I think that Thaksin’s implemention of the war on drugs hasn’t ever been examined really deeply. There is a lot of tendency to polarize things. The haters say Thaksin the murderer individually ordered deathsquad killings as a display of personal power, in complete disregard to human rights and the rule of law. The backers say Thaksin managed-by-objectives and for the first time in Thai history, put a stop to the drug trade. You can’t really believe either side. But since the junta doesn’t seem to care about it, we’ll never really know the truth.
Also, the issue of individual police responsibility hasn’t been addressed at all. In some countries, there are clear rules about when a policeman can shoot to kill. For instance, in the US, policeman can shoot to kill if they think the suspect is pointing a gun at them. Of course, a policeman can always lie, and policemen in any country will always protect their own people. But in Thailand the rules aren’t even clear. And to make matters worse, Thai police are “uneducated, undertrained, underpaid and most probably very corrupt, unreliable hicks” (as noted by Vichai N). I don’t think that absolves them from guilt, but when the public perceives its enforcers of justice in that light, it becomes very hard to have much faith in justice.
Kuhn Vichai: You will be pleased to know some police officers have admitted to their involvement in р╕зр╕┤р╕кр╕▓р╕бр╕▒р╕Нр╕Жр╕▓р╕Хр╕Бр╕гр╕гр╕б already. Police officers openly admit it is part of their biography. Google will show you dozens of other instances. You should alert Gen Surayud and Gen Sonthi to these cases of “extra-judicial” killings.
Nganadeelang: Please point to where I have been supportive of extra-judicial killings. What do you mean by extra-judicial killings? Do you include people killed in self-defence? If can established that the police killed someone in self-defence, I don’t have a problem with it. However, if the police killed someone and they have no defence to the killing then I am against this and have no problem with any prosecution. Is that clear?
So does Thaksin bear responsibility because they happened on his watch, or does Thaksin bear responsibility because he was behind the killings? There is a big difference between the two.
“It is said the prime minister’s war on drugs killed about 2,500 people. That is not correct. Most of them were killed by their accomplices and others by the government crackdown,” the King said.
Given your statements in other posts, I didn’t think you would disagree with HM the King. Or are you going to revise your numbers and statements?
‘However, Srinakharinwirot University’s president Wiroon Tungcharoen said there were many larger issues that deserved national-agenda status.
“Every relevant party should play a role in preventing the inappropriate dance shows but this is just a small problem reflective of bigger problems about morality, education, employment and quality of life. WHAT ARE THE VALUES CHERISHED BY THE YOUNGER GENERATION?” he said.’
Erotic dancing alert. From The Nation of 2 November:
Many groups asked to help control erotic dancing
The Culture Ministry will invite representatives from up to 84 groups to discuss how to stamp out the practice of young women dancing erotically at public events.
“We have made up the list of who should be present at the November 8 meeting,” Ladda Tangsuphachai, who heads the ministry’s Cultural Monitoring Centre, said yesterday.
According to Ladda, the invitations will be sent to the Interior, Commerce, Information and Communications Technology, Education, Public Health, Social Development and Human Security, and Tourism and Sports ministries.
Representatives of the Tourism Authority of Thailand and the police will also be asked to attend.
“We will also invite representatives from 10 department stores, eight automobile companies, five motorcycle companies and 52 organisers,” Ladda said.
The scantily clad dancing girls have become a hot issue after Her Majesty the Queen expressed concerns that some females danced inappropriately at a Buddhist charity event in Nong Khai province.
After Her Majesty’s concern was relayed via the Culture Ministry, several authorities proposed measures to ban such dancing shows.
It has been reported that the Culture Ministry has suggested that girls should be barred from working as scantily clad product presenters and dancers at public events, while police will enforce public-obscenity laws to discourage such shows.
The Supreme Sangha Council also reportedly threatened to sack senior monks if they allow inappropriate shows at their temples.
