There were many murders on both sides.
However, you criticise others for not answering your questions whilst hiding behind you rhetoric against Thaksin. Whilst I agree that Thaksin was corrupt and accused of murdering Thais at Tak Bi his govt was less corrupt than all govts before him and the Abhisit govt.
Look at my previous comments about the numbers of military importing weapons to the drunken murderous so called security guards.
There are many questions where answers are needed but unfortunately the military will never give any answers to their crimes against the people. Neither will you as your theories are so off the map to be useless.
Thaksin is only a very small player in this fight for real democracy as he will not deliver it. He is history.The sooner you realise this the better.
Three of us ladies went to Phnom Penh with the intention of giving financial support to SMF. We met with one of their representatives in a building that looked like the Taj Mahal. It was empty except for some office furniture. The rep who was from Australia had nothing good to say about the Cambodian people which we did not like and sent up red flags about this foundation. We asked how many young woman they are helping and she said 200. Wow, just 200 when they received so much money and other NGO’s we were meeting with helped hundreds more with a fraction of the money. We left with a bad feeling and decided not to give to this organization. We met with a lovely young woman who was saved from the sex slave industry. I left her a few dollars but wondered if she even got it. Sometimes you need to trust your gut feelings. I’m sure this started out with the right intentions but money and fame changed that.
Yes, views on this subject may differ, including his and mine.
Such differences are not a defect, to be deplored, but are legitimate, and are best aired and explored.
It would be a boring world if there were no differences of opinion on important matters.
As for Tony’s view that “If the debate continues to develop in Malaysia it will be important to look hard at the historical record, including the key public documentation”, I have two points to suggest now.
First, that it is not, or should not be, a matter of “if”.
Rather, it is important that such a public debate should be conducted – which means that the conditions for making such a serious public discussion possible need to be established and ensured.
That is the only way that the matter can be clarified – and, what is more, that the constitution can ever become a truly living document and national legacy.
And second, I agree that the historical record needs to be reviewed.
That means looking at all the relevant “public documentation”.
That, in turn, means that all the key documentation needs to be made public.
As I said on this matter in 2009 when the existence of the “Tujuh Wasiat Raja-raja Melayu” was first revealed, “Those who now wish to invoke the 1957 wasiat and make it render important political service might well make that document, its provenance and transmission and all relevant related materials publicly available. The foundations of modern nationhood cannot be left shrouded in mystery.”
As one would expect there is a lot of propaganda and selective reporting from both sides of the anti-coup debate and som ehave vested interests.
Most Thais have tired of the dysfunctional governments that they experience. Thaksin’s populist policies were welcomed because of the immediate benefits not because anyone believed he was the “freedom fighter” that was going to change Thai democracy and bleed the elites until the pips squeaked. They were and are aware of the hierarchical, feudal nature of Thailand and that the Shiniwatra clique is part of that.
The early promises and actions of the military were welcomed. Few liked the curfew but they liked the attempts at tackling corruption. The most significant action of the army, which resulted in some censorship abroad, is something of which Thais are most happy about.
The fear is that the military will get too big for its boots and go too far. Dealing with immigrant labour for example. Though there has been some misinformation about that.
As far as I know, the Cocos Malays, like the Cham minority in Cambodia (who are of Malay origin and are Muslim) have the “Right of Return” to Malaysia. Malaysia has specific laws that allows non-resident ‘Malays’ the right to Malaysian citizenship, based on common ethnicity and common religion. Some Chams have migrated to Malaysia, as well as Cocos Island Malays, though there remains a substantial Cham community in Cambodia, and
Cocos Malays, scattered across Australia,
Singapore, Indonesia, Pacific Islands and Malaysia. This “Right of Return” is not widely known, even among Malaysians, but is legal fact in Malaysia, ironic given Malaysia’s critical foreign policy views regarding some other nation’s legal “Right of Return”. In fact, the southern Filipino Muslims from Mindanao, Tawi-Tawi and Palawan who enter Sabah illegally, are all given Malay identity cards, proving that Malays in Malaysia, very much believe in strength in numbers. Who is a Malay, often decided by the
ruling UMNO/BN government, and is as much
ethnically consistent, as it is politically motivated.
