. By making
cuts elsewhere in government, we will be able to provide the financial
support for our "pupil premium", helping thousands of children who still
don't get the individual support they need in school. Education is
everything in the creation of a truly mobile society.
We will open up opportunity in our economy, too. The immediate challenge is
to tackle the looming deficit. Unpopular decisions will have to be taken in
the months and years ahead to fill the black hole in our finances. The
challenge for the government will be to do so while always seeking to
protect the vulnerable, frontline services, and confidence in our economy.
But we can also start to build a new economy, just as we clear up the mess
left behind from the collapse of the old. George Osborne and Vince Cable
will be developing plans to reform our broken banking system, so that bank
lending supports the real economy and banks no longer take unjustified
risks. Instead, we will support sustainable growth, balanced across all
industries and across all regions, and promote the green industries that are
so essential for our shared future.
We will oversee the radical dispersal of power away from Westminster and
Whitehall to councils, communities and homes across the nation. So that,
wherever possible, people make the call over the decisions that affect their
lives. And, crucially, the relentless incursions of the state into the lives
of individuals that has characterised the last 13 years ends here. From
rolling back excessive surveillance, to ending the criminalisation of
innocent people, we will restore and protect our hard-won civil liberties.
I call that agenda liberalism. Others may have other names for it, but
whatever terms you prefer, this is our best guarantee of a fair society.
That is the case I have argued my whole political life. Yes, as the
coalition moves ahead there will be bumps and scrapes along the way; there
has already been significant compromise from both sides and there will of
course need to be more. And, no, we do not yet have all of the answers to
the inevitable questions that lie ahead. While we will be open about our
differences, we also know that our strength – the strength now needed to
deliver the change needed in Britain – depends on being the sum of our
parts. And from our different traditions we can pursue one simple, shared
aim: this will be the government that re-empowers the British people."
Thailand update
15 March 2010
Thomas Fuller of
the New York Times on who shot Seh Daeng:
“I couldn’t even
guess,” Fuller said. “This is a society that has become deeply fractured:
the institutions are divided, the military appears divided, the police is
often very sympathetic with the protesters. The population itself is
geographically divided. I can think of a lot of motives. I can think of a
lot of different groups but Thailand has entered this very shadowy phase in
its political turmoil and we just don’t know who is doing what.”
"Mr Abhisit was
installed with the backing of key advisers of the royal household. His
accession was tarnished from the start by the widespread belief that the
same figures were behind the coup that deposed Thaksin Shinawatra, the
populist prime minister in 2006."
*******************************
Meanwhile the Christian Science Monitor has its say in an article. No link
(too sensitive). But you can search for "Why the protests in Bangkok put a
spotlight on the monarchy."
The New York Times
has a similar theme - again no link - search for "Thailand’s King Sees
Influence Fade as Crisis Intensifies"
********************************
And as of tonight:
The death toll
appears to be up to 24. The fighting is outside the red shirt encampment.
The army and police have been trying to blockade the red shirt camp - so teh
red shirts appear to have taken to fighting on the streets outside of their
camp.
To some extent
that is a good thing - as it means that any of the women and children that
are staying in the camp should be relatively safe for now.
A friend sent this
message: "It's very eerie to look out at Rama 4 - Expressway to Sathorn -
and see the buildings in darkness with flashes from explosions and palls of
black smoke drifting towards Sukhumvit. Something I never thought I'd see
and didn't want to see."
CNN has video that
clearly shows army snipers firing - the guns have telescopic sights, and the
targeting is careful and deliberate. It is hard to reconcile that with
Abhisit's statements that the army will only shoot in self defence.
Just some of
the messages that are on twitter from various people in BKK (not me) this
evening:
Confirmed that
Banharn, Chavalit and Khunying Potjaman have left Thailand for HK and
Singapore. Update. TNN: Khunying Pojarmn left for Singapore -Chavalit to
Kunming & Banharn will fly to HK.
Reliable report
police fighting with army at lumpini police station. On way 2 ratchaprasong.
AVOID the
following: Bon Kai, Sala Daeng, Sathorn, Rama4, Phetburi Road, Vic Monument,
Din Daeng, Ratchaprasong.
Bursts of gunshot
fire in Lumpini Park now.
Situation now is
one of running battles all over Bkk: Phetburi Rd, Victory Monument to be
added to previous areas.
Phetburi is the
new saladaeng - group of soldiers hit by a firework, lots of gunshots, dizzy
air!
Dr.Pornthip
"Japanese reporter was not shot by soldiers", in contrary to media reports
and redshirt claim
Totally
unconfirmed. Warnings of group of 100 black-unformed gunmen on way to
Pratunam
Use of violence
from army has raised stakes & added to red grievances - certainly this
crackdown will not fix probs
What's happening
right now is "only way to peace"? I really hope PM is right & I am wrong. To
me, looks like radical escalation of conflict
PM: Government
resolving problems, its measures only way to peace, normalcy
******************************************
The CRES and the army on Saturday afternoon declared Bangkok's Ratchaprarop
area a "live-fire zone" and prohibited the general public from entering the
area due to the intensifying clashes between anti-government protesters and
soldiers.
Troops have erected signs warning people and journalists not to enter
Ratchaprarop.
Land of snarls
15 March 2010 -
Nirmal Ghosh - The Straits Times
Political crisis is tearing apart myth of a country of mannered politesse
You have to be careful what you say and to whom you say it, in Thailand's
year of living dangerously.
The political crisis has produced poisonous language rarely heard in polite
Thai society since the anti-communist hysteria of the 1970s.
People are quick to take offence and brand you as for or against them.
For every frustration mentioned by those sympathetic to the anti-government
'red shirts', there is a right-winger ready to jump to the defence of the
old establishment.
Indeed, a 'hi-so' or high-society friend of mine, who is personally liberal
but politically conservative, was in genuine despair recently over the red
shirt protests that have left downtown Bangkok's classiest district in a
shambles.
It resembled the kind of Burmese army 'fortress' from which raiding parties
emerged periodically to harass the kingdom of Ayutthaya in the 18th century,
he said. Another Thai friend, who is a senior manager in a multinational
corporation, refers to the red shirts as "these people".
In a telling moment on April 3, when the red shirts converged in the upscale
retail district of Ratchaprasong, a Thai teenager drove his Porsche up onto
the pavement and smashed several motorcycles belonging to the protesters.
The act might have been one of spontaneous rage or panic, and only an
accidental symbol of the times. What followed was more deliberate: Many
Thais called the 18-year-old at the wheel of the car a hero.
The other side is no less provocative.
Red shirts kick and stomp on pictures of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva
and Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda.
Just four years ago, attacking General Prem, a respected figure of the old
establishment and godfather to generations of the army's elite, would have
been unthinkable.
The red shirt movement, formed after the 2006 coup that toppled Thaksin
Shinawatra and catalysed by the former premier, has assumed a life of its
own.
One seasoned Asian diplomat called it a vehicle for "pent-up rage".
Journalists covering the Thai political crisis say they get a distinct sense
of deja vu.
Whether red or yellow, protests in the past two years have followed a
similar pattern. They began peacefully enough, only to turn progressively
provocative.
The royalist People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) - whose supporters wore
yellow shirts - advocated non-violence even as it agitated for the ouster of
Thaksin in 2006.
But by 2008, it had become far more aggressive.
Similarly, the red-shirted United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship
(UDD) stepped up its campaign with massive peaceful rallies in late 2008. By
April last year, however, some of its supporters were running amok on the
streets of Bangkok.
This year, the UDD stuck to non-violence for a few weeks. In fact, not a
single plate glass shop window has been shattered thus far at the
Ratchaprasong intersection.
But their campaign to pressure Prime Minister Abhisit peacefully to dissolve
Parliament and call elections began to unravel early last month.
Now black-clad men wearing red headbands prowl the protesters' fortified
barricades fashioned from sharpened bamboo sticks, car tyres and concrete
flower pots on the outer reaches of their protest site.
It is a part of Thailand's protest culture not only to hold one-off marches
or demonstrations, but also to occupy and hold physical space and negotiate.
For weeks, there has been talk of war. In fact, behind the red barricades
and beyond the sharpened spears and slingshots and piles of stones, weapons
are supposedly stashed and there are men who are waiting to use them - and
may have done so in Thursday night's chaotic skirmishes.
The conflict has, at least since 2008, been framed in military vocabulary -
battles and frontlines, guards and grenades. The 'security guards' of the
PAD and the red shirts of the UDD are referred to as 'warriors'.
Early in the two-month-long protests in Bangkok, co-leader Arisman
Pongruangrong, a former pop singer, had urged red shirt supporters outside
Bangkok to come to the capital with petrol bombs and burn the city.
The rage is also visible in the obscene graffiti scrawled by red shirts on
abandoned army vehicles after the deadly April 10 clashes which left at
least 25 people dead and several hundred injured.
Not surprisingly, for those in and around the protest site, every vehicle
backfire is first assumed to be a bomb going off or a gunshot.
To get away briefly from it all, I visited the island of Koh Samet for a day
and night. Although it is only three hours from Bangkok, everyone there was
warm and friendly.
Sitting under the stars listening to the gentle heave and sigh of the Gulf
of Thailand, everything seemed placid and normal.
Yet it also seemed poignantly fragile.
Today, the carefully fabricated myth of a Thailand of laid-back harmony and
mannered politesse is coming apart at the seams.
Thailand update - 14 March 2010
Added comments
from the
Thailand's Troubles blog concerning the shooting of Seh Daeng: valid
questions and concerns:
"The shot was
taken under somewhat difficult circumstances. It was night, the ambient
lighting was poor and there may have been shadows to contend with plus the
wind. On the other hand the shot was probably taken from the surrounding
buildings, either through a window or from a rooftop. The sniper was
probably within a few hundred metres and using an advanced night scope. He
was probably a soldier or paramilitary policeman, probably serving or
retired from one of the better trained units perhaps special forces. How
many Thais could have confidently executed this task without hitting any of
the surrounding journalists? Perhaps a few hundred.