The National Buddhism Bureau’s acting director Chularat Boonyakorn said she would oversee a project to develop a booklet on activities local organisations should hold on important Buddhist days.
“I am going to check on the dos and don’ts list. Then, the content will be submitted to the Supreme Sangha Council for recommendations,” she said in response to PM’s Office Minister Dhipavadee Meksawan’s idea that a campaign to encourage local people to protect Buddhism should be launched.
In a related development, Culture Minister Khunying Khaisri Sri-aroon explained that her ministry did not specifically intend to ban girls under 20 years old from working as scantily-clad dancers.
“We just want to find some relevant laws. For example, there are laws banning youths under 20 years old from entering night-time entertainment venues,” she said.
She added her ministry was in fact focused on inappropriate shows in public places.
Khaisri said she had already instructed provincial cultural offices across the country to work closely with local administrative bodies in ensuring that no damage was done to the Kingdom’s culture.
She said her ministry did not have any law to directly prevent the inappropriate shows and would ask relevant authorities to explore available laws. Khaisri expressed confidence that this issue could find a place on the national agenda because it was in line with the government’s policy to promote morality and knowledge.
However, Srinakharinwirot University’s president Wiroon Tungcharoen said there were many larger issues that deserved national-agenda status.
“Every relevant party should play a role in preventing the inappropriate dance shows but this is just a small problem reflective of bigger problems about morality, education, employment and quality of life. What are the values cherished by the younger generation?” he said.
I seem to recall that most of those killings were carried out in the name of making Thailand drug free by the time of the King’s golden jubilee. The consensus seems to be that HM King Bhumibol approved of them.
Well Pundit I ask you Is my legal term ‘Extrajudicial Killings’ accurate or not knowing you are probably better in the English language than I?
Am I accurate when I say Thaksin Shinawatra violated lthe Thai consitutional rule of law when he directed the extrajudicial murderous rampage in Y2003 that resulted in 2,500 village innocents killed?
Stop throwing Thai translations when we are talking of substance Pundit. You did say “include police self-defense”, but the more common meaning for р╕зр╕┤р╕кр╕▓р╕бр╕▒р╕Нр╕Жр╕▓р╕Хр╕Бр╕гр╕гр╕б
is extrajudicial killing of a suspect without due process.
Thaksin did the whole thing for show and effect and to impress . . garner publicity that he was a macho leader. Thaksin wanted to be a superstar, a bloody superstar Pundit!
Thaksin was a Police Lt. Colonel before he was a parliamentarian and a Prime Minister. The rule of law should have been religion to Thaksin . . he was elected to uphold the law and not break it, nor demonstrate that he could be above it.
As a former policeman, Thaksin must have fully appreciated that those village policemen who were uneducated, undertrained, underpaid and most probably very corrupt, were unreliable hicks. When Thaksin put a bounty on the arrested and killed (not merely arrested). Thaksin was really intent on demonstrating that he can order the killings of Thais to show off his ‘godly’ powers. First he demanded of the village police hicks those terrible blacklists. Then he started micro-managing the slaughter by demanding body counts and kill quotas BKK Pundit. Thaksin knew very well those village policemen hicks would go on a murderous rampage to collect their bounty and meet their quota.
Pundit stop defending Thaksin, The Executioner of Thailand.
Thaksin was elected to uphold the laws of Thailand. Thaksin should have followed strict legal procedures to prosecute those ya ba suspects of which none deserved to be executed but jailed at best if found to be guilty.
Thaksin as Prime Minister could have passsed the toughest and most punishing anti-drug legislation in the world if he truly wanted to make an impression against drug trafficking in Thailand. (Thaksin virtually and literally owned Thai parliament at that time), That Thaksin instead resorted to the ‘popular’ but quite clearly unethical and illegal extrajudicial display was abhorrent and despicable.
Those 2,500 village innocents deserve justice Pundit. And Thaksin deserve to be judicially prosecuted for the 2,500 murders of these innocents.