With labor shortages in Thailand and the junta putting price controls on various staples, it appears the Junta things it can outlaw the law of supply and demand.
for some level of business size, maybe only ethic matters. As your company grow, you realize that you badly need highly capable people.
let’s say Singapore is the cleanest city in the region.
does it have the most ethical society? No.
When singaporean arrived in Batam, Indonesia, they will throw rubbish wherever they litter and spit everywhere.
Ethical? No. They’r just smart to set a regulation that people will follow. 500 bucks for spitting. insane.
Well I don’t say that ethic is not important. it IS important. but Jokowi proposing 80% ethic 20% substance for Elementary School, that’s just wrong.
So far Robert Dayley had not answered my specific question (see #14.5.1) why he believes that without any ‘General Prayuth intervention’, the escalating murderous violence (mainly one-sided btw with black shirts bombing and shooting at unarmed the Kamnan-led ‘uproot’ protesters on a near daily basis) would cease by itself.
I know at least one condo developer who is livid; he depends entirely on illegal Burmese workers to build his skyscraping luxury condos in the heart of Bangkok. He’s a wealthy Bangkok-based Chinese-Thai from an even wealthier “traditional royalist” family. Reality dawns.
Mark, have you observed this yourself, or seen it reported? I’ve Googled but found no news of it. I did find several glowing travel reviews of the Burmese at the Phra Khanong market, which adds a sad personal dimension to what you’ve described.
This year’s Asian Studies Association of Australia conference has a panel on religious dimensions of Indonesian and Malaysian migrations. I will be presenting in that.
notdisappointed
You seem to have swallowed the line ‘it’s all Thaksin’s fault hook line ans sinker.
PMs can be good bad or indifferent, fortunately they come and go. Don’t destroy democracy just because you don’t like one PM.
Do you really think the latest coup will solve anything? It’s just more of the same that has been going on for the last 70 years.
when the military is under government control and we are sure we have seen the last coup, then we can get on with democracy.
BTW if we ever have free and fair elections
I shall be cheering for the Common People party Thailand. Check it out.
Seriously, if you get a certain percentage of the people of the country filthy rich so that they and their off-springs can hide out in foreign places- taking away their money- and there are shiny buildings and shopping malls and big roads that are photogenic, what is the problem with the other 80% (PROLES) sinking in filth?
That is exactly what we are trying get in Burma. Don’t tell me that sort of Greater Goal we are striving impatiently for along with our Chinese and the West/ IMF/ WB, etc., etc. partners in Burma is not right.
In filth, we trust. As there is nothing else for the people to do anyway.
Thanks for the comment, am wondering if you know of any essays or research papers detailing the lives of Cocos Malays? For e.g. how they differ from Malaysian or Singaporean Malays, and how much social ‘integration’ into Australian society has happened since Australia took hold of it.
During a visit to the WA town of Katanning last December I checked out the local mosque. A congregation of about twenty men were doing the sunset prayer when I dropped by. I was very well received and had a long chat with several of them (all men, there were no women at the mosque that night). All but one of the congregation were of Cocos Malay origin or descent. Most had been living in Katanning for at least twenty years. I conversed with them wholly in Malay-Indonesian and found their Malay (at least the Malay of the three or four I chatted with) to be well preserved, clear and comprehensible despite their long residence on the Australian mainland. They seemed to have a nostalgia for their Cocos homeland but had no intention of moving back. One remarked that his two daughters had both been educated in Katanning, had moved away to work, and were no longer really fluent in Malay. They felt well accepted in Katanning but they preserved a strong sense of their special identity. The mosque was clearly an important social (as well as religious) centre for them.
Is it the case that a constitutional referendum can only be passed with “at least 50% of eligible voters”? The 2007 referendum was supported by less than 1/3 of eligible voters – 57.81% voted in favour but only 57.61% of the eligible electorate voted at all.
