On using the label “Hitler” as a political tool (merely to make the point that not every elected leader is a saint, we hardly need any reference to Hitler), see Christian Schafferer’s piece on Taiwan and PAD/Thailand at
The “Don’t harm the country” campaign has a different approach. Matichon newspaper (May 7), headlined its programmatic article, “Stop harming the country – dissolve the colored [political] camps by using the national flag.” The paper then suggested that, “First, consider the following words. ‘We must join our hearts and stand in respect of our national flag with pride in our independence and the sacrifice of our Thai ancestors.’ Afterwards, we can join singing the Thai national anthem before there will not be any institution of nation left to respect.”
1) As to the incident with Niphon’s car – i believe that i have expressed clearly that i found the attack by overzealous Red Shirts disgusting, and at the time have even physically pushed some of them back, which in such an agitated crowd is very risky. There were though cooler headed Red Shirt guards present as well, who have formed a circle around his car, and protected him, and finally, when the crowd was under control, have brought him to hospital.
2) the time line of the Petchaburi incident was such that the Red Shirts were shot at first (confirmed by a source in the military as well).
As to my sources within the intelligence community – they deal with facts, and not according to personal agenda, and most of them have worked all protests. I have known them for a long time. I always bounce critical information about certain events from Red Shirt sources with more neutral sources before i come to conclusions. Therefore you will not see me making statements of “third hands” having burned buses, etc. I do not find these claims believable until i get confirmation. So far, i have not gotten confirmation of these claims. I have always stated, also in previous articles, that all protest groups have a potential for extreme violence, and in many cases inflicted such as well.
During the Songkran riots police was completely kept out of the loop. They were not informed about anything, i have not seen them positioned anywhere else than around the Metropolitan Police Headquarters. You cannot blame them for not having done anything. The question to ask though is why have hours of fighting between Red Shirts and local residents (who are known to have strong PAD affiliations) in the evening and night been allowed to take place by the military and the government. Why did the military, who oversaw and performed the crackdown solely, not go in between?
3) In Pattaya as well, from what i have seen, police had a token presence, but the military led the operations. Here i wonder why you do ignore the point of the Blue Shirts, and their attacks against Red Shirts, for me the key factor why the up till then mostly peaceful protests went so out of hand. Without the actions of the Blue Shirts there would not have been the invasion into the Royal Cliff, after which the emergency decree resulted, after which the arrest of Arisaman followed, etc.
Suthep stated that the Blue Shirts were only local residents who supported the government. This is a false statement. Why is the government so sluggish on answering any questions regarding the Blue Shirts? Why is the Thai media not investigating the Blue Shirts properly? My photos here show how Blue Shirts and military have cooperated. Were the Blue Shirts a plan that backfired, or where the actions of the Blue Shirts a deliberate plan to turn the up till then mostly peaceful protests into a riot? These are issues that should be pointed out, and investigated.
But strangely things are very quiet around the Blue Shirts. We only have very strong evidence that Newin was involved (and from his history we know that plans like this are very much up his alley), but Newin alone could not possibly have ordered security forces to work with the Blue Shirts, especially because more than a few military officers did not like the placing of the Blue Shirts (as was confirmed to me in private conversations). Given the chain of command, Suthep – the deputy prime minister responsible for internal security – must have been involved as well. If not, the Thai state is in more dire straights than we can possibly imagine, because then some unknown individuals can make top-level decisions without top-level people being informed.
The hotel invasion, i am sorry to say, was a very bizarre walk in the park. It was not more than 30 minutes. Nobody was attacked, Thai officials, foreign delegates, tourists, journalists, security forces – not one person was harmed intentionally. I saw one young soldier who was slightly injured by the glas window (and so were one or the other protester), and one young soldier who fainted from exhaustion in the unbearable heat, and was even helped by Red Shirts. And the Red Shirts left by themselves, they were not pushed out. “Credibility of the country” – sorry, but that is for other people to decide, not for me. My diplomatically unprofessional view is that it might have been better that instead of calling the emergency decree, the situation could have/should have been defused with humor. It was an extraordinary situation, and maybe some extraordinary measure should have been taken, instead of further escalating the mess.
I also am of the opinion that the government would have been justified to use water throwers and teargas when the Red Shirts approached, as we see nowadays in most summits in western countries. But there is no legal justification to set these Blue Shirts up against Red Shirts. But contrary to Abhsit’s claims of due process of the law, the Blue Shirts were there, and have collaborated with the security forces.
4) Ordinary Red Shirts are also people who do think, and have their own views based on their own experience of life. Simply dismissing them as “Propagandized by their leaders” is an elite based argumentation that i do not follow, and patronizes these people as mindless tools.
5) and 6) The escalation into the violence on the 13th was a chain event of action and reaction. That is the reason why i began this post with the 26th, and did not start with Pattaya or the crackdown. I have pointed out in my report that i had a very bad feeling when the Red Shirt leadership announced their indefinite protest at Government House, and when they decided to call D-Day and marched en masse to Si Sao Thewet.
However, from the chain of events i also believe that the government has done everything to let the situation escalate, most blatant is the decision to let the Blue Shirts appear in Pattaya.
There is a lot of mystery around the morning attack at Din Daeng. I believe we will never completely solve what happened there – too many rumors, and not enough hard evidence that confirms either side’s argument. Call it “the fog of war”, or whatever. It is clear that the Red Shirts there were not completely innocent, but without exposing sources – several military officers i have spoken with are more than slightly uneasy what may or may not have occurred there, and are also looking for answers, at least in private. I do not think that there was a purposely planned massacre, but there are strong possibilities that things simply went out of hand.
The question here is not if one is a white shirt (set up by the government in the old tradition to create a superficial picture), or yellow, or red (both are still existing). Or who is the biggest demon. The question is how Thailand can progress. There is no “unity” of all Thais, and there never will be. This is a highly ideological view ignoring reality. What must come here is a social contract that differing views should be accepted, are necessary for progress, but have to be solved within the democratic framework (note: emphasis is given on democratic!).
Demonizing Red Shirts is no solution, especially when one’s own grave mistakes are ignored. Mistakes such as the Democrat’s deep involvement with the Yellow Shirts last year, mistakes such as the Blue Shirts. ASTV was as much used for rabble rousing (and still is) as D-TV – yet ASTV was never touched, and D-TV was closed.
The government gives more than enough reason for the Red Shirt’s perception of double standards, unfortunately. And so i fear that the tragedy will continue into its next round.
As to an update, so far i do not think that an update to this post is necessary yet (a more complete picture i will give at a later time, but i would suggest just to wait and see). The other “highlights” (for me they were all lowlights, like the whole affair) have been described by others, and do not change my view on the whole event beginning from the 26th. I have already made clear that things were out of control by the time these events happened, and pointed out some events where Red Shirt protesters made very wrong calls, such as the incident at the interior ministry, or the chasing of the firefighters (and the gastanker issue is to be included there).
Much depends now, of course, how the Red Shirts and the other factions will proceed in the future, but that we will only know when things happened. I won’t speculate here on what may happen. I will continue following the events as much as i can, as long as i can stay relatively safe.
maverick263, there was no claim that I can see – there was only a question asked. Surely you can see how the fascist label can be applied — to both parties even. My reading of the situation is that Jim Taylor is simply asking people to question things and this has resulted in him being lampooned with questions directed at himself. At least with this seemingly unpopular line taken, there attempts to answer the questions being asked.