The question is on whose orders or on whose account were they acting?
A subsidiary question is were those ordering or paying the sniper aware in
advanced that Seh Daeng would be at the barricades near Silom or had they
deployed snipers for some time in preparation to eliminate targets of
opportunity?
On what grounds can the shooting of Seh Daeng, even by the government should
that be the case, be anything other than murder? "
*****************************************
After a week of relative calm Bangkok has turned violent again.
When I arrived on
6 May the red shirt protestors were calm; their numbers down. They were
waiting for their leaders to agree action on the so called road map to a
November 14 election. Walking among the red shirts felt safe. People were
smiling.
A week later on 12
May the scene was tense. PM Abhisit was withdrawing the offer of an early
election. He had set a deadline initially of midnight on the 12th and then
6pm on the 13th for the red shirts to give up their protest.
The CRES had
announced that the red shirt site would be blockaded and electricity and
power cut off. Public transport to the area has been terminated. Cell phone
access partially cut. The army is seeking to stop red reinforcements
reaching the camp.
Ineffective
operations through the night have seen sporadic violence that killed one man
and saw a high-profile Red Shirt military leader shot in the head.
The protesters remain defiant. Music and speeches carried on from the Red
Shirt stage and were relayed by sympathetic radio stations.
Last night Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdiphol, better known by the nickname Seh
Daeng, was shot in the head while talking to reporters just inside the Red
Shirts' perimeter Thursday evening about an hour after the government's
lockdown was launched. He was taken to a hospital in a coma and was in
critical condition.
Reports this
morning say that he is in a coma and will not live.
The attacker was
not known. Seh Daeng was shot while talking to a New York Times journalist
near the Silom subway station on the edge of the occupation zone. The
station entrance is surrounded by tall office buildings, leading to
suspicions a sniper fired the shot. For that accuracy over long distance a
well trained sniper is likely. He took a huge risk shooting Seh Daeng in
front of the foreign reporters. Another foreign journalist casualty would
have been catastrophic for the government.
Several small street battles later Thursday night saw one man killed and 11
other people wounded. Protesters stopped police trucks and forced them to
turn back; they hurled rocks at soldiers, who responded by firing live
ammunition, according to an Associated Press cameraman.
Gunfire, most if not all from soldiers according to foreign reporters, and
several small explosions were heard well into the night.
The skirmishes took place along the southern end of the zone held by the Red
Shirts, around Rama IV and Silom, while their main rally site at the north
end was mostly undisturbed. About 10,000 protesters were believed by the
government to be in the area.
Asked if troops shot Khattiya (Seh Daeng), government spokesman Panitan
Wattanayagorn refused to give a direct answer. "The operation by authorities
was according to international standards and law. So far, we have not found
any actions by the authorities that went beyond that," he told the AP.
The government had labeled him a "terrorist" and a mastermind behind some of
the violence.
Khattiya helped build the Red Shirt barricades of sharpened bamboo stakes
and tires around the protest area, was accused of creating a paramilitary
force among the protesters and had vowed to fight the army if it launched a
crackdown.
He bitterly opposed reconciling with the government and had become critical
of Red Shirt leaders, some of whom had wanted to accept a compromise.
Killed in the later fighting was Chartchai Bualao, 25, who was shot in the
eye, according to the government's medical emergency center. At least seven
other people were injured.
Yesterday, the government extended a state of emergency to cover 17 of
Thailand's 76 provinces to prevent more people from joining the protesters
in the capital.
The decree gives the army broad powers to deal with protesters and places
restrictions on civil liberties. The government spokesman said it is
intended to prevent "masses of people trying to come to Bangkok."
Meanwhile the
Nation reports that "Reds's security staffs guarding Langsuan area were
given beverage possibly laced with sedative on Thursday night, an informed
source Friday. After drinking for a while, some guards fell asleep while
some others appeared to be unconscious. They were then taken to a hospital
nearby. The incident was believed to be the army's ploy to weaken the red
shirts protesters"
Sold out by
Clegg
13 May 2010
The LibDems have
now formed an unnatural alliance with the Tories. I don't like it. I don't
support it.I did not join the original social democrats party in the UK to
see them turn blue at the first sniff of a small share of power.
These two parties are ideological enemies. The honeymoon will be short.
Maybe the marriage will be little longer. Offence will be given and taken,
division deliberately exaggerated, gossip, rumour and malice stirred to hurt
the pride of the junior partner. The media will look for any crack in this
alliance. The Lib Dems will be too sensitive; and in time they will be
forgotten and ignored.
The Tory partner
is five times the size; the UK may not have voted for a Conservative
government but they also said that the Liberal Party was a false dawn and
there was no dramatic swing to the third party - the third party lost seats.
It looks weak.
There will he many
on the Tory back benches who are unhappy. They have given up part if their
manifesto and some of their roles in government to the Lid Dems.
There will be many
in the Lib Dems who would have looked to Labour - with e new energetic
leader - as the party of natural fit and where the Lib Dems might have been
able to ask for more.
That all said the
Tories have at least moved to a more inclusive centrist agenda - a return to
40% capital gains tax and no tax on the first gbp10,000 of income are all
from the LibDem relationship.
But at heart this
is a coalition of opposites. Maybe Mr Clegg needs to change the colour of
his ties. For many of us he has sold out. He is Deputy PM. I asked a Brit
last night who was Gordon Brown's Deputy PM - he did not know. It is a role
without any authority. That may be the future of the Lib Dems. When the next
election is called we will likely be back to red and blue and the Lib Dems
will be consigned back to history.
The opportunity
for Cameron is to seize the centre ground of British politics, where
elections are won and lost, shutting out Labour. By the alliance with the
Lib Dems he can reduce the influence of the Tory right, who might otherwise
have dragged him off course.
Is this where he
wants to be. Is Cameron a man of the centre; a true believer in fairness and
a supporter of environmental issues? Or is this a marriage of nothing more
than convenience?
If he does take the middle ground then, when the time comes to face the
voters, Cameron will be able to present himself as the reasonable, liberal
choice. Why would anyone need to vote Liberal Democrat? The LibDems just
committed political suicide.
EK to Baghdad
13 May 2010
Perhaps it is an
indication of how much is really changing in Iraq and its capital Baghdad,
as Emirates Airline said last Monday that it will launch flights to the
Iraqi capital from 1 July 2010.
Baghdad will be Emirates’ 103rd international destination and one of six new
destinations to be launched by the airline this year including Tokyo,
Amsterdam, Prague, Madrid and Dakar.
Sheikh Ahmed bin
Saeed Al-Maktoum, chairman and chief executive, Emirates Airline & Group,
said: “Iraq is well on the road to recovery and we are confident that the
time is right to commence our operations there.
Initially Emirates will operate a thrice weekly service on a Tuesday,
Thursday and Saturday using a3 class Airbus A330. With a flight time of less
than three hours, EK 941 will depart Dubai on Thursday's and Saturday's at
07:00 hours and arrive in Baghdad at 08:30 hours. From Baghdad EK 942
departs at 10:30 hours arriving in Dubai at 13:55 hours. On Tuesday's EK 941
will depart Dubai at 08:05 hours and arrive in Baghdad at 09:35 hours. From
Baghdad EK 942 will depart at 11:35 hours touching down in Dubai at 15:00
hours.
As well as passenger services, Emirates expects to uplift around 10-12
tonnes of cargo per flight, using the belly hold capacity on the wide-bodied
passenger aircraft.
Emirates'
strong rebound
13 May 2010
Emirates airline's
profits surged to $US964 million ($A1.08 billion) in the financial year
which ended on March 31, bucking the global trend in the airline industry,
the group's chief has announced.
Emirates Group net profits hit $US1.1 billion ($A1.23 billion), including
$US964 million for the carrier in the financial year ending in March 2010,
chief executive officer Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum told a press
conference on Wednesday.
The group said its revenues had slightly increased to $US12.4 billion
($A13.85 billion) for the period between March 31, 2009 and March 31, 2010.
Dubai's national carrier had posted a slump in profits to $US187 billion
last year, due to high oil prices and tumbling demand for air travel amid
the global economic downturn.
Emirates serves 102 destinations in 62 countries. It has a fleet of 142
aircraft and firm orders for 146 more planes.
flydubai to
India (at last)
13 May 2010
After nearly a
year of speculations and operational issues, low-cost carrier flydubai
finally announced flights to India, with the Lucknow route launching from
June 2.
Lucknow has a population of around five million people.
The flight will operate thrice weekly to the state capital of Uttar Pradesh,
flydubai's 20th destination, using the carrier's new Boeing 737-800NGs.
Last year, flydubai had announced India operations to Lucknow, Coimbatore
and Chandigarh for the month of July, but citing operational issues, those
routes never took off and passengers were refunded after bookings had
opened.
While there has been ample speculation and media reports that Indian budget
carriers Indigo and SpiceJet could launch services to Dubai next year,
currently Air India Express is the only low-cost airline operating on the
route.
But India is not the only south Asian country flydubai has set its sights
on. Aside from already flying to Nepal, the carrier will also jet into the
Pakistani city of Karachi from June 21.
flydubai will
receive the eighth aircraft this month and will have 13 by the end of this
year.
Mystery of Tripoli crash
13 May 2010 -
Details -AvHerald.com
The weather
appears to have been poor though it was already daylight. The Airbus was
landing after a routine flight. What happened?
