This article by Martin Kovan is as usual more about “Adoration of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and villifying the SPDC”
In spite of the now clear evidences of Myanmar’s fate is much more the sum of the above 2 useless characteristics that almost every westerners who participate projected to be, the SOS continue.
In Myanmar all official guides and licensed operators of any creed are charged with responsibility to Observe and Report.
Charles F #1
Your sentiment here @ New Mandala make SPDC case well.
Incidentally that surely is a twisted way of confessing, to meting out undeserving measures for 3 decades that eventually. creating a subject that fits the measures!
Very strange. Never anybody believes that people can learn and change. Everybody is always mentioning what people did in the past without trying to take into consideration, that the person might have gone through a learning phase. Which does not make Paulus out of Saulus, but maybe some self impressed former wannaby dictator into a normal politician who understands better what “power of the people” means.
I am feeling sorry as well for the Women Chief of the Red Movement who is coming upfront and annouced others like Sombat, Giles, Somyot and others who to be seems as not inline with them as not part of UDD and red movement. THis was reported in the news in her interview. If they didnot manupulated on the statment of her.
To be fair, i had noticed the “hard-core” left of Giles has changed on his wrtting and principle on the red movement and Thaksin/its policy since last 2 years. and the engagement of left leaning groups/activosts in supporting the unified red movement.
Therefore, i am very disspoointing with the DIVISIVE statement of the new women Chief of the red movement- UDD
suprise she has to single out others as such!
I fully support the thailand deserve a better change
Therefore divisive statement as such is making masses to think divisive in the united struhggle aganist the military and its back government.
I suspect that this is one of a set of events that will provide a much clearer picture of the role of the extent of the role Thai army and shatter the view that its current actions are anything more than another in a long series of grabs for power.
The scathing pre-print version of the Asian Human Rights Commission’s State of Human Rights in Thailand in 2010 alone has to be enough to make the most conservative among us question the deal they have made to preserve the status quo.
(Hong Kong, December 9, 2010) Anti-human rights forces and their allies have re-emerged to take control of key national institutions in Thailand and are digging in to fight for political control of the country, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) warned on Thursday.
“Independent voices and actors have been targeted in increasingly frequent, increasingly cynical and increasingly ridiculous criminal actions that are having the effect of greatly reducing the opportunities for sensible and informed debate on the serious problems that the country is facing, as well as pushing the judicial system further and further into a system for the pursuit of blatant political ends through superficially legal means,” the AHRC says.
Anonymous: there was no worldwide recession in 2001-2003. The Democrat government — under the thumb of the IMF — set the basis for the recovery from the 1996-97 crash. Thaksin came in and threw more money into it fuelling the sharp comeback in his first years. He did not “bring about the recovery” from the crisis. The stock market lifted all the capitalists, but that doesn’t mean Thaksin worked hand in hand with the CPB. Ji believes that because capitalists all have shared interests, then they are necessarily cooperating. If Thaksin made the palace richer, then what does that tell us about why they split? That’s the problem with Ji’s writing: he simplifies everything and he doesn’t like complexity because then you have to work at your argument. I have no problem with socialist republicanism. I have it with shoddy work and attack on other academics who do good work.
The governments likely to be least affected by the fallout from Wikileaks are those, like Myanmar’s military government, with the least Western credibility.
If anything the cables will work in Myanmar’s favour by improving understanding of the complex situation here. For example, by reiterating the harsh realities that most people know but don’t want to say – the NLD is not (in the embassy’s words) “the last great hope for democracy in Myanmar”.
so can’t even a rich person who brought so many benefits to the people: social, economic and political [as popular empowerment] be a victim of a ruthless system? i can’t see any paradox in that remark…
Poor Giles, (and I never thought I would be saying that), isn’t even going to be allowed a fig-leaf of anti-Thaksin views by Doctor Jim. If he wants to support the red shirts he is going to have to throw away any principles and join the Thaksin apologists 100%. No doubts allowed.
See that’s two things I didn’t think I would ever be saying, not only ‘poor Giles’, but also that I agree with Doctor Jim;-)
IMHO, so far the Wikileaks documents about the Victor Bout deportation efforts from the US Ambassador to Thailand suggest that the Bangkok US Embassy has merely been engaged in doing their job, with the only–to me unsurprising–revelation that the Thai Judiciary cannot be trusted.