But I fail to see how ad hominem attacks on Jim Taylor are conducive to a better understanding of the situation. Vichai N, it’s so lovely scoffing about being handymen… railing against purported experts and so on, because really what are these people employed for other than to be heretical liberal democratic stooges? You speak for all Thais once more?! Why don’t you challenge Abhisit for PAD leadership.. I’d vote for you free of charge!
The direction this post has moved in is evidence of nobody having any grand perspective about what is going on. As Jim says: it’s a confusing time…
If tax leaching underlings like myself wish to learn anything I think it’s better for all people with considerable regional experience to stick around rather than be put off by people with little better to do than savage opinions with their own disjointed hyperbole. Perhaps Dickie Simpkins, Vichai, maverick263 and so on are all emeritus professors who all have ‘considerable regional experience’, and not tax leaching underlings? Why can’t they, this anonymous professorial circle, treat Jim Taylor with the respect they seem to demand themselves? It must be dementia!
One thing that seems to get little coverage when considering the claims of shot to death protestors on Songkhran day concerns ratios of dead to wounded. Anyone who has been involved in combat or even an avid military historian will know that for every person shot dead in combat there are many more wounded and that most of these wounded will be walking wounded meaning they can still walk or even run away and dont need assistance.
If we look at the number of injured in hospitals it seems to be around a hundred or so and we have only heard of a number of these receiving bullet injuries. That would imply if there any dead the number would be extremely small unless one can conjecture that in this divided country where everything leaks that the hospital workers are part of a huge conspiracy, which seems ridiuclous. Firing in the air we all witnessed and it seems a lot of this may well have been live ammo. There will almost certainly be some bullet injuries from this. It is not even unheard of for people to get injured and on occasion even killed at weddings in Iraq or at Hezbollah parades when firing in the air occurs.
There are other aspects, that as much of the incident was covered onlive TV with reporters both local and international basically moving with the troops any clean up operation would have been of an incredible order of efficiency. Considering the day before the military had lost control of some of its APCs this would have been a remarkable turn around.
I think we all accept by now that live rounds and blanks were issued. The evidence of bullet holes seems to be mostly in buses.Now as we saw live these being driven straight at soldiers we can probably assume that any soldier with live rounds faced with this kind of event would have quite likely emptied an entire clip on auto into the approaching bus. I probably would have myself in a similar situation.
Another aspect of firing direct is there should as in 1992 be a considerable amount of pock marking of buildings. I havent heard much on this to date tbh.
Considering each of these things, particularly the wounded issue, I think most people would conclude that either nobody as caimed was killed or that the number was very very low. We should also be aware that a mass politcal party and a mass movement with stronglinks to the national police force have been looking for evidence to the contrary for several weeks now and not found anything conclusive and trustworthy. How likely is it that they now will?
I appreciate many in and outside the red movement genuinely believed it to be a peaceful pro-democracy movement that was going to achieve positive changes for the country. I also appreciate the shock that the violence must have caused these people. However, now surely is time to move on and get away from denial that starts to sound more bizarre by the day. The alliance of convenience between genuine democracy minded people and forces allied to a power clique that has always been quick to resort to violence and intimidation has been shown to be a strategically flawed alliance. That however, should not stop those who genuinely want to promote democracy in the red movement from moving away from those purely interested in self gain. There is still lots of work to be done to improve Thailand’s democracy and to check the current abuses but undermining the cause with an unholy alliance isnt going to further anything at all for most people.
Re: the Third Hand/Anupong coup plot theory put forward by Manager/Sondhi-The Nation/Thanong, would any NM reader care to put forward the best possible case for such a scenario? (You don’t have to believe it, just explain it).
As far as I can see, it doesn’t even rise to the level of circumstantial. If there was such a plot, why didn’t we see blood flow in the streets of Bangkok on the day of the Red Shirt’s rioting, which surely would have be the best way to create chaos and discredit the government?
Can anyone here make, or at least explain the argument?
Jim Taylor said, “you attempt to ridicule alternative comments because they do not sit comfortably with your outlook and conditoned viewpoint- like the current politics in Thailand”
Actually if you go through my postings in the past couple of years at NM, you will find more than enough evidence to the contrary. My outlook on life changes constantly in the face of new evidence and experiences. If anything I am ‘conditioned’ to about Thai politics is that everyone is a liar; I don’t believe this ‘civil war’ is anything to do with left/right politics, and labels are unfair in this scenario. You have people of all political spectrum siding themselves with both sides. The best way I describe Thailand’s political turmoil is that its a war between 2 sets of elite with a different ‘head’ to their respective patronage system.
I don’t have a ‘horse’ in this race, and whoever “wins” this power play will make absolutely no difference in my daily life. The best thing for me is for the players involved to come up with a good solution to this mess, and I can go back to doing what I do best and not worry about road closures/port closures/government changing/airport closures/etc.
In fact, throughout this thread, you have been unable to even accept the plausibility of stories or viewpoints other than your own or even the fact that an ‘alternative truth’ may exist that is different from your beliefs. Secondly, you have been unable to “prove” allegations that you threw out there, and instead preferred to attack the credibility of dissenting opinion, even naming names and making conclusions about people whom you have never met.
Regarding the army/infantry: I am not aware of the locality of the infantry that was in Bangkok, and I won’t pretend to know. If you know something that I don’t, then I won’t argue. That is not the kind of person I am.
Again Jim: Ask yourself this, if you’re casting me as a rabid Royalist/Elite/Rightist/whatever, how come I go around giving rave reviews to Nick Nositz’s report? Is it because I don’t believe that 156 people died and were put into trucks? Seriously… who is arguing viewpoints that doesn’t sit comfortable with their outlook and conditioned viewpoint?
I really think you should hold yourself to the standard you demand others hold to.
Final note RE: Thai courts. That is why I didn’t use Thai Courts as an example of where your ‘evidence’ would hold weight. Of course in Thailand, it is a kangaroo court, and this is true before Thaksin, during Thaksin, and after Thaksin. In Australia/US/England/Western World courts are still more impartial and the different systems of court and appeal system with evidence and constitution makes for a better judicial system than Thailand. You’re from Adelaide, where courts are more fair than here. Would your evidence sit and be accepted by a judge in Adelaide? So… what was your point?
So, “They just post it because it’s easy and they was angry at what they witness, and wants to distribute what they saw.”.
Yup that would account for why they chopped the posted the film short. It’s a biased, you can bold capitalize that if you want, video and tells you nothing but one side. Nothing more. If they showed the whole film with the street littered with bodies they would be in the dump truck or floating in the river with the others, wouldn’t they? If there was nothing on the missing piece of video showing any mistreatment or killings of the protesters then they could have easily shown that and demonized the reds even more. I still say the missing film is hiding something much more sinister.
I’ve not noticed much (any?) support among the New Mandala comments for the Manager/Sondhi/Nation/Thanong proposition that a Third Hand-Anupong-et al coup attempt was behind much of the recent violence, so maybe this question is misdirected.
But since that theory suggests, among other things, that the nefarious plan of this Third Hand began with the Pattaya confrontation, and extended through to attacks on Abhisit’s car and the shooting of Sondhi — wouldn’t logic strongly suggest that the most dramatic other excesses attributed to the Red Shirts – the burning of the buses, the hijackings of the gas trucks, the mayhem in some areas – were actually the work of the Third Hand?