An Afriqiyah
Airways Airbus A330-200, registration 5A-ONG performing flight 8U-771 from
Johannesburg (South Africa) to Tripoli (Libya) with 93 passengers and 11
crew, was on approach to Tripoli's runway 09 when it crashed short of the
runway at approximately 06:10L (04:10Z). The airplane was completely
destroyed, no post impact fires occured.
The flight was due
to continue from Tripoli to London Gatwick. Some early reports said that
shortly before the crash the pilot had contacted the control tower to ask
them to alert emergency services because there was a problem with the jet.
This has not been confirmed.
It does appear
that weather was poor - an Alitalia jet in front of Afriqiyah aborted its
landing and diverted. On pprune.org people are reporting that the crew tried
a late go around below minimums on the NDB approach to runway 09.
The airplane was near new - delivered in September 2009 as 5A-ONG
Authorities said 61 Dutch nationals have been killed in the disaster, along
with 22 Libyans.
The airport reported 105 fatalities (94 passengers and 11 crew).
Libya's transport ministry reported, that 96 bodies have been recovered so
far, only one boy survived the crash, his condition is not known.
Netherland's prime minister confirmed, that an 8 year old Dutch boy survived
the crash.
The airplane had departed Johannesburg at 21:37L (19:37Z) and was due to
arrive at 06:20L (04:20Z).
Afriqiyah Airways confirmed their flight 8U-771 carrying 93 passengers and
11 crew has crashed upon arrival in Tripoli.
Tripoli International Airport has no instrument landing system, runway 09
has non-precision VOR and NDB approaches available. The VOR signal however
may have been unreliable according to NOTAMs.
Airbus confirmed the A330-200 registration 5A-ONG (c/n 1024) was involved in
the crash of flight 8U-771 stating, that the aircraft had accumulated 1600
flight hours in 420 cycles. The airplane crashed short of runway threshold
09.
The French BEA dispatched two accident investigators and Airbus five experts
to Tripoli to join the investigation conducted by Libya's Civil Aviation
Authority. International protocol determines that Libya - as the country
where the accident occurred - runs the investigation.
Harrods sold
9 May 2010
Harrods, the world
famous department store in Knightsbridge, London has been sold by the
mercurial Mohamed Al Fayed to Middle Eastern investors for around Ł1.5bn.
The sale is to the Qatari royal family's Qatar Holding group and was
confirmed yesterday after months of negotiations.
After 25 years as
owner, Fayed, 77, who also owns Fulham football club, has relinquished all
of his financial interest in the store, which is held through a family trust
based in the tax haven of Bermuda.
Qatar Holding is interested in developing Harrods' potential as a global
luxury brand name and expanding worldwide sales over the internet. "This
kind of asset only comes once in a lifetime," said one source close to the
deal. It is a trophy asset of immense value and prestige."
Trade at Harrods has defied the recession as rich tourists have flocked to
the capital, attracted by the weakness of the pound, which makes British
goods cheaper for overseas buyers. Sales hit a record Ł752m in the year to
January 2009, the latest figures available. Profits dropped 15% to Ł50.3m
but that was largely due to a refurbishment programme, including Ł2.5m of
repairs to the distinctive terracotta facade, which is listed by English
Heritage.
The Harrods purchase adds to the tiny emirate of Qatar's already extensive
portfolio in the UK. Qatar has escaped the worst ravages of the credit
crunch thanks to its natural gas resources. Its emir, Hamad bin Khalifa
al-Thani, is keen to use its oil and gas wealth to diversify the economy.
Qatari investments in Britain include stakes in Barclays Bank, the London
Stock Exchange, J Sainsbury PLC, and Songbird Estates, which controls the
Canary Wharf Group.
Qatari sovereign wealth funds control assets estimated at more than $60bn.
Elsewhere in Europe, they hold stakes in the Swiss bank Credit Suisse and
the luxury car brand Porsche, which is being merged with its fellow German
car maker Volkswagen.
Investment activity by the Qataris is likely to step up a gear following the
emir's recent appointment of the top US dealmaker Anthony Armstrong from
Credit Suisse. He now runs an acquisitions department for Qatar Holding. The
UK is seen as a prime target, thanks to our lack of restrictions on overseas
bidders, though the takeover of Cadbury by US conglomerate Kraft has led to
calls for curbs.
The good news is
that the awful Dodi Fayed/Princess Diana shrine - perhaps the tackiest part
of Harrods, should disappear after the new owners takeover.
Post election
blues
9 May 2010
So here is the
final UK election tally:
Conservative
306
Labour
258
Liberal Democrat 57
Other
28
Although they
gained 97 seats the Tories did not win an outright majority. 10.7 million
people voted for Tory government; more than 15 million people did not.
Meanwhile Labour won 8.6m votes and 258 seats; the Lib Dems got 6.8m votes
and 57 seats. It takes nearly four times as many people to deliver a seat
for the Lib Dems as it does for Labour or the Tories. The system is not
fair. But this was Clegg's big opportunity to break though for the Lib Dems
and they did not. They lost 5 seats in Parliament.
On 5 May I wrote -
"My only concern - is that in the event of a hung parliament Clegg offers
his support of the Tory party based on a lose promise of some sort of
electoral reform to which the Tories have absolutely no commitment. If Clegg
were to side with the Tories he will lose a massive number of left of centre
Liberal supporters."
Now Clegg and the
LibDems look ready to form an unlikely and unwelcome alliance with the
Tories. Unforgivable. And selling out the soul of social democracy.
My preference is
for a Liberal-Labour alliance For that to work Gordon Brown must signal
unequivocally that he seeks to continue only for as long as it takes to get
a new constitutional order in place. He must give clear advance notice of
his resignation, stating that he will continue as prime minister in a
caretaker capacity only. He must accept a timetable, no longer than two
years, for a referendum on electoral reform and a new general election, in
which Labour will be led by someone else.
Combined, the Liberal Democrats and Labour have the affinity on policy, the
electoral mandate and the unique historic opportunity to usher in a new era
of fairer, better governance for Britain.
Not well hung
7 May 2010 -
The Guardian
"The British electorate has spoken but has choked on its
words. Labour's glad confident morning of 1997 has clearly ended in defeat
under Gordon Brown. David Cameron has rescued his Tory party from 18 years
of decay but not convincingly, and not enough to give him a secure
parliamentary majority.
The third party that promised so much, the Liberal
Democrats, has failed to make a breakthrough, and yet it must decide which
party to support in office – and with a poor mandate for so important a
decision. The first-past-the-post electoral system has met its Waterloo.
Britain has not been given emphatic government just when that was most
required. It has been given the parliamentary mess most feared by opponents
of electoral reform – or the negotiating base most desired by its advocates.
British politics now departs the hustings and enters the old smoke-filled
rooms of Westminster.
Since Cameron cannot yet be sure of the confidence of the
House of Commons, the first move clearly lies with Brown as incumbent prime
minister. He is down but not out. He has clearly been beaten by the
Conservatives but is entitled to see if he can form an anti-Tory alliance
with the Liberal Democrats and possibly the so-called Celtic fringe. It
would have to defy the bald fact that the Tories are certain to be the
largest party, and most disciplined in the whipping cauldron of a hung
parliament.
The Tories will also ask the Liberal Democrats and
nationalists their intentions, and with the added moral authority of being
the party that has clearly been preferred by the electorate. The nation will
simply have to wait while the minority parties make up their minds. That is
what "voting for a hung parliament" means.
Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats now have their moment
of power, but it will be just a moment. They have failed to win enough votes
to carry an overwhelming moral case for electoral reform, yet they have not
supplanted Labour on the centre-left. They may pray for the Tory lead to be
big enough to leave the decision in the hands of the nationalists, but that
seems unlikely. Whatever they decide they may well split over it, and may
have to defend at an early re-election. Their recent ecstasy will swiftly
turn to agony."
flydubai adds
Karachi
6 May 2010
flydubai on
Wednesday unveiled its plan to start flights to Pakistan with a daily
service to port city of Karachi. The low-cost airline will operate daily
flights to Pakistan’s largest city and financial capital from June 21 and a
one-way fare, including all taxes and one piece of hand luggage, is priced
at Dh300.
flydubai flight
(FZ333) will depart Dubai from Sunday to Thursday at 0815 hours and arrive
in Karachi at 1125 hours. The return flight, FZ334, will leave at 1210 hours
arriving in Dubai at 1320 hours local time. On Fridays and Saturdays FZ333
will depart Dubai at 1135 hours and arrive in Karachi at 1445 hours. The
return flight, FZ334, will leave at 1530 hours and arrive in Dubai at 1640
hours local time.
Voting Liberal
Democrat is the one hope for real change
5 May 2010
It may only be a
small cross on a ballot paper - but the more people who put that cross
beside the name of their Liberal Democrat candidate the more chance there is
for real change in how British Politics works for you.
As a once
committed Labour voter I, like so many, have been saddened by the
abandonment of Labour values over the last thirteen years.
The Liberal
Democrats now offer a genuine political alternative with values of
compassion and tolerance taking centre ground.
Nick Clegg is the
only leader willing to challenge Labour and Conservative commitment to
renewing Trident and the use of nuclear power. He has consistently spoken
out for our civil liberties and human rights. 100% of Liberal Democrat MPs
opposed the war in Iraq. The Conservatives campaigned and voted for it.
Without the backing of David Cameron, William Hague and other Conservatives,
Labour could not have taken Britain to war. 98% of Conservative MPs backed
the war, compared with 77% of Labour MPs.
I was wrong over
the Iraq war. Perhaps because of the overwhelming media and political
support for it. The Liberal Democrats were correct to be cautious and have
been consistent in their concern at the cosy relationship with the USA.
A Liberal Democrat
vote at this election represents the best chance in this lifetime to make
lasting and fair change to how the UK is governed.
