The use of live ammunition against unarmed and peaceful protesters is intolerable.
Except they weren’t unarmed and peaceful. Some of them had automatic weapons, M79 grenades, pistols, molotovs among others. This is easily verifiable by anyone who cares to browse Youtube.
On April 10 some “unarmed” and “peaceful” protesters used grenades and automatic weapons to successfully repel the army’s first dispersal attempt with riot gear.
‘Proportional’ force needs to be considered in the context of the reality rather than the propaganda: It was this group of armed and aggressive protesters that dictated the army’s subsequent response.
More interesting that Thanon’s musings are Suthichai Yoon and Tulsathit Taptim speculations that Thaksins’ former wife – Potjaman – may run as a party-list candidate in Newin Chidchob’s bailiwack.
Apparently as a party-list candidate she does not have to actually physically campaign (which could be dangerous), merely have her name on the ballot.
Born in that area, from a local powerful family who bettered themselves moving up the police ladder into Bangkok, Potjaman
could be an extremely attractive candidate.
I am quite certain, based on reading reports and on talking to many people, that the armed ‘Men-in-Black’ among the Red Shirts are not just (as you say) ‘renegade soldiers killing another band of renegades on duty – soldiers willing to kill soldiers’. They were really part of the Redshirt rally – this doesn’t mean that most ordinary Redshirt folks who attended the rally knew or approved of their being there. But they were there, (from what I can gather) with ‘arrangement’ with certain elements within the movement’s leadership.
This is another example of what I’m trying to argue above, that the Red Shirt themselves (and their sympathizers) could not really claim (western-standard) ‘peaceful democratic protests’ for themselves. (Despite this, I wouldn’t say that the gov thus justified with its ‘terrorist bullshit’ propaganda. Personally I simply see it as a grave tactical mistake by the Red leadership, having armed elements among them).
It’s a false outrage to moan about dragging Father Joe Maier into the argument when the numbers being quoted by him put paid to idea that all the protesters were there for non-financial reasons. This is the first time I’ve seen such numbers. If you know Klong Toey residents that have gone to the protest for nothing, well that’s good for them, but it’s obviously not all that went there.
That the priest is a good man is well known. That you hint that he is making up the story is wrong. Now Nick does know him so Nick can answer about the level of payments if he wants.
This red shirt protest has become so commercial I expect next year it will have sponsors like the World Cup. Come to think of it, MacDonalds was almost there with so many photos of red shirt leaders eating in their place.
I don’t think arguments based on present western democratic standards would work for either side, the gov or the Reds (e.g. ‘no democratic gov would tolerate 2 moths occupation of central business district’ or ‘no democratic gov would set army to disperse demonstrations’). Since most comments above are clearly on the latter side (i.e. against gov’ s conduct), let me give some example why they would not work for the Reds. (Let me remind readers that I’ve been, still am, in sympathy with the Reds’ political aims of reversing the 2006 coup, restoring the rights of the majority of the people to choose their gov.)
Take, for instance, the author’s first point and Michael #10 first paragraph, concerning the negotiations. They simply are not factually accurate: it’s indeed the Reds, or to be more precise, the so-called ‘Hard Core’ leaders of the Reds, who refused to negotiate, first at the end of March (when Jatuporn abruptly broke off Aphisit’s offer of continuing negotiation – in doing so Jatuporn effectively ‘overruled’ over Wira Musikaphong, the Reds’ own more moderate Chairman). Then after the gov and the Wira (and other more moderate leaders) had already negotiated and accepted the 5 point plan, Jatuporn and the ‘Hard Core’ again refused to accept it, and insisting on continuing the occupation, thus splitting the Reds leadership, with the more moderate ones effectively withdrawn.
Or take Khun Nuomi #12 ‘s suggestion that the gov should send the anti-riot police instead. Frankly, that wouldn’t work either, given the size of the rally and the tactics the demonstrators, especially the so-call ‘Redshirt Guards’ used. Yes they’re largely ‘unarmed’. But equipped with big pipe, flagpoles, and the like, and especially given their number, they were more than any police could handle. Witness the around 5 or 6 hours on 10 April, when hundreds of soldiers and heavy tear gas attack (ground levels and from the air) could not disperse the rally on Ratchadamnoen. Please notice that I am NOT suggesting that, therefore the gov was ‘justified’ in using soldiers with live ammunitions instead. I simply point out that your suggestion, based on standard western practice, wouldn’t work.
