I believe saitou's and TMac'n's assessment of the situation is correct. I spent a few weeks in Thailand just a few weeks ago and my more educated Thai friends see it the same way. Some of the dumber cab drivers I talked to sympathized with the red shirts, though. Thaksin is basically someone who stole a lot of money from the people and used it to buy the votes of the dumb people.
Thanks, what's sad is that its true that most of the Red Shirts are majorily uneducated. The red's are mainly from the North and Northeast (Isaan) and most have about a 6th grade education since they need to work for the family in farms and manufacturing (and prostitution ) . BTW AroundTheWorld, what part of Bangkok did you stay in? I lived mostly on Koh Samui in the south and while in Bangkok around Ladprao (close to Don Muang).
If Chinese communist party had changed their name to Chinese People's Democratic Party, they might have got a free pass too. News coverage was, is, and will be always selective, be it financially or politically motivated. After all, it's handled by human beings, so it will be subjective and biased forever. In other news, a 23 year-old Chinese girl was hit in the head, dragged into a small road, raped and then smashed 50 times on head to death, by a Mexican, in Flushing, New York. New York Post wrote 2 sentences about this tiny little incident. I am wondering what would have been in TV or news paper, if that girl were White, or Black, or Latino? Of course, this is America, it has nothing to do with race and origin, just other news are much more important.
You might want to rethink this. The PLA could invade the USA and so long as they only killed black people, it wouldn't be in the news.
Let me preface by stating that I have family that live in Thailand who are part of the wealthy class. They like many wealthy people in Thailand know Thaksin Shinawatra personally. I'm not to get into whether Thaksin is corrupt or not. The only fact is that he exploited a loophole in Thai Law that allowed him to sell his company to a foreign entity without paying tax. The two main issues with this are that Thailand's richest made a lot money without paying taxes and that companies in Thailand have to be majority owned by a Thai citizen. Most global companies setup dummy partnerships to set up shop in Thailand because of this law. The real issue in Thailand right now is not Thaksin, it is the huge disparity between rich and poor. There are a few wealthy people that control much of Thailand and corruption is rampant. For instance Thailand doesn't have 3G wireless service yet, because the proper people haven't paid off and they don't want to disrupt the balance of power and wealth. Thaksin exploited this condition to his political benefit. He promised and provided education and medical care for the poor and won elections by a landslide. Again, I'm not getting into his motives because that is up to debate. The facts are that he did help poor people, which makes him popular, and he did help himself in the process. The other fact is that the powerful elite did not like this because this disrupted the status quo. The wealthy don't want things to change. They believe they are smarter, therefore they should make the decisions for the country. They also want people to stay poor so they can keep their housekeepers, drivers and status. The wealthy have it really good. The wealthy do not believe in "true" democracy. If Thaksin could come back and run for election, he would win in another landslide. This is why the yellow shirts are doing everything in their power to discredit him and anyone associated with him. The shocking aspect of this clash was the aggression and violence from both sides. Thai people pride themselves in being a peaceful country. Even their coups are generally bloodless. They fear that this is going to lead is going to further violence. Also, remember the yellow shirts got into political power by doing the same thing and taking over the airport a few years ago. Unfortunately, the victims of this conflict are people that just want to live their lives peacefully.
The Yellow shirts didn't use homemade bombs and weapons, even in the protest where they took over the airport in December 2008. They didn't destroy the airport or Government House when they took that over. They were peaceful for the most part, other than when riot police attacked them back in October 2008, but still they didn't use weapons. If you look back to a the more recent April 2009 protests of the Red Shirts, they used taxi's, public buses, and gasoline tankers to block off 4 or 5 major intersections throughout Bangkok to put the city on its knees, threatened to blow up the gas tanks and threw petrol bombs at the police and bystanders. Again, these are terrorists threatening to invoke violence if they don't have their way. I know there's a divide in the wealthy and the poor in Thailand, but you have at least one divide in every nation. The US has several of its own divides, look at the divide between races and what people think is fair. For example the Arizona illegal immigration law.
No matter what Thaksin did or if he is corrupt, he won the popular election. If that's who the Thais want for their leader, warts and all, then that is really their choice. At the end of the day, the courts and military threw all that out and silenced their vote again and again. They don't count. If Palin wins 2016 in a landslide, that's the American people's choice. Just because she's a divisive idiot and hillbillys voted for her, it doesn't make it right to exile her... even though it's sounds like a really good idea.
I don't condone violence in any way and I don't sympathize with either group, but I just wanted to restate the situation in way that normal Americans can understand it. Imagine if the democratic party outnumbered the republicans by 2 to 1, and the republicans, with the help of the military, decided to overthrow the president accusing him of corruption. Then when a new constitution is written, we have another election where the democrats easily win the majority of the votes again. This time the republicans storm the airports and hold the tourism industry hostage, and forces the democrats to step down from government. During this period, the democratic party was found to have committed some voter fraud by the courts, the party is then disbanded because of the rules within the constitution. Then the republicans take over running the country without elections because they now have the largest majority of congress since all the democrats were kicked out. How would you think the voters who identify with the democrats respond? You push people enough, and there are some people who are going to respond violently. The point I'm making is that if the current Thai government doesn't address the working and rural poor, they are going to get their asses handed to them in the next election, and the Thai people are going to have to deal with this all over again. I don't see how things are going to go back to the way they were before Thaksin took power earlier this decade. The poor have found their voice, and the only ways quiet it is by giving in to some of their demands or by using force. What I fear is that the wealthy are going to be stubborn and this is situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I'm hoping for a peaceful resolution because I love Thailand and its people. I consider it my home away from the USA.
rockbox: your right. The population votes, and the majority wins. You look back at Gore vs. Bush in 2000, even though Democrat voter wouldn't let go, they still allowed the remainder of Bush's term to end because that's the democratic thing to do. In a modern democracy that provides for fair elections, this is how you win. However, when election fraud was discovered, I still think the Election Committee of Thailand made the right decision in having the party disbanded and Cabinet Members voting in a new leader for the remainder of the term (since they too represent the remainder of the majority of vote). When Nixon was impeached and resigned, the American people didn't vote for a new President. Ford became president because he was the VP. But, if the entire Republican party was disbanded, we too, just like Thailand, would not be voting for a new president (I think that it would go to the House Speaker...correct me if I'm wrong). I love Thailand, that's why I'm passionate about the nation. I've spent a lot of time there and saw a lot of things that I would say are wrong. The divide between the classes was really uprooted during Thaksin's reign. Its a Developing Nation, its not quite mature yet since the en-statement of the Democracy in 1932.
You could make that point right after the election - but if Palin got elected and would start using her position of power to defraud the country and would start pouring money into her own pocket, yet refused to step down, then something would have to happen, election or not. Now there is the formal impeachment process in the US which might or might not exist in this form in Thailand (I don't know), but something would have to happen.
rockbox: I actually agree with your assessment for the most part, which is why I do have some sympathy for the red movement. However, in your US-Thai analogy, US presidents can get impeached for misconduct, and it's arguable whether what Thaksin did was impeachable. Also, regardless of the legitimacy of their grievances, the way the Reds protested (effectively carrying out acts of terrorism while rejecting Ahbisit's offers of elections in November) leads me to question the intentions of their leaders. If they have such a big majority and if they cared about their protesters, why not wait another 6 months and take back power peacefully??
Thaksin got convicted for a land deal similar to Whitewater. This wasn't even brought up before the coup. They wanted him out because he was getting too popular and the ruling elite were feeling nervous. Thaksin didn't have listen to them since he was voted by the poor. Corrupt or not, he was not kicked out because it. All Thai politicians are corrupt.
Kind of a sad situation. I realize it is not black or white. But what the red shirt demonstrators did was definitely not ok and seems to betray any good intentions had by co-protesters (setting buildings on fire, launching a grenade at a SkyTrain station etc.).
No matter how you spin it, you won't be able to convince me that killing demonstrators with deadly force is right. Without a workable solution at the moment doesn't mean the government could call in the soldiers to shoot at the demonstrators. Your passionate effort to rationalize the use of deadly force by the government is very annoying to me.
Hold on, the deadly force was used AFTER they had launched a grenade attack at a SkyTrain station and AFTER they had set some buildings on fire, no? I'm not saying the government handled this perfectly, but what were they supposed to do, just not enforce the rule of law at all?
The government did provide the protesters with workable solutions 2 or 3 times. The protesters refuted them, demanded more, and continued to act in violence. They were acting above the law. And the law had to act. I seriously believe the intentions of the Red Shirt leaders were to make the current government look bad. By doing so, if Thaksin is able to come back to the country (if he is removed of all criminal charges-which I doubt will happen), he would be up as a candidate for Prime Minister after his 5 year disbandment from politics (2006-2011). Elections will be held in November 2011.
Now they are accusing Thaksin of terrorism. I'm not defending Thaksin, but the guys are power are trying to make sure he never comes back because they know he would influence any general election in Thailand. The fear is that in the next election, his supporters will vote someone in that will be sympathetic to Thaksin. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37329490/ns/world_news/
I'm not very sympathetic, and here's why (for English subtitles, make sure annotations are turned on for Youtube) <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vBDm-jA3N80&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vBDm-jA3N80&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> Here is the CNN article referenced in the video: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/05/19/thailand.thaksin/index.html?iref=allsearch
Sir Jackie Chiles, I have always respected your opinions in the past, but not this time. If you believe that the Thai government has the right to open fire at everyone because one mad man has launched a grenade, I think we have to agree to disagree. How much has been proved that the attack is an organized effort of the demonstrators anyway? Is there an investigation going on? I thought we have been told that there were no workable solution in sight and therefore the government had to shoot the demonstrators. So actually there were workable solutions. If that's the case, why did they stop negotiating and start shooting?
Here's a time line specific to negotiations: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7126309.ece The only reason the government withdrew its offer was because Red's had passed the deadline to accept the offer and remove themselves from the commercial district.