NM-mites sure do love throwing the word ‘democracy’ around. Elections are what democray is pure and simple; whatever comes from it democracy will resolve – ONE DAY, through elections. As though just that word and an free and fair election will solve the ills of the country. How naive and how so NM.
What you guys don’t get is or try very hard to disseminate and obfuscate, is that those elections in Thailand where the majority of the votes went to thaksin or his surrogates actually allowed them to use this so-called ‘majority’ to create a ‘tyranny of democracy’ or what is called ‘majoritarianism’.
It gave them the ligitimacy, because of your vaunted and vanilla democracy, elections to bastardized the real and honest ideals of ‘democracy’. A democracy that doesn’t just have elections as its main goal.
It gave them the keys to the piggy-bank – giving he and his puppets free-rein over the tresury of the country.
It gave him free-rein to create a fascist police-state.
It gave them a license to kill 3,000 men, women and childen including some small-time drug pushers, without actually shutting down the drug factories; with no arrests or siezures of assets of any druglords, many of whom were financiers and ministers of his party and government.
It gave him a license to torture and let die 83 Muslims at Tak Bai and 20+ at Krue Sae.
It allowed him to disappear during his regime, his surrogates and sisiter’s regimes, many human-rights activists and opponenets.
It allowed him and his red shirts to create and run state-sponsored a terrorist group to intimidate, harass, kill and maim opponents.
It allowed him to use the country’s advertising budget to corral local and international media, lobbyists, and journalists such as the ill-informed and predjudiced J. Head, and A. Marshall the most biased, vociferous and predjudiced amongst all of you.
It gave him free-rein, becourse of a parliamentary dictatorship stemming from your elections; to push through without any checks and balances improper and irregular fiscally unsound spending programs must of which was used to line the pockets of family and cronies.
The evils of thaksinism is endless but never one mention of them in your obfuscations, half truths and disseminations.
So at the end of the day corrution, graft, democratic tyranny, a fascist police state intimdations, harassment, murder, and etc., is preferable, as long as it comes through elections.
But a reset and reform of this, while democracy is growing and doing away with the loopholes and ability to undermine democracy is not.
Finally one question comes to mind;
How does one reform democracy and do away with corruption and graft, when the crooks have the majority and who control the ability to bribe abd buy votes with populist programs and enriching themselves at the same time?
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
Seven questions for Thailand’s military
There were many murders on both sides.
However, you criticise others for not answering your questions whilst hiding behind you rhetoric against Thaksin. Whilst I agree that Thaksin was corrupt and accused of murdering Thais at Tak Bi his govt was less corrupt than all govts before him and the Abhisit govt.
Look at my previous comments about the numbers of military importing weapons to the drunken murderous so called security guards.
There are many questions where answers are needed but unfortunately the military will never give any answers to their crimes against the people. Neither will you as your theories are so off the map to be useless.
Thaksin is only a very small player in this fight for real democracy as he will not deliver it. He is history.The sooner you realise this the better.
What’s the truth behind Somaly Mam?
Three of us ladies went to Phnom Penh with the intention of giving financial support to SMF. We met with one of their representatives in a building that looked like the Taj Mahal. It was empty except for some office furniture. The rep who was from Australia had nothing good to say about the Cambodian people which we did not like and sent up red flags about this foundation. We asked how many young woman they are helping and she said 200. Wow, just 200 when they received so much money and other NGO’s we were meeting with helped hundreds more with a fraction of the money. We left with a bad feeling and decided not to give to this organization. We met with a lovely young woman who was saved from the sex slave industry. I left her a few dollars but wondered if she even got it. Sometimes you need to trust your gut feelings. I’m sure this started out with the right intentions but money and fame changed that.
The confusion about “Constitutional Monarchy” in Malaysia
I thank Tony for his gracious comment.
Yes, views on this subject may differ, including his and mine.
Such differences are not a defect, to be deplored, but are legitimate, and are best aired and explored.
It would be a boring world if there were no differences of opinion on important matters.
As for Tony’s view that “If the debate continues to develop in Malaysia it will be important to look hard at the historical record, including the key public documentation”, I have two points to suggest now.