Vichai, you do realise that extra-judicial killings you are referring to is in Thai р╕зр╕┤р╕кр╕▓р╕бр╕▒р╕Нр╕Жр╕▓р╕Хр╕Бр╕гр╕гр╕б which in English does not mean extra judicial killings. It refers to any death at the hands of a police officer which includes acts of self-defence.
This is not to say that there no unjustified killings by the police, but if you are going to throw around terms and figures at least try to make sure they are accurate.
Hmm… ‘authentic culture’- I thought that term was only used these days by ‘carpetbaggers’ intent on cashing in on other peoples cultures. 😉
Whenever I hear that term a scene from O’Rourke’s “Cannibal Tours” immediately springs into my head – you know the scene where the Papuan villagers hear the tourist boats coming up the river and immediately jump up and change out of their t-shirts and shorts and into the more ‘authentic’ grass skirts. And there is this great line from an old fella “When the first Europeans arrived, the people cried out, ‘Our dead ancestors have returned!’ So now when we see tourists we say about them, ‘the dead have come back!’ We don’t seriously believe it, but we do say it.”
This scene always gets stuck in my head like one of those stupid ‘china doll’s’ tunes and I don’t know how to get rid of it. “It’s all getting a bit weird”. I feel like its all happened before.
But to the point – Khunying Khaisr’s comments reminded me about something Thongchai said towards the start of his book ‘Siam Mapped’. “Thailand is a nation, though not the only one, which concerns itself with the preservation and promotion of the national culture as if it might suddenly disappear”
It also reminds me of the effort of early Chakri monarchs to invent a ‘Thai’ culture that appeared to the outside would as civilised (in a Victorian Protestant sense) rather than barbarian (in a sexualized corporeal sense). I came across something that Keys wrote in his book ‘Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as a Modern Nation State’ that sort of follows the Protestant ethic line. He was retelling a cautionary tale by Dokmai Sot (now is it just me or is that is a sexy name?) written in 1937. In her Short Story Fire “she tells of three students, just about to take their entrance emanations for university, who are tempted by the hedonism of a Western-style dance hall where men drink whiskey and watch performances of scantily dressed women. One of the three succumbs to the temptations of the pleasure palace, but the other two are led by an older relative to see this imitation of the worst of Western culture as an ‘obstacle to progress of our culture’”
Perhaps Khunying Khaisr is doing nothing more than just playing the role of the ‘older relative’ in the cautionary tale.
Or perhaps because Khunying Khaisr, like the monarchs of old, has the ‘moral authority’ as the Minister of Culture under a totalitarian regime (or should I say ‘Thai democracy’) then I guess she is in the position to proclaim what ‘Thai’ culture is and how it will be expressed.
You think so Patiwat? But I believe if the courts do proceed to prosecute on the Thaksin Y2003 extrajudicial rampage . . . the courts would take into considerable consideration that those village policemen, undertrained and underpaid easily succumb to AUTHORITY. If I were the lawyer to defend the policemen who did pull the triggers, that would be the weight of my argument in their defense for mercy.
But for Thaksin Shinawatra he deserves no mercy. He alone, and perhaps the Interior Minister and some very senior Police officers should be punished to the full force of the law because gentlemen murders were committed, thousands of village innocents were extrajudicially executed, without due process and in clear violation of the rule of law.
My impression is that sensuality is an integral part of the “authentic” Thai culture up until recently (late 19th century). And that these notions of ideal Thai women being prudish, conservative, and such is a fairly recent concoction (late 19th century). Idolization of Court Lady, “Chao-wang”, culture + imported Victorian sensibilities that never leave? Any historians care to comment on this?
She should get out more 🙂 Realistically, she should go to Soprano or Forte so she can see for herself how athletic and well educated the “coyotes” are and how creative their moves are. Heck, she should go to any modern product launch, media event, or trade show and ask the “pretties” how immoral they are for hawking products.
It’s hypocritical for her to imply that it was OK for women of the Sukhothai/Ayutthaya era to dance topless, but it’s immoral for modern Thai girls to wiggle their hips.
On the contrary, Vichai N, if local police forces drew up the deathlists and then followed orders to illegally kill the drug-dealers, then the police are also guilty. “Just following orders” is not a valid defense when the orders are clearly illegal. We are human beings, and always have a choice about whether to do right or wrong. Read up on Nuremberg.
The same can be said about the military. Some of the most sickening human rights abuses in the South were committed by soldiers on the ground like Pallop Pinmanee.
Going after Thaksin for his alleged human rights abuses would implicate literally thousands of policemen and soldiers. That would probably result in a counter-coup against the junta. The junta has officially said it wants love, harmony, and unity, not justice. Vichai, if you truly want justice for the dead, you can’t rely on the military to be your knights in shining armor – they too, have blood on their hands.
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Surayud to bring love, harmony and virtue (with strengthened military potential)!
I think that Thaksin’s implemention of the war on drugs hasn’t ever been examined really deeply. There is a lot of tendency to polarize things. The haters say Thaksin the murderer individually ordered deathsquad killings as a display of personal power, in complete disregard to human rights and the rule of law. The backers say Thaksin managed-by-objectives and for the first time in Thai history, put a stop to the drug trade. You can’t really believe either side. But since the junta doesn’t seem to care about it, we’ll never really know the truth.
Also, the issue of individual police responsibility hasn’t been addressed at all. In some countries, there are clear rules about when a policeman can shoot to kill. For instance, in the US, policeman can shoot to kill if they think the suspect is pointing a gun at them. Of course, a policeman can always lie, and policemen in any country will always protect their own people. But in Thailand the rules aren’t even clear. And to make matters worse, Thai police are “uneducated, undertrained, underpaid and most probably very corrupt, unreliable hicks” (as noted by Vichai N). I don’t think that absolves them from guilt, but when the public perceives its enforcers of justice in that light, it becomes very hard to have much faith in justice.
Surayud to bring love, harmony and virtue (with strengthened military potential)!
Kuhn Vichai: You will be pleased to know some police officers have admitted to their involvement in р╕зр╕┤р╕кр╕▓р╕бр╕▒р╕Нр╕Жр╕▓р╕Хр╕Бр╕гр╕гр╕б already. Police officers openly admit it is part of their biography. Google will show you dozens of other instances. You should alert Gen Surayud and Gen Sonthi to these cases of “extra-judicial” killings.
Surayud to bring love, harmony and virtue (with strengthened military potential)!
Nganadeelang: Please point to where I have been supportive of extra-judicial killings. What do you mean by extra-judicial killings? Do you include people killed in self-defence? If can established that the police killed someone in self-defence, I don’t have a problem with it. However, if the police killed someone and they have no defence to the killing then I am against this and have no problem with any prosecution. Is that clear?
So does Thaksin bear responsibility because they happened on his watch, or does Thaksin bear responsibility because he was behind the killings? There is a big difference between the two.
Surayud to bring love, harmony and virtue (with strengthened military potential)!
“but the more common meaning for р╕зр╕┤р╕кр╕▓р╕бр╕▒р╕Нр╕Жр╕▓р╕Хр╕Бр╕гр╕гр╕б
is extrajudicial killing of a suspect without due process.”
Oh, really? But this is not what it means. The Thai Ministry of Justice has tried to correct the misunderstanding without success.
I wonder what your views are on this then:
“It is said the prime minister’s war on drugs killed about 2,500 people. That is not correct. Most of them were killed by their accomplices and others by the government crackdown,” the King said.
Given your statements in other posts, I didn’t think you would disagree with HM the King. Or are you going to revise your numbers and statements?
How was staging the coup within the rule of law?
Sufficiency coyote – “getting weird”
‘However, Srinakharinwirot University’s president Wiroon Tungcharoen said there were many larger issues that deserved national-agenda status.
“Every relevant party should play a role in preventing the inappropriate dance shows but this is just a small problem reflective of bigger problems about morality, education, employment and quality of life. WHAT ARE THE VALUES CHERISHED BY THE YOUNGER GENERATION?” he said.’
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/03Nov2006_news14.php
Surayud to bring love, harmony and virtue (with strengthened military potential)!
The killings happened on Thaksins watch, so he has to bear responsibility for them.
pro coup = anti extraducial killings,
anti coup = pro extra judicial killings?
Sufficiency coyote – “getting weird”
Erotic dancing alert. From The Nation of 2 November:
Many groups asked to help control erotic dancing
The Culture Ministry will invite representatives from up to 84 groups to discuss how to stamp out the practice of young women dancing erotically at public events.
“We have made up the list of who should be present at the November 8 meeting,” Ladda Tangsuphachai, who heads the ministry’s Cultural Monitoring Centre, said yesterday.
According to Ladda, the invitations will be sent to the Interior, Commerce, Information and Communications Technology, Education, Public Health, Social Development and Human Security, and Tourism and Sports ministries.
Representatives of the Tourism Authority of Thailand and the police will also be asked to attend.
“We will also invite representatives from 10 department stores, eight automobile companies, five motorcycle companies and 52 organisers,” Ladda said.
The scantily clad dancing girls have become a hot issue after Her Majesty the Queen expressed concerns that some females danced inappropriately at a Buddhist charity event in Nong Khai province.
After Her Majesty’s concern was relayed via the Culture Ministry, several authorities proposed measures to ban such dancing shows.
It has been reported that the Culture Ministry has suggested that girls should be barred from working as scantily clad product presenters and dancers at public events, while police will enforce public-obscenity laws to discourage such shows.
The Supreme Sangha Council also reportedly threatened to sack senior monks if they allow inappropriate shows at their temples.
The National Buddhism Bureau’s acting director Chularat Boonyakorn said she would oversee a project to develop a booklet on activities local organisations should hold on important Buddhist days.
“I am going to check on the dos and don’ts list. Then, the content will be submitted to the Supreme Sangha Council for recommendations,” she said in response to PM’s Office Minister Dhipavadee Meksawan’s idea that a campaign to encourage local people to protect Buddhism should be launched.
In a related development, Culture Minister Khunying Khaisri Sri-aroon explained that her ministry did not specifically intend to ban girls under 20 years old from working as scantily-clad dancers.
“We just want to find some relevant laws. For example, there are laws banning youths under 20 years old from entering night-time entertainment venues,” she said.
She added her ministry was in fact focused on inappropriate shows in public places.
Khaisri said she had already instructed provincial cultural offices across the country to work closely with local administrative bodies in ensuring that no damage was done to the Kingdom’s culture.
She said her ministry did not have any law to directly prevent the inappropriate shows and would ask relevant authorities to explore available laws. Khaisri expressed confidence that this issue could find a place on the national agenda because it was in line with the government’s policy to promote morality and knowledge.
However, Srinakharinwirot University’s president Wiroon Tungcharoen said there were many larger issues that deserved national-agenda status.
“Every relevant party should play a role in preventing the inappropriate dance shows but this is just a small problem reflective of bigger problems about morality, education, employment and quality of life. What are the values cherished by the younger generation?” he said.
Thandar Shwe’s wedding…
[…] He also has lots more details on just how gross that film really was in this post here. A.M. Mora y Leon @ 1:32 pm | […]
Surayud to bring love, harmony and virtue (with strengthened military potential)!
I seem to recall that most of those killings were carried out in the name of making Thailand drug free by the time of the King’s golden jubilee. The consensus seems to be that HM King Bhumibol approved of them.
Surayud to bring love, harmony and virtue (with strengthened military potential)!
Regardless, I think Patiwat comment 12 strike a point.
The last thing the junta need right now is more enemy from the INSIDE.
Pursuing drug related killing right now would still not justify their reason for the coup and open themselves to attack from the Dem all the while.
Surayud to bring love, harmony and virtue (with strengthened military potential)!
