I repeat my question: Whatever happened to the more extremists/radical faction of the Red Shirts movement? And just who are these people?
Nostitz promises me that the answer will be revealed in his forthcoming book. Cute and evasive. But Nostitz promise do suggest that those radical/extremist/terror elements among the Red Shirts movement are still lurking actively but silently (the ninja tag remember?) behind and probably among the many red Esan shirts dancing and frolicking during the Songkran.
Splendid work Nick Nostitz. Getting there, getting access, getting the pictures, getting as much interaction and “face” as you did, all high quality journalistic work. And you make the trip itself sound fun.
That the government that sent the troops onto the street in 2009 had no democratic mandate to rule Thailand and was imposed on the people via force and the threat of force.
Therefore the Thai people had a legitimate right to protest and call for an election.
That the army were used in 2009 to crush the protests doesn’t reveal, as you seem to imply, that Abhisit’s government was “democratic” even if there were no deaths (apart from the two Red Shirts found dead in the river). It shows the complete reverse.
The use of troops in 2009 revealed an illegitimate government whose power was secured through threat of extreme violence by an army with a long, well-deserved reputation for massacring unarmed civilians.
Abhisit had, just about, the right to form a government in 2008 if only to stabilise the country. But, if he and his party believed in democracy, he should’ve called an immediate election or set the timetable for one. In democracies voters decide parliaments, not courts, not elites, not the army. That point seems to have been lost on Abhisit as does the point that his main parliamentary allies, the BJT, didn’t even exist at the 2007 election which formed the parliament from where Abhisit secured his premiership.
As for your other “theories” of what happened – if the Red Shirts were so hell-bent on violence why then hand back all the weapons they acquired at Kok Wua?
Then there is a question of legitimacy. If an army equipped with war weapons is routinely used, as you describe, to keep an unelected, unpopular government in place, in clear opposition to the democratic will of the people, do those people then have a right to oppose that army? In lots of countries such as Burma, Syria, Libya, Apartheid-era South Africa, Iran, 1970s South/Central American states etc etc many would view such a form of resistance as legitimate, even if that resistance is violent.
Then there is the question of snipers and Wat Patum. If there were black shirts provoking violence why then did the Army and Abhisit government via CRES, knowing that this plot was afoot, start executing nurses at Wat Patum and other unarmed people, such as the teenage boy, Sher? Why then was a “live fire” zone created?
If your provocateur theory stands up why did the then Abhisit government fail to conduct a proper transparent investigation? If they knew that the scenario you paint was the case why didn’t they conduct this investigation when they had the means to do so? Why was Romklao’s body immediately burned? Surely an autopsy on that would’ve been key to proving your theory?
“So, Nick, what do you think will happen if it were to come out from a full investigation that Thaksin hired General Pallop and others to organize a armed group within the UDD with orders to provoke the Army into shooting?”
Hardly this will be the result of any serious investigation.
Your hypothesis of the second post is quite wrong as well. Much of what you write is speculation based on a red herring. The only thing that is true is that there were militants under the protesters.
You also got details wrong, such as the early morning attack in 2009, which was terribly incompetent and undisciplined, so that for the lunch time push the 11th infantry regiment had to come in support to bring some order into the mess. We have no proof for dead, but there is clear proof that Red Shirts were badly injured by shots fired by the military. Two disabled protester got a few months ago damages awarded in a civil case. For some strange reason the criminal case against the military has not started yet.
I will not go here into the screw-ups of the military (and the government) in 2010, as i just haven’t got the time to write all those here and now.
The term “embedded” in context of journalism got famous through the second Iraq war, in which journalists were “embedded” with US military units, and had to sign contracts with certain obligations not to disclose certain facts.
I am under no such obligation other than keeping journalistic ethics, such as corroboration of facts and protection of sources.
Anyhow…,
a) well, as to magic – in my days in the Port Teck Tueng i have photographed many that were shot dead, but had all the proper protective tattoos.
I believe Thaksin’s decision to return will depend on other factors.
b) nops, you will get the answer to your question when i finish my book – no earlier.
c) it has been my experience that karaoke melts all hearts in Asia, be they Red, Yellow, Green or Blue
by a Cambodian reader saying exactly what you said.
I would totally agree that that would be the conventional expectation for Burma to descend to the chaotic social nightmare with corrupt dictatorship.
In fact with the current situation where the people’s champion wallowing in the warm and fuzzy adulation does not seem to be coming out with anything to counter the “decadent” juggernaut.