First, that it is not, or should not be, a matter of “if”.
Rather, it is important that such a public debate should be conducted – which means that the conditions for making such a serious public discussion possible need to be established and ensured.
That is the only way that the matter can be clarified – and, what is more, that the constitution can ever become a truly living document and national legacy.
And second, I agree that the historical record needs to be reviewed.
That means looking at all the relevant “public documentation”.
That, in turn, means that all the key documentation needs to be made public.
As I said on this matter in 2009 when the existence of the “Tujuh Wasiat Raja-raja Melayu” was first revealed, “Those who now wish to invoke the 1957 wasiat and make it render important political service might well make that document, its provenance and transmission and all relevant related materials publicly available. The foundations of modern nationhood cannot be left shrouded in mystery.”
Clive Kessler
Ominous signs for migrant workers in Thailand
Fantastic post, Charlie – the point about Chan-Ocha’s dissertation is particularly interesting..
Mr. Heinecke cannot have his coup and eat it too
As one would expect there is a lot of propaganda and selective reporting from both sides of the anti-coup debate and som ehave vested interests.
Most Thais have tired of the dysfunctional governments that they experience. Thaksin’s populist policies were welcomed because of the immediate benefits not because anyone believed he was the “freedom fighter” that was going to change Thai democracy and bleed the elites until the pips squeaked. They were and are aware of the hierarchical, feudal nature of Thailand and that the Shiniwatra clique is part of that.
The early promises and actions of the military were welcomed. Few liked the curfew but they liked the attempts at tackling corruption. The most significant action of the army, which resulted in some censorship abroad, is something of which Thais are most happy about.
The fear is that the military will get too big for its boots and go too far. Dealing with immigrant labour for example. Though there has been some misinformation about that.
Australia’s Malay population
As far as I know, the Cocos Malays, like the Cham minority in Cambodia (who are of Malay origin and are Muslim) have the “Right of Return” to Malaysia. Malaysia has specific laws that allows non-resident ‘Malays’ the right to Malaysian citizenship, based on common ethnicity and common religion. Some Chams have migrated to Malaysia, as well as Cocos Island Malays, though there remains a substantial Cham community in Cambodia, and
Cocos Malays, scattered across Australia,
Singapore, Indonesia, Pacific Islands and Malaysia. This “Right of Return” is not widely known, even among Malaysians, but is legal fact in Malaysia, ironic given Malaysia’s critical foreign policy views regarding some other nation’s legal “Right of Return”. In fact, the southern Filipino Muslims from Mindanao, Tawi-Tawi and Palawan who enter Sabah illegally, are all given Malay identity cards, proving that Malays in Malaysia, very much believe in strength in numbers. Who is a Malay, often decided by the
ruling UMNO/BN government, and is as much
ethnically consistent, as it is politically motivated.
“Foreign influence” in Red Shirt demonstrations
With labor shortages in Thailand and the junta putting price controls on various staples, it appears the Junta things it can outlaw the law of supply and demand.
So what is Jokowi’s message?
for some level of business size, maybe only ethic matters. As your company grow, you realize that you badly need highly capable people.
let’s say Singapore is the cleanest city in the region.
does it have the most ethical society? No.
When singaporean arrived in Batam, Indonesia, they will throw rubbish wherever they litter and spit everywhere.
Ethical? No. They’r just smart to set a regulation that people will follow. 500 bucks for spitting. insane.
Well I don’t say that ethic is not important. it IS important. but Jokowi proposing 80% ethic 20% substance for Elementary School, that’s just wrong.
Seven questions for Thailand’s military
So far Robert Dayley had not answered my specific question (see #14.5.1) why he believes that without any ‘General Prayuth intervention’, the escalating murderous violence (mainly one-sided btw with black shirts bombing and shooting at unarmed the Kamnan-led ‘uproot’ protesters on a near daily basis) would cease by itself.
Ominous signs for migrant workers in Thailand
I know at least one condo developer who is livid; he depends entirely on illegal Burmese workers to build his skyscraping luxury condos in the heart of Bangkok. He’s a wealthy Bangkok-based Chinese-Thai from an even wealthier “traditional royalist” family. Reality dawns.