Has anyone – such as Thanong – addressed this? It strikes me that you would have to be a pretty principled conspiracy theorist to do so, and I’m not sure such a creature exists.
Thanks for your insightful discussions and questions.
Your video link screams to me. It screams where is the rest of the video that abruptly stops at a volley of gunfire. It asks the questions what happened next? Why it was stopped? Was anyone shot? What happened in the early morning? and a thousand other questions. It’s not the footage that we look at it’s the footage we do not have that begs to ask the questions.
When they open fire, the students ducked for cover because they believe the soldiers fire upward into the air hence the end of the clip.
After the firing stop, there’s 2 more clips. Students says second one is about 5 minutes after the first. But you don’t see much action/violence in the later two. Links availiable from the first video’s youtube page, in related video.
(many details to your questions are in the english translation)
The students also took 30+ pictures after the first clip’s event.
About the persons shot, they says they saw 1 person lying on the ground, after the first shooting alive (see him moving).
They didn’t see any strain of blood or liquid on the ground, but saw liquid or strain under the bus (presumably rammed) at the soldier’s position. They aren’t sure if it’s blood or lubricant or what.
Ok Lastly, (this is the only issue that bothers me)
there is NO WAY to prove by this video that it was indeed UDD people who did that. and even if they did – that they didn’t retaliate AFTER the soldiers shot few of them first.
OMG!!! (First the second point, no shots was fired and heard, until after they rammed a cab into the soldiers line and began closing on the line)
And to the first point OMG (again)!!!!
I came here to seek reasonable point of view and discussion, away from those moron answers at Pantip Rachdamnern board when they’re explaining the events that happen.
Let me tell you. I, and many people there believes that most protesters (especially those at the government house) comes peacefully with good intent. Those voices should be respected. But, again, there are a lot of ‘front line’ reds that either act violently out of control, or was planned to be intentionally violent by the leaders to provoke authorithies in order to gain a ‘good rightous stance’ after they’re violently retaliated causing many apparent deaths (which doesn’t happen.)
So, when red shirts supporters came and say they still believe in their cause, but was sorry that many red shirts have cause violence and that they never agree with using violent, people will generally feel some sympathy for them, and grant some forgiveness.
But there’s other replies from red shirts like … you!!! which was more prominent.
Videos could be too low resolution, but supplement photos from that blog couldn’t be more clear that the people wearing red shirts, aka redshirt protesters, in Din Dang area at 4AM were violently attacking the soldiers with motolovs, and ramming a thick line of soldiers with taxi while the soldiers just formed line and watched. Not a shot was fired until the protesters cause the situation to be out of control when they fired mostly into the sky. (meaning not ruling out the possibility that some shots may be horizontal.)
.
YET, you protesters are ranting
“No no noooo. The ones who throws bombs at soldiers first are just a PAD/soldiers in disguest/bangkok citizens/third hand. That guy ramming the taxi, too. That’s not one of us. Most the guys around there aren’t the real red shirts as well.” When the soldiers open fire, that guy that just threw the motolov and got injured automatically became a genuine red shirt protester! All those guys there ducking bullets, too! That’s UDD supporter! and you say “Helpppp! Helppp the peaceful UDD is under attack! We didn’t do anyting”
“The guy that did the violence it was a third hand! and he disappear now! the solders are now shooting at us! Help!
Those kinds of reasoning is the most irresponsible irritating annoying disturbing excuse I’ve ever seen!
This perfectly represents a typical red shirt protester! All things violent are commit by a third hand, while retaliation are done upon a poor and unarmed UDD red-shirt protester!
. PS1. Common Nick, after all you’ve done, even you gotta be pissed by these kind of action!) PS2. Uhhh.. I’ve just spend hours talking sense and reasons into a man who apparently doesn’t have any to begin with. I don’t think I have the time to continue it anymore.
do you honestly think that these “students” SOLD their amature POOR QUALITY
No. They didn’t sell it. They just submit it to CNN. and Yes, it’s amature and poor quality because they’re just boys with amature camera that got caugth in the act. They just post it because it’s easy and they was angry at what they witness, and wants to distribute what they saw.
WHY then Thai gove. / police/ whoever concerned authroties do NOT use this video as sufficient evidence
It was featured somewhere in the middle of the official clip.
The narration is biased, but videos recorded don’t lie.
then THIS video deserves as much : “I don’t believe it” !
As mention, when I say I don’t believe, I meant I don’t believe when redshirts leaders says 50 people are killed and dragged away (but never captured by a single foreign journalist or amateur cameramen (people with camera phone) flocking every scene ), and don’t believe when protesters says “those people at Petchburi/Nang Lerng that attacked us are PAD! They’re heavily armed!”
But when you says you don’t believe, you certainly means that
this video and the other 2 and 30 more pictures of the scene must be a computer-generated imagery edited on shots that the soldier-disguised-as-students infiltrate CMMU building and shots the footage with PAD disguised as protesters fakingly throw motolovs and rammed a car into a stuntman. All shots and edits are done within 12 hours to post online by the same day, on to a fake manga blog that was created since 2005 solely to support this video in April 2009 and makes it looks legitimately from a student manga enthusiast. Yep! That must be it! I don’t believe it! (see the last paragraphs below if this is not the case)
(Note to self: what am I doing? I’m wasting hours justifying points that only morons would question, while everybody else knows that that was goin on alright.)
Thais go to Cambodia instead, just 5 hours drive from Bangkok to the Na-kleu Cambodia border, where casinos are just out side when people pass immigrations.
(BTW. I can’t post continueing comments… It won’t show.)
@ Nick Nostitz # 159
TO NICK:
Firstly, I’m really sorry for previously beginning my comments with the word biased in bold capital letters. You don’t deserve an attack like that, it came partly from emotions i guess.
But I still wish to clarify why I feels that way. Let’s look at them not as attacks, but as constructive criticism.
(the bolds and all-caps are just emphasis; it’s not yelling! 🙂 )
1. While you elaborately describe on how the soldiers open fire, you never took time to describe most of the time the red shirts commit violence For example, we’ve seen salvos of attacks on PM’s car, and seen video of aggressive ones hiting/stroking long poles inside Nipon Prombhand’s car while he was stucked there, and you simply said all of those in one word: he was attacked.
2. You labeld every Bangkok residence who stood up against the redshirts as PAD or resident/PAD. THAT’S REALLY UNFAIR for some residents who just tried to protect their properties, and others who felt being terrorized. (Even teen slum dwellers are PAD!) People who seen their hometown raided (apparent in Pethburi road) are pissed, and they are not PAD. This made it worse when many of your source are from the red shirts. I mean… oh common! You must know the redshirt are so quick to called anyone who starts violence against them as PAD, as propagandized by their leaders. You ‘intelligence officer’ on the other hand, is a police. And you must see first-handed that the police did NOTHING to peacefully stop or restrain the redshirts from committing violence as reported by Nang Lerng residents and Sathorn-traffic-block video clip, and that’s because most police officers sided with the UDD (you must have known this as well.)
(And, in my opinion, that’s why the soldiers have to came out. (and all of you cited double standard. It’s also double standard when the police quells PADs with deadly tear gases, while doing virtually nothing to stop the red shirts rioting) The police prove before (in Pattaya) and again later in Bangkok that they aren’t willing to restrain any violence by the UDD because they’re sided with them. (most lower-rank police are from the provincial area.) If the army hasn’t made is move, despite not being trained to quelled protest, what do you think will happen? The reds will be wandering around town pillaging, vandalizing, causing havoc in the street of the capital and attacking anyone who wears yellow for the whole week.