In little over
three short weeks, Nick Clegg has gone from a face barely recognised outside
the Westminster village to a phenomenon. Where once his party had to beg for
attention, he now has to fend off questions not just from a British press
pack at last treating the Lib Dems with respect, but from CNN and a clutch
of other foreign reporters, who have made the trek to see the man who
threatens to reshape British politics.
There is a
sincerity about Mr. Clegg that is admirable and occasionally disarming. No
one is used to simple honest responses from a campaigning political leader.
My only concern -
is that in the event of a hung parliament Clegg offers his support of the
Tory party based on a lose promise of some sort of electoral reform to which
the Tories have absolutely no commitment. If Clegg were to side with the
Tories he will lose a massive number of left of centre Liberal supporters.
A Tory win alarms
me. And many others. Gary Younge wrote in today's
Guardian:
"I don't have a
phobia about Tories. That would suggest an irrational response. I hate them
for a reason. For lots of reasons, actually. For the miners, apartheid,
Bobby Sands, Greenham Common, selling council houses, Section 28, lining the
pockets of the rich and hammering the poor – to name but a few (He forgot to
mention the Falklands). I hate them because they hate people I care about.
As a young man Cameron looked out on the social carnage of pit closures and
mass unemployment, looked at Margaret Thatcher's government and thought,
these are my people."
It will be a huge
pleasure if on Friday Cameron is not Prime Minister. The knives would be out
for Cameron and Osborne and the recriminations in the Tory party and in the
Murdoch media empire will be huge.
So please do vote.
And please make your vote count for change.
*********************************************
Nick Clegg in Eastbourne today:
"Just imagine
how you might feel if you wake up on Friday morning and discover instead
that the Labour party and Gordon Brown are back in power having let you
down. Just imagine how you are going to feel if you wake up on Friday
morning and find the Conservatives and David Cameron in Number 10 just
because they think they are entitled to have a turn. Making promises you
know you can't trust, making promises you know they will break. Because you
know that if that happens, if David Cameron or Gordon Brown get into Number
10, nothing - nothing - will really change at all."
Tracked from Times Square to EK 202
5 May 2010
This was an
amateur at work. Of course - had his bomb exploded there would have been
little evidence left. But with his car intact he was easy to track.
When police seized the Nissan Pathfinder left in Times
Square, the (vehicle identification number) VIN plate on the dashboard had
been removed. But the VIN is also stamped on engine parts and on the frame,
and these were intact. That identification quickly led to a 19-year-old
Connecticut woman who had sold the Pathfinder a few weeks ago to a man for
$1,300 in cash.
The man who bought it had declined the offer of a bill of
sale. He had, however, called the seller several times from the prepaid
cellphone to arrange the purchase, according to the criminal complaint made
public on Tuesday and filed against Faisal Shahzad.
That same phone had been used for calls to and from a
“Pakistani telephone number associated with Shahzad,” the complaint said.
The police had found keys in the Pathfinder, and one of
them opened the door to Mr. Shahzad’s home in Connecticut. In his garage,
they found fertilizer and fireworks, similar to what had been left in the
Pathfinder in Times Square.
His name then went onto the no-fly list. Emirates staff
missed this when they took his cash booking on Monday for the flight that
night.
But it is routine that when boarding is completed for the
flight the final passenger manifest is sent to the National Targeting
Center, operated in Virginia by Customs and Border Protection. There, at
about 11 p.m., analysts discovered that Mr. Shahzad was on the no-fly list
and had just boarded a plane.
They sounded the alarm, and minutes later, with the jet still at the gate
agents found Faisal Shahzad sitting on EK 202 thinking he was heading back
to Pakistan.
Emirates five
year plan for Americas
5 May 2010
Emirates Airline
says that it is planning to add up to seven destinations in the Americas
over the next five years as it looks to the developed and developing
economics there for growth.
Nigel Page, the
Emirates senior vice president of commercial operations for the Americas and
Africa said that the only thing that is really holding the airline back is
aircraft availability. The Dubai-based airline already flies to four cities
in the US – New York, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco – along with
Toronto in Canada and to Sao Paulo in Brazil.
The airline could add four US cities over the next five years, plus three
destinations in South America, Mr Page said.
The airline is
scheduled to receive 11 new wide-body aircraft this year, including Airbus
A380s and Boeing 777s.
Page said that in
choosing new destinations, the airline generally looks for routes with
strong cargo demand, seat occupancy levels in excess of 75 per cent and a
healthy mix of economy, business and first class travellers.
As for other US destinations, Mr Page described Miami as strong for leisure
and other economy class traffic, but limited for corporate travellers. He
said Seattle was an “interesting” destination with a number of large
corporations based there, such as Starbucks and Microsoft, and it had
potential for good cargo demand and feeder services to the Alaska market.
The biggest challenge Emirates faces in the Americas is in Canada, where the
government has blocked efforts by Emirates and Etihad to increase service
beyond the three weekly flights allotted to them. The issue is before senior
levels of government and Emirates is hoping for a positive decision this
year, Mr Page said.
A qualified and cautious agreement
5 May 2010
Red shirt protest
leaders said they agreed in principle with a government-proposed compromise
to end Thailand's deadly political crisis, but refused to leave their camp
in Bangkok's streets until details can be worked out. Their main demand is
that the PM set the date for Parliamentary dissolution but the PM does not
want to do that so there may still be an impasse.
For the moment the
protestors have not commited themselves to abandoning their street
demonstration.
Matichon reports red leader Veera stated that the red leadership met and
agreed to enter the political reconciliation process, but had four points
they wanted clarity over. First, the authority to set the date of the
election is likely that of the Election Commission and not that of the PM
hence want a clear date on when the PM will dissolve Parliament. Second, UDD
want sincerity from the government and want the government to stop making
threats. Third, we don't want an amnesty for terrorism and lese majeste
charges. Fourth, the government must stop bringing the monarchy into the
conflict.
Red leader Nattawut also said that they want clarity on the dissolution
date. Also, wants the government to stop maligning the red shirts. While the
government has accused the reds of terrorism and overthrowing the monarchy
and made them special cases to be in the jurisdiction of DSI, there is still
no progress on the PAD cases and want them made special cases to be in the
jurisdiction of DSI,
It does look like a November election is acceptable to all. The devil as
always is in the details. Under Section 108 of the Constitution
a November 14 election would require a House dissolution between middle and
late September.
The red shirts will also be asking for the State of Emergency to be revoked
with troops leaving and the red shirt media no longer being censored.
The ever
evolving five points for an election
5 May 2010
Abhisit - 3
May
Bangkok
Post - 5 May
All parties
concerned must join forces to uphold the monarchy.
The monarchy
must not be used as a tool in political conflicts;
The government
will carry out national reform to do away with injustice in the economic
and political structures. As part of the process, the government will
provide good social welfare, education, health etc, as well as other
things to people suffering from other plights.
The country
must be reformed by tackling economic disparities and inequality;
The government
will ensure that the media will function as a constructive tool.
The media must
refrain from reports which exacerbate social or political conflicts.
The government
will set up an independent committee to investigate the deaths and
injuries in clashes between troops, police and protesters on April 10,
at Silom and on Vibhavadi Road.
An independent
fact-finding panel must be appointed to review fatal incidents involving
security forces and protesters.
The government
will take actions to study the public feelings of injustice regarding to
political system, especially after what happened over last few years,
and try to solve the problems.
The
reconciliation process must be carried out with the cooperation of all
sides.
Emirates almost
flew the New York bomber
5 May 2010
Faisal Shahzad was
permitted to board a flight for Dubai some 24 hours after investigators of
the Times Square terrorism case learned he might be connected to the
attempted bombing and Emirates Airline may face sanctions over its failure
to identify Shahzad who was on the no-fly list that is circulated to all
airlines operating out of the USA.
At about 12:30
p.m. on Monday (3 May), now more certain that Mr. Shahzad was the suspected
terrorist, investigators asked the Department of Homeland Security to put
him on the no-fly list. Three minutes later, the department sent airlines,
including Emirates, an electronic notification that they should check the
no-fly list for an update. At about 4:30 p.m., more information was added to
the list, including Mr. Shahzad’s passport number, officials said.
Workers at Emirates evidently did not check the list, because at 6:30 p.m.,
Mr. Shahzad called the airline and booked a flight to Pakistan via Dubai,
officials said. At 7:35 p.m., he arrived at the airport, paid cash for his
ticket and was given a boarding pass.
Airlines are not required to report cash purchases, a Homeland Security
official said. Emirates actually did report Mr. Shahzad’s purchase to the
Transportation Security Administration — but only hours later, when he was
already in custody, the official said.
Mr. Shahzad had evaded the surveillance effort and bought his ticket seven
hours after his name went on the no-fly list. But the system gives security
officials one more chance to stop a dangerous passenger.
As is routine, when boarding was completed for the flight, Emirates Flight
EK202, the final passenger manifest was sent to the National Targeting
Center, operated in Virginia by Customs and Border Protection. There, at
about 11 p.m., analysts discovered that Mr. Shahzad was on the no-fly list
and had just boarded a plane.
They sounded the alarm, and minutes later, with the jet still at the gate,
its door was opened and agents came aboard and took Mr. Shahzad into
custody, officials said. The airliner then pulled away from the gate but was
called back while taxiing for take off.
After the plane was called back, the authorities removed two more
passengers. They were questioned and cleared. They and all the rest of the
passengers were rescreened, as was the baggage, and the flight took off
about seven hours late.
An Emirates spokeswoman, who said she was not allowed to speak on the
record, declined to comment on the claims by government officials that the
airline had neglected to recheck the no-fly list. “Emirates takes every
necessary precaution to ensure the safety and well-being of its passengers
and crew and regrets the inconvenience caused,” the airline said in a
statement.