What I’m suggesting instead is quite similar to Khun Srithanonchai #11, if I understand him correctly, namely what happened was not something we see in present western democracy. But it is something, as Khun Srithanonchai also rightly say, that is ‘commonplace in their histories’ In fact I wrote on Prachatai webboard recently that, instead of arguing based on ‘present standard democratic practice’ (‘democratic gov wouldn’t use troops’ / ‘no democracy would allow occupation of CBD for 2 moths’) which I see as futile on both sides, we should look at what happened in Bangkok recently as a kind of modern-day version of the city uprising, street-fighting, barricade-fighting a-la 19th century Europe (e.g.1848)
OK I knew you wouldn’t apologies. Whether you were mistaken in the first place by mixing me up with someone else or just not thinking before writing, but you said I had attacked Newin when he supported Thaksin and supported him after he joined Abhisit. This was untrue as I would feel quite dirty aligning myself with his ilk. The fact that you couldn’t apologise says more about you that I really want to say.
What I’d like to know is : do members of the Royal Family, His Majesty in particular, ever get sick and tired of all the toadying and sycophancy towards them ?
Has there ever been any indication of this ?
Or it is simply a work hazard that they stoically put up with ? One can only admire their devotion to duty in this regard.
Bumiphol has undoubtedly been a great king, and even before becoming king was obviously a bright young sophisticate in Geneva. It’s hard to believe he does n’t value hearing an honest, straightforward opinion now and again, instead of endless grovelling sweat-talk.
flan #11 – thanks a million for the Al Jazeera link. This 24-minute video is iconic. Bunjob is the perfect representative of the Yellow cause, snapping & yelping like a wounded chihuahua, & Sean Boonprasong states the Red case superbly.
No democratic government is ever or can ever be justified using force – as in sending in army and tanks – against its own citizens. Only tyrants, feudal lord monarchies, dictators and the like do that – sending soldiers against own people.
In a modern democratic society, when there is an unruly mob of rioting protesters, the “justified” response is send in the riot police with shields, batons, tear gas, and water cannons (? forgot what’s this called). There will be deaths, there will be injuries, some panicky police might shoot with his handgun, some angry protesters may throw molotov cocktails and injure people or burn down buildings. But these are all arrested, charged and jailed in a civil court. Not shot by snipers or labelled terrorists and branded traitors to their country.
I will never justify the arson, I will condemn those who cold bloodedly plan the arson. I will not condemn words spoken in anger, because I am fallible in that way too. And I will not call these fellow countrymen as “terrorists” even as I agree those guilty should be charged and jailed for setting fire to building.
On the issue of whether people were paid to attend the UDD rallies,
the Filipino ambassador pointed out in a long article in Bangkok Posts’s Spectrum (last Sunday):
”I said to myself, this is maybe worse than what everybody thought because initially, my impression was that these were people who were there because they were bought or given money – this is what I had read in the newspapers. Therefore, it was important to be there and to compare what you read with the reality on the ground.”
Mr Rodriguez added that it would be impossible for many of the demonstrators to have been there unless they had financial assistance.
”Some people came from far away, so they had to pay for their transport or got it free, they had to eat and so on. These people would not be there unless they had some form of subsidy. I am not sure if they were there because they were paid. I think that some of them accepted money to be there.”
But he added: ”This is totally different from getting money for your services for the political machinery.”
And now they are making a big thing out of Burning of shopping malls with no prove of who burns central World and other places but there were many red shirt corpses burn in central world and now accusing red shirts as terroist, and they say nothing about the lost of almost a 100 lifes and 2000injured 38missing. AND it make me sad that their stratgy is working specially for people in bkk who claim themselves to be smarter than everyone else, and these people are laughing to see dead red shirt civilians.