LM is a draconian throwback to the dark ages and should be abolished. At the very least it should be revised to parallel the LM laws in Denmark and Holland, so that only the monarch can initiate charges, not every Tom, Dick and Mary who has a grudge against a political or business rival!
On the topic of violence in Thailand, I would say I feel safe during the daytime, but Bangkok is definitely a dangerous place late at night. I can cite several accounts from friends and coworkers of assaults, muggings, and violent purse and bag snatchings over the past 8 years. The later cases involve motorcyclists. House break-ins are also quite frequent, although often those do occur during the daytime when the homes are unoccupied.
Polo, I’ve been hearing Democrats claim credit for the Thaksin-era economic boom for a long time and it’s STILL nonsense. Thaksin rose to power a year before the 2001-2003 world-wide economic recession. Yet during that period and after it, he still made tons of money for the King/CPB, for the poor (poverty fell by half), as well as for himself (see the Constitutional Court’s ruling).
Of course, the wealth that Thaksin gradually generated for the King from 2000-2006 can’t really compare to the fast appreciation of the SET that Abhisit presided over from 2009-2010.
Unless if a hypocrite were to claim that the SET’s 2009-2010 performance was due to the Somchai government and Thaksinomics 😉
p.s., Giles is a socialist republican. *Of course* you’ll disagree with him on a lot of things. Get over it.
“Thaksin was in fact, as we now know, a victim.”
Come one, you don’t really believe that do you? A victim is a guy who is walking in the street minding his own business and gets attacked and beaten for his money.
Thaksin though willingly, aggressively climbed into the ring of an everything-goes championship fight and assumed his beauty would help him beat a desparately determined opponent who had fought in the same ring many times before. Thaksin sought to make himself Thailand’s strongman and he lost because he didn’t know enough about the game.
The victim is Thai democracy, and the Thai people, the Reds who believed in democracy. But Thaksin was not that innocent “democracy”. He was an aggressive contender for himself. The question is, was he conscious of everything he was getting into or was he just stupid?
Am I the only one tiring of Ji’s belief that he is the sole owner of the truth, and everyone else is absolutely wrong from the start? That he can only see two forces in Thailand, and no more? That he cannot ever see shifting poles of power? That he refuses to recognise when people say pretty much what he is saying, just not in the same way? (Who says the king has absolute power, including over the military? Who?)
His sweeping condemnation of everyone else is making me pay less and less attention to the interesting or incisive points he might have. And when someone doesn’t address what Ji has on his mind at the moment, they cannot understand the whole picture, according to him.
— He says everyone talks about the king and no one about the military in the power structure. In fact everyone talks about this, whatever angle they approach it from. And when people refer to the power of the king, many make it clear they refer as much to the institution as to a monarch who has been greatly slowed by age and illness. And of course the institution includes — wake up Ji — people from the military like Prem.
– He says: “The inability to understand why Taksin should be a royalist, like most big bosses in the West…” Seems to me many understand Thaksin was a “royalist” when it served him. If he is now or not I have no idea, but it’s clear his “royalism” — an attempt to work the palace in his favor — finally didn’t serve him.
– “Taksin and the Military were vying with each other to claim legitimacy from a weak and unprincipled Palace.”
Ji, you don’t seem able to understand more than a binary black and white equation. All three in this triangle have/sought powers that depended on another. Thaksin and the military both vied for palace support to get the upper hand on the other. That doesn’t suggest the palace is weak. Thaksin also sought to get control over the military so he could control the palace — and the military seeks to control civilian politics so the palace cannot do without them. Meanwhile the palace played with both sides before finally deciding that Thaksin was a threat and the military would protect it. In fact military coups that went against palace will (1972, 1977, the two early 80s attempts) ultimately failed in their objectives.
– Ji said: “Hewison and Kengkij use second rate political economy to try and claim that Taksin’s economic policies were “posing a challenge to the Crown Property Bureau! Nothing could be further from the truth. Taksin’s management of the Thai economy was bringing about a recovery from the 1996 crisis, which benefitted all large business groups, including the CPB.”
The recovery came from the Chuan government and IMF policies; the hard recovery work was done before 2000, and Thaksin enjoyed the benefit. It was not his policies. Ji makes absolutely no case but to say both CPB and Thaksin were capitalists and both benefitted. By the early 2000s competition for spoils was back at full bore, and the CPB was part of the palace power that Thaksin hoped to coop. Didn’t work though.