Shahzad, a
Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, was charged Tuesday with terrorism and
attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Saturday evening's failed
Times Square bombing. According to a federal complaint, he confessed to
buying an SUV, rigging it with a homemade bomb and driving it into the busy
area where he tried to detonate it.
Associated Press reports that Emirates did not return repeated calls for
comments.
The only official
comment came through the WAM (Emirates official government) news agency
which reported that :
"WAM New York,
May 04th, 2010 (WAM)-- Emirates Airline spokesperson has said that Emirates
Airline flight EK 202 left JF Kennedy Airport in New York to Dubai at 14:29
hours. It will arrive at the Dubai International Airport at 03:00am the
following day.
According to Emirates spokesperson, the flight EK 202 (New York-Dubai, 3rd
May) operated by a Boeing 777-300 ER, was called back by the local
authorities prior to departure. Three passengers were removed from the
flight.
He added that the flight has been delayed for around 7 hours, adding that
full security procedures were activated including the deplaning of all
passengers and a thorough screening of the aircraft, passengers, and
baggage. Emirates is cooperating with the local authorities.
Emirates takes every necessary precaution to ensure the safety and
well-being of its passengers and crew and regrets the inconvenience caused."
Thaksin Shinawatra Hires
Amsterdam & Peroff
3 May 2010
The following
press release was issued today from Amsterdam and Peroff - a lobbyist and
legal firm - announcing their new client - the previously considered dead
former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra.
The company
suggests we stay tuned to this blog for further news, commentary and
information about the Thai political crisis, and our ongoing work in the
country.
The timing is
interesting - coming the same day that Abhisit made his compromise proposal
for a 14/11 election. Was Thaksin left out of the backroom negotiations? Now
here is evidence - if it was ever needed - of Thaksin's continuing
involvement in Thai politics. Based on this the UAE government really should
not re-admit him.
"LONDON, May 3, 2010 - Today Amsterdam & Peroff announce that they have been
appointed counsel to the former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin
Shinawatra, to assist in the current contentious struggle for the
restoration of democracy and rule of law in the Southeast Asian nation.
"We are pleased to be retained by Prime Minister Shinawatra to work on this
urgent matter, and we acknowledge the challenging complexity and sensitivity
of the political crisis unraveling Thai society," said Robert Amsterdam,
founding partner of Amsterdam & Peroff. "It is our intention to explore
every legal avenue to assist this pro-democracy movement, and urge the
international community not to tolerate the government's violent crackdown
on peaceful protestors."
Thaksin, who served as Thailand's Prime Minister from 2001 to 2006 before
being unlawfully forced from office by a military coup, has been living in
self-exile for the past two years despite repeated victories in democratic
elections. Protestors affiliated with the National United Front for
Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD, or "Red Shirts"), suffered 27
casualties in violent confrontations with police and military in the month
of April.
Amsterdam & Peroff, founded in 1980 by partners Robert Amsterdam and Dean
Peroff, is an international law firm specializing in complex
multi-jurisdictional litigation, commercial arbitration, and political
advocacy in challenging emerging markets. The firm maintains offices in
London, Washington, DC and Toronto."
Prime Minister
Abhisit Vejjajiva announced Monday night on TV that he will hold the next
election on November 14 IF his roadmap to solve the political
problems is not interrupted. Big word "if".
Abhisit said the road map has five elements as following:
1) All parties concerned must join forces to uphold the monarchy.
2) The government will carry out national reform to do away with injustice
in the economic and political structures. As part of the process, the
government will provide good social welfare, education, health etc, as well
as other things to people suffering from other plights.
3) The government will ensure that the media will function as a constructive
tool.
4) The government will set up an independent committee to investigate the
deaths and injuries in clashes between troops, police and protesters on
April 10, at Silom and on Vibhavadi Road.
5) The government will take actions to study the public feelings of
injustice regarding to political system, especially after what happened over
last few years, and try to solve the problems.
Worth noting that
the PM has taken over a month to come up with this "roadmap" full of "IFs".
he is demanding an immediate response from the red shirts before more
decisive action is taken. But why are the red shirts supposed to answer
immediately?
Any reasonable person would expect to see the proposals in writing, and to
go through them, develop questions and rebuttals, and then go through
back-channels to express their concerns.
All of this takes
time.
It is likely that
there has been a reasonable amount in negotiation behind the scenes.
Therefore it is likely that the red shirts will find a way to agree the
proposal.
But will there be
an election in 14 November. I hope so. I doubt it. The conditions above are
easy get out clausese. I especially like item 3 - that the givernment will
ensure that the media will function as a constructive tool. So no more ASTV,
Manager or Nation. Of course not. Presumable the media as a constructive
role means only report what is positive for the government.
"If all five goals are achieved ... the election can be held on November
14," Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in a nationally televised
address. WIth six months to go there is plenty of time for the usual
deals/reshuffling to be made.
As for the red the
issue of amnesty is important though it is unlikely to be granted.
Should the reds
take the offer and go home? Yes. people are tired - they want to go home.
Should we be sceptical? Absolutely. The reds can say they got what they came
for. The government could applaud themselves for a peaceful resolution. The
khunyings could go shopping again.
The good and
bad of the UK election
3 May 2010
72 hours and
counting until the UK election.
I do like
elections - they are sport. Great entertainment as our politicians look for
means to stab eachother. This election is a fine drama, with an uncertain
outcome on 6 May and the uncharted possibility of a hung parliament
thereafter.
The campaign is
short. Just a month. Compare this to the nightmare of a US presidential
election which have become spectacles of horrifying length and expense. Even
without the Tory corporate funds and Labour's union funds the Liberal
Democrats do not appear dramatically disadvantaged. Getting equal access to
the TV debates was a coup for them.
And in the UK
politicians can still campaign the old fashioned way - out of the streets,
shaking hands and kissing babies. Politics in an unarmed country is very
different to the USA.
For the most part
the electorate is informed and engaged. The candidates are more spontaneous
and accessible; sometimes too candid as Mr. Brown found in his recorded
comments about Ms Duffy; sometimes disarming such as when Mr. Clegg
declared, in response to a question about the Pope in the second debate:
"I'm not a man of faith – but my wife is." No American presidential
candidate would ever admit either atheism or spiritual differences with his
wife.
The other good
news is that the voter turn out will be high - at least 75% across Britain.
Compare this to the USA where after a two year campaign still less than one
half of eligible voters can be bothered to vote.
But have the TV
debates taken the British politics too far down the path of image is
everything. A recent poll says that by some distance Gordon Brown is the
best leader in a crisis; that he is the most capable and that he best
understands the world's problems. But no one likes him personally or
politically. So for all his stature; Brown is leading a party that will not
win the election - and is likely to finish third in the number of votes
cast.
There is so much
talk about change; this is where Clegg should be strong. He has the
advantage of not just arguing for much of the change he supports, but
embodying it. With his Dutch mother, his Spanish wife and experience in
Bruges and Brussels, he is a man of Britain's European future much in the
way that Obama represents America's multiracial future.
For the Tories
ideas take second place to their marketing. Cameron's minders are carefully
protecting him from any banana skin. But this was his election. A couple of
months ago his lead in the polls was and should have been in surmountable.
Now he is saying whatever it needs to keep support.
But winning this
election could be a poisoned chalice. Opening the treasury books will be a
revelation. The government is much too large in relation to the country's
post-crisis economy. Any government will have to cut services, reform
pensions, and scale back commitments, ultimately reducing spending from
current levels by around 12%, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Cuts in services
will be met with industrial action and the unions will hold firm. It could
be a very long and angry summer.
The odds of any government succeeding in this task, let alone remaining
popular while carrying it out, seem very small.
One month gone
already
3 May 2010
On Sunday Thai
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva promised a ‘‘quick’’ investigation into the
shooting of Reuters television cameraman Hiroyuki Muramoto on April 10,
expressing belief the military was not behind the shooting.
PM Abhisit does
nothing quickly - except maybe ducking into the army barracks that are his
current home. He has had four weeks for this investigation already.
Meeting with Japanese media, Abhisit said, ‘‘The government fully cooperates
with all the investigation. We urge the people who are doing this case—the
police and the special investigation department—to investigate and come up
with answers as quickly as possible without affecting obviously the accuracy
of the investigation.’‘
‘‘Personally, I don’t believe that soldiers would shoot at the journalist
and I believe that with all the pictures you have already seen, there were
people with arms who caused a number of casualties during the April 10
incident,’’ he added.
Muramoto, 43, was shot dead while recording violent clashes between security
forces and anti-government protesters in Bangkok on April 10.
This will take
months - and will probably end up with innuendo but no proof and no
identification of the shooter.
Thailand update
- 2 May 2010
"We are sending a
clear signal that we have given people enough time to leave (the occupied
zone). We are now in the process of sealing off and cutting off support
before we actually move in," Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in an
interview with several foreign journalists to be nationally televised.
As one blogger
wrote the question is - "Does PM's oh so vague policy of creeping
containment work?" It does seem that the government is happy to treat this
as a war of attrition. But if that is the case their blockade of the red
shirts camp really should be more effective. Simply cut off their lines of
supply?
Thaksin lives. I
never doubted it. But many in Thailand believe he is dead Now even they
cannot write off the Straits Times as part of the pesky foreign media paid
by the evil one. And now a reporter from The Nation Group has spoken to
Thaksin on the telephone? In a 15 minute phone call.
There was a lot of
fuss last week about the red shirts entering Chulalongkorn hospital - after
suspicions that the Thai army had left some of their soldiers in the
hospital. This was very bad pr for the red shirts. But did they have a
point.