Arie Bloed’s column on the question of whether the Abhisit government violated human rights in its dispersal of the red-shirt protests (Bangkok Post, June 3) suffers from a conceptual flaw.
Mr Bloed correctly states that “demonstrations” of the kind seen in Bangkok would not have been tolerated in Washington, Paris, or Berlin. However, Bangkok did not see “demonstrations” in the western constitutional meaning but rather “mass protests.” Such forms of political dissent are hardly imaginable in western countries (though they were commonplace in their histories), because their political systems include a high degree of mass loyalty based on the fact that they are functioning representative democracies.
This is not the case in Thailand. Even the properly formed governments of Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsawat faced mass protests by the yellow shirts (actively assisted by the current main government party), who were even allowed to capture the seat of government–hardly something that you would expect to see in Washington, Paris or Berlin either.
Therefore, the point is not whether governments in western democracies would have tolerated the red-shirt protests, but what were the political conditions that led to the breakdown of mass loyalty, and finally the mass protests, in Thailand. What must be done to create a political-legal order in Thailand that commands the mass loyalty of its free citizens, which would then limit the showing of dissent to “demonstrations” rather than provoking “mass protests”?
P.S.: Originally, this was a letter to the editor of Bangkok Post (Postbag). Needless to say, it was not published…
Thanong should stop trying to pose as a journalist and do what he does best: write fairy tales for kids.
his op-eds would sound better if they started with “once upon a time…”
” The futile first and only round of negotiations resulted in no acceptable option…” Indeed! Moreover, if Abhisit, having the upper hand, had had any genuine commitment to negotiating a workable resolution he would have sat down prepared to listen, and not got up until a resolution that was acceptable to both sides had been arrived at. That is the only way negotiations can work; you have to stick at it until the anger dies down & the real talking begins. To hand down a ‘5-point plan’, like throwing scraps to the chooks, was bound to result in rejection, because it was right in line with the kind of treatment the Redshirts were (entirely justifiably) reacting against in the first place – the ‘we-know-what’s-best-for-you-&-you should- be-grateful-that-we-are-giving-you, the unworthy-anything-at-all’ approach. Abhisit was just playing a ‘Mr Sweet-mouth’ game with his ‘offer’, & the dice were loaded. It’s no good playing the game according to the rules of the mid-20th century. In an age when we all have mobile phone cameras & the internet, soviet-style tactics cannot work.
This top-down approach is typical of how decisions are made everywhere in Thai culture. It doesn’t work any more. To say that it is ‘cultural’ is not good enough. Cultures are not immovable; they are dynamic. All cultures change as elements that were previously seen to be ‘right & just’ become widely seen to be anachronistic. The cultures of countries that are now seen to be democratic have had to let go of strong holds like the belief that slavery was OK, the belief that women should not have a vote & that they should have less rights in regard to the ownership of property, & smaller salaries, the belief that the state has a right to dictate how consenting adults should behave in bed, etc., etc. All of these were formerly seen to be ‘cultural’. Culture is simply the manifestation of how the bulk of the people perceive identity, relationship, right & wrong, etc., & understandings grow over time.
The notion that a state can turn its army on its citizens is barbaric and primitive. It is entirely indefensible in the 21st century. The Abhisit government is clearly guilty of mass-murder, and no amount of media repression can reverse the fact that the civilised world, including its diplomatic representatives, has already made this judgement. The message is out; the evidence is available, and as soon as one avenue of information is closed, another 2 open up.
Tench, many thanks, this definitely works well and is even easier and quicker than via a proxy. Political Prisoners in Thailand is, indeed, consistently CAPOed. I guess the government does not realise what they’re doing. Such a general, nonsensical censorship is just plain stupid and counterproductive. Good luck with it!
It was the red shirts that initiated the violence against the soldiers. By then, the events of April 10 had shown that the red shirts were willing to kill soldiers.
It was a band of renegade soldiers killing another band of renegades on duty – soldiers willing to kill soldiers – not redshirts.
The government was absolutely justified in using force.