Ji maybe has a good point that “Saying the Unsayable” doesn’t live up if it can be sold in Thailand. But that doesn’t mean shouting out loud ” The xxx is a moxxxer fuxxxer” from safety in London passes for insight.
From the beginning just after the coup there were speeches on different stages regarding the structure of the system to varying degrees, also depending on the group and occasion. I have difficulties to understand the claims by some that speeches only consisted of Thaksin hero worship (even though there was without doubt lots of that). It also depended very much on the individual speakers, the audience, etc.
I have been only briefly at the first Red Shirt school, and did not listen too much. But from what i learned by talking with both leaders and attendants, much more than just Thaksin was taught there. And it does not stop there – the different Red Shirt groups meet constantly, and always talk about politics, educate themselves, discuss/argue/debate. Much happens in this movement off the stages, discussion groups, but also community activities. I have, for example, just before the beginning of the big protests photographed a football tournament between 7 community radio stations from Bangkok and surroundings, which they organized themselves.
You would be surprised what you hear now, after more than 4 years, when you sit down and spend some time with Red Shirt protesters.
Nontok #5 :
“the title is misleading, it would have been more appropriate for Handley’s book.”
Yes indeed – Handley’s was a pretty silly (and wrong) title.
However, we all need to remember that just because this book is currently legal and on sale in Thailand – that is no guarantee it will continue to be so. It took awhile for both Giles’ books to be banned – in the case of “Thailand’s Crisis and the fight for Democracy”, quite a long while.
I am afraid the index may plunge soon because a certain guy has been invited to the US to give his testimony, national soccer team lost again, and the oldest party is facing the court again.
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Surveillance in Burma
Nich
This article by Martin Kovan is as usual more about “Adoration of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and villifying the SPDC”
In spite of the now clear evidences of Myanmar’s fate is much more the sum of the above 2 useless characteristics that almost every westerners who participate projected to be, the SOS continue.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/161881
This report clearly indicate the approach towards Myanmar by the west should be.
Surveillance in Burma
In Myanmar all official guides and licensed operators of any creed are charged with responsibility to Observe and Report.
Charles F #1
Your sentiment here @ New Mandala make SPDC case well.
Incidentally that surely is a twisted way of confessing, to meting out undeserving measures for 3 decades that eventually. creating a subject that fits the measures!
Now are you ready for the NUKE?
Red Shirts and real change
Very strange. Never anybody believes that people can learn and change. Everybody is always mentioning what people did in the past without trying to take into consideration, that the person might have gone through a learning phase. Which does not make Paulus out of Saulus, but maybe some self impressed former wannaby dictator into a normal politician who understands better what “power of the people” means.
Red Shirts and real change
I am feeling sorry as well for the Women Chief of the Red Movement who is coming upfront and annouced others like Sombat, Giles, Somyot and others who to be seems as not inline with them as not part of UDD and red movement. THis was reported in the news in her interview. If they didnot manupulated on the statment of her.
To be fair, i had noticed the “hard-core” left of Giles has changed on his wrtting and principle on the red movement and Thaksin/its policy since last 2 years. and the engagement of left leaning groups/activosts in supporting the unified red movement.
Therefore, i am very disspoointing with the DIVISIVE statement of the new women Chief of the red movement- UDD
suprise she has to single out others as such!
I fully support the thailand deserve a better change
Therefore divisive statement as such is making masses to think divisive in the united struhggle aganist the military and its back government.
Reuters on red shirt deaths
I suspect that this is one of a set of events that will provide a much clearer picture of the role of the extent of the role Thai army and shatter the view that its current actions are anything more than another in a long series of grabs for power.
The scathing pre-print version of the Asian Human Rights Commission’s State of Human Rights in Thailand in 2010 alone has to be enough to make the most conservative among us question the deal they have made to preserve the status quo.
Report
http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/hrreport/2010/AHRC-SPR-011-2010.pdf
Human Rights Day Statement:
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/press-releases/AHRC-PRL-034-2010
(Hong Kong, December 9, 2010) Anti-human rights forces and their allies have re-emerged to take control of key national institutions in Thailand and are digging in to fight for political control of the country, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) warned on Thursday.
“Independent voices and actors have been targeted in increasingly frequent, increasingly cynical and increasingly ridiculous criminal actions that are having the effect of greatly reducing the opportunities for sensible and informed debate on the serious problems that the country is facing, as well as pushing the judicial system further and further into a system for the pursuit of blatant political ends through superficially legal means,” the AHRC says.
Is it really saying the unsayable?