Look
at the slippers on this soldier's feet in a picture from Associated Press
taken three days ago. A Thai soldier wearing pink sandals takes position at
his makeshift camp near Chulalongkorn hospital where anti-government
protesters make a search for soldiers inside a hospital building Thursday,
April 29, 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand.
The hospital gives
pink slippers as standard to all of its patients. The pantip web site (all
in Thai) has an extensive forum of comments on this picture.
Chulalongkorn
Hospital has a political past - in 2008 doctors there said they would not
treat anyone who tried to disperse PAD (yellow-shirt) supporters.
On 11 October 2008
The Nation reported that "More than 40 doctors yesterday reaffirmed their
resolve not to attend to any police or soldiers who fought with the People's
Alliance for Democracy.
"What's more important than treating diseases is to prevent them," Dr Sutep
Gonlachanvit said. At least nine colleagues from Chulalongkorn Hospital and
30 doctors from Chiang Mai have agreed to deny treatment to police and
soldiers from the bloody clashes, he said.
"Our decision is not based on emotions. We just intend to stop people in
power from abusing their power," he said."
The reds
miscalculated how much mileage the government could get from pictures and
film of distressed nurses and patients together with some well crafted
messages from the hospital physicians.
Message Battle Heats Up in Thai Crisis
2 May 2010 Thomas Fuller in the New York Times
"Viewers of Thai soap operas now have a choice: they can follow the
over-dramatized acting and weepy plot lines of shows like “The Glass Around
the Diamond” or they can read pro-government political messages scrolling on
the bottom of the screen.
“The Thai people love peace but when we go to war, we are not fearful,”
reads one of the dozens of messages broadcast on two government channels
exhorting people to oppose the protest movement that has paralyzed parts of
Bangkok for more than seven weeks.
“Sometimes the Thai people have to fight bad Thai people,” says another.
Thailand’s political crisis is playing out on the streets here, where
antigovernment protesters, who are demanding new elections, are defending
their fortified encampment in the commercial heart of the city. But
political battles are also being waged through television, Facebook,
community radio stations and Internet chat rooms.
After a failed crackdown on the so-called red-shirt protesters last month,
the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is leading a two-pronged
campaign it hopes will strangle support for the protest movement. The
government is sharpening its public relations message while trying to shut
down the opposition’s media, a plan that in some parts of the country
appears to be backfiring.
A constant crawl at the bottom of television screens, which started running
in March on two government-owned stations, makes the case that “malevolent”
protesters are hurting the country and should go home. And an advertisement
implores: “Thais should love each other because we all live in the same
country.”
At the same time the government has shut down an opposition television
station and at least 420 Web sites affiliated with the red shirt movement.
Officials are also accusing red shirts of trying to overthrow the monarchy,
an incendiary charge that protest leaders reject.
In an interview with foreign correspondents on Sunday, Mr. Abhisit suggested
that the government would try to shut down community radio stations, which
have multiplied throughout the country in recent months, especially in the
populous red-shirt stronghold of the northeast.
He accused the radio stations of being “command centers” for the red shirts
and playing a “coordinating role” in the unrest.
“We are trying to restore order,” he said. “I’m not going to say that no
media is allowed to attack or comment on the other side. But certainly no
media should be allowed to play the role of inciting violence.”
The prime minister also said he had not ruled out using force to end the
stand-off in Bangkok. “We are now in the process of cutting off support and
sealing the area off before we actually move in,” he said.
But a crackdown does not appear imminent, especially after 25 people died
and 800 were injured in the botched attempt to clear protesters on April 10.
Mr. Abhisit said Sunday that he remained patient and that the “best solution
is one that does not involve violence or confrontation or conflicts.” An
aide said the prime minister would soon release a “political roadmap” that
could bring reconciliation to the country after four years of turmoil.
The overarching strategy for the government appears to be demonizing the
protesters and hoping that public opinion swings against them, a process
that could take months. Mr. Abhisit and his advisers warn of “terrorists”
among the protesters.
So far, the public relations campaign has had mixed results. In Bangkok
there is growing anger at the red shirts over the barricaded streets and
their incursion last week into a hospital, which caused panic in the wards.
But there is also deepening frustration over the government’s inability to
drive out the protesters.
“The government is good at building up their image from these messages on
television, but no one is taking any action to solve the problem,” said Yont
Klomkleaw, a manager for a market research company in Bangkok.
On Sunday, the prime minister’s Facebook page had about 600 comments, many
of them supportive; “fight! fight!” was a common refrain. But there were
also critical postings. “Sometimes, words alone may not be enough,” wrote
one commenter, Anyarporn Tansirikongkol.
In the provinces, especially the red shirts’ base in the north and
northeast, the government’s efforts may be backfiring, with many villagers
rejecting the messages as spin and propaganda, a view encouraged by the
movement’s leaders.
“The government is just lying to the people,” said Jarungkiat Chatchawat,
who runs a food stall in the northeastern city of Khon Kaen. “It doesn’t
have any influence on me.”
One military intelligence officer described the red shirt movement as
spreading “like a virus” in the northeast.
The red shirts broadcast their message using community radio stations and,
until recently, the satellite television station PTV, which was shut down by
the government last month.
Their public-relations campaign has focused on a few key words, notably the
“double standards” in Thai society applied to the poor compared with the
rich and well-connected. They also call the Abhisit government illegitimate
because it came after court decisions that barred two prime ministers from
the opposition camp.
The red shirts say they want to bring genuine democracy to Thailand, a
message that sells well in the north and northeast, where many farmers and
villagers feel their voice was muted by the 2006 military coup.
In Bangkok there is more skepticism about the protesters’ motives.
“This is not about democracy, it’s about thuggery,” Voranai Vanijaka, a
columnist for The Bangkok Post, wrote in the Sunday edition of the
newspaper. “It’s about nothing less than forcing the government to bend to
their every whim and every will.”
Mr. Voranai suggested the red shirt movement was a vendetta by Thaksin
Shinawatra, the billionaire who was removed as prime minister in the 2006
coup, after a court in February ordered a large share of his assets seized
by the state.
Although the references are often oblique, Mr. Thaksin and his allies appear
to be the target of many of the government’s messages. One message running
on the bottom of television screens warns:
“Don’t become a tool, don’t be naive and don’t hurt the country for the sake
of only one person.”"
Money and Power - Q&A with Niall Ferguson
1 May 2010 Carrie Tait in the Financial Post
Mr. Ferguson, whose latest bestseller is The Ascent of Money: The Financial
History of the World, was in Calgary last week as the headliner at the
Teatro salon speaker series. He touched on everything from why he thinks the
International Monetary Fund will soon be bailing out Britain, to why the
United States must now tread carefully around the globe or risk the wrath of
China. And he shared his thoughts on money and power and who he thinks will
win the U.K. election.
Q What are your thoughts on the U.K. economic situation as it relates
to the election?
A The situation of the United Kingdom in fiscal terms is in fact worse than
the situation of Greece. That may come as a surprise to you, but if you look
at the most recent paper on the subject published by the Bank for
International Settlements, it is very clear. The trajectory of U.K. public
debt over the next 30 years, absent a major change of policy, will take it
to a mind-blowing 500% of GDP, which is about 100 percentage points worse
than Greece. If Britain had done what many right-thinking people thought it
should do and joined the euro, the situation of Britain would be worse than
that of Greece today. The only reason that Britain isn't an honourary member
of the PIIGS club, along with Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain, is that it
stayed outside the eurozone and therefore reserves the right to debase the
currency as an exit strategy. I don't know about you, but I don't find that
very cheery as a prospect
So, Britain has a massive fiscal crisis that is just about to break. Whoever
wins this election ... they are going to have a ghastly task on their hands
to try to reform a system of entitlements and welfare and state subsidy that
has hugely expanded under Gordon Brown since 1997. I think Britain was more
ready for Thatcherism in 1979 than it is today, and yet it needs it more
today than it did then.
The situation is so unpromising that I would anticipate the International
Monetary Fund having to come into Britain as it did in 1976. So there's a
great deal of smoke and mirrors about this subject. None of the candidates
want to level with the British electorate, but the day after the election
we'll start seeing just how dire it is. And it will be a terrible indictment
of Gordon Brown's time as chancellor of the exchequer and as prime minister.
Q Now that you think the West has lost its grip, is the East going to
dominate?
A It is not quite as simple as that because there's a lag between economic
shifts and geopolitical shifts. China might well end up with an economy
larger than that of the United States in the next 20 years, but it is hard
to imagine it having comparable military power since the gap is much larger
in air power and naval power and land power. So, I don't think China will be
in a position to dominate, to use your word, the way that the United States
was able to dominate substantial regions of the world, and indeed the way
the Soviet Union did because of its military capability.
This is a more gradual process. I think it would be more correct to say the
world is returning to equilibrium. To a period in which, for centuries, a
small group of countries that I call the West had disproportionate power. We
just have to get used to a world where, for the first time in centuries,
China and India and Brazil are punching not above their weight, not below
their weight, but at their weight.
Q How will the West react?
A First, by falling apart. By stopping being the West. And we already see
that in the breakdown in harmony between the United States and the European
Union on a range of issues, beginning with Iraq, then Afghanistan.
Then there is this kind of slap-in-the-face feeling, for example, the
Copenhagen climate summit and the President of the United States arriving to
discuss the highly sensitive issues with his Chinese counterpart and finding
the Indians are already there, the South Africans are already there, the
Russians are already there. It is kind of like: ‘Oh, who are you again?'
The President of the United States is no longer indisputably the most
powerful man in the world. There is a sense he has to deal with his Chinese
counterpart as an equal.
Q Are we there yet?
A I think we're already there. Diplomatically, because of the financial
interrelationship between the United States and China, the President cannot
treat his Chinese counterpart anything other than an equal. Q Do you think China's threats to sell U.S. T-bills to inflict financial
pain are real?
