There’s a lot of talk about arson and the assumption is seemingly universal that it was the act of the Red shirts.
Was it? Cui bono? There was initially talk comparing the act to 9/11, and I am certainly not alone in having long suspected that 9/11 was purposefully allowed to go forward by the US Neocons in order to “justify” what’s turned out to be the Serial Invasion Of Islamic Countries by the US.
I don’t know who “burned the city”. I do know that
1. the arson was very professionally carried out,
2. the arson occurred right under the noses of tens of thousands of Thai military ostensibly “protecting Thai civilization” from the “red hordes”,
3. the arson burned many buildings slated for renewal, and some legally hard to remove like the Siam Theater,
4. the BMA is pressing now for razing the burned buildings, before they are properly investigated for arson,
5. the SLORC met with ‘major players’ in Consumerland before its ethnic cleansing thereof, and promised to pay any damages incurred by the crackdown,
6. Central World, for one, is said to have had three billion in insurance.
If I were investigating, I would surely have a look at the SLORC itself, and the ‘major players’ in Consumerland as arsonists.
I bet there will be NO real investigations of any acts by the SLORC during the period between say, April Fool’s and Bastille Days, just as there were no real investigations of 9/11. There are some things people just don’t want to know.
And even if there were, and if the SLORC were proved guilty on all counts, then the courts would give them a walk anyway : nothing can be done.
They have absolution in advance for any acts carried out during their berserker rage thanks to Thaksin’s patented Civilian Coup Enablement Act of 2005 : the Emergency Decree. According to the upside down laws here, Through the Looking Glass, in Thailand.
BKK Lawyer asked “Does Stevenson really believe one can’t get a private communication past the border?”
Over the past year or so, numerous recordings of confidential political telephone conversations between senior people, including senior judges and people close to the palace, have been leaked to the public.
So it is quite reasonable for Stevenson to be wary that recordings of confidential communications can be leaked or or somehow tapped.
Chris Beale,
That govt minister is likely be ex PM for executing drug suspects, extrajudicially. My son’s friends had to flee upcountry because they were on drugs. Some were not luck enough in this “war on drugs!” Can you link the “tomatoes” police intention to topple this Thai govt? Don’t you see they scratching each others’ backs. The cunning phd criminologist from Montenegro I mean.
I brought a drug pusher friend to my social studies class and were told that he was released everytime he got busted. Police are in the drug business and they were silencing witnesses. The exPM and police have blood in their hands. The deads don’t tell tales! That must be from the Treasure Island tale.
Srithanonchai is of course correct that Bangkok did not burn down in its entirety. This was not due to lack of desire on the part of the red shirt mobs but because the government stopped them. The red shirts forget that economic development in Thailand has made their lives better even if the disparity in wealth has increased. They would rather everyone be equal but have nothing. I would hope that at the very least Srithanonchai would agree that red shirt “vandalism” should not be tolerated.
This is my 33rd year in Thailand. I love the Thai King because he had done so much for his people. He earned his people love and respect, period. The Thai saying goes “after eaten a good meal with your host, you sh*t on his roof! The two farangs arrested had not respected the law of the country and nothing more. Try sh*tting on your host’s roof after eating with him anywhere on earth. He might force sh*t into your mouths in NM! The two farangs have sh*t in their mouths at this moment.
There is a foresay made by Buddhist monks long before the actual kings birth that there will be no Rama X, that monarchy will come to an end with Rama IX. And it looks like Bhumipol is actively working on it to become true since the bloodshed in 1970ies.
I never said or implied the army were as “pure as driven snow”. That is putting words into my mouth. I accept that the situation is messy and complex, but you want to frame the debate as a simple Reds vs Democrats/military conflict. The frame is not the right one. Having a critical stance on the Red Shirts is now being conflated for a wholesome embrace of all the military coups in Thailand and all of the errors made by the Democrats (and their equivalents!). A basic error of comprehension or deliberate tactic to slur? Whatever. Its moving the goalposts regardless. You cannot debate the role of Thaksin, nor shore up his credibility, so you attack the democrats by associating all of Thailand’s coups with it and me by false association. So much for “vigorous debate”.
The link to Wikipedia is the one given in Stevenson’s article. All of the information on the Wikipedia page has references to articles from Bangkok Post, The Nation, etc.
Here is one from The Nation:
“Chamlong told his supporters that they should not worry about him if he were to be arrested, as General Pallop Pinmanee, his long-time friend with extensive combat experience, would replace him as leader of the PAD.
Pallop has stepped up to take the challenge. He said while Chamlong is a good defence strategist, he himself is more of a warrior. If he were to lead PAD, the battle would be finished in three days, whatever that means.”
р╣Др╕бр╣Ир╕гр╕░р╕Ър╕╕р╕Кр╕╖р╣Ир╕н :
I know what you mean about the standard of National English Tests. One can cry reading the questions. Questions from private schools, I assure you can be far worse and more mystifying (this one I was trying to figure out how to do it in 1995):
Fill in the blanks –
There are (Blank) (Blank), (Blank) (Blank), and then (Blank) (Blank) (Blank). (Blank) (Blank) (Blank) (Blank), whereas (Blank) (Blank). – Basically the entire paragraph has four-five times more blanks than there are words.
I was actually ‘stupid’ enough to angrily ask the English teacher if even she could do it in front of class – so guess my grades.
…
By the way, I am curious about the answer to that question. I happen to have many friends named Somchai (I wonder if it has a very auspicious meaning, it have to be given its popularity) and at least two of them are desperate to grow taller 🙂
Correct me if I’m wrong. You are saying that whenever a coup is successful, by definition, the ousted government was undemocratic because if it had been democratic the coup could not have succeeded.
This means that every successful coup strikes a blow against anti-democratic forces.
It’s an ingenious argument.
Pinochet’s coup against Allende in Chile struck a blow against the anti-democratic nature of the elected government in 1973.
storing information in public repositories on the Internet, eg Wikipedia or, possibly privately run stores like Google is a way to preserve info for public perusal
to an extent search engines provide a powerful but relatively disorganised substitute for formal archival indices
I suggest anyone with access to original documents make a point of scanning into digital form and without actually endangerung life and limb archive multiple copies somewhere on the internet
perhaps others with more imagination than me can suggest some secure long term storage locations, including outside Thailand of course
enclosed an excellent paper published by the Weltwoche before the bloody events. I received the Newspapers authorization to indicate the link to Des Königs gef├дhrlichster FreundтАП, the kings mosts dangerous friend. Maybe somebody can translate it in English and/or Thai, mentioning always the original source. Its available via :
The “general has had to go through enormous subterfuge to stay in touch with me because all communications with the outside world are monitored.”
Does Stevenson really believe one can’t get a private communication past the border? Does he think this is like North Korea already? I doubt he’s even been here since his biography was published. Although fawning, it was not received well (though it wasn’t banned).
I think he’s been reading too many of his own war stories. I can imagine Stevenson in his study at night, wearing sunglasses, cloak and dagger, the room lit only by a candle, tapping out Morse Code with his mole behind the Silk Curtain.
I am not sure what Sirthanonchai meant. If he is implying that the burning to the ground of several buildings in Bangkok, including Central World, were ‘acts of vandalism’ because that is how they call it in marxist country, then he is being preposterous.
Trying to portray acts of terrorism as vandalism, merely because such terrorist acts (which caused deaths and devastation) were committed by New Mandala’s favored Red shirts defy logic nor common sense.
But as usual, arguing with Reds or Red sympathizers or New Mandala bloggers always get nowhere.
The kind of things discussed about in terms of propaganda at schools has been going on for quite some time. When I worked at the government schools upcountry, during the Thaksin regime, I found the following test question on the National Test for English:
Somchai is getting shorter. He needs to drink more…
a. tea
b. coffee
c. milk
d. water
But before we completely vilify the Thai government, perhaps we should look at what some western governments are doing with propaganda at the school:
Doesn’t matter what anyone say in NM or anywhere else does it.
The fact is that you believe your “pure as a driven snow” military has to over throw the elected govt of the day in countless coup seems to have eluded you.
The fact that the democrats or its equivalent has always to be installed by the military after some “law” changes doesn’t bother you.
The fact that despite the lob sided changes in laws and the bludgeoning of people who won’t toe the line, parties who oppose the military / democrat equivalent has always won does not punch holes in your believe.
I can go on and on, but I realise it does not matter to you. Oh BTW, you can make excuses for Kasit, but what about the owner of the biggest whorehouse in Bangkok being in Ahbisit govt?
@Christoffer:
“Pallop Pinmanee as a radical Red Shirt General.”
Wikipedia is not good for any political related topic. The thai pages are cleaned regularly by ultra royalists. Don’t give anything on it.
Pallop is well known for being a radial element. The government is pretty sure he is a red shirt supporter cause he was on the first list of people who got the bank accounts closed.
interesting contribution. It is the privilege of the amaat to pen normative/formal histories so we can be sure that any account of recent events will be one-sided…sad. well, local histories may contest events but these will not find their way into standard textbooks. Isaan regionalism will surely rise again after the political repression by the despotic state. History is only what is assumed to be real because it is sanctioned as such as in official royal histories, such as that penned by Prince Damrong Rajanubhab. Bbesides historical narratives, it is also the case with the production of conventional sacred plastic arts. Anything that does not conform to normative state discourse is clearly contentious and, in some contexts, even seditious (remember the fate of Jit Poumisak’s radical mapping of Thai history which led to his murder by the state in 1966). In 1957 the fateful Jit Poumisak wrote an innovative/challenging interpretation of social and political history (translated by the excellent work of Craig Reynolds as “The Real Face of Thai Feudalism Today”). This work, from the point of view of the state, was a non-history in not making tracings and ran counter to the official royal histories, for example of Damrong…[amaat] Here, the unit of analysis was the social formation in the marxist sense with the monarchy linked to a regressive agrarian order.
William Stevenson’s work has its obvious drawbacks. This does not however change the fact that his prediction is simply an expression of what many Red, Yellow and multi-colored people will not dare to say.
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Enemies, foreign and domestic
There’s a lot of talk about arson and the assumption is seemingly universal that it was the act of the Red shirts.
Was it? Cui bono? There was initially talk comparing the act to 9/11, and I am certainly not alone in having long suspected that 9/11 was purposefully allowed to go forward by the US Neocons in order to “justify” what’s turned out to be the Serial Invasion Of Islamic Countries by the US.
I don’t know who “burned the city”. I do know that
1. the arson was very professionally carried out,
2. the arson occurred right under the noses of tens of thousands of Thai military ostensibly “protecting Thai civilization” from the “red hordes”,
3. the arson burned many buildings slated for renewal, and some legally hard to remove like the Siam Theater,
4. the BMA is pressing now for razing the burned buildings, before they are properly investigated for arson,
5. the SLORC met with ‘major players’ in Consumerland before its ethnic cleansing thereof, and promised to pay any damages incurred by the crackdown,
6. Central World, for one, is said to have had three billion in insurance.
If I were investigating, I would surely have a look at the SLORC itself, and the ‘major players’ in Consumerland as arsonists.
I bet there will be NO real investigations of any acts by the SLORC during the period between say, April Fool’s and Bastille Days, just as there were no real investigations of 9/11. There are some things people just don’t want to know.
And even if there were, and if the SLORC were proved guilty on all counts, then the courts would give them a walk anyway : nothing can be done.
They have absolution in advance for any acts carried out during their berserker rage thanks to Thaksin’s patented Civilian Coup Enablement Act of 2005 : the Emergency Decree. According to the upside down laws here, Through the Looking Glass, in Thailand.
Stevenson on King Bhumibol
BKK Lawyer asked “Does Stevenson really believe one can’t get a private communication past the border?”
Over the past year or so, numerous recordings of confidential political telephone conversations between senior people, including senior judges and people close to the palace, have been leaked to the public.
So it is quite reasonable for Stevenson to be wary that recordings of confidential communications can be leaked or or somehow tapped.
Enemies, foreign and domestic
Chris Beale,
That govt minister is likely be ex PM for executing drug suspects, extrajudicially. My son’s friends had to flee upcountry because they were on drugs. Some were not luck enough in this “war on drugs!” Can you link the “tomatoes” police intention to topple this Thai govt? Don’t you see they scratching each others’ backs. The cunning phd criminologist from Montenegro I mean.
I brought a drug pusher friend to my social studies class and were told that he was released everytime he got busted. Police are in the drug business and they were silencing witnesses. The exPM and police have blood in their hands. The deads don’t tell tales! That must be from the Treasure Island tale.
Enemies, foreign and domestic
Srithanonchai is of course correct that Bangkok did not burn down in its entirety. This was not due to lack of desire on the part of the red shirt mobs but because the government stopped them. The red shirts forget that economic development in Thailand has made their lives better even if the disparity in wealth has increased. They would rather everyone be equal but have nothing. I would hope that at the very least Srithanonchai would agree that red shirt “vandalism” should not be tolerated.
Enemies, foreign and domestic
This is my 33rd year in Thailand. I love the Thai King because he had done so much for his people. He earned his people love and respect, period. The Thai saying goes “after eaten a good meal with your host, you sh*t on his roof! The two farangs arrested had not respected the law of the country and nothing more. Try sh*tting on your host’s roof after eating with him anywhere on earth. He might force sh*t into your mouths in NM! The two farangs have sh*t in their mouths at this moment.
Stevenson on King Bhumibol
There is a foresay made by Buddhist monks long before the actual kings birth that there will be no Rama X, that monarchy will come to an end with Rama IX. And it looks like Bhumipol is actively working on it to become true since the bloodshed in 1970ies.
Nick Nostitz in the killing zone
neptunian, who? indeed. @202.
I never said or implied the army were as “pure as driven snow”. That is putting words into my mouth. I accept that the situation is messy and complex, but you want to frame the debate as a simple Reds vs Democrats/military conflict. The frame is not the right one. Having a critical stance on the Red Shirts is now being conflated for a wholesome embrace of all the military coups in Thailand and all of the errors made by the Democrats (and their equivalents!). A basic error of comprehension or deliberate tactic to slur? Whatever. Its moving the goalposts regardless. You cannot debate the role of Thaksin, nor shore up his credibility, so you attack the democrats by associating all of Thailand’s coups with it and me by false association. So much for “vigorous debate”.
Stevenson on King Bhumibol
@Peter
The link to Wikipedia is the one given in Stevenson’s article. All of the information on the Wikipedia page has references to articles from Bangkok Post, The Nation, etc.
Here is one from The Nation:
“Chamlong told his supporters that they should not worry about him if he were to be arrested, as General Pallop Pinmanee, his long-time friend with extensive combat experience, would replace him as leader of the PAD.
Pallop has stepped up to take the challenge. He said while Chamlong is a good defence strategist, he himself is more of a warrior. If he were to lead PAD, the battle would be finished in three days, whatever that means.”
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2008/08/29/opinion/opinion_30081793.php
Enemies, foreign and domestic
р╣Др╕бр╣Ир╕гр╕░р╕Ър╕╕р╕Кр╕╖р╣Ир╕н :
I know what you mean about the standard of National English Tests. One can cry reading the questions. Questions from private schools, I assure you can be far worse and more mystifying (this one I was trying to figure out how to do it in 1995):
Fill in the blanks –
There are (Blank) (Blank), (Blank) (Blank), and then (Blank) (Blank) (Blank). (Blank) (Blank) (Blank) (Blank), whereas (Blank) (Blank). – Basically the entire paragraph has four-five times more blanks than there are words.
I was actually ‘stupid’ enough to angrily ask the English teacher if even she could do it in front of class – so guess my grades.
…
By the way, I am curious about the answer to that question. I happen to have many friends named Somchai (I wonder if it has a very auspicious meaning, it have to be given its popularity) and at least two of them are desperate to grow taller 🙂
Send your suggestions to Abhisit
Mungo Gubbins,
Correct me if I’m wrong. You are saying that whenever a coup is successful, by definition, the ousted government was undemocratic because if it had been democratic the coup could not have succeeded.
This means that every successful coup strikes a blow against anti-democratic forces.
It’s an ingenious argument.
Pinochet’s coup against Allende in Chile struck a blow against the anti-democratic nature of the elected government in 1973.
Thai institutions: Archives
storing information in public repositories on the Internet, eg Wikipedia or, possibly privately run stores like Google is a way to preserve info for public perusal
to an extent search engines provide a powerful but relatively disorganised substitute for formal archival indices
I suggest anyone with access to original documents make a point of scanning into digital form and without actually endangerung life and limb archive multiple copies somewhere on the internet
perhaps others with more imagination than me can suggest some secure long term storage locations, including outside Thailand of course
Stevenson on King Bhumibol
enclosed an excellent paper published by the Weltwoche before the bloody events. I received the Newspapers authorization to indicate the link to Des Königs gef├дhrlichster FreundтАП, the kings mosts dangerous friend. Maybe somebody can translate it in English and/or Thai, mentioning always the original source. Its available via :
http://www.weltwoche.ch/ausgaben/2010-19/artikel-2010-19-des-koenigs-gefaehrlichster-freund.htm
Stevenson on King Bhumibol
The “general has had to go through enormous subterfuge to stay in touch with me because all communications with the outside world are monitored.”
Does Stevenson really believe one can’t get a private communication past the border? Does he think this is like North Korea already? I doubt he’s even been here since his biography was published. Although fawning, it was not received well (though it wasn’t banned).
I think he’s been reading too many of his own war stories. I can imagine Stevenson in his study at night, wearing sunglasses, cloak and dagger, the room lit only by a candle, tapping out Morse Code with his mole behind the Silk Curtain.
The mole he has now, by the way, outed.
Stevenson on King Bhumibol
If he’s so brave, why won’t he allow his name to be publicised?
Enemies, foreign and domestic
I am not sure what Sirthanonchai meant. If he is implying that the burning to the ground of several buildings in Bangkok, including Central World, were ‘acts of vandalism’ because that is how they call it in marxist country, then he is being preposterous.
Trying to portray acts of terrorism as vandalism, merely because such terrorist acts (which caused deaths and devastation) were committed by New Mandala’s favored Red shirts defy logic nor common sense.
But as usual, arguing with Reds or Red sympathizers or New Mandala bloggers always get nowhere.
Enemies, foreign and domestic
The kind of things discussed about in terms of propaganda at schools has been going on for quite some time. When I worked at the government schools upcountry, during the Thaksin regime, I found the following test question on the National Test for English:
Somchai is getting shorter. He needs to drink more…
a. tea
b. coffee
c. milk
d. water
But before we completely vilify the Thai government, perhaps we should look at what some western governments are doing with propaganda at the school:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10141121.stm
Nick Nostitz in the killing zone
Poor simple simonsay and lee who?
Doesn’t matter what anyone say in NM or anywhere else does it.
The fact is that you believe your “pure as a driven snow” military has to over throw the elected govt of the day in countless coup seems to have eluded you.
The fact that the democrats or its equivalent has always to be installed by the military after some “law” changes doesn’t bother you.
The fact that despite the lob sided changes in laws and the bludgeoning of people who won’t toe the line, parties who oppose the military / democrat equivalent has always won does not punch holes in your believe.
I can go on and on, but I realise it does not matter to you. Oh BTW, you can make excuses for Kasit, but what about the owner of the biggest whorehouse in Bangkok being in Ahbisit govt?
Stevenson on King Bhumibol
@Christoffer:
“Pallop Pinmanee as a radical Red Shirt General.”
Wikipedia is not good for any political related topic. The thai pages are cleaned regularly by ultra royalists. Don’t give anything on it.
Pallop is well known for being a radial element. The government is pretty sure he is a red shirt supporter cause he was on the first list of people who got the bank accounts closed.
Thai institutions: Archives
interesting contribution. It is the privilege of the amaat to pen normative/formal histories so we can be sure that any account of recent events will be one-sided…sad. well, local histories may contest events but these will not find their way into standard textbooks. Isaan regionalism will surely rise again after the political repression by the despotic state. History is only what is assumed to be real because it is sanctioned as such as in official royal histories, such as that penned by Prince Damrong Rajanubhab. Bbesides historical narratives, it is also the case with the production of conventional sacred plastic arts. Anything that does not conform to normative state discourse is clearly contentious and, in some contexts, even seditious (remember the fate of Jit Poumisak’s radical mapping of Thai history which led to his murder by the state in 1966). In 1957 the fateful Jit Poumisak wrote an innovative/challenging interpretation of social and political history (translated by the excellent work of Craig Reynolds as “The Real Face of Thai Feudalism Today”). This work, from the point of view of the state, was a non-history in not making tracings and ran counter to the official royal histories, for example of Damrong…[amaat] Here, the unit of analysis was the social formation in the marxist sense with the monarchy linked to a regressive agrarian order.
Stevenson on King Bhumibol
William Stevenson’s work has its obvious drawbacks. This does not however change the fact that his prediction is simply an expression of what many Red, Yellow and multi-colored people will not dare to say.