The unelected government had and has no justification for denying the people’s call for an election – and dissolving the parliament and calling an election would have ended the demonstration. Governments have no rights. Only people have rights.
I must admit, however, that I do not understand the strategy of using snipers or why there were so many head shots. Perhaps it was felt that more direct engagement would have resulted in even more casualties and violence.
The strategy was to kill the people shot and to terrorize the others. The governemnt is clearly guilty of terrorism. They always are in Thailand.
That’s how the Thai military operates : disappearance, torture, and murder are the normal tools of the trade, punctuated every decade or so by wholesale slaughter.
I viewed the statement of Navanethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rightso 31 May 2010 at the Human Rights Council in Geneva as a license to kill and so did the Thai government.
Arie Bloed is just another paid hack at the Bangkok Post. The CRES has hired many to spam websites and to direct malware attacks. The Bangkok Post is doing its part on its “news” and op-ed pages. The Bangkok Post has been the public relations organization for theThai military for decades.
The present de facto government of Thailand and it’s propagandists and apologists at the Bangkok Post and elsewhere are banking on a short attention span on the part of people everywhere and on their ability to spin and recreate history at the same time to whitewash 19 May 2010. It won’t work.
The present Thai regime and its cohorts at the Bangkok Post are down forever as the murderers and assassins, as the apologists and propagandists they are.
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Violating human rights? Yes, indeed!
It was a band of renegade soldiers killing another band of renegades on duty – soldiers willing to kill soldiers – not redshirts.
So how do you explain this? http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LE29Ae02.html
Violating human rights? Yes, indeed!
The use of live ammunition against unarmed and peaceful protesters is intolerable.
Except they weren’t unarmed and peaceful. Some of them had automatic weapons, M79 grenades, pistols, molotovs among others. This is easily verifiable by anyone who cares to browse Youtube.
On April 10 some “unarmed” and “peaceful” protesters used grenades and automatic weapons to successfully repel the army’s first dispersal attempt with riot gear.
‘Proportional’ force needs to be considered in the context of the reality rather than the propaganda: It was this group of armed and aggressive protesters that dictated the army’s subsequent response.
Thanong on King Bhumibol
More interesting that Thanon’s musings are Suthichai Yoon and Tulsathit Taptim speculations that Thaksins’ former wife – Potjaman – may run as a party-list candidate in Newin Chidchob’s bailiwack.
Apparently as a party-list candidate she does not have to actually physically campaign (which could be dangerous), merely have her name on the ballot.
Born in that area, from a local powerful family who bettered themselves moving up the police ladder into Bangkok, Potjaman
could be an extremely attractive candidate.
Violating human rights? Yes, indeed!
Re: john francis lee #9
I am quite certain, based on reading reports and on talking to many people, that the armed ‘Men-in-Black’ among the Red Shirts are not just (as you say) ‘renegade soldiers killing another band of renegades on duty – soldiers willing to kill soldiers’. They were really part of the Redshirt rally – this doesn’t mean that most ordinary Redshirt folks who attended the rally knew or approved of their being there. But they were there, (from what I can gather) with ‘arrangement’ with certain elements within the movement’s leadership.
This is another example of what I’m trying to argue above, that the Red Shirt themselves (and their sympathizers) could not really claim (western-standard) ‘peaceful democratic protests’ for themselves. (Despite this, I wouldn’t say that the gov thus justified with its ‘terrorist bullshit’ propaganda. Personally I simply see it as a grave tactical mistake by the Red leadership, having armed elements among them).
Thailand in crisis – Episode 2
Nuomi – 66
It’s a false outrage to moan about dragging Father Joe Maier into the argument when the numbers being quoted by him put paid to idea that all the protesters were there for non-financial reasons. This is the first time I’ve seen such numbers. If you know Klong Toey residents that have gone to the protest for nothing, well that’s good for them, but it’s obviously not all that went there.
That the priest is a good man is well known. That you hint that he is making up the story is wrong. Now Nick does know him so Nick can answer about the level of payments if he wants.
This red shirt protest has become so commercial I expect next year it will have sponsors like the World Cup. Come to think of it, MacDonalds was almost there with so many photos of red shirt leaders eating in their place.