3. You wrote about the Asean summit like a walk in the park, yet you never mention the following effects caused by the invasion how driving away 10s of National leader would effect the credibility of the country.(Oh, i forgot, it’s not your country. Why would you care. All you cared is that the poor is always right.) <— I’m sorry… I got carried away there….
I know your job is photojournalist, but it’s just that you should mention these aspects too.
Also, your attitude phrased the event like “they’re searching for Abhisit. In general, the protesters were noisy, but very well behaved” Can you imaged if they would still be well-behaved if they find Abhisit?
4. Many many of your statements starts with ‘the red shirt says’ which you know well they’re being propagandized from their leaders, and you know how they are and that strategy they’re using.
5. You must know (later on) but didn’t even mentioned many parts of the whole incident which include the more appalling cases where the red shirts DEMONIZED THEMSELVES such as the threaten to blow up gask tanker, vandalizing at Petchburi road, shooting at Nang Lerng. Yet you conclude the story like this is all there is to it, and says the red shirts are innocently crushed. You sound like they’re exising their right in democracy peacefully and democraticly but was brutally crushed by the evil junta’s soldiers.
. 5.5 I see you’ve mention that this report is incomplete. But, imagine you’re a viewer, and you read the chronological list of events, ended by the being-crushed conclusion. How can the readers not feels that all the hilights of the event is already mentioned? (it’s like advertisements with condition in small prints in the bottom.) So, please update the report to include all major events soon.
6. Just comment:Reading your articles and many red-shirt forums have portrayed me a better image of the front lines. And you, too, should occasionally put down the poor-people-is-always-right glass and look at things from other prospective as well. <— Well.. in a less serious and non-offending way… Sorry if it offends you.
Best regards,
Daniel
PS. About me, I’m a white shirt who don’t like Thaksin. And like most other white shirts who now sees that the red shirt is as , if not more, devastating than the yellow shirts.
Um… that antipad or something… I’m not following you in many points eg. what’s an ‘official truth’? a truth is a truth. It’s a truth that (from Nick’s photo) a soldier dragged/escorted an injured old protester. And that’s as true as a crowd of people wearing red shirts in Din Deang throw motolovs and drove Taxis into the soldiers without prior threat of violent seen in the video.
Also, it is notable to mentioned that I only believe in what my eyes see, not ‘stories or events’ told by other people (but I can give a few exceptions to credible sources with photo support like Nick) because I’ve read so many ‘stories’ from the protesters saying 10, 50 or even 100 unarmed, peaceful people are shot dead and drag away ‘mysteriously’.
so let me answer you paragraph by paragraph….
you have just “discovered America”
Nope I pointed out that it was an English translation (you gotta read it) of the description of the event recorded by the witness. They said it in their blogs while publishing this evidence.
“about CNN”, news station that deserve trust.
So… you’re saying CNN is heavily biased against the protesters to make them look bad, and has a conspiracy with the Thai government. Okie Dokie. No further question. (Meaning, DStation, is of course the only reliable news report and the only report you believe) And I assume BBC must be even more biased since they give Thaksin a really tougher interview. Nicks current report is unbiases, but when he submit it to his employer, if got publish, it suddenly became biases becuase it became mainstream media and all mainstream media is biased. Nice.
“Video watched long ago in Thai version”
That’s my point. Many foreigners here (I assumed) don’t understand Thai so I’m bringing up the English version. Read.
“It’s very far away”
Yep, and that’s exactly the thing that made this video famous! It was far away from a bird’s eye view, so viewer can get the whole picture of the area and almost all the action going on, from both sides the same time. Other professional or amateur video clips are shot from ground level, and thus lack this dept of information.
…… one of those reporters said that at one point he was trying to get closer – and was stopped by …. GUN (or rifle) pointed at him by a soldier !’
Yep! In other posts, they says there’s a protester saying the soldiers are using weapons of mass destruction against them (well, not really but you get the point.) The point is, this is one of the hunreds unsourced uncited no-single-piece-of-evidence claims made by the protesters and their leaders.
For this Din Daeng event, I read from transcript that the leaders announce on stage describing the incident “we were only gathering food supplies. There were many women among us…. when the troops approach, we shouted ‘don’t shoot, we’re unarmed’. ….Soon, there’s a lot of smoke, and there are shots being fired at us…. We scattered and ran away… There’re many of us shot and injured.. many are dead…” yada yada yada. (I admit I can’t find a reliable source, like an audio record, to back this up either. But if you ever hear their other announcement on stage, you’ll know this style of story is what they always say.)
“Has Abhisit created a new Stalinist (”Land of Smiles”) social and political environment in his attempt at the coercive muting all Other truths and disparate voices?”
this is really happening, right now, right?
i’m not even going to argue. others much better capable to do tried to show again & again that “thai political” “situation” is a “fragile” one. many different powers na.
& you just go ahead and _PUBLICLY_ _CLAIM_ abhisit created a “stalinist” order?
*…
@ c.33, you speak of, “…effectively muted by this fictitious fascist state and its representatives.”
so by now abhisit is not only stalinist but also fascist.
& i guess if i disagree with throwing around strong pejorative labels… i’ll be included, by guilt of association?
*…
& now,
if i say i appreciate people like Dickie Simpkins, c.38; nobody, c.34; land of snarls, c.30; Vichai N —
does that imply that these people i never met before all belong to that same same stalinist/fascist group?
just because they don’t share your notions? just because they insist on some ethical standards?
maybe it’s ok i was allowed to release some tense & tight emotional clusters na 😉
imho, nigel woodward in c.6, gives a fair reading/interpretation.
*…
actually, i think, it’s funny you get so excited about hitler/thaksin. it’s ridiculous to draw that kind of comparison. hitler indulged in some really sick “para-ideology”. whereas thaksin does _not_ indulge in _any_ ideology; esp not “democracy” na.
hitler was underdog off-spring of european 19th century. thaksin is off-spring of elite sino-thai 20th/21st century.
i tried to point at the “weaknesses” of systemic structures of civil society.
i don’t want to blame bad & evil people. it’s up to “commons” to contain & reform abuse of power.
Just a quick comment on your video link and news footage and pictures in general.
Very good pictures and video force you to ask a question. That’s the nature of journalistic photography. When you look at a picture ask yourself what the picture is conveying and what’s happening in the background. Go up and look at Nicks pic nn-17s. Look in the background that gives you a good feeling of the situation at that point in time.
Your video link screams to me. It screams where is the rest of the video that abruptly stops at a volley of gunfire. It asks the questions what happened next? Why it was stopped? Was anyone shot? What happened in the early morning? and a thousand other questions. It’s not the footage that we look at it’s the footage we do not have that begs to ask the questions.
Just like Nick’s picture of the bus (nn-59s) answers the question of live rounds for us. Yes they were used and no they were not all fired into the air. nn-33s & nn-34s tell us that the blue shirts were condoned by, if not part of, the security plan at Asean. You just have to look at the pictures.
Maybe, like in the past, the bodies just disappeared and maybe there were not any, but denials about the usage of the bullets and the Blue shirts must have us ask the question and investigate further.
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“Just leave him alone”
On using the label “Hitler” as a political tool (merely to make the point that not every elected leader is a saint, we hardly need any reference to Hitler), see Christian Schafferer’s piece on Taiwan and PAD/Thailand at
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/newmandala/2008/10/20/pad-consumed-democracy-and-self-dramatization-a-comparative-view-from-taiwan/
Red faces: Unconvincing psych-ops
Colum #44:
No.
More like:
“the pot calling the kettle calling the pot black”
Shock proposal! Use elections to sort out differences!
The “Don’t harm the country” campaign has a different approach. Matichon newspaper (May 7), headlined its programmatic article, “Stop harming the country – dissolve the colored [political] camps by using the national flag.” The paper then suggested that, “First, consider the following words. ‘We must join our hearts and stand in respect of our national flag with pride in our independence and the sacrifice of our Thai ancestors.’ Afterwards, we can join singing the Thai national anthem before there will not be any institution of nation left to respect.”
Chaiyo!
The crushing of the Red Shirts
“DanielCU”:
1) As to the incident with Niphon’s car – i believe that i have expressed clearly that i found the attack by overzealous Red Shirts disgusting, and at the time have even physically pushed some of them back, which in such an agitated crowd is very risky. There were though cooler headed Red Shirt guards present as well, who have formed a circle around his car, and protected him, and finally, when the crowd was under control, have brought him to hospital.
2) the time line of the Petchaburi incident was such that the Red Shirts were shot at first (confirmed by a source in the military as well).
As to my sources within the intelligence community – they deal with facts, and not according to personal agenda, and most of them have worked all protests. I have known them for a long time. I always bounce critical information about certain events from Red Shirt sources with more neutral sources before i come to conclusions. Therefore you will not see me making statements of “third hands” having burned buses, etc. I do not find these claims believable until i get confirmation. So far, i have not gotten confirmation of these claims. I have always stated, also in previous articles, that all protest groups have a potential for extreme violence, and in many cases inflicted such as well.
During the Songkran riots police was completely kept out of the loop. They were not informed about anything, i have not seen them positioned anywhere else than around the Metropolitan Police Headquarters. You cannot blame them for not having done anything. The question to ask though is why have hours of fighting between Red Shirts and local residents (who are known to have strong PAD affiliations) in the evening and night been allowed to take place by the military and the government. Why did the military, who oversaw and performed the crackdown solely, not go in between?
3) In Pattaya as well, from what i have seen, police had a token presence, but the military led the operations. Here i wonder why you do ignore the point of the Blue Shirts, and their attacks against Red Shirts, for me the key factor why the up till then mostly peaceful protests went so out of hand. Without the actions of the Blue Shirts there would not have been the invasion into the Royal Cliff, after which the emergency decree resulted, after which the arrest of Arisaman followed, etc.
Suthep stated that the Blue Shirts were only local residents who supported the government. This is a false statement. Why is the government so sluggish on answering any questions regarding the Blue Shirts? Why is the Thai media not investigating the Blue Shirts properly? My photos here show how Blue Shirts and military have cooperated. Were the Blue Shirts a plan that backfired, or where the actions of the Blue Shirts a deliberate plan to turn the up till then mostly peaceful protests into a riot? These are issues that should be pointed out, and investigated.
But strangely things are very quiet around the Blue Shirts. We only have very strong evidence that Newin was involved (and from his history we know that plans like this are very much up his alley), but Newin alone could not possibly have ordered security forces to work with the Blue Shirts, especially because more than a few military officers did not like the placing of the Blue Shirts (as was confirmed to me in private conversations). Given the chain of command, Suthep – the deputy prime minister responsible for internal security – must have been involved as well. If not, the Thai state is in more dire straights than we can possibly imagine, because then some unknown individuals can make top-level decisions without top-level people being informed.
The hotel invasion, i am sorry to say, was a very bizarre walk in the park. It was not more than 30 minutes. Nobody was attacked, Thai officials, foreign delegates, tourists, journalists, security forces – not one person was harmed intentionally. I saw one young soldier who was slightly injured by the glas window (and so were one or the other protester), and one young soldier who fainted from exhaustion in the unbearable heat, and was even helped by Red Shirts. And the Red Shirts left by themselves, they were not pushed out. “Credibility of the country” – sorry, but that is for other people to decide, not for me. My diplomatically unprofessional view is that it might have been better that instead of calling the emergency decree, the situation could have/should have been defused with humor. It was an extraordinary situation, and maybe some extraordinary measure should have been taken, instead of further escalating the mess.
I also am of the opinion that the government would have been justified to use water throwers and teargas when the Red Shirts approached, as we see nowadays in most summits in western countries. But there is no legal justification to set these Blue Shirts up against Red Shirts. But contrary to Abhsit’s claims of due process of the law, the Blue Shirts were there, and have collaborated with the security forces.
4) Ordinary Red Shirts are also people who do think, and have their own views based on their own experience of life. Simply dismissing them as “Propagandized by their leaders” is an elite based argumentation that i do not follow, and patronizes these people as mindless tools.
5) and 6) The escalation into the violence on the 13th was a chain event of action and reaction. That is the reason why i began this post with the 26th, and did not start with Pattaya or the crackdown. I have pointed out in my report that i had a very bad feeling when the Red Shirt leadership announced their indefinite protest at Government House, and when they decided to call D-Day and marched en masse to Si Sao Thewet.
However, from the chain of events i also believe that the government has done everything to let the situation escalate, most blatant is the decision to let the Blue Shirts appear in Pattaya.
There is a lot of mystery around the morning attack at Din Daeng. I believe we will never completely solve what happened there – too many rumors, and not enough hard evidence that confirms either side’s argument. Call it “the fog of war”, or whatever. It is clear that the Red Shirts there were not completely innocent, but without exposing sources – several military officers i have spoken with are more than slightly uneasy what may or may not have occurred there, and are also looking for answers, at least in private. I do not think that there was a purposely planned massacre, but there are strong possibilities that things simply went out of hand.
The question here is not if one is a white shirt (set up by the government in the old tradition to create a superficial picture), or yellow, or red (both are still existing). Or who is the biggest demon. The question is how Thailand can progress. There is no “unity” of all Thais, and there never will be. This is a highly ideological view ignoring reality. What must come here is a social contract that differing views should be accepted, are necessary for progress, but have to be solved within the democratic framework (note: emphasis is given on democratic!).
Demonizing Red Shirts is no solution, especially when one’s own grave mistakes are ignored. Mistakes such as the Democrat’s deep involvement with the Yellow Shirts last year, mistakes such as the Blue Shirts. ASTV was as much used for rabble rousing (and still is) as D-TV – yet ASTV was never touched, and D-TV was closed.
The government gives more than enough reason for the Red Shirt’s perception of double standards, unfortunately. And so i fear that the tragedy will continue into its next round.
As to an update, so far i do not think that an update to this post is necessary yet (a more complete picture i will give at a later time, but i would suggest just to wait and see). The other “highlights” (for me they were all lowlights, like the whole affair) have been described by others, and do not change my view on the whole event beginning from the 26th. I have already made clear that things were out of control by the time these events happened, and pointed out some events where Red Shirt protesters made very wrong calls, such as the incident at the interior ministry, or the chasing of the firefighters (and the gastanker issue is to be included there).
Much depends now, of course, how the Red Shirts and the other factions will proceed in the future, but that we will only know when things happened. I won’t speculate here on what may happen. I will continue following the events as much as i can, as long as i can stay relatively safe.
Red faces: Unconvincing psych-ops
Dickie Simpkins, the pot calling the kettle black.
Red faces: Unconvincing psych-ops
maverick263, there was no claim that I can see – there was only a question asked. Surely you can see how the fascist label can be applied — to both parties even. My reading of the situation is that Jim Taylor is simply asking people to question things and this has resulted in him being lampooned with questions directed at himself. At least with this seemingly unpopular line taken, there attempts to answer the questions being asked.
But I fail to see how ad hominem attacks on Jim Taylor are conducive to a better understanding of the situation. Vichai N, it’s so lovely scoffing about being handymen… railing against purported experts and so on, because really what are these people employed for other than to be heretical liberal democratic stooges? You speak for all Thais once more?! Why don’t you challenge Abhisit for PAD leadership.. I’d vote for you free of charge!
The direction this post has moved in is evidence of nobody having any grand perspective about what is going on. As Jim says: it’s a confusing time…
If tax leaching underlings like myself wish to learn anything I think it’s better for all people with considerable regional experience to stick around rather than be put off by people with little better to do than savage opinions with their own disjointed hyperbole. Perhaps Dickie Simpkins, Vichai, maverick263 and so on are all emeritus professors who all have ‘considerable regional experience’, and not tax leaching underlings? Why can’t they, this anonymous professorial circle, treat Jim Taylor with the respect they seem to demand themselves? It must be dementia!
The crushing of the Red Shirts
One thing that seems to get little coverage when considering the claims of shot to death protestors on Songkhran day concerns ratios of dead to wounded. Anyone who has been involved in combat or even an avid military historian will know that for every person shot dead in combat there are many more wounded and that most of these wounded will be walking wounded meaning they can still walk or even run away and dont need assistance.
If we look at the number of injured in hospitals it seems to be around a hundred or so and we have only heard of a number of these receiving bullet injuries. That would imply if there any dead the number would be extremely small unless one can conjecture that in this divided country where everything leaks that the hospital workers are part of a huge conspiracy, which seems ridiuclous. Firing in the air we all witnessed and it seems a lot of this may well have been live ammo. There will almost certainly be some bullet injuries from this. It is not even unheard of for people to get injured and on occasion even killed at weddings in Iraq or at Hezbollah parades when firing in the air occurs.
There are other aspects, that as much of the incident was covered onlive TV with reporters both local and international basically moving with the troops any clean up operation would have been of an incredible order of efficiency. Considering the day before the military had lost control of some of its APCs this would have been a remarkable turn around.
I think we all accept by now that live rounds and blanks were issued. The evidence of bullet holes seems to be mostly in buses.Now as we saw live these being driven straight at soldiers we can probably assume that any soldier with live rounds faced with this kind of event would have quite likely emptied an entire clip on auto into the approaching bus. I probably would have myself in a similar situation.
Another aspect of firing direct is there should as in 1992 be a considerable amount of pock marking of buildings. I havent heard much on this to date tbh.
Considering each of these things, particularly the wounded issue, I think most people would conclude that either nobody as caimed was killed or that the number was very very low. We should also be aware that a mass politcal party and a mass movement with stronglinks to the national police force have been looking for evidence to the contrary for several weeks now and not found anything conclusive and trustworthy. How likely is it that they now will?
I appreciate many in and outside the red movement genuinely believed it to be a peaceful pro-democracy movement that was going to achieve positive changes for the country. I also appreciate the shock that the violence must have caused these people. However, now surely is time to move on and get away from denial that starts to sound more bizarre by the day. The alliance of convenience between genuine democracy minded people and forces allied to a power clique that has always been quick to resort to violence and intimidation has been shown to be a strategically flawed alliance. That however, should not stop those who genuinely want to promote democracy in the red movement from moving away from those purely interested in self gain. There is still lots of work to be done to improve Thailand’s democracy and to check the current abuses but undermining the cause with an unholy alliance isnt going to further anything at all for most people.
Thailand’s royal sub-plot thickens
Re: the Third Hand/Anupong coup plot theory put forward by Manager/Sondhi-The Nation/Thanong, would any NM reader care to put forward the best possible case for such a scenario? (You don’t have to believe it, just explain it).
As far as I can see, it doesn’t even rise to the level of circumstantial. If there was such a plot, why didn’t we see blood flow in the streets of Bangkok on the day of the Red Shirt’s rioting, which surely would have be the best way to create chaos and discredit the government?
Can anyone here make, or at least explain the argument?
Red faces: Unconvincing psych-ops
Jim Taylor said, “you attempt to ridicule alternative comments because they do not sit comfortably with your outlook and conditoned viewpoint- like the current politics in Thailand”
Actually if you go through my postings in the past couple of years at NM, you will find more than enough evidence to the contrary. My outlook on life changes constantly in the face of new evidence and experiences. If anything I am ‘conditioned’ to about Thai politics is that everyone is a liar; I don’t believe this ‘civil war’ is anything to do with left/right politics, and labels are unfair in this scenario. You have people of all political spectrum siding themselves with both sides. The best way I describe Thailand’s political turmoil is that its a war between 2 sets of elite with a different ‘head’ to their respective patronage system.
I don’t have a ‘horse’ in this race, and whoever “wins” this power play will make absolutely no difference in my daily life. The best thing for me is for the players involved to come up with a good solution to this mess, and I can go back to doing what I do best and not worry about road closures/port closures/government changing/airport closures/etc.
In fact, throughout this thread, you have been unable to even accept the plausibility of stories or viewpoints other than your own or even the fact that an ‘alternative truth’ may exist that is different from your beliefs. Secondly, you have been unable to “prove” allegations that you threw out there, and instead preferred to attack the credibility of dissenting opinion, even naming names and making conclusions about people whom you have never met.
Regarding the army/infantry: I am not aware of the locality of the infantry that was in Bangkok, and I won’t pretend to know. If you know something that I don’t, then I won’t argue. That is not the kind of person I am.
Again Jim: Ask yourself this, if you’re casting me as a rabid Royalist/Elite/Rightist/whatever, how come I go around giving rave reviews to Nick Nositz’s report? Is it because I don’t believe that 156 people died and were put into trucks? Seriously… who is arguing viewpoints that doesn’t sit comfortable with their outlook and conditioned viewpoint?
I really think you should hold yourself to the standard you demand others hold to.
Final note RE: Thai courts. That is why I didn’t use Thai Courts as an example of where your ‘evidence’ would hold weight. Of course in Thailand, it is a kangaroo court, and this is true before Thaksin, during Thaksin, and after Thaksin. In Australia/US/England/Western World courts are still more impartial and the different systems of court and appeal system with evidence and constitution makes for a better judicial system than Thailand. You’re from Adelaide, where courts are more fair than here. Would your evidence sit and be accepted by a judge in Adelaide? So… what was your point?
The crushing of the Red Shirts
DanielCU #167
So, “They just post it because it’s easy and they was angry at what they witness, and wants to distribute what they saw.”.
Yup that would account for why they chopped the posted the film short. It’s a biased, you can bold capitalize that if you want, video and tells you nothing but one side. Nothing more. If they showed the whole film with the street littered with bodies they would be in the dump truck or floating in the river with the others, wouldn’t they? If there was nothing on the missing piece of video showing any mistreatment or killings of the protesters then they could have easily shown that and demonized the reds even more. I still say the missing film is hiding something much more sinister.
The crushing of the Red Shirts
I’ve not noticed much (any?) support among the New Mandala comments for the Manager/Sondhi/Nation/Thanong proposition that a Third Hand-Anupong-et al coup attempt was behind much of the recent violence, so maybe this question is misdirected.
But since that theory suggests, among other things, that the nefarious plan of this Third Hand began with the Pattaya confrontation, and extended through to attacks on Abhisit’s car and the shooting of Sondhi — wouldn’t logic strongly suggest that the most dramatic other excesses attributed to the Red Shirts – the burning of the buses, the hijackings of the gas trucks, the mayhem in some areas – were actually the work of the Third Hand?
Has anyone – such as Thanong – addressed this? It strikes me that you would have to be a pretty principled conspiracy theorist to do so, and I’m not sure such a creature exists.
The crushing of the Red Shirts
@Marty 164
Thanks for your insightful discussions and questions.
When they open fire, the students ducked for cover because they believe the soldiers fire upward into the air hence the end of the clip.
After the firing stop, there’s 2 more clips. Students says second one is about 5 minutes after the first. But you don’t see much action/violence in the later two. Links availiable from the first video’s youtube page, in related video.
(many details to your questions are in the english translation)
The students also took 30+ pictures after the first clip’s event.
About the persons shot, they says they saw 1 person lying on the ground, after the first shooting alive (see him moving).
They didn’t see any strain of blood or liquid on the ground, but saw liquid or strain under the bus (presumably rammed) at the soldier’s position. They aren’t sure if it’s blood or lubricant or what.
(to be cont.)
The crushing of the Red Shirts
@AntiPADShist #156
Ok Lastly, (this is the only issue that bothers me)
OMG!!! (First the second point, no shots was fired and heard, until after they rammed a cab into the soldiers line and began closing on the line)
And to the first point OMG (again)!!!!
I came here to seek reasonable point of view and discussion, away from those moron answers at Pantip Rachdamnern board when they’re explaining the events that happen.
Let me tell you. I, and many people there believes that most protesters (especially those at the government house) comes peacefully with good intent. Those voices should be respected. But, again, there are a lot of ‘front line’ reds that either act violently out of control, or was planned to be intentionally violent by the leaders to provoke authorithies in order to gain a ‘good rightous stance’ after they’re violently retaliated causing many apparent deaths (which doesn’t happen.)
So, when red shirts supporters came and say they still believe in their cause, but was sorry that many red shirts have cause violence and that they never agree with using violent, people will generally feel some sympathy for them, and grant some forgiveness.
But there’s other replies from red shirts like … you!!! which was more prominent.
Videos could be too low resolution, but supplement photos from that blog couldn’t be more clear that the people wearing red shirts, aka redshirt protesters, in Din Dang area at 4AM were violently attacking the soldiers with motolovs, and ramming a thick line of soldiers with taxi while the soldiers just formed line and watched. Not a shot was fired until the protesters cause the situation to be out of control when they fired mostly into the sky. (meaning not ruling out the possibility that some shots may be horizontal.)
.
YET, you protesters are ranting
“No no noooo. The ones who throws bombs at soldiers first are just a PAD/soldiers in disguest/bangkok citizens/third hand. That guy ramming the taxi, too. That’s not one of us. Most the guys around there aren’t the real red shirts as well.”
When the soldiers open fire, that guy that just threw the motolov and got injured automatically became a genuine red shirt protester! All those guys there ducking bullets, too! That’s UDD supporter! and you say “Helpppp! Helppp the peaceful UDD is under attack! We didn’t do anyting”
“The guy that did the violence it was a third hand! and he disappear now! the solders are now shooting at us! Help!
Those kinds of reasoning is the most irresponsible irritating annoying disturbing excuse I’ve ever seen!
This perfectly represents a typical red shirt protester!
All things violent are commit by a third hand, while retaliation are done upon a poor and unarmed UDD red-shirt protester!
.
PS1. Common Nick, after all you’ve done, even you gotta be pissed by these kind of action!)
PS2. Uhhh.. I’ve just spend hours talking sense and reasons into a man who apparently doesn’t have any to begin with. I don’t think I have the time to continue it anymore.
The crushing of the Red Shirts
@AntiPADShist #156
No. They didn’t sell it. They just submit it to CNN. and Yes, it’s amature and poor quality because they’re just boys with amature camera that got caugth in the act. They just post it because it’s easy and they was angry at what they witness, and wants to distribute what they saw.
They did. See the government’s compilation at
Event Face report, video clips.
It was featured somewhere in the middle of the official clip.
The narration is biased, but videos recorded don’t lie.
As mention, when I say I don’t believe, I meant I don’t believe when redshirts leaders says 50 people are killed and dragged away (but never captured by a single foreign journalist or amateur cameramen (people with camera phone) flocking every scene ), and don’t believe when protesters says “those people at Petchburi/Nang Lerng that attacked us are PAD! They’re heavily armed!”
But when you says you don’t believe, you certainly means that
this video and the other 2 and 30 more pictures of the scene must be a computer-generated imagery edited on shots that the soldier-disguised-as-students infiltrate CMMU building and shots the footage with PAD disguised as protesters fakingly throw motolovs and rammed a car into a stuntman. All shots and edits are done within 12 hours to post online by the same day, on to a fake manga blog that was created since 2005 solely to support this video in April 2009 and makes it looks legitimately from a student manga enthusiast. Yep! That must be it! I don’t believe it! (see the last paragraphs below if this is not the case)
(Note to self: what am I doing? I’m wasting hours justifying points that only morons would question, while everybody else knows that that was goin on alright.)
Online Casino Royale on Burmese soil
Thais go to Cambodia instead, just 5 hours drive from Bangkok to the Na-kleu Cambodia border, where casinos are just out side when people pass immigrations.
The crushing of the Red Shirts
(BTW. I can’t post continueing comments… It won’t show.)
@ Nick Nostitz # 159
TO NICK:
Firstly, I’m really sorry for previously beginning my comments with the word biased in bold capital letters. You don’t deserve an attack like that, it came partly from emotions i guess.
But I still wish to clarify why I feels that way. Let’s look at them not as attacks, but as constructive criticism.
(the bolds and all-caps are just emphasis; it’s not yelling! 🙂 )
1. While you elaborately describe on how the soldiers open fire, you never took time to describe most of the time the red shirts commit violence For example, we’ve seen salvos of attacks on PM’s car, and seen video of aggressive ones hiting/stroking long poles inside Nipon Prombhand’s car while he was stucked there, and you simply said all of those in one word: he was attacked.
2. You labeld every Bangkok residence who stood up against the redshirts as PAD or resident/PAD. THAT’S REALLY UNFAIR for some residents who just tried to protect their properties, and others who felt being terrorized. (Even teen slum dwellers are PAD!) People who seen their hometown raided (apparent in Pethburi road) are pissed, and they are not PAD. This made it worse when many of your source are from the red shirts. I mean… oh common! You must know the redshirt are so quick to called anyone who starts violence against them as PAD, as propagandized by their leaders. You ‘intelligence officer’ on the other hand, is a police. And you must see first-handed that the police did NOTHING to peacefully stop or restrain the redshirts from committing violence as reported by Nang Lerng residents and Sathorn-traffic-block video clip, and that’s because most police officers sided with the UDD (you must have known this as well.)
(And, in my opinion, that’s why the soldiers have to came out. (and all of you cited double standard. It’s also double standard when the police quells PADs with deadly tear gases, while doing virtually nothing to stop the red shirts rioting) The police prove before (in Pattaya) and again later in Bangkok that they aren’t willing to restrain any violence by the UDD because they’re sided with them. (most lower-rank police are from the provincial area.) If the army hasn’t made is move, despite not being trained to quelled protest, what do you think will happen? The reds will be wandering around town pillaging, vandalizing, causing havoc in the street of the capital and attacking anyone who wears yellow for the whole week.
3. You wrote about the Asean summit like a walk in the park, yet you never mention the following effects caused by the invasion how driving away 10s of National leader would effect the credibility of the country.
(Oh, i forgot, it’s not your country. Why would you care. All you cared is that the poor is always right.)<— I’m sorry… I got carried away there….I know your job is photojournalist, but it’s just that you should mention these aspects too.
Also, your attitude phrased the event like “they’re searching for Abhisit. In general, the protesters were noisy, but very well behaved” Can you imaged if they would still be well-behaved if they find Abhisit?
4. Many many of your statements starts with ‘the red shirt says’ which you know well they’re being propagandized from their leaders, and you know how they are and that strategy they’re using.
5. You must know (later on) but didn’t even mentioned many parts of the whole incident which include the more appalling cases where the red shirts DEMONIZED THEMSELVES such as the threaten to blow up gask tanker, vandalizing at Petchburi road, shooting at Nang Lerng. Yet you conclude the story like this is all there is to it, and says the red shirts are innocently crushed. You sound like they’re exising their right in democracy peacefully and democraticly but was brutally crushed by the evil junta’s soldiers.
. 5.5 I see you’ve mention that this report is incomplete. But, imagine you’re a viewer, and you read the chronological list of events, ended by the being-crushed conclusion. How can the readers not feels that all the hilights of the event is already mentioned? (it’s like advertisements with condition in small prints in the bottom.) So, please update the report to include all major events soon.
6. Just comment:Reading your articles and many red-shirt forums have portrayed me a better image of the front lines. And you, too, should occasionally put down the poor-people-is-always-right glass and look at things from other prospective as well. <— Well.. in a less serious and non-offending way… Sorry if it offends you.
Best regards,
Daniel
PS. About me, I’m a white shirt who don’t like Thaksin. And like most other white shirts who now sees that the red shirt is as , if not more, devastating than the yellow shirts.
The crushing of the Red Shirts
Hi,
@AntiPADShist #156
Um… that antipad or something… I’m not following you in many points eg. what’s an ‘official truth’? a truth is a truth. It’s a truth that (from Nick’s photo) a soldier dragged/escorted an injured old protester. And that’s as true as a crowd of people wearing red shirts in Din Deang throw motolovs and drove Taxis into the soldiers without prior threat of violent seen in the video.
Also, it is notable to mentioned that I only believe in what my eyes see, not ‘stories or events’ told by other people (but I can give a few exceptions to credible sources with photo support like Nick) because I’ve read so many ‘stories’ from the protesters saying 10, 50 or even 100 unarmed, peaceful people are shot dead and drag away ‘mysteriously’.
so let me answer you paragraph by paragraph….
Nope I pointed out that it was an English translation (you gotta read it) of the description of the event recorded by the witness. They said it in their blogs while publishing this evidence.
So… you’re saying CNN is heavily biased against the protesters to make them look bad, and has a conspiracy with the Thai government. Okie Dokie. No further question. (Meaning, DStation, is of course the only reliable news report and the only report you believe) And I assume BBC must be even more biased since they give Thaksin a really tougher interview. Nicks current report is unbiases, but when he submit it to his employer, if got publish, it suddenly became biases becuase it became mainstream media and all mainstream media is biased. Nice.
That’s my point. Many foreigners here (I assumed) don’t understand Thai so I’m bringing up the English version. Read.
Yep, and that’s exactly the thing that made this video famous! It was far away from a bird’s eye view, so viewer can get the whole picture of the area and almost all the action going on, from both sides the same time. Other professional or amateur video clips are shot from ground level, and thus lack this dept of information.
Yep! In other posts, they says there’s a protester saying the soldiers are using weapons of mass destruction against them (well, not really but you get the point.) The point is, this is one of the hunreds unsourced uncited no-single-piece-of-evidence claims made by the protesters and their leaders.
For this Din Daeng event, I read from transcript that the leaders announce on stage describing the incident “we were only gathering food supplies. There were many women among us…. when the troops approach, we shouted ‘don’t shoot, we’re unarmed’. ….Soon, there’s a lot of smoke, and there are shots being fired at us…. We scattered and ran away… There’re many of us shot and injured.. many are dead…” yada yada yada. (I admit I can’t find a reliable source, like an audio record, to back this up either. But if you ever hear their other announcement on stage, you’ll know this style of story is what they always say.)
Red faces: Unconvincing psych-ops
if i may be allowed,
@ jim taylor, c.31:
“Has Abhisit created a new Stalinist (”Land of Smiles”) social and political environment in his attempt at the coercive muting all Other truths and disparate voices?”
this is really happening, right now, right?
i’m not even going to argue. others much better capable to do tried to show again & again that “thai political” “situation” is a “fragile” one. many different powers na.
& you just go ahead and _PUBLICLY_ _CLAIM_ abhisit created a “stalinist” order?
*…
@ c.33, you speak of, “…effectively muted by this fictitious fascist state and its representatives.”
so by now abhisit is not only stalinist but also fascist.
& i guess if i disagree with throwing around strong pejorative labels… i’ll be included, by guilt of association?
*…
& now,
if i say i appreciate people like Dickie Simpkins, c.38; nobody, c.34; land of snarls, c.30; Vichai N —
does that imply that these people i never met before all belong to that same same stalinist/fascist group?
just because they don’t share your notions? just because they insist on some ethical standards?
“Just leave him alone”
@ Srithanonchai, c.5
maybe it’s ok i was allowed to release some tense & tight emotional clusters na 😉
imho, nigel woodward in c.6, gives a fair reading/interpretation.
*…
actually, i think, it’s funny you get so excited about hitler/thaksin. it’s ridiculous to draw that kind of comparison. hitler indulged in some really sick “para-ideology”. whereas thaksin does _not_ indulge in _any_ ideology; esp not “democracy” na.
hitler was underdog off-spring of european 19th century. thaksin is off-spring of elite sino-thai 20th/21st century.
i tried to point at the “weaknesses” of systemic structures of civil society.
i don’t want to blame bad & evil people. it’s up to “commons” to contain & reform abuse of power.
The crushing of the Red Shirts
DanielCU #153
Just a quick comment on your video link and news footage and pictures in general.
Very good pictures and video force you to ask a question. That’s the nature of journalistic photography. When you look at a picture ask yourself what the picture is conveying and what’s happening in the background. Go up and look at Nicks pic nn-17s. Look in the background that gives you a good feeling of the situation at that point in time.
Your video link screams to me. It screams where is the rest of the video that abruptly stops at a volley of gunfire. It asks the questions what happened next? Why it was stopped? Was anyone shot? What happened in the early morning? and a thousand other questions. It’s not the footage that we look at it’s the footage we do not have that begs to ask the questions.
Just like Nick’s picture of the bus (nn-59s) answers the question of live rounds for us. Yes they were used and no they were not all fired into the air. nn-33s & nn-34s tell us that the blue shirts were condoned by, if not part of, the security plan at Asean. You just have to look at the pictures.
Maybe, like in the past, the bodies just disappeared and maybe there were not any, but denials about the usage of the bullets and the Blue shirts must have us ask the question and investigate further.