A I don't think they are going to pull a lever as harsh as that over Taiwan.
I think if the stakes were high enough, they might very well. If China
announced tomorrow ‘we're selling our Treasuries,' the effect on the bond
market would be explosive. And it would cost the Chinese because their
dollar reserves would be worthless. But you have to remember most of China's
wealth is not in dollars, it is in renminbi. So they would lose on their
international reserves, but they would gain on every other asset that they
own. I think the question is: What issue is big enough to play that card?
Q What would prompt them to play it?
A There would need to be a major breakdown over something. For example,
let's conjure up a scenario where the United States finds itself having to
support Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities. Now, the Chinese would
have some good options there. One would be to just let it play out and
watch. Another would be to very publicly seek to [exert] their leverage over
the United States by saying ‘no, no you can't do this.' And that would be a
very high-risk strategy, but I could imagine how that would work
So, I think at some point, the currency issue and the U.S. debt issue does
give the Chinese real power, just as the currency issue and the debt issue
gave the United States power over Britain in the 1950s, particularly at the
time of the Suez Crisis. So, you have to imagine a Suez Crisis - where the
U.S. does something and the Chinese just decide ‘we're not going to support
that because by not supporting it we will make many friends.' [T-bills] are
a strategic lever and they can be used to deter military and other actions.
Q Is it one of their most powerful levers to deter action?
A Yes.
Q Is China's rise to power a bad thing?
A It is not a bad thing that the most populous country in the world is
emerging from grinding poverty and hundreds of thousands of people who were
in subsistence agriculture now have better paying jobs. That can't be a bad
thing. The problem is that in the realm of politics, China's [position] is
not necessarily benign. They [do not] remotely share our ambitions to
improve the quality of governance in Africa. They couldn't care less. And
they have a very different political model, which is neither democratic nor
based on law in our sense, and if you want to know what Chinese power is
about, ask any Tibetan.
Q How does Africa fit into all this?
A In the eyes of the Chinese, it is a place with a lot of commodities and
very poor infrastructure, and the Chinese have figured out they can access
the commodities if they provide the infrastructure. So, they have a pretty
instrumental view of Africa. Given the West has a sentimental view of
Africa, which is they want to [help with] water, give it aid, help Africans
by giving them free malaria meds. And China, of course, thinks that's
absurd. They want to come in and buy stuff, give them highways in return.
And right now that model is working better.
Q Working better for China or Africa?
A Working better for Africa. Just look at the growth rate. Africa is
enjoying ... rapid growth, and it is mostly on the back of sales of
commodities and the improvement of infrastructure. By comparison, we've had
50 years of development aid and achieved less. So [it is] not pretty in the
sense that what China does is bolster regimes in Sudan. They aren't really
concerned about people being authoritarian. They are authoritarian, why
should they worry about governance in Africa? It is not their vision of what
matters, and if they can deliver economic growth and raise African living
standards, you can't really blame the Africans for saying: ‘OK, these people
ask less of us [than] the aid agencies of the West and governments in the
West.'
Guardian endorses Liberal Democrats
1 May 2010:
Guardian editorial
"The liberal
moment has come;If the Guardian had a vote it
would be cast enthusiastically for the Liberal Democrats. But under our
discredited electoral system some people may – hopefully for the last time –
be forced to vote tactically
Citizens have votes. Newspapers do not. However, if the Guardian had a vote
in the 2010 general election it would be cast enthusiastically for the
Liberal Democrats. It would be cast in the knowledge that not all the
consequences are predictable, and that some in particular should be avoided.
The vote would be cast with some important reservations and frustrations.
Yet it would be cast for one great reason of principle above all.
After the campaign that the Liberal Democrats have waged over this past
month, for which considerable personal credit goes to Nick Clegg, the
election presents the British people with a huge opportunity: the reform of
the electoral system itself. Though Labour has enjoyed a deathbed conversion
to aspects of the cause of reform, it is the Liberal Democrats who have most
consistently argued that cause in the round and who, after the exhaustion of
the old politics, reflect and lead an overwhelming national mood for real
change.
Proportional representation – while not a panacea – would at last give this
country what it has lacked for so long: a parliament that is a true mirror
of this pluralist nation, not an increasingly unrepresentative two-party
distortion of it. The Guardian has supported proportional representation for
more than a century. In all that time there has never been a better
opportunity than now to put this subject firmly among the nation's
priorities. Only the Liberal Democrats grasp this fully, and only they can
be trusted to keep up the pressure to deliver, though others in all parties,
large and small, do and should support the cause. That has been true in past
elections too, of course. But this time is different. The conjuncture in
2010 of a Labour party that has lost so much public confidence and a
Conservative party that has not yet won it has enabled Mr Clegg to take his
party close to the threshold of real influence for the first time in nearly
90 years.
This time – with the important caveat set out below – the more people who
vote Liberal Democrat on 6 May, the greater the chance that this will be
Britain's last general election under a first-past-the-post electoral system
which is wholly unsuited to the political needs of a grown-up 21st-century
democracy.
Tactical option
The pragmatic caveat concerns the danger that, under the existing electoral
system, switching to the Liberal Democrats in Labour-Conservative marginal
constituencies might let in an anti-reform Tory party. So, voters who share
this principled enthusiasm for securing the largest possible number of
Liberal Democrat MPs next Thursday must, in many constituencies, weigh the
tactical option of supporting Labour to prevent a Conservative win.
Hopefully, if this really is the last election under the old system, such
dilemmas between head and heart will apply less in future. For now, however,
the cause of reform is overwhelmingly more likely to be achieved by a Lib
Dem partnership of principle with Labour than by a Lib Dem marriage of
convenience with a Tory party which is explicitly hostile to the cause and
which currently plans to redraw the political map for its own advantage. The
momentum for change would be fatally undermined should the Conservatives win
an overall majority. The Liberal Democrats and Labour should, of course,
have explored much earlier and more explicitly how they might co-operate to
reform the electoral system. During the campaign, and especially since the
final leaders' debate, the appetite for co-operation has clearly increased
and is increasing still. Mr Clegg's Guardian interview today underscores the
potential for more productive engagement with Labour and is matched by
fresh, untribal thinking from his potential partners.
This election is about serious choices between three main parties which all
have something to offer. David Cameron has done what none of his immediate
predecessors has understood or tried to do: he has confronted the
Conservative party with the fact that it was out of step with the country.
He has forced the party to become more diverse and to engage with
centre-ground opinion. He has explicitly aligned himself with the liberal
Conservative tradition which the Thatcherites so despised during their long
domination of the party. He has promoted modern thinking on civil liberty,
the environment and aspects of social policy.
Mr Cameron offers a new and welcome Toryism, quite different from what
Michael Howard offered five years ago. His difficulty is not that he is the
"same old Tory". He isn't. The problem is that his revolution has not
translated adequately into detailed policies, and remains highly
contradictory. He embraces liberal Britain yet protests that Britain is
broken because of liberal values. He is eloquent about the overmighty state
but proposes to rip up the Human Rights Act which is the surest weapon
against it. He talks about a Britain that will play a constructive role in
Europe while aligning the Tories in the European parliament with some of the
continent's wackier xenophobes. Behind the party leader's own engagement
with green issues there stands a significant section of his party that still
regards global warming as a liberal conspiracy.
The Tories have zigzagged through the financial crisis to an alarming
degree, austerity here, spending pledges there. At times they have argued,
against all reason, that Britain's economic malaise is down to overblown
government, as opposed to the ravages of the market. Though the
Conservatives are not uniquely evasive on the deficit, a large
inheritance-tax cut for the very wealthy is the reverse of a serious "united
and equal" approach to taxation. Small wonder that the Cameronisation of the
Conservative party sometimes seems more palace coup than cultural
revolution. A Cameron government might not be as destructive to Britain as
the worst Tory regimes of the past. But it is not the right course for
Britain.
If this election were a straight fight between Labour and the Conservatives
– which it absolutely is not – the country would be safer in the hands of
Labour than of the Tories. Faced in 2008 with a financial crisis
unprecedented in modern times, whose destructive potential can hardly be
exaggerated, the Labour government made some absolutely vital calls at a
time which exposed the Conservatives as neoliberals, not novices. Whether
Labour has truly learned the right lessons itself is doubtful. Labour is,
after all, the party that nurtured the deregulatory systems which
contributed to the implosion of the financial sector, on which the entire
economy was too reliant. How, and even whether, British capitalism can be
directed towards a better balance between industry and finance is a question
which remains work in progress for Labour, as for us all. At the highest
levels of the party, timidity and audacity remain in conflict. Nevertheless,
Labour, and notably Alistair Darling, a palpably honest chancellor who has
had to play the most difficult hand of any holder of his office in modern
times, deserves respect for proving equal to the hour. Only the most
churlish would deny the prime minister some credit for his role in the
handling of the crisis.
Labour's failings
But this election is more than a verdict on the response to a single trauma,
immense though it was. It is also a verdict on the lengthening years of
Labour government and the three years of Gordon Brown's premiership. More
than that, any election is also a judgment about the future as well as a
verdict on the past. A year ago, the Guardian argued that Labour should
persuade its leader to step down. Shortly afterwards, in spite of polling an
abject 15.7% in the European elections, and with four cabinet ministers
departing, Labour chose to hug Mr Brown close. It was the wrong decision
then, and it is clear, not least after his humiliation in Rochdale this
week, that it is the wrong decision now. The Guardian said a year ago that
Mr Brown had failed to articulate a vision, a plan, or an argument for the
future. We said that he had become incapable of leading the necessary
revolution against the political system that the expenses scandal had
triggered. Labour thought differently. It failed to act. It thereby lost the
opportunity to renew itself, and is now facing the consequences.