Violating human rights? Yes, indeed!
I don’t think arguments based on present western democratic standards would work for either side, the gov or the Reds (e.g. ‘no democratic gov would tolerate 2 moths occupation of central business district’ or ‘no democratic gov would set army to disperse demonstrations’). Since most comments above are clearly on the latter side (i.e. against gov’ s conduct), let me give some example why they would not work for the Reds. (Let me remind readers that I’ve been, still am, in sympathy with the Reds’ political aims of reversing the 2006 coup, restoring the rights of the majority of the people to choose their gov.)
Take, for instance, the author’s first point and Michael #10 first paragraph, concerning the negotiations. They simply are not factually accurate: it’s indeed the Reds, or to be more precise, the so-called ‘Hard Core’ leaders of the Reds, who refused to negotiate, first at the end of March (when Jatuporn abruptly broke off Aphisit’s offer of continuing negotiation – in doing so Jatuporn effectively ‘overruled’ over Wira Musikaphong, the Reds’ own more moderate Chairman). Then after the gov and the Wira (and other more moderate leaders) had already negotiated and accepted the 5 point plan, Jatuporn and the ‘Hard Core’ again refused to accept it, and insisting on continuing the occupation, thus splitting the Reds leadership, with the more moderate ones effectively withdrawn.
Or take Khun Nuomi #12 ‘s suggestion that the gov should send the anti-riot police instead. Frankly, that wouldn’t work either, given the size of the rally and the tactics the demonstrators, especially the so-call ‘Redshirt Guards’ used. Yes they’re largely ‘unarmed’. But equipped with big pipe, flagpoles, and the like, and especially given their number, they were more than any police could handle. Witness the around 5 or 6 hours on 10 April, when hundreds of soldiers and heavy tear gas attack (ground levels and from the air) could not disperse the rally on Ratchadamnoen. Please notice that I am NOT suggesting that, therefore the gov was ‘justified’ in using soldiers with live ammunitions instead. I simply point out that your suggestion, based on standard western practice, wouldn’t work.
What I’m suggesting instead is quite similar to Khun Srithanonchai #11, if I understand him correctly, namely what happened was not something we see in present western democracy. But it is something, as Khun Srithanonchai also rightly say, that is ‘commonplace in their histories’ In fact I wrote on Prachatai webboard recently that, instead of arguing based on ‘present standard democratic practice’ (‘democratic gov wouldn’t use troops’ / ‘no democracy would allow occupation of CBD for 2 moths’) which I see as futile on both sides, we should look at what happened in Bangkok recently as a kind of modern-day version of the city uprising, street-fighting, barricade-fighting a-la 19th century Europe (e.g.1848)
Thailand in crisis – Episode 2
RN England – 62
OK I knew you wouldn’t apologies. Whether you were mistaken in the first place by mixing me up with someone else or just not thinking before writing, but you said I had attacked Newin when he supported Thaksin and supported him after he joined Abhisit. This was untrue as I would feel quite dirty aligning myself with his ilk. The fact that you couldn’t apologise says more about you that I really want to say.
Thanong on King Bhumibol
What I’d like to know is : do members of the Royal Family, His Majesty in particular, ever get sick and tired of all the toadying and sycophancy towards them ?
Has there ever been any indication of this ?
Or it is simply a work hazard that they stoically put up with ? One can only admire their devotion to duty in this regard.
Bumiphol has undoubtedly been a great king, and even before becoming king was obviously a bright young sophisticate in Geneva. It’s hard to believe he does n’t value hearing an honest, straightforward opinion now and again, instead of endless grovelling sweat-talk.
Thailand in crisis – Episode 2
Srithanonchai #68 – thank ya kindly ma’am. The link for the ex-Ambassador’s interview is: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/investigation/38300/departure-from-diplomacy
Thanong on King Bhumibol
Perhaps Thanong, and the King, could listen to the most extraordinary piece of reporting on all of these protests that I’ve come across:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007vj33
Question of the month: Burma and WMD?
This is the link to the DVB’s Expert Analysis paper on the secret Burmese Nuclear Weapon facilities.
http://www.dvb.no/burmas-nuclear-ambitions/burmas-nuclear-ambitions-nuclear/expert-analysis/9297
Thai Embassy response to Hartcher
flan #11 – thanks a million for the Al Jazeera link. This 24-minute video is iconic. Bunjob is the perfect representative of the Yellow cause, snapping & yelping like a wounded chihuahua, & Sean Boonprasong states the Red case superbly.
Violating human rights? Yes, indeed!
No Khun Som,
No democratic government is ever or can ever be justified using force – as in sending in army and tanks – against its own citizens. Only tyrants, feudal lord monarchies, dictators and the like do that – sending soldiers against own people.
In a modern democratic society, when there is an unruly mob of rioting protesters, the “justified” response is send in the riot police with shields, batons, tear gas, and water cannons (? forgot what’s this called). There will be deaths, there will be injuries, some panicky police might shoot with his handgun, some angry protesters may throw molotov cocktails and injure people or burn down buildings. But these are all arrested, charged and jailed in a civil court. Not shot by snipers or labelled terrorists and branded traitors to their country.
I will never justify the arson, I will condemn those who cold bloodedly plan the arson. I will not condemn words spoken in anger, because I am fallible in that way too. And I will not call these fellow countrymen as “terrorists” even as I agree those guilty should be charged and jailed for setting fire to building.
Thailand in crisis – Episode 2
On the issue of whether people were paid to attend the UDD rallies,
the Filipino ambassador pointed out in a long article in Bangkok Posts’s Spectrum (last Sunday):
”I said to myself, this is maybe worse than what everybody thought because initially, my impression was that these were people who were there because they were bought or given money – this is what I had read in the newspapers. Therefore, it was important to be there and to compare what you read with the reality on the ground.”
Mr Rodriguez added that it would be impossible for many of the demonstrators to have been there unless they had financial assistance.
”Some people came from far away, so they had to pay for their transport or got it free, they had to eat and so on. These people would not be there unless they had some form of subsidy. I am not sure if they were there because they were paid. I think that some of them accepted money to be there.”
But he added: ”This is totally different from getting money for your services for the political machinery.”
Nick Nostitz in the killing zone
And now they are making a big thing out of Burning of shopping malls with no prove of who burns central World and other places but there were many red shirt corpses burn in central world and now accusing red shirts as terroist, and they say nothing about the lost of almost a 100 lifes and 2000injured 38missing. AND it make me sad that their stratgy is working specially for people in bkk who claim themselves to be smarter than everyone else, and these people are laughing to see dead red shirt civilians.
Violating human rights? Yes, indeed!
Arie Bloed’s column on the question of whether the Abhisit government violated human rights in its dispersal of the red-shirt protests (Bangkok Post, June 3) suffers from a conceptual flaw.
Mr Bloed correctly states that “demonstrations” of the kind seen in Bangkok would not have been tolerated in Washington, Paris, or Berlin. However, Bangkok did not see “demonstrations” in the western constitutional meaning but rather “mass protests.” Such forms of political dissent are hardly imaginable in western countries (though they were commonplace in their histories), because their political systems include a high degree of mass loyalty based on the fact that they are functioning representative democracies.
This is not the case in Thailand. Even the properly formed governments of Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsawat faced mass protests by the yellow shirts (actively assisted by the current main government party), who were even allowed to capture the seat of government–hardly something that you would expect to see in Washington, Paris or Berlin either.
Therefore, the point is not whether governments in western democracies would have tolerated the red-shirt protests, but what were the political conditions that led to the breakdown of mass loyalty, and finally the mass protests, in Thailand. What must be done to create a political-legal order in Thailand that commands the mass loyalty of its free citizens, which would then limit the showing of dissent to “demonstrations” rather than provoking “mass protests”?
P.S.: Originally, this was a letter to the editor of Bangkok Post (Postbag). Needless to say, it was not published…
Thanong on King Bhumibol
Thanong should stop trying to pose as a journalist and do what he does best: write fairy tales for kids.
his op-eds would sound better if they started with “once upon a time…”
Violating human rights? Yes, indeed!
” The futile first and only round of negotiations resulted in no acceptable option…” Indeed! Moreover, if Abhisit, having the upper hand, had had any genuine commitment to negotiating a workable resolution he would have sat down prepared to listen, and not got up until a resolution that was acceptable to both sides had been arrived at. That is the only way negotiations can work; you have to stick at it until the anger dies down & the real talking begins. To hand down a ‘5-point plan’, like throwing scraps to the chooks, was bound to result in rejection, because it was right in line with the kind of treatment the Redshirts were (entirely justifiably) reacting against in the first place – the ‘we-know-what’s-best-for-you-&-you should- be-grateful-that-we-are-giving-you, the unworthy-anything-at-all’ approach. Abhisit was just playing a ‘Mr Sweet-mouth’ game with his ‘offer’, & the dice were loaded. It’s no good playing the game according to the rules of the mid-20th century. In an age when we all have mobile phone cameras & the internet, soviet-style tactics cannot work.
This top-down approach is typical of how decisions are made everywhere in Thai culture. It doesn’t work any more. To say that it is ‘cultural’ is not good enough. Cultures are not immovable; they are dynamic. All cultures change as elements that were previously seen to be ‘right & just’ become widely seen to be anachronistic. The cultures of countries that are now seen to be democratic have had to let go of strong holds like the belief that slavery was OK, the belief that women should not have a vote & that they should have less rights in regard to the ownership of property, & smaller salaries, the belief that the state has a right to dictate how consenting adults should behave in bed, etc., etc. All of these were formerly seen to be ‘cultural’. Culture is simply the manifestation of how the bulk of the people perceive identity, relationship, right & wrong, etc., & understandings grow over time.
The notion that a state can turn its army on its citizens is barbaric and primitive. It is entirely indefensible in the 21st century. The Abhisit government is clearly guilty of mass-murder, and no amount of media repression can reverse the fact that the civilised world, including its diplomatic representatives, has already made this judgement. The message is out; the evidence is available, and as soon as one avenue of information is closed, another 2 open up.
Surely, it’s just a coincidence
Tench, many thanks, this definitely works well and is even easier and quicker than via a proxy. Political Prisoners in Thailand is, indeed, consistently CAPOed. I guess the government does not realise what they’re doing. Such a general, nonsensical censorship is just plain stupid and counterproductive. Good luck with it!
Violating human rights? Yes, indeed!
It was the red shirts that initiated the violence against the soldiers. By then, the events of April 10 had shown that the red shirts were willing to kill soldiers.
It was a band of renegade soldiers killing another band of renegades on duty – soldiers willing to kill soldiers – not redshirts.
The government was absolutely justified in using force.
The unelected government had and has no justification for denying the people’s call for an election – and dissolving the parliament and calling an election would have ended the demonstration. Governments have no rights. Only people have rights.
I must admit, however, that I do not understand the strategy of using snipers or why there were so many head shots. Perhaps it was felt that more direct engagement would have resulted in even more casualties and violence.
The strategy was to kill the people shot and to terrorize the others. The governemnt is clearly guilty of terrorism. They always are in Thailand.
That’s how the Thai military operates : disappearance, torture, and murder are the normal tools of the trade, punctuated every decade or so by wholesale slaughter.
I viewed the statement of Navanethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rightso 31 May 2010 at the Human Rights Council in Geneva as a license to kill and so did the Thai government.
Arie Bloed is just another paid hack at the Bangkok Post. The CRES has hired many to spam websites and to direct malware attacks. The Bangkok Post is doing its part on its “news” and op-ed pages. The Bangkok Post has been the public relations organization for theThai military for decades.
The present de facto government of Thailand and it’s propagandists and apologists at the Bangkok Post and elsewhere are banking on a short attention span on the part of people everywhere and on their ability to spin and recreate history at the same time to whitewash 19 May 2010. It won’t work.
The present Thai regime and its cohorts at the Bangkok Post are down forever as the murderers and assassins, as the apologists and propagandists they are.