Anonymous: there was no worldwide recession in 2001-2003. The Democrat government — under the thumb of the IMF — set the basis for the recovery from the 1996-97 crash. Thaksin came in and threw more money into it fuelling the sharp comeback in his first years. He did not “bring about the recovery” from the crisis. The stock market lifted all the capitalists, but that doesn’t mean Thaksin worked hand in hand with the CPB. Ji believes that because capitalists all have shared interests, then they are necessarily cooperating. If Thaksin made the palace richer, then what does that tell us about why they split? That’s the problem with Ji’s writing: he simplifies everything and he doesn’t like complexity because then you have to work at your argument. I have no problem with socialist republicanism. I have it with shoddy work and attack on other academics who do good work.
Candid details from Wikileaks about Burma
The governments likely to be least affected by the fallout from Wikileaks are those, like Myanmar’s military government, with the least Western credibility.
If anything the cables will work in Myanmar’s favour by improving understanding of the complex situation here. For example, by reiterating the harsh realities that most people know but don’t want to say – the NLD is not (in the embassy’s words) “the last great hope for democracy in Myanmar”.
Red Shirts and real change
so can’t even a rich person who brought so many benefits to the people: social, economic and political [as popular empowerment] be a victim of a ruthless system? i can’t see any paradox in that remark…
Red Shirts and real change
Poor Giles, (and I never thought I would be saying that), isn’t even going to be allowed a fig-leaf of anti-Thaksin views by Doctor Jim. If he wants to support the red shirts he is going to have to throw away any principles and join the Thaksin apologists 100%. No doubts allowed.
See that’s two things I didn’t think I would ever be saying, not only ‘poor Giles’, but also that I agree with Doctor Jim;-)
Mainland Southeast Asia and Wikileaks
IMHO, so far the Wikileaks documents about the Victor Bout deportation efforts from the US Ambassador to Thailand suggest that the Bangkok US Embassy has merely been engaged in doing their job, with the only–to me unsurprising–revelation that the Thai Judiciary cannot be trusted.
Lese majeste in Khon Kaen?
LM is a draconian throwback to the dark ages and should be abolished. At the very least it should be revised to parallel the LM laws in Denmark and Holland, so that only the monarch can initiate charges, not every Tom, Dick and Mary who has a grudge against a political or business rival!
On the topic of violence in Thailand, I would say I feel safe during the daytime, but Bangkok is definitely a dangerous place late at night. I can cite several accounts from friends and coworkers of assaults, muggings, and violent purse and bag snatchings over the past 8 years. The later cases involve motorcyclists. House break-ins are also quite frequent, although often those do occur during the daytime when the homes are unoccupied.
Is it really saying the unsayable?
Polo, I’ve been hearing Democrats claim credit for the Thaksin-era economic boom for a long time and it’s STILL nonsense. Thaksin rose to power a year before the 2001-2003 world-wide economic recession. Yet during that period and after it, he still made tons of money for the King/CPB, for the poor (poverty fell by half), as well as for himself (see the Constitutional Court’s ruling).
Of course, the wealth that Thaksin gradually generated for the King from 2000-2006 can’t really compare to the fast appreciation of the SET that Abhisit presided over from 2009-2010.
Unless if a hypocrite were to claim that the SET’s 2009-2010 performance was due to the Somchai government and Thaksinomics 😉
p.s., Giles is a socialist republican. *Of course* you’ll disagree with him on a lot of things. Get over it.
Red Shirts and real change
“Thaksin was in fact, as we now know, a victim.”
Come one, you don’t really believe that do you? A victim is a guy who is walking in the street minding his own business and gets attacked and beaten for his money.
Thaksin though willingly, aggressively climbed into the ring of an everything-goes championship fight and assumed his beauty would help him beat a desparately determined opponent who had fought in the same ring many times before. Thaksin sought to make himself Thailand’s strongman and he lost because he didn’t know enough about the game.
The victim is Thai democracy, and the Thai people, the Reds who believed in democracy. But Thaksin was not that innocent “democracy”. He was an aggressive contender for himself. The question is, was he conscious of everything he was getting into or was he just stupid?
Is it really saying the unsayable?
Am I the only one tiring of Ji’s belief that he is the sole owner of the truth, and everyone else is absolutely wrong from the start? That he can only see two forces in Thailand, and no more? That he cannot ever see shifting poles of power? That he refuses to recognise when people say pretty much what he is saying, just not in the same way? (Who says the king has absolute power, including over the military? Who?)