Invited to embrace five more years of a Labour government, and of Gordon
Brown as prime minister, it is hard to feel enthusiasm. Labour's kneejerk
critics can sometimes sound like the People's Front of Judea asking what the
Romans have ever done for us. The salvation of the health service, major
renovation of schools, the minimum wage, civil partnerships and the
extension of protection for minority groups are heroic, not small
achievements.
Yet, even among those who wish Labour well, the reservations constantly
press in. Massive, necessary and in some cases transformational investment
in public services insufficiently matched by calm and principled reform,
sometimes needlessly entangled with the private sector. Recognition of
gathering generational storms on pensions, public debt, housing and – until
very recently – climate change not addressed by clear strategies and
openness with the public about the consequences. The inadequately planned
pursuit of two wars. A supposedly strong and morally focused foreign policy
which remains trapped in the great-power, nuclear-weapon mentality, blindly
uncritical of the United States, mealy-mouthed about Europe and tarnished by
the shame of Iraq – still not apologised for. Allegations of British
embroilment in torture answered with little more than a world-weary sigh.
Large talk about constitutional change matched by an addiction to
centralisation. Easy talk about liberty and "British values" while Britain
repeatedly ratchets up the criminal justice system, repeatedly encroaches on
civil liberties, undermines legal aid and spends like there is no tomorrow
on police and prisons. Apparent outrage against the old politics subverted
by delay, caution and timid compromise.
There are reservations too, though of a different order and on different
subjects, about the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats are a very
large party now, with support across the spectrum. But they remain in some
respects a party of the middle and lower middle classes. Labour's record on
poverty remains unmatched, and its link to the poor remains umbilical. Vince
Cable, so admirable and exemplary on the banks, nevertheless remains a
deficit hawk, committed to tax cuts which could imply an even deeper
slashing of public services. Though the party has good policies on equality,
it has not prioritised the promotion and selection of women and ethnic
minority candidates.
Matched priorities
Surveying the wider agenda and the experience of the past decade, however,
there is little doubt that in many areas of policy and tone, the Liberal
Democrats have for some time most closely matched our own priorities and
instincts. On political and constitutional change, they articulate and
represent the change which is now so widely wanted. On civil liberty and
criminal justice, they have remained true to liberal values and human rights
in ways that the other parties, Labour more than the Tories in some
respects, have not. They are less tied to reactionary and sectional class
interests than either of the other parties.
The Liberal Democrats were green before the other parties and remain so.
Their commitment to education is bred in the bone. So is their comfort with
a European project which, for all its flaws, remains central to this
country's destiny. They are willing to contemplate a British defence policy
without Trident renewal. They were right about Iraq, the biggest foreign
policy judgment call of the past half-century, when Labour and the Tories
were both catastrophically and stupidly wrong. They have resisted the rush
to the overmighty centralised state when others have not. At key moments,
when tough issues of press freedom have been at stake, they have been the
first to rally in support. Above all, they believe in and stand for full,
not semi-skimmed, electoral reform. And they have had a revelatory campaign.
Trapped in the arid, name-calling two-party politics of the House of
Commons, Nick Clegg has seldom had the chance to shine. Released into the
daylight of equal debate, he has given the other two parties the fright of
their lives.
A newspaper that is proudly rooted in the liberal as well as the labour
tradition – and whose advocacy of constitutional reform stretches back to
the debates of 1831-32 – cannot ignore such a record. If not now, when? The
answer is clear and proud. Now."
Thailand's Drama
1 May 2010 -
Washington Post
"Thailand is
gripped by a drama involving an ailing king and a monarchy in
jeopardy...(edited - sorry). It features mysterious assassins in black
suits, drugs and thugs, and a billionaire former prime minister forced into
exile, where he spent more than $160 million to buy a British soccer team
and bankrolls thousands of protesters occupying the heart of this steamy
capital city.
Seven weeks of
episodic chaos have claimed the lives of 27 people and injured nearly 1,000,
while scaring off tourists and infuriating commuters. It has also spooked
investors in one of the best-performing economies in Southeast Asia, a
bustling import-export center that has become, among other things, the
second-largest market for pickup trucks, after the United States.
In the shadow of a fancy downtown mall that calls itself Thailand's "premier
lifestyle shopping destination," thousands of Red Shirts, as the
demonstrators are known, have brought commerce to a halt while building
medieval-looking barricades out of sharpened bamboo poles.
The protesters, some of them armed, massage one another's feet, snooze
sweatily in lawn chairs and make ferocious speeches about the universal
importance of one-person, one-vote. They say they won't go home until new
national elections are called. They have reason to believe they would win:
Their rural-based party has won before, but the government they voted into
power was overthrown four years ago in a military coup.
Beyond all the plot twists and colorful characters, the story of Thailand's
spring of fitful discontent is fundamentally economic. After decades of
economic growth, the country's rural populace thinks that the elites in the
capital have selfishly hoarded Thailand's increasing prosperity.
It is a view not shared by those elites, who regard their country cousins as
little more than hired muscle for the exiled former prime minister, Thaksin
Shinawatra, who wants to return to Thailand and power. Those city-dwellers
sometimes take to the streets to fight back, wearing competing Yellow
Shirts, in what has become an unpredictable standoff with regular bouts of
bloodshed.
Thaksin's Red-Shirt-supported government was ousted in a 2006 coup that had
the broad support of business leaders and social elites in Bangkok. The
unelected government, which is resisting the protesters' demands for an
immediate election, is supported by those same urban elites.
The Red Shirts, though, have more than just the potential to win another
election. Elements among them came to Bangkok in March with military muscle:
rocket-launched grenades, improvised propane bombs and a shadowy force of
trained fighters with military training.
The Thai army could not disperse them in an April 10 shootout that claimed
25 lives. The government and the military have since sought to contain the
Red Shirts and wait them out. Leaders on both sides say the situation could
spark widespread class-based civil conflict.
"The Red Shirts have tasted something that is real," said Sulak Sivaraksa, a
Buddhist activist and political analyst. "They have experienced what it
means to have power, and they will not be marginalized anymore."
The sticking power of the Red Shirts also raises questions about the future
of the Thai monarchy. King Bhumibol Adulyadej is widely loved and has been a
stabilizing figure in politics for more than six decades. But he is 82 and
ailing.
The king's son, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, 57, is widely disliked
(rest of paragraph omitted..you can look it up yourself).
Even Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said in Washington last month that "we
should be brave enough" to talk about reforming the monarchy. Meaningful
debate has been stymied for decades by a law that criminalizes almost any
criticism of the king.
Leaders of the Red
Shirts say many rural people have lost confidence in the king since the 2006
coup, which they suspect he supported. In rural areas, the king's picture
has been removed from many offices and homes.
The rise of a strong, rural-based political movement in Thailand has its
roots in five decades of growth and modernization. This country has become
the world's leading exporter of rice and is a major manufacturer of hard
disks and other computer parts. Universal education and the reach of
communications technology have raised material expectations and political
ambitions, while lowering tolerance for a central government that ignores
rural needs.
"The Thai people now understand what politics can do for them -- and they
believe it is a game not just for important people in Bangkok," said Jaran
Ditapichai, a leader of the Red Shirts.
Still, for all their democratic credentials, the Red Shirts are beholden to
Thaksin, a rich man with a grudge. More than any other politician in Thai
history, Thaksin delivered services and redistributed government wealth in
rural areas. He instituted universal health care, pushed debt forgiveness
for farmers and gave cash to every village in the country.
Thaksin also delivered for himself, his family and his cronies. He used the
power of the government to pad his fortune while allowing widespread human
rights violations by security forces. During his "war on drugs," more than
2,000 people were killed in unexplained circumstances, according to Human
Rights Watch.
After he was removed from power in the coup, he was convicted of corruption
and banned from politics.
Since fleeing into exile, Thaksin has paid salaries to some Red Shirt
leaders and periodically flies them out of the country for strategy
consultations.
"Thaksin is a kind of tractor for us," said Jaran, who said that he has
traveled to Dubai with other Red Shirt leaders to meet with Thaksin. "If we
didn't have him, we would still be using a shovel. Anyway, it is meaningless
who pays. We are fighting a war. We need money."
In the current round of protests, Thaksin has secretly seeded the Red Shirts
in Bangkok with former military personnel, said Viengrat Nethipo, a
supporter of the Red Shirts who is an assistant professor of political
science at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. A number of government
officials and independent observers share her view
Thai police and army forces have seized caches of rocket-launched grenades
from the Red Shirts. During the army's failed attempt on April 10 to move
the protesters out, several fighters in black uniforms sprang into action on
the Red Shirt side, according to videotape evidence.
Autopsies after the shootout showed that high-velocity bullets, many of them
fired with precision to the head, neck and chest, had killed and wounded
several members of the army, including the most senior officer at the scene.
The lethal targeting suggested a high level of military command and control
among the protesters.
Leaders of the Red Shirts say they do not know who the black-shirted
fighters are or where they came from. Government leaders say that is absurd.
Kraisak Choonhavan, a member of parliament and a deputy leader in the
government, said Thaksin's policies benefited rural people. But now, he
said, "he employs killer-hunters who come from the military."
Although the stalemate continues in the streets of Bangkok, both Kraisak and
Jaran said negotiations between the Red Shirts and the government are
quietly underway."
oday's
terrorism charge against Thaksin appears hasty and based on politics and not
reality.
7.52
Watching a huge smoke cloud over BKK - on ThaiPBS via internet
Look
at the slippers on this soldier's feet in a picture from Associated Press
taken three days ago. A Thai soldier wearing pink sandals takes position at
his makeshift camp near Chulalongkorn hospital where anti-government
protesters make a search for soldiers inside a hospital building Thursday,
April 29, 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand.