News of Thailand during the past few days may depict the country as being in atrocities where military officers mercilessly fired at “peaceful” protesters.
If you don’t look back long enough, you would understandably jump to that conclusion too.
But it actually takes a long, long way for Thailand to come to this point.
Let’s look just only one step back to get a clearer picture.
Ten weeks ago, the Red Shirts started the present protest in Bangkok. Despite their rhetoric boast of “peaceful protest within the law”, Thai people were faced with countless actions of law breaking, infringing upon the basic rights of others who just did not want to join them (slapping people who wouldn’t take their leaflets, for example).
On the contrary, their repeated attempts to disrupt peace and normalcy such as trying to derail the sky train, to bomb high-voltage pylons, to raid government buildings including the hospital, to fire heavy war weapons to key places including the temple of the Emerald Buddha and a lot more, were no where near the peaceful way they boasted. These acts were rightly justified as “terrorist acts” These acts were reported in nearly all local media channels. But sadly so few of them were picked up to be reported in the foreign media.
The Abhisit government has tolerated this all along. They don’t want bloodshed. They are clever enough to correctly read the game of the Red Shirts that want to lure them into impatience and turmoil. The government knows very well that they will only lose out and gain nothing from falling to that vicious Red Shirt plan. That explains why they have tolerated so much and so long and offered dialogue. That also explains why the Red Shirts refused what had been agreed through the dialogue and instead stirred more and more turmoil.
A friend who risked his life as an undercover agent in the Red Shirts protesters recently disclosed the Red Shirt’s vicious plan to kill innocent protesters and accused the military officers of that crime.
And they already did just that. The first implementation on April 10 at Kok Wuo Intersections was not quite successful in tarnishing the military. Many video files recorded by journalists caught red-handed men in black dispersedly firing heavy weapons and snipers’ shooting out at high-rank military officers with the help of a laser guide to mark the victims.
However, this vicious plan has been used again, at the time when the Thai government has to step up the containing of the situation which would inevitably incur losses. At this stage, after all other options are exhausted; any government would have to do the same.
This time the vicious plan is used to pave the way out for red Shirt ringleaders who are now faced with increasing social sanction from the majority of Thai people who have been fed up with their criminal and rebellious actions for many months. Apart from the social sanction, the Red Shirt leaders are now caught up in the deep internal rift. The recent attempted murder of a hard-core leader was said to stem from this rift and carried out by the opposite circle of the Red shirt leaders. Some leaders already fled out of the country. The rest is left in a dilemma; a high risk of being wiped off by the same side on one hand, and on the other a looming prospect of being caught by state hands. Thus they need a quick way out.
How would this work out ? The Red Shirt militants would be disguised as military officers and shoot their own innocent supporters. They hope they could lead people to believe this.
If the whole wide world could be led to believe this, the government would be forced to stop the stand off. The government would also faced serious calls for external parties to intervene. That would be very bad for Thailand as a country trying to settle its unprecedented internal problem.
For any country, external concerns, calls or offers would be appreciated if they are not biased and based on true understanding of the situation. Unfortunately,in Thailand’s unique and complicated situation, some external parties are too carried away with news that supports the well-planned lies and rhetoric of the Red Shirt. They would not even notice simple facts such as how come the victims were shot far outside the shooting range of the officers. Similarly, they couldn’t be bothered to read between the lines of those lies and rhetoric of the Red Shirts. Therefore, they could not see that what is happening is not a simple power struggle among political parties but that what the red Shirts really want is to change the Kingdom into a republic.
But the majority of Thai people could see that and they would strongly oppose to the Red Shirt’s aspiration.
And if you could also see this, you would agree that this kind of issue is never for external intervention.
I read this site fairly regularly, and would read it more often, if not for its principal authors’ enthusiasm for hyperbole and thinly guised “I feel for my [insert whatever fashionable poltically correct term for research subject you prefer here], I really, really do” shtick. There are more helpful ways to show your appreciation for extracting the information you need to get your Ph.D.’s and bolster your professional credibility.
I mean, come on, guys–what’s happening here deserves a more robust analysis than labeling it a massacre and calling for us to join in you enlightened moral outrage. How about instead of being the moral watchdog of a foreign nation you cast some light on the socio-cultural background of the crisis in a less overtly partisan way?
Everbody concerned about the situation in Thailand should organize protests at their nearest Thai consulate or embassy
Would you also recommend charging at the police with rocks and molotov cocktails and then setting up huge burning pires, razing a couple of convenience stores in the process?
What’s the purpose to all this burning anyway? What are they trying to achieve by that?
Meanwhile, TNN reports that reds have agreed on ceasefire negotiations without preconditions, no UN involvement.
Nick did what he always does, it might come across as biased and one sided but he always been that way.
Question is – why did the army use live ammunition to clear the barricade? Why did they want to clear it at all?
Was it the proximity of the gas station and precedents of burning tires elsewhere? Were the soldiers afraid of armed “black” reds in the area? Were there any? Did they try rubber bullets/shots in the air before aiming at reds at the barricades?
I don’t expect Nick to provide all the answers when giving this excellent personal account.
There was a time when the sun, then the only sun in the sky, traversed the sky along its appointed route, daily rising in the east, duly setting in the west, enveloping the land in its warmth. Then, enigmatically, another sun strives to rise in the skies, to assist to wrap the land in further warmth. Inexplicably, the sun which had always preached that its purpose was just to warm the land, nothing more, began to diverge from its proper, duly appointed route. Inexplicably. Could it actually resent this newcomer to the firmament? If, in truth, as it avows, it just seeks to warm the land it shouldn’t; the newcomer is doing little more than this. But the sun now plots a path much closer, much lower to the land, scorching and burning the land it avows it only seeks to warm.
I disagree with the analogy of Soviets in Afghanistan or Americans in Vietnam. While it is suggestively provocative, evoking feelings of colonialist resentment, it mistaken.
The red shirts are Thais who have broken Thai law by camping out in the middle of city. They may have legitimate grievances, but this doesn’t change the fact that their actions are illegal and damaging.
The force of the army has not been applied indiscriminately. Those protesters who fling rocks and petrol bombs at security forces know they are playing a dangerous game. People have already been killed on both sides; grenades and RPGs have been used. And it is incorrect to argue that the disparity in force is somehow unfair, as you suggest by saying the protesters are ‘dramatically under-armed against military and police forces’. This isn’t supposed to be a fair fight. The reds are breaking the law and must disperse. It is the job of the police and military to enforce the law of the state and provide security. As David commented earlier, the reds can end this situation by ceasing to break the law and going home.
The military has shown restraint. The government has shown restraint. These protests have gone on since March. A diplomatic solution was attempted before April 10 and again thereafter. By refusing to accept what was essentially what they wanted, a new election, the reds have chosen a path leading towards a forceful resolution.
I was working in Bangkok during the May 1992 events and witnessed the brutal crackdown and the aftermath.
I watched the TV as the whole nation when the King verbaled both Charmlong and General Suchinda publicly, and swiftly ended the crisis.
Will the history repeat this time? No, this time is different as both sides are structurally fractured. Who are king gonna call even if he wanted to?
The protesters are the seemingly leaderless mob from the upcountry. No single leader like charismatic former Bangkok mayor Charmlong. And Thaksin is in faraway Dubai or in Cambodia?
Other side also now appears to be seriously fractured. Abisit seems to have lost control to a group of nameless royalist generals and the army chief has washed his hands of the sniper-slaying in the so-called Live Firing Zones.
In 1992 crackdown the death and injured simple disappeared and the grieving families of the missing, more than a thousand, even had to search the Samut Prakan crocodile farms as the stories of soldiers feeding the bodies of slain and injured to the large crocodiles surfaced.
But this time the slain lay dead the wounded lay dying on the streets of Bangkok to be recorded and counted. Army as an institution seems to stop worrying about its image outside of Thailand.
The crisis in Thailand will linger on and brought Bangkok into a state of anarchic limbo like the prewar Berlin. No immediate end in sight!
Given some of the comments, there is no wonder that Thailand is so divided. The idea that the UDD is bothering “them” in “their” city would be laughable if not so seriously misconstrued. No wonder rural folk are so upset, with attitudes like this. Actually, given this sort of attitude, the UDD has done a good job in helping restrain this very justified anger…
Good article. Automatic weapons and snipers against sling shots, tires and bang fai rockets. It’s a massacre in slo mo. Does live fire zone mean shoot who-ever you like? seems so. The Army said they’d only shoot at those with weapons. Not so. And the snipers who took out non-combatants…who were they and what were their orders? One guy shot on his balcony on 27th floor. Do the reds have high ground and army kit?….most likely not.
Is this a false flag op? Shoot some innocents and blame it on the terrorists?
I am sorry that I skipped to say some words from my heart. I have never ever want anyone to be killed. I am a serious bhuddist and never kill any life intentionally for decades. And I have also joined some NGOs to run campaigns for people in rural areas so I have never looked down those people. You know, I even partially agree to their idea of dissolution of parliament too. Please get these assumptions first.
For the comparison, you should dig more information about PAD and UDD. PAD stayed so long with some times of violence, and they got M79 bombed from unknown ones, while just a short time of UDD we got many times of harrassment to the normal people and more than 100 of M79 from unknown ones staying in the group. We cannot deny there are many sorts of people joined every group. The problem is that now it is uncontrollable by the leaders and that makes the situation different from the normal protest. It’s also beyond Thaksin like you said. It’s controlled by their own violent mindsets. Even the red-shirt leaders, they have got different idea for months and someone seperated or quitted already. You need to think about who is the starter of violence and how much it is, then you can compare the result of the death. Please try checking some clips for their leaders’ violence.
Although we want a peaceful way to stop it and the government have tried to share to the red-shirt leaders already, including the new election you mentioned, (which you should know if you read about this along the past months), all we got from the red-shirt are their unreliable speechs and changing ideas everyday. Even the people who support Abhisit also complain him for his childlike or clumsy and too passive action. While you feel different. Finally the red-shirt leaders did not accept any solution. When some of them STARTed firing to people and soldier first, we normal people need someone to protect us from those who has not just used the homemade stuff but also the LPG tank clinging to the public building. My friends who work around the area has been robbed for mobile phone or whatever they want. Again, those people and I do not want any violence and never feel good for any death.
The corruption in Thailand is too deep to solve in a short time. You have to be here in the area and you would see how the POLICE do to us the normal people. It’s known to the public that almost of Thai polices are standing for Thaksin because of his illegal support to polices. How would you feel when a red-shirt try to attack you while a police who just stand looking at you without any help. That is what have happenned for a few months here in Thailand.
I believe that almost of the red-shirt people has pure minds of what they want but the main problem now is that there are too many violent people in their group too. Compare to all 3 big events of political rally in my life (the other 3 are before my birth), this time the rally has the most unknown bastards who begin the violence so we need the protection from the soldiers.
“Lastly, you’d better keep in mind: nobody died until Abhisit wanted to end this protest.” Ummm… I can say just that you are quite wrong.
Lastly, if you think our government want to do the massacre, there must be much more death than this number.
We all are only observers who got not enough information to judge the situation. What I tried to share to you is another side of information. And I have never said I agree to the killing. But do NOT judge before you know it enough. Be a good listener. This is a long story.
”Suchinda was later appointed Chairman of Telecom Asia (today known as True), a company which received a concession to install 2 million telephone lines in Bangkok during the Anand government. Anand became Chairman of Saha-Union Group, which had received an Independent Power Producer concession during his government.”
It seems to me a lot of people are now forgetting that we are talking about human lives.
Whatever it is that the red shirts want, whatever the degree of legiticamcy of what they are asking for, whatever the legitimacy of those who have been disturbed in their livelihood and want them to go home, we should never forget that we are now talking about some human lives.
Some red shirts might be violent, but most of the dead victims did not carry weapon and had committed for their biggest crime a declared illegal rally in Bangkok.
This kind of crime does not bear death penalty, except in some of the heaviest dictatorship of this world.
Someone is not legitimate in killing a squater more than he is at shooting a protester.
We will have to realize that somehow, there is a need for debate in Thailand because different people are seeing things differently, and debate will not arise through guns, it can only arise through democratic elections and campaigns.
Why do you Americans hate the Righteous Kings so much? Because they corrode your certainty that you HAVE to engage in aggressions and backstabbing to succeed in life?
Anybody called your own unprovoked aggressions in Afghanistan and Iraq and mass murder of women and children with your own patented “area bombing” thecnique “invasions”? Is there a single one left among you who is NOT for sale?
Two things. I don’t see it as a massacre as much as the start of a genocide. It’s obvious from comments and actions that the dark skinned ones should be put down.
Secondly, those that say the Reds are armed and shooting at troops. Show me the evidence don’t believe the Post, Nation or the Government. I talk to at least a dozen jurnos and photogs that are in and around the red zone, every day, and to a man or woman they say the reds do not have war weapons. So show me the evidence show me the pictures because all I have seen is Dead Thais laying on the pavement with no weapons anywhere in sight.
Gov. may clear the protesters this afternoon, all children, women and elderly are told to go out the area by 3 pm.
Do you know that there is no free press in Thailand? Government controls almost all medias and dictates the stories.
Thanks to the advance of IT, Thais are able to know true stories through internet and international news agencies. Though gov. blocks almost all political websites and blogs, they can’t stop the hunger of people- hunger for information. The more they block, the more we want to know. Thanks to website like NM.
The problem is that no matter how UDD is or is not non-violence. Bangkok people already called them as “terrorist” due to influence of mass media. All mass media (government mass media) represented and tried to accuse UDD as “terrorist” , by the way they read the news, they lead the thoughts of people who listen to the new to hate UDD and to think that UDD is terrorist who hate our King.
At my workplace, everyday I listen to my friends who always read the news from manager.com (the web site that support PAD) and they accuse and express their hatred against UDD everyday. They said that all red shirts should be killed because they do not love our King and they said that government is right. Most of them listen to Thai media only, some of them read international news, but from Reuter or CNN sometimes.
UDD or any group that against current government cannot win if they do not know the way to make mass media in Thailand tell the truth. Mass media has the most influence to Bangkok people now.
However, no matter how long it take. I still support your opinion that the situation in Bangkok is a massacre. and I totally agree which your last paragraph : “This state of affairs, this eager acceptance of massacre, should and cannot be acceptable to any dignified and democratic society.”
Scott,
It’s now showing on TNN and CH5. Some of the footage comes from The Silom area last night and while it’s dark, they zoom in on a ‘black shirt’ with a M79. There is another clip that comes from the DinDaeg area with a simliar incident, but the shooter was in a doorway. It’s been player twice and i’m hoping it gets to youtube soon.
Maybe some levity is warranted here. Maybe people aren’t calling the actions of the government in recent days a massacre because a good number of people see some justification in the actions. I see it this way: a bunch of out of town people come to my city and disrupts the traffic, business, and general merriment of my neighbors. I want them to leave so I call in the police. They’re useless so I call in the military. I’m patient and give them TWO MONTHS to leave and threaten action if they don’t. They don’t listen and when I attempt to forcibly remove them, they shoot back. I understand now these guys mean business, so I bring out the heavy equipment. I surround them and cut off their supplies. Feeling choked, elements of them attack, I return fire with fire. I make reasonable accomodation for those who want to leave to do so safely. And for those who decide to stay and fight, I’ll fight because it’s within my rights to return my city to a normalcy and peace it enjoyed before these rabble rousers came to town. I understand they have grievances that may be legitimate but what does that have to do with me and my livelihood? They imposed themselves on me and my city and they need to be removed. Maybe this is how many Bangkok residents feel about this whole situation and to them the actions of the government have been justified. The deaths have been quite unfortunate but how would you deal with squatters who make themselves at home in your backyard and refuse to move for over two months?
You could layer on all the politics and theorizing you want on what’s occurring but for many it may be just a practical matter of returning their city to normalcy by whatever means necessary under the law. Call it whatever you want and use it for whatever purpose it serves you but recognize there are those who view these events very differently. And their view is just as valid as yours.
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Nick Nostitz in the killing zone
News of Thailand during the past few days may depict the country as being in atrocities where military officers mercilessly fired at “peaceful” protesters.
If you don’t look back long enough, you would understandably jump to that conclusion too.
But it actually takes a long, long way for Thailand to come to this point.
Let’s look just only one step back to get a clearer picture.
Ten weeks ago, the Red Shirts started the present protest in Bangkok. Despite their rhetoric boast of “peaceful protest within the law”, Thai people were faced with countless actions of law breaking, infringing upon the basic rights of others who just did not want to join them (slapping people who wouldn’t take their leaflets, for example).
On the contrary, their repeated attempts to disrupt peace and normalcy such as trying to derail the sky train, to bomb high-voltage pylons, to raid government buildings including the hospital, to fire heavy war weapons to key places including the temple of the Emerald Buddha and a lot more, were no where near the peaceful way they boasted. These acts were rightly justified as “terrorist acts” These acts were reported in nearly all local media channels. But sadly so few of them were picked up to be reported in the foreign media.
The Abhisit government has tolerated this all along. They don’t want bloodshed. They are clever enough to correctly read the game of the Red Shirts that want to lure them into impatience and turmoil. The government knows very well that they will only lose out and gain nothing from falling to that vicious Red Shirt plan. That explains why they have tolerated so much and so long and offered dialogue. That also explains why the Red Shirts refused what had been agreed through the dialogue and instead stirred more and more turmoil.
A friend who risked his life as an undercover agent in the Red Shirts protesters recently disclosed the Red Shirt’s vicious plan to kill innocent protesters and accused the military officers of that crime.
And they already did just that. The first implementation on April 10 at Kok Wuo Intersections was not quite successful in tarnishing the military. Many video files recorded by journalists caught red-handed men in black dispersedly firing heavy weapons and snipers’ shooting out at high-rank military officers with the help of a laser guide to mark the victims.
However, this vicious plan has been used again, at the time when the Thai government has to step up the containing of the situation which would inevitably incur losses. At this stage, after all other options are exhausted; any government would have to do the same.
This time the vicious plan is used to pave the way out for red Shirt ringleaders who are now faced with increasing social sanction from the majority of Thai people who have been fed up with their criminal and rebellious actions for many months. Apart from the social sanction, the Red Shirt leaders are now caught up in the deep internal rift. The recent attempted murder of a hard-core leader was said to stem from this rift and carried out by the opposite circle of the Red shirt leaders. Some leaders already fled out of the country. The rest is left in a dilemma; a high risk of being wiped off by the same side on one hand, and on the other a looming prospect of being caught by state hands. Thus they need a quick way out.
How would this work out ? The Red Shirt militants would be disguised as military officers and shoot their own innocent supporters. They hope they could lead people to believe this.
If the whole wide world could be led to believe this, the government would be forced to stop the stand off. The government would also faced serious calls for external parties to intervene. That would be very bad for Thailand as a country trying to settle its unprecedented internal problem.
For any country, external concerns, calls or offers would be appreciated if they are not biased and based on true understanding of the situation. Unfortunately,in Thailand’s unique and complicated situation, some external parties are too carried away with news that supports the well-planned lies and rhetoric of the Red Shirt. They would not even notice simple facts such as how come the victims were shot far outside the shooting range of the officers. Similarly, they couldn’t be bothered to read between the lines of those lies and rhetoric of the Red Shirts. Therefore, they could not see that what is happening is not a simple power struggle among political parties but that what the red Shirts really want is to change the Kingdom into a republic.
But the majority of Thai people could see that and they would strongly oppose to the Red Shirt’s aspiration.
And if you could also see this, you would agree that this kind of issue is never for external intervention.
Bangkok: This is a massacre
I read this site fairly regularly, and would read it more often, if not for its principal authors’ enthusiasm for hyperbole and thinly guised “I feel for my [insert whatever fashionable poltically correct term for research subject you prefer here], I really, really do” shtick. There are more helpful ways to show your appreciation for extracting the information you need to get your Ph.D.’s and bolster your professional credibility.
I mean, come on, guys–what’s happening here deserves a more robust analysis than labeling it a massacre and calling for us to join in you enlightened moral outrage. How about instead of being the moral watchdog of a foreign nation you cast some light on the socio-cultural background of the crisis in a less overtly partisan way?
Nick Nostitz in the killing zone
Would you also recommend charging at the police with rocks and molotov cocktails and then setting up huge burning pires, razing a couple of convenience stores in the process?
What’s the purpose to all this burning anyway? What are they trying to achieve by that?
Meanwhile, TNN reports that reds have agreed on ceasefire negotiations without preconditions, no UN involvement.
Nick did what he always does, it might come across as biased and one sided but he always been that way.
Question is – why did the army use live ammunition to clear the barricade? Why did they want to clear it at all?
Was it the proximity of the gas station and precedents of burning tires elsewhere? Were the soldiers afraid of armed “black” reds in the area? Were there any? Did they try rubber bullets/shots in the air before aiming at reds at the barricades?
I don’t expect Nick to provide all the answers when giving this excellent personal account.
17 May 1992 and 17 May 2010
There was a time when the sun, then the only sun in the sky, traversed the sky along its appointed route, daily rising in the east, duly setting in the west, enveloping the land in its warmth. Then, enigmatically, another sun strives to rise in the skies, to assist to wrap the land in further warmth. Inexplicably, the sun which had always preached that its purpose was just to warm the land, nothing more, began to diverge from its proper, duly appointed route. Inexplicably. Could it actually resent this newcomer to the firmament? If, in truth, as it avows, it just seeks to warm the land it shouldn’t; the newcomer is doing little more than this. But the sun now plots a path much closer, much lower to the land, scorching and burning the land it avows it only seeks to warm.
Bangkok: This is a massacre
I disagree with the analogy of Soviets in Afghanistan or Americans in Vietnam. While it is suggestively provocative, evoking feelings of colonialist resentment, it mistaken.
The red shirts are Thais who have broken Thai law by camping out in the middle of city. They may have legitimate grievances, but this doesn’t change the fact that their actions are illegal and damaging.
The force of the army has not been applied indiscriminately. Those protesters who fling rocks and petrol bombs at security forces know they are playing a dangerous game. People have already been killed on both sides; grenades and RPGs have been used. And it is incorrect to argue that the disparity in force is somehow unfair, as you suggest by saying the protesters are ‘dramatically under-armed against military and police forces’. This isn’t supposed to be a fair fight. The reds are breaking the law and must disperse. It is the job of the police and military to enforce the law of the state and provide security. As David commented earlier, the reds can end this situation by ceasing to break the law and going home.
The military has shown restraint. The government has shown restraint. These protests have gone on since March. A diplomatic solution was attempted before April 10 and again thereafter. By refusing to accept what was essentially what they wanted, a new election, the reds have chosen a path leading towards a forceful resolution.
17 May 1992 and 17 May 2010
I was working in Bangkok during the May 1992 events and witnessed the brutal crackdown and the aftermath.
I watched the TV as the whole nation when the King verbaled both Charmlong and General Suchinda publicly, and swiftly ended the crisis.
Will the history repeat this time? No, this time is different as both sides are structurally fractured. Who are king gonna call even if he wanted to?
The protesters are the seemingly leaderless mob from the upcountry. No single leader like charismatic former Bangkok mayor Charmlong. And Thaksin is in faraway Dubai or in Cambodia?
Other side also now appears to be seriously fractured. Abisit seems to have lost control to a group of nameless royalist generals and the army chief has washed his hands of the sniper-slaying in the so-called Live Firing Zones.
In 1992 crackdown the death and injured simple disappeared and the grieving families of the missing, more than a thousand, even had to search the Samut Prakan crocodile farms as the stories of soldiers feeding the bodies of slain and injured to the large crocodiles surfaced.
But this time the slain lay dead the wounded lay dying on the streets of Bangkok to be recorded and counted. Army as an institution seems to stop worrying about its image outside of Thailand.
The crisis in Thailand will linger on and brought Bangkok into a state of anarchic limbo like the prewar Berlin. No immediate end in sight!
Bangkok: This is a massacre
how western governments handle protests
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/1b6c4l
Bangkok: This is a massacre
Given some of the comments, there is no wonder that Thailand is so divided. The idea that the UDD is bothering “them” in “their” city would be laughable if not so seriously misconstrued. No wonder rural folk are so upset, with attitudes like this. Actually, given this sort of attitude, the UDD has done a good job in helping restrain this very justified anger…
Bangkok: This is a massacre
Good article. Automatic weapons and snipers against sling shots, tires and bang fai rockets. It’s a massacre in slo mo. Does live fire zone mean shoot who-ever you like? seems so. The Army said they’d only shoot at those with weapons. Not so. And the snipers who took out non-combatants…who were they and what were their orders? One guy shot on his balcony on 27th floor. Do the reds have high ground and army kit?….most likely not.
Is this a false flag op? Shoot some innocents and blame it on the terrorists?
Nick Nostitz in the killing zone
Dear Kevina,
I am sorry that I skipped to say some words from my heart. I have never ever want anyone to be killed. I am a serious bhuddist and never kill any life intentionally for decades. And I have also joined some NGOs to run campaigns for people in rural areas so I have never looked down those people. You know, I even partially agree to their idea of dissolution of parliament too. Please get these assumptions first.
For the comparison, you should dig more information about PAD and UDD. PAD stayed so long with some times of violence, and they got M79 bombed from unknown ones, while just a short time of UDD we got many times of harrassment to the normal people and more than 100 of M79 from unknown ones staying in the group. We cannot deny there are many sorts of people joined every group. The problem is that now it is uncontrollable by the leaders and that makes the situation different from the normal protest. It’s also beyond Thaksin like you said. It’s controlled by their own violent mindsets. Even the red-shirt leaders, they have got different idea for months and someone seperated or quitted already. You need to think about who is the starter of violence and how much it is, then you can compare the result of the death. Please try checking some clips for their leaders’ violence.
Although we want a peaceful way to stop it and the government have tried to share to the red-shirt leaders already, including the new election you mentioned, (which you should know if you read about this along the past months), all we got from the red-shirt are their unreliable speechs and changing ideas everyday. Even the people who support Abhisit also complain him for his childlike or clumsy and too passive action. While you feel different. Finally the red-shirt leaders did not accept any solution. When some of them STARTed firing to people and soldier first, we normal people need someone to protect us from those who has not just used the homemade stuff but also the LPG tank clinging to the public building. My friends who work around the area has been robbed for mobile phone or whatever they want. Again, those people and I do not want any violence and never feel good for any death.
The corruption in Thailand is too deep to solve in a short time. You have to be here in the area and you would see how the POLICE do to us the normal people. It’s known to the public that almost of Thai polices are standing for Thaksin because of his illegal support to polices. How would you feel when a red-shirt try to attack you while a police who just stand looking at you without any help. That is what have happenned for a few months here in Thailand.
I believe that almost of the red-shirt people has pure minds of what they want but the main problem now is that there are too many violent people in their group too. Compare to all 3 big events of political rally in my life (the other 3 are before my birth), this time the rally has the most unknown bastards who begin the violence so we need the protection from the soldiers.
“Lastly, you’d better keep in mind: nobody died until Abhisit wanted to end this protest.” Ummm… I can say just that you are quite wrong.
Lastly, if you think our government want to do the massacre, there must be much more death than this number.
We all are only observers who got not enough information to judge the situation. What I tried to share to you is another side of information. And I have never said I agree to the killing. But do NOT judge before you know it enough. Be a good listener. This is a long story.
17 May 1992 and 17 May 2010
A telling footnote to Nich’s Wiki source.
”Suchinda was later appointed Chairman of Telecom Asia (today known as True), a company which received a concession to install 2 million telephone lines in Bangkok during the Anand government. Anand became Chairman of Saha-Union Group, which had received an Independent Power Producer concession during his government.”
What price on democracy, lives or dollars?
Bangkok: This is a massacre
It seems to me a lot of people are now forgetting that we are talking about human lives.
Whatever it is that the red shirts want, whatever the degree of legiticamcy of what they are asking for, whatever the legitimacy of those who have been disturbed in their livelihood and want them to go home, we should never forget that we are now talking about some human lives.
Some red shirts might be violent, but most of the dead victims did not carry weapon and had committed for their biggest crime a declared illegal rally in Bangkok.
This kind of crime does not bear death penalty, except in some of the heaviest dictatorship of this world.
Someone is not legitimate in killing a squater more than he is at shooting a protester.
We will have to realize that somehow, there is a need for debate in Thailand because different people are seeing things differently, and debate will not arise through guns, it can only arise through democratic elections and campaigns.
Bangkok: This is a massacre
The government has just repeated the deadline for the protesters to leave Ratchprasong by 3pm.
English subs. too.
1. Safe passage home for those who do leave.
2. Those who don’t will get an automatic 2 years in prison.
3. The area is not safe due the terrorists there who wish to injure and kill.
A serious warning.
Bangkok: This is a massacre
Why do you Americans hate the Righteous Kings so much? Because they corrode your certainty that you HAVE to engage in aggressions and backstabbing to succeed in life?
Anybody called your own unprovoked aggressions in Afghanistan and Iraq and mass murder of women and children with your own patented “area bombing” thecnique “invasions”? Is there a single one left among you who is NOT for sale?
Bangkok: This is a massacre
Two things. I don’t see it as a massacre as much as the start of a genocide. It’s obvious from comments and actions that the dark skinned ones should be put down.
Secondly, those that say the Reds are armed and shooting at troops. Show me the evidence don’t believe the Post, Nation or the Government. I talk to at least a dozen jurnos and photogs that are in and around the red zone, every day, and to a man or woman they say the reds do not have war weapons. So show me the evidence show me the pictures because all I have seen is Dead Thais laying on the pavement with no weapons anywhere in sight.
Bangkok: This is a massacre
Thai PBS just announced then death of Seth Daeng.
My heart goes to his daughter and family.
Speechless.
Gov. may clear the protesters this afternoon, all children, women and elderly are told to go out the area by 3 pm.
Do you know that there is no free press in Thailand? Government controls almost all medias and dictates the stories.
Thanks to the advance of IT, Thais are able to know true stories through internet and international news agencies. Though gov. blocks almost all political websites and blogs, they can’t stop the hunger of people- hunger for information. The more they block, the more we want to know. Thanks to website like NM.
Bangkok: This is a massacre
The problem is that no matter how UDD is or is not non-violence. Bangkok people already called them as “terrorist” due to influence of mass media. All mass media (government mass media) represented and tried to accuse UDD as “terrorist” , by the way they read the news, they lead the thoughts of people who listen to the new to hate UDD and to think that UDD is terrorist who hate our King.
At my workplace, everyday I listen to my friends who always read the news from manager.com (the web site that support PAD) and they accuse and express their hatred against UDD everyday. They said that all red shirts should be killed because they do not love our King and they said that government is right. Most of them listen to Thai media only, some of them read international news, but from Reuter or CNN sometimes.
UDD or any group that against current government cannot win if they do not know the way to make mass media in Thailand tell the truth. Mass media has the most influence to Bangkok people now.
However, no matter how long it take. I still support your opinion that the situation in Bangkok is a massacre. and I totally agree which your last paragraph : “This state of affairs, this eager acceptance of massacre, should and cannot be acceptable to any dignified and democratic society.”
A Sunday morning look at Bangkok
Scott,
It’s now showing on TNN and CH5. Some of the footage comes from The Silom area last night and while it’s dark, they zoom in on a ‘black shirt’ with a M79. There is another clip that comes from the DinDaeg area with a simliar incident, but the shooter was in a doorway. It’s been player twice and i’m hoping it gets to youtube soon.
Bangkok: This is a massacre
Maybe some levity is warranted here. Maybe people aren’t calling the actions of the government in recent days a massacre because a good number of people see some justification in the actions. I see it this way: a bunch of out of town people come to my city and disrupts the traffic, business, and general merriment of my neighbors. I want them to leave so I call in the police. They’re useless so I call in the military. I’m patient and give them TWO MONTHS to leave and threaten action if they don’t. They don’t listen and when I attempt to forcibly remove them, they shoot back. I understand now these guys mean business, so I bring out the heavy equipment. I surround them and cut off their supplies. Feeling choked, elements of them attack, I return fire with fire. I make reasonable accomodation for those who want to leave to do so safely. And for those who decide to stay and fight, I’ll fight because it’s within my rights to return my city to a normalcy and peace it enjoyed before these rabble rousers came to town. I understand they have grievances that may be legitimate but what does that have to do with me and my livelihood? They imposed themselves on me and my city and they need to be removed. Maybe this is how many Bangkok residents feel about this whole situation and to them the actions of the government have been justified. The deaths have been quite unfortunate but how would you deal with squatters who make themselves at home in your backyard and refuse to move for over two months?
You could layer on all the politics and theorizing you want on what’s occurring but for many it may be just a practical matter of returning their city to normalcy by whatever means necessary under the law. Call it whatever you want and use it for whatever purpose it serves you but recognize there are those who view these events very differently. And their view is just as valid as yours.
“Loss of faith in democracy lets hardliners stick in the boot”
JohnH
Yes, you are right – western notions of democracy do not apply in Thailand. But that is the point – they should – and many Thais believe they should.