Well Pundit I ask you Is my legal term ‘Extrajudicial Killings’ accurate or not knowing you are probably better in the English language than I?
Am I accurate when I say Thaksin Shinawatra violated lthe Thai consitutional rule of law when he directed the extrajudicial murderous rampage in Y2003 that resulted in 2,500 village innocents killed?
Stop throwing Thai translations when we are talking of substance Pundit. You did say “include police self-defense”, but the more common meaning for р╕зр╕┤р╕кр╕▓р╕бр╕▒р╕Нр╕Жр╕▓р╕Хр╕Бр╕гр╕гр╕б
is extrajudicial killing of a suspect without due process.
Thaksin did the whole thing for show and effect and to impress . . garner publicity that he was a macho leader. Thaksin wanted to be a superstar, a bloody superstar Pundit!
Thaksin was a Police Lt. Colonel before he was a parliamentarian and a Prime Minister. The rule of law should have been religion to Thaksin . . he was elected to uphold the law and not break it, nor demonstrate that he could be above it.
As a former policeman, Thaksin must have fully appreciated that those village policemen who were uneducated, undertrained, underpaid and most probably very corrupt, were unreliable hicks. When Thaksin put a bounty on the arrested and killed (not merely arrested). Thaksin was really intent on demonstrating that he can order the killings of Thais to show off his ‘godly’ powers. First he demanded of the village police hicks those terrible blacklists. Then he started micro-managing the slaughter by demanding body counts and kill quotas BKK Pundit. Thaksin knew very well those village policemen hicks would go on a murderous rampage to collect their bounty and meet their quota.
Pundit stop defending Thaksin, The Executioner of Thailand.
Thaksin was elected to uphold the laws of Thailand. Thaksin should have followed strict legal procedures to prosecute those ya ba suspects of which none deserved to be executed but jailed at best if found to be guilty.
Thaksin as Prime Minister could have passsed the toughest and most punishing anti-drug legislation in the world if he truly wanted to make an impression against drug trafficking in Thailand. (Thaksin virtually and literally owned Thai parliament at that time), That Thaksin instead resorted to the ‘popular’ but quite clearly unethical and illegal extrajudicial display was abhorrent and despicable.
Those 2,500 village innocents deserve justice Pundit. And Thaksin deserve to be judicially prosecuted for the 2,500 murders of these innocents.
Sufficiency coyote – “getting weird”
So sayeth the shepard, so sayeth the flock, right Ayatollah?
Surayud to bring love, harmony and virtue (with strengthened military potential)!
Vichai, you do realise that extra-judicial killings you are referring to is in Thai р╕зр╕┤р╕кр╕▓р╕бр╕▒р╕Нр╕Жр╕▓р╕Хр╕Бр╕гр╕гр╕б which in English does not mean extra judicial killings. It refers to any death at the hands of a police officer which includes acts of self-defence.
This is not to say that there no unjustified killings by the police, but if you are going to throw around terms and figures at least try to make sure they are accurate.
Sufficiency coyote – “getting weird”
Hmm… ‘authentic culture’- I thought that term was only used these days by ‘carpetbaggers’ intent on cashing in on other peoples cultures. 😉
Whenever I hear that term a scene from O’Rourke’s “Cannibal Tours” immediately springs into my head – you know the scene where the Papuan villagers hear the tourist boats coming up the river and immediately jump up and change out of their t-shirts and shorts and into the more ‘authentic’ grass skirts. And there is this great line from an old fella “When the first Europeans arrived, the people cried out, ‘Our dead ancestors have returned!’ So now when we see tourists we say about them, ‘the dead have come back!’ We don’t seriously believe it, but we do say it.”
This scene always gets stuck in my head like one of those stupid ‘china doll’s’ tunes and I don’t know how to get rid of it. “It’s all getting a bit weird”. I feel like its all happened before.