Unless the Burmese public wake up soon they sure will follow Cambodia.
@Dan #22
“Elections throughout history have often thrown up terrible and brutal leaders….. Benito Mussolini, George W Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Adolf Hitler”
The PAD have made a concerted effort to discredit all tenants of democracy. They make arguments such as:
1) The electorate is too dumb to vote (surely, anyone who doesn’t vote the way I do is dumb)
2) People only vote for who they are paid to vote for. (There is no evidence to this – people can take money from anyone and then vote the way they want because ballots are secret. 20 million votes at 1000 baht each isn’t cheap, nor possible to conceal if it actually happened)
3) Politicians are corrupt, but the military is not. (right.)
4) Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, etc were elected. (No they were not! A complete lie. They were appointed in the same manner Abhisit was appointed.)
Godwin’s Law states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
we settle on the wildest of yellow short fantasies.
Any objective analysis of the 2009 and 2010 protest would show who had the most to gain from provoking the Army into shooting in 2010. In a comparison of the 2009 protest and 2010, the armed element within the UDD is the main difference.
In 2009 the Army used the highly effective tactics to break up the demonstration without anyone being killed. The Army used these same tactics in the early days of the 2010 protest. The difference, starting on the evening of April 10, and then later during May 14th to May 19th, is there were people within the UDD that were shooting at the Army. That changed the game entirely.
Who benefited form that change? Why would the Army and the government change their tactics from what worked so well in 2009? Why would they decide to start shooting “unarmed, peaceful protestors”?
What was the meeting in Dubai in January 2010 with Pallop, Khattiya, and Arisman about?
Didn’t Pallop come back from that and announce a People’s Army with Chavalit as commander? An People’s Army that would start an insurrection in order to provoke a coup?
Didn’t Arisman then start making his infamous “bring your bottle we will supply the petrol” speeches?
Why did Arisman not surrender with other UDD leaders on May 19th? What was he doing on the afternoon of the May 19th? Was he personally directing the arson attacks? Why did he wait until after the PTP majority government was elected?
Why did Veera quit the demonstration on May 14th when the election offer was rejected? Keep in mind that Veera was the main leader in 2009 and it was him that called it off in the face of the highly effective riot control tactics the Army used.
The answer to these question and many more are the last things Thaksin and the UDD leadership want to come out.
Nostitz I said “embed” not “in bed”, and that was an observation and not assumption and you should take that as a compliment. If Nick keeps track of his many postings here at NM alone, he should realize that he is literally the ‘chronicler’ of Red Shirts movement. And being nearly ’embedded’ does not mean exclusion of all others. Surely as a journalist Nick realized what ’embedded’ or ‘near embedded’ reporting means.
(a) But of course I am sure as those Khmer voodoo chants are forebodings of ominous (or auspicious depending on one’s viewpoints) things in year 2012, that Thaksin will certainly return soon. (I thought Nostitz you were covering the Red Shirts Khmer rapture recently?)
(b) I meant radical in the meanest most deadly/dangerous way of course. Ala rampart anarchic bombings, widespread serial urban arson,
deadly assault rifle shootings intended to kill and maim rather than merely scare, and those common sorts of things we read in world news these days. I meant literally radical extreme towards terror Nostitz.
(c) But of course karaoke-terrible! That kind of karaoke-terrible artistry I suspect truly melts a Red heart to rapture.
“The French revolution was a historical process that happened because it had to happen. Attaching labels such as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ just doesn’t do justice to complex historical processes.”(c47)
to
“Also saying one cannot label any historical or political figure as bad is just ludicrous…..”(c51)
Wishful reading? At least something of a mis-reading, I suggest.
True, in many respects, parts of the German “Reich” periods (and all 12 years of the third version) didn’t work out well either for Germany or its neighbours – but the last 60-odd years present a very different picture. Appropriate here to recall Zhou Enlai’s response to Kissinger’s question about what he thought to be the impact of the French Revolution: “It’s too early to tell…..”
We now have two “John Smiths” on New Mandala. I expect the simplest option is for the one with the yahoo.com e-mail address to choose a slightly different name. The other (hotmail.com) John Smith has been around for a while and, to ease confusion, we will need to distinguish between our two Johns. You are, of course, both very welcome here.
“Elections throughout history have often thrown up terrible and brutal leaders”
Elections have thrown up terrible leaders (although Mussolini was coup/royal imposed).
But what to do?
End the democratic electoral process and align with the forces opposed to democracy? After Bush came Obama. And Thatcher was eventually forced out by her own party after the Poll Tax riots. What would’ve been a better solution? A military coup in both UK and USA supported by shadowy figures in the elite and the royal family, who then impose a deeply unpopular President or PM on the people with all that being kept in place by the use of very violent force?
And no, despite all those clever PAD posters, Thaksin is not a Hitler. It trivializes the crimes of Hitler by making that comparison.
Thaksin is, in the grand context, of Thai politics a moot point. He understands and plays a system that he didn’t create. Others did.
The way some people invoke Thaksin it’s almost like there was some wonderful perfect democracy before he came on the scene. As you well know, there wasn’t.
I am also in complete agreement with you. Yes, Thaksin needs to be opposed. He also needs to be held to account for any criminal acts he undertakes or is involved in. But this must be done via democratic means, without interference from the Army or the monarchy or other elite groups who don’t like the competition. Having a coup, setting up a military decreed committee designed purely to focus on one person and then saying “you are guilty” is not the rule of law.
Previously the opposition to Thaksin was embodied via organizations like the PAD who are committed anti-democrats. In the past the so-called Thai “liberals” on both the left and right chose to ally themselves with the PAD. This helped create the conditions for the 2006 coup and the present round of conflict. And the “victims” of the coup (ordinary Thai voters) continually get blamed for it. “If you hadn’t been so stupid, so slavish in your support, so easily bought, then we wouldn’t have had to stage our coup. And you deserved to be shot when you came out to protest afterwards.”
Nick Nostitz offers a more rounded analysis where he looks at the larger, more complex historical forces at play here. If these forces had been allowed to play out in their own time, without the interference from the 2006 coup, and the Democrats and Abhisit had seized the moment and became true democrats instead of the phalangists that they are, in all likelihood Thaksin would’ve lost the 2009 or 2010 election, and Thailand could’ve moved on to a more stable future.
Now Thailand is looking to at least 2019 to remove Thaksin/PT democratically.
The best hope for a democratic opposition to Thaksin is to push the Democrats to throw out Abhisit and to completely re-imagine themselves, with new leaders and a new mindset. At the moment they act like they are born to rule or that their biggest hope is for another coup with the monarchy installing Mark as PM.
If that happens the price will likely be civil war.
Let’s hope democracy prevails even if it does take another 6 or 7 years to vote Thaksin out.
People stated that they want the truth first before thinking about an amnesty
So, Nick, what do you think will happen if it were to come out from a full investigation that Thaksin hired General Pallop and others to organize a armed group within the UDD with orders to provoke the Army into shooting?
First let me thank Nick for a very well done report. It is without a doubt the most detailed report of the little get together. His attempts to get reactions about the reconciliation and amnesty are very admirable. The leadership on both sides have a lot to lose if a full scale investigation of the violence is ever done.
I would also like to point out The John Smith in post #16 is not me and opinions expressed are in almost complete opposition to my own. To say that Thaksin and his gang of chao pho’s represents any sort of step forward in the democratic process for Thailand is ludicrous. As Dan in his post #22 says so eloquently:
“Why on earth, after all this time, do you think these tired old mafia faces (or their little sisters) are going to bring ‘long term and meaningful change’? They are going to do exactly what they did in the past and exactly the same as most Thai politicians always do…. They will exploit their positions for business and financial advantage.
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When Thaksin comes home
I repeat my question: Whatever happened to the more extremists/radical faction of the Red Shirts movement? And just who are these people?
Nostitz promises me that the answer will be revealed in his forthcoming book. Cute and evasive. But Nostitz promise do suggest that those radical/extremist/terror elements among the Red Shirts movement are still lurking actively but silently (the ninja tag remember?) behind and probably among the many red Esan shirts dancing and frolicking during the Songkran.
Songkran in Cambodia: Red Shirts meet Thaksin
Splendid work Nick Nostitz. Getting there, getting access, getting the pictures, getting as much interaction and “face” as you did, all high quality journalistic work. And you make the trip itself sound fun.
A Red Shirt Songkran party and amnesty thoughts
John Smith
You’re missing the context.
Which is…
That the government that sent the troops onto the street in 2009 had no democratic mandate to rule Thailand and was imposed on the people via force and the threat of force.
Therefore the Thai people had a legitimate right to protest and call for an election.
That the army were used in 2009 to crush the protests doesn’t reveal, as you seem to imply, that Abhisit’s government was “democratic” even if there were no deaths (apart from the two Red Shirts found dead in the river). It shows the complete reverse.
The use of troops in 2009 revealed an illegitimate government whose power was secured through threat of extreme violence by an army with a long, well-deserved reputation for massacring unarmed civilians.
Abhisit had, just about, the right to form a government in 2008 if only to stabilise the country. But, if he and his party believed in democracy, he should’ve called an immediate election or set the timetable for one. In democracies voters decide parliaments, not courts, not elites, not the army. That point seems to have been lost on Abhisit as does the point that his main parliamentary allies, the BJT, didn’t even exist at the 2007 election which formed the parliament from where Abhisit secured his premiership.
As for your other “theories” of what happened – if the Red Shirts were so hell-bent on violence why then hand back all the weapons they acquired at Kok Wua?
Then there is a question of legitimacy. If an army equipped with war weapons is routinely used, as you describe, to keep an unelected, unpopular government in place, in clear opposition to the democratic will of the people, do those people then have a right to oppose that army? In lots of countries such as Burma, Syria, Libya, Apartheid-era South Africa, Iran, 1970s South/Central American states etc etc many would view such a form of resistance as legitimate, even if that resistance is violent.
Then there is the question of snipers and Wat Patum. If there were black shirts provoking violence why then did the Army and Abhisit government via CRES, knowing that this plot was afoot, start executing nurses at Wat Patum and other unarmed people, such as the teenage boy, Sher? Why then was a “live fire” zone created?
If your provocateur theory stands up why did the then Abhisit government fail to conduct a proper transparent investigation? If they knew that the scenario you paint was the case why didn’t they conduct this investigation when they had the means to do so? Why was Romklao’s body immediately burned? Surely an autopsy on that would’ve been key to proving your theory?
A Red Shirt Songkran party and amnesty thoughts
“John Smith”:
“So, Nick, what do you think will happen if it were to come out from a full investigation that Thaksin hired General Pallop and others to organize a armed group within the UDD with orders to provoke the Army into shooting?”
Hardly this will be the result of any serious investigation.
Your hypothesis of the second post is quite wrong as well. Much of what you write is speculation based on a red herring. The only thing that is true is that there were militants under the protesters.
You also got details wrong, such as the early morning attack in 2009, which was terribly incompetent and undisciplined, so that for the lunch time push the 11th infantry regiment had to come in support to bring some order into the mess. We have no proof for dead, but there is clear proof that Red Shirts were badly injured by shots fired by the military. Two disabled protester got a few months ago damages awarded in a civil case. For some strange reason the criminal case against the military has not started yet.
I will not go here into the screw-ups of the military (and the government) in 2010, as i just haven’t got the time to write all those here and now.
When Thaksin comes home
“Vichai N”:
The term “embedded” in context of journalism got famous through the second Iraq war, in which journalists were “embedded” with US military units, and had to sign contracts with certain obligations not to disclose certain facts.
I am under no such obligation other than keeping journalistic ethics, such as corroboration of facts and protection of sources.
Anyhow…,
a) well, as to magic – in my days in the Port Teck Tueng i have photographed many that were shot dead, but had all the proper protective tattoos.
I believe Thaksin’s decision to return will depend on other factors.
b) nops, you will get the answer to your question when i finish my book – no earlier.
c) it has been my experience that karaoke melts all hearts in Asia, be they Red, Yellow, Green or Blue
Booming Burma
U Moe Aung,
Both yourself and Plan B might find this article interesting. Out today.
http://www.dictatorwatch.org/articles/monkeypaw.pdf
Songkran in Cambodia: Red Shirts meet Thaksin
John Smith
Actually I am a milder, more democratic form of John Smith.
I am also called “John Smith” to the same degree you are called “John Smith”.
What keeps you up at night?
Srithanonchai ,
It was a very interesting thought on Burma. Because Roland Watson of Dictator Watch just posted a response on his article
http://www.dictatorwatch.org/articles/semifreeburma.pdf
by a Cambodian reader saying exactly what you said.
I would totally agree that that would be the conventional expectation for Burma to descend to the chaotic social nightmare with corrupt dictatorship.
In fact with the current situation where the people’s champion wallowing in the warm and fuzzy adulation does not seem to be coming out with anything to counter the “decadent” juggernaut.
Unless the Burmese public wake up soon they sure will follow Cambodia.
Songkran in Cambodia: Red Shirts meet Thaksin
I wonder how long before “Pro-democracy John Smith” is shown to be an attempt at a milder form of Andrew Spooner.
Songkran in Cambodia: Red Shirts meet Thaksin
@Dan #22
“Elections throughout history have often thrown up terrible and brutal leaders….. Benito Mussolini, George W Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Adolf Hitler”
The PAD have made a concerted effort to discredit all tenants of democracy. They make arguments such as:
1) The electorate is too dumb to vote (surely, anyone who doesn’t vote the way I do is dumb)
2) People only vote for who they are paid to vote for. (There is no evidence to this – people can take money from anyone and then vote the way they want because ballots are secret. 20 million votes at 1000 baht each isn’t cheap, nor possible to conceal if it actually happened)
3) Politicians are corrupt, but the military is not. (right.)
4) Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, etc were elected. (No they were not! A complete lie. They were appointed in the same manner Abhisit was appointed.)
Godwin’s Law states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
A Red Shirt Songkran party and amnesty thoughts
Leah Hoyt 3 2
we settle on the wildest of yellow short fantasies.
Any objective analysis of the 2009 and 2010 protest would show who had the most to gain from provoking the Army into shooting in 2010. In a comparison of the 2009 protest and 2010, the armed element within the UDD is the main difference.
In 2009 the Army used the highly effective tactics to break up the demonstration without anyone being killed. The Army used these same tactics in the early days of the 2010 protest. The difference, starting on the evening of April 10, and then later during May 14th to May 19th, is there were people within the UDD that were shooting at the Army. That changed the game entirely.
Who benefited form that change? Why would the Army and the government change their tactics from what worked so well in 2009? Why would they decide to start shooting “unarmed, peaceful protestors”?
What was the meeting in Dubai in January 2010 with Pallop, Khattiya, and Arisman about?
Didn’t Pallop come back from that and announce a People’s Army with Chavalit as commander? An People’s Army that would start an insurrection in order to provoke a coup?
Didn’t Arisman then start making his infamous “bring your bottle we will supply the petrol” speeches?
Why did Arisman not surrender with other UDD leaders on May 19th? What was he doing on the afternoon of the May 19th? Was he personally directing the arson attacks? Why did he wait until after the PTP majority government was elected?
Why did Veera quit the demonstration on May 14th when the election offer was rejected? Keep in mind that Veera was the main leader in 2009 and it was him that called it off in the face of the highly effective riot control tactics the Army used.
The answer to these question and many more are the last things Thaksin and the UDD leadership want to come out.
When Thaksin comes home
Nostitz I said “embed” not “in bed”, and that was an observation and not assumption and you should take that as a compliment. If Nick keeps track of his many postings here at NM alone, he should realize that he is literally the ‘chronicler’ of Red Shirts movement. And being nearly ’embedded’ does not mean exclusion of all others. Surely as a journalist Nick realized what ’embedded’ or ‘near embedded’ reporting means.
(a) But of course I am sure as those Khmer voodoo chants are forebodings of ominous (or auspicious depending on one’s viewpoints) things in year 2012, that Thaksin will certainly return soon. (I thought Nostitz you were covering the Red Shirts Khmer rapture recently?)
(b) I meant radical in the meanest most deadly/dangerous way of course. Ala rampart anarchic bombings, widespread serial urban arson,
deadly assault rifle shootings intended to kill and maim rather than merely scare, and those common sorts of things we read in world news these days. I meant literally radical extreme towards terror Nostitz.
(c) But of course karaoke-terrible! That kind of karaoke-terrible artistry I suspect truly melts a Red heart to rapture.
Songkran in Cambodia: Red Shirts meet Thaksin
Nich
There’s more than one John Smith???
How can that be?
From now on I will call myself the “Pro-democracy John Smith” as opposed to the other one who seems to have ingested “The Nation’s guide to politics”.
Songkran in Cambodia: Red Shirts meet Thaksin
“Elections throughout history have often thrown up terrible and brutal leaders….. Benito Mussolini, George W Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Adolf Hitler……”
So tell us, oh wise Dan, which of these actually achieved office through popular elections?
When Thaksin comes home
From
“The French revolution was a historical process that happened because it had to happen. Attaching labels such as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ just doesn’t do justice to complex historical processes.”(c47)
to
“Also saying one cannot label any historical or political figure as bad is just ludicrous…..”(c51)
Wishful reading? At least something of a mis-reading, I suggest.
True, in many respects, parts of the German “Reich” periods (and all 12 years of the third version) didn’t work out well either for Germany or its neighbours – but the last 60-odd years present a very different picture. Appropriate here to recall Zhou Enlai’s response to Kissinger’s question about what he thought to be the impact of the French Revolution: “It’s too early to tell…..”
Songkran in Cambodia: Red Shirts meet Thaksin
Just to clarify:
We now have two “John Smiths” on New Mandala. I expect the simplest option is for the one with the yahoo.com e-mail address to choose a slightly different name. The other (hotmail.com) John Smith has been around for a while and, to ease confusion, we will need to distinguish between our two Johns. You are, of course, both very welcome here.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
A Red Shirt Songkran party and amnesty thoughts
JS,
He said the truth. I don’t think he meant that we settle on the wildest of yellow short fantasies.
But the truth is the truth. The best thing for Thailand is to get it out on the table and deal with it, whatever it is.
Songkran in Cambodia: Red Shirts meet Thaksin
Dan
“Elections throughout history have often thrown up terrible and brutal leaders”
Elections have thrown up terrible leaders (although Mussolini was coup/royal imposed).
But what to do?
End the democratic electoral process and align with the forces opposed to democracy? After Bush came Obama. And Thatcher was eventually forced out by her own party after the Poll Tax riots. What would’ve been a better solution? A military coup in both UK and USA supported by shadowy figures in the elite and the royal family, who then impose a deeply unpopular President or PM on the people with all that being kept in place by the use of very violent force?
And no, despite all those clever PAD posters, Thaksin is not a Hitler. It trivializes the crimes of Hitler by making that comparison.
Thaksin is, in the grand context, of Thai politics a moot point. He understands and plays a system that he didn’t create. Others did.
The way some people invoke Thaksin it’s almost like there was some wonderful perfect democracy before he came on the scene. As you well know, there wasn’t.
I am also in complete agreement with you. Yes, Thaksin needs to be opposed. He also needs to be held to account for any criminal acts he undertakes or is involved in. But this must be done via democratic means, without interference from the Army or the monarchy or other elite groups who don’t like the competition. Having a coup, setting up a military decreed committee designed purely to focus on one person and then saying “you are guilty” is not the rule of law.
Previously the opposition to Thaksin was embodied via organizations like the PAD who are committed anti-democrats. In the past the so-called Thai “liberals” on both the left and right chose to ally themselves with the PAD. This helped create the conditions for the 2006 coup and the present round of conflict. And the “victims” of the coup (ordinary Thai voters) continually get blamed for it. “If you hadn’t been so stupid, so slavish in your support, so easily bought, then we wouldn’t have had to stage our coup. And you deserved to be shot when you came out to protest afterwards.”
Nick Nostitz offers a more rounded analysis where he looks at the larger, more complex historical forces at play here. If these forces had been allowed to play out in their own time, without the interference from the 2006 coup, and the Democrats and Abhisit had seized the moment and became true democrats instead of the phalangists that they are, in all likelihood Thaksin would’ve lost the 2009 or 2010 election, and Thailand could’ve moved on to a more stable future.
Now Thailand is looking to at least 2019 to remove Thaksin/PT democratically.
The best hope for a democratic opposition to Thaksin is to push the Democrats to throw out Abhisit and to completely re-imagine themselves, with new leaders and a new mindset. At the moment they act like they are born to rule or that their biggest hope is for another coup with the monarchy installing Mark as PM.
If that happens the price will likely be civil war.
Let’s hope democracy prevails even if it does take another 6 or 7 years to vote Thaksin out.
A Red Shirt Songkran party and amnesty thoughts
People stated that they want the truth first before thinking about an amnesty
So, Nick, what do you think will happen if it were to come out from a full investigation that Thaksin hired General Pallop and others to organize a armed group within the UDD with orders to provoke the Army into shooting?
TH
Songkran in Cambodia: Red Shirts meet Thaksin
First let me thank Nick for a very well done report. It is without a doubt the most detailed report of the little get together. His attempts to get reactions about the reconciliation and amnesty are very admirable. The leadership on both sides have a lot to lose if a full scale investigation of the violence is ever done.
I would also like to point out The John Smith in post #16 is not me and opinions expressed are in almost complete opposition to my own. To say that Thaksin and his gang of chao pho’s represents any sort of step forward in the democratic process for Thailand is ludicrous. As Dan in his post #22 says so eloquently:
“Why on earth, after all this time, do you think these tired old mafia faces (or their little sisters) are going to bring ‘long term and meaningful change’? They are going to do exactly what they did in the past and exactly the same as most Thai politicians always do…. They will exploit their positions for business and financial advantage.