His sweeping condemnation of everyone else is making me pay less and less attention to the interesting or incisive points he might have. And when someone doesn’t address what Ji has on his mind at the moment, they cannot understand the whole picture, according to him.
— He says everyone talks about the king and no one about the military in the power structure. In fact everyone talks about this, whatever angle they approach it from. And when people refer to the power of the king, many make it clear they refer as much to the institution as to a monarch who has been greatly slowed by age and illness. And of course the institution includes — wake up Ji — people from the military like Prem.
– He says: “The inability to understand why Taksin should be a royalist, like most big bosses in the West…” Seems to me many understand Thaksin was a “royalist” when it served him. If he is now or not I have no idea, but it’s clear his “royalism” — an attempt to work the palace in his favor — finally didn’t serve him.
– “Taksin and the Military were vying with each other to claim legitimacy from a weak and unprincipled Palace.”
Ji, you don’t seem able to understand more than a binary black and white equation. All three in this triangle have/sought powers that depended on another. Thaksin and the military both vied for palace support to get the upper hand on the other. That doesn’t suggest the palace is weak. Thaksin also sought to get control over the military so he could control the palace — and the military seeks to control civilian politics so the palace cannot do without them. Meanwhile the palace played with both sides before finally deciding that Thaksin was a threat and the military would protect it. In fact military coups that went against palace will (1972, 1977, the two early 80s attempts) ultimately failed in their objectives.
– Ji said: “Hewison and Kengkij use second rate political economy to try and claim that Taksin’s economic policies were “posing a challenge to the Crown Property Bureau! Nothing could be further from the truth. Taksin’s management of the Thai economy was bringing about a recovery from the 1996 crisis, which benefitted all large business groups, including the CPB.”
The recovery came from the Chuan government and IMF policies; the hard recovery work was done before 2000, and Thaksin enjoyed the benefit. It was not his policies. Ji makes absolutely no case but to say both CPB and Thaksin were capitalists and both benefitted. By the early 2000s competition for spoils was back at full bore, and the CPB was part of the palace power that Thaksin hoped to coop. Didn’t work though.
Ji maybe has a good point that “Saying the Unsayable” doesn’t live up if it can be sold in Thailand. But that doesn’t mean shouting out loud ” The xxx is a moxxxer fuxxxer” from safety in London passes for insight.
Is it really saying the unsayable?
Tarrin 7; Chris B #6 – you insert your ATM card, then you punch in your PIN. I still don’t get it…? Perhaps you could spell it out?
A small stage, a ping pong bomb and a burning spirit house
“James”:
From the beginning just after the coup there were speeches on different stages regarding the structure of the system to varying degrees, also depending on the group and occasion. I have difficulties to understand the claims by some that speeches only consisted of Thaksin hero worship (even though there was without doubt lots of that). It also depended very much on the individual speakers, the audience, etc.
I have been only briefly at the first Red Shirt school, and did not listen too much. But from what i learned by talking with both leaders and attendants, much more than just Thaksin was taught there. And it does not stop there – the different Red Shirt groups meet constantly, and always talk about politics, educate themselves, discuss/argue/debate. Much happens in this movement off the stages, discussion groups, but also community activities. I have, for example, just before the beginning of the big protests photographed a football tournament between 7 community radio stations from Bangkok and surroundings, which they organized themselves.
You would be surprised what you hear now, after more than 4 years, when you sit down and spend some time with Red Shirt protesters.
Is it really saying the unsayable?
Nontok #5 :
“the title is misleading, it would have been more appropriate for Handley’s book.”
Yes indeed – Handley’s was a pretty silly (and wrong) title.
However, we all need to remember that just because this book is currently legal and on sale in Thailand – that is no guarantee it will continue to be so. It took awhile for both Giles’ books to be banned – in the case of “Thailand’s Crisis and the fight for Democracy”, quite a long while.
Is it really saying the unsayable?
Chris beale – 6
Why is “ATM” so insulting ?
What do you do when you go to ATM? i mean the first think you do before you withdraw the cash.
Thai happiness spikes
I am afraid the index may plunge soon because a certain guy has been invited to the US to give his testimony, national soccer team lost again, and the oldest party is facing the court again.
Surveillance in Burma
The same sort of thing could be experienced in a number of countries – Cuba, North Korea, just to name two.
plan B will be along shortly to 1) deny it, and 2) blame it on the West.