But to the point – Khunying Khaisr’s comments reminded me about something Thongchai said towards the start of his book ‘Siam Mapped’. “Thailand is a nation, though not the only one, which concerns itself with the preservation and promotion of the national culture as if it might suddenly disappear”
It also reminds me of the effort of early Chakri monarchs to invent a ‘Thai’ culture that appeared to the outside would as civilised (in a Victorian Protestant sense) rather than barbarian (in a sexualized corporeal sense). I came across something that Keys wrote in his book ‘Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as a Modern Nation State’ that sort of follows the Protestant ethic line. He was retelling a cautionary tale by Dokmai Sot (now is it just me or is that is a sexy name?) written in 1937. In her Short Story Fire “she tells of three students, just about to take their entrance emanations for university, who are tempted by the hedonism of a Western-style dance hall where men drink whiskey and watch performances of scantily dressed women. One of the three succumbs to the temptations of the pleasure palace, but the other two are led by an older relative to see this imitation of the worst of Western culture as an ‘obstacle to progress of our culture’”
Perhaps Khunying Khaisr is doing nothing more than just playing the role of the ‘older relative’ in the cautionary tale.
Or perhaps because Khunying Khaisr, like the monarchs of old, has the ‘moral authority’ as the Minister of Culture under a totalitarian regime (or should I say ‘Thai democracy’) then I guess she is in the position to proclaim what ‘Thai’ culture is and how it will be expressed.
Sufficiency coyote – “getting weird”
Bystander, very true but underneath this is a typically Siamese trait vis-a-vis Lanna and Lao norms predating second wave of imperialism.
Surayud to bring love, harmony and virtue (with strengthened military potential)!
You think so Patiwat? But I believe if the courts do proceed to prosecute on the Thaksin Y2003 extrajudicial rampage . . . the courts would take into considerable consideration that those village policemen, undertrained and underpaid easily succumb to AUTHORITY. If I were the lawyer to defend the policemen who did pull the triggers, that would be the weight of my argument in their defense for mercy.
But for Thaksin Shinawatra he deserves no mercy. He alone, and perhaps the Interior Minister and some very senior Police officers should be punished to the full force of the law because gentlemen murders were committed, thousands of village innocents were extrajudicially executed, without due process and in clear violation of the rule of law.
Sufficiency coyote – “getting weird”
My impression is that sensuality is an integral part of the “authentic” Thai culture up until recently (late 19th century). And that these notions of ideal Thai women being prudish, conservative, and such is a fairly recent concoction (late 19th century). Idolization of Court Lady, “Chao-wang”, culture + imported Victorian sensibilities that never leave? Any historians care to comment on this?
Sufficiency coyote – “getting weird”
She should get out more 🙂 Realistically, she should go to Soprano or Forte so she can see for herself how athletic and well educated the “coyotes” are and how creative their moves are. Heck, she should go to any modern product launch, media event, or trade show and ask the “pretties” how immoral they are for hawking products.
It’s hypocritical for her to imply that it was OK for women of the Sukhothai/Ayutthaya era to dance topless, but it’s immoral for modern Thai girls to wiggle their hips.
Surayud to bring love, harmony and virtue (with strengthened military potential)!
On the contrary, Vichai N, if local police forces drew up the deathlists and then followed orders to illegally kill the drug-dealers, then the police are also guilty. “Just following orders” is not a valid defense when the orders are clearly illegal. We are human beings, and always have a choice about whether to do right or wrong. Read up on Nuremberg.
The same can be said about the military. Some of the most sickening human rights abuses in the South were committed by soldiers on the ground like Pallop Pinmanee.
Going after Thaksin for his alleged human rights abuses would implicate literally thousands of policemen and soldiers. That would probably result in a counter-coup against the junta. The junta has officially said it wants love, harmony, and unity, not justice. Vichai, if you truly want justice for the dead, you can’t rely on the military to be your knights in shining armor – they too, have blood on their hands.
Ancient history
this mandala is beatiful i have been learning out this an di thnk it is a master piece in my eyes