Australia’s Malay population
Thanks for your comments. The Cocos Malays migrated to Singapore, Tawau (Borneo), Perth, Katanning, Bunbury, Geraldton and Port Hedland in the post-war years in sizable numbers. A diaspora thus exists now. Monika Winarnita and I wrote about marriage migration from that diaspora back to Home Island in a recent article, if you’re interested:
https://www.academia.edu/1968986/Caring_and_Family_Compatibility_in_marriage_migration_to_the_Cocos_Keeling_Islands
“Foreign influence” in Red Shirt demonstrations
Mark, have you observed this yourself, or seen it reported? I’ve Googled but found no news of it. I did find several glowing travel reviews of the Burmese at the Phra Khanong market, which adds a sad personal dimension to what you’ve described.
Australia’s Malay population
If you’re looking for sources on the Cocos Malays, I have started a bibliography at:
http://nicholasherriman.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/sources-on-cocos-keeling-islands.html
This year’s Asian Studies Association of Australia conference has a panel on religious dimensions of Indonesian and Malaysian migrations. I will be presenting in that.
The decline of Lao civil society
Thank you for your work and your article. I appreciate your work.
Seven questions for Thailand’s military
notdisappointed
You seem to have swallowed the line ‘it’s all Thaksin’s fault hook line ans sinker.
PMs can be good bad or indifferent, fortunately they come and go. Don’t destroy democracy just because you don’t like one PM.
Do you really think the latest coup will solve anything? It’s just more of the same that has been going on for the last 70 years.
when the military is under government control and we are sure we have seen the last coup, then we can get on with democracy.
BTW if we ever have free and fair elections
I shall be cheering for the Common People party Thailand. Check it out.
What goes unsaid: Indonesia’s environment
Seriously, if you get a certain percentage of the people of the country filthy rich so that they and their off-springs can hide out in foreign places- taking away their money- and there are shiny buildings and shopping malls and big roads that are photogenic, what is the problem with the other 80% (PROLES) sinking in filth?
That is exactly what we are trying get in Burma. Don’t tell me that sort of Greater Goal we are striving impatiently for along with our Chinese and the West/ IMF/ WB, etc., etc. partners in Burma is not right.
In filth, we trust. As there is nothing else for the people to do anyway.
Australia’s Malay population
Thanks for the comment, am wondering if you know of any essays or research papers detailing the lives of Cocos Malays? For e.g. how they differ from Malaysian or Singaporean Malays, and how much social ‘integration’ into Australian society has happened since Australia took hold of it.
Australia’s Malay population
During a visit to the WA town of Katanning last December I checked out the local mosque. A congregation of about twenty men were doing the sunset prayer when I dropped by. I was very well received and had a long chat with several of them (all men, there were no women at the mosque that night). All but one of the congregation were of Cocos Malay origin or descent. Most had been living in Katanning for at least twenty years. I conversed with them wholly in Malay-Indonesian and found their Malay (at least the Malay of the three or four I chatted with) to be well preserved, clear and comprehensible despite their long residence on the Australian mainland. They seemed to have a nostalgia for their Cocos homeland but had no intention of moving back. One remarked that his two daughters had both been educated in Katanning, had moved away to work, and were no longer really fluent in Malay. They felt well accepted in Katanning but they preserved a strong sense of their special identity. The mosque was clearly an important social (as well as religious) centre for them.
Seven questions for Thailand’s military
Is it the case that a constitutional referendum can only be passed with “at least 50% of eligible voters”? The 2007 referendum was supported by less than 1/3 of eligible voters – 57.81% voted in favour but only 57.61% of the eligible electorate voted at all.
Seven questions for Thailand’s military
NM-mites sure do love throwing the word ‘democracy’ around. Elections are what democray is pure and simple; whatever comes from it democracy will resolve – ONE DAY, through elections. As though just that word and an free and fair election will solve the ills of the country. How naive and how so NM.
What you guys don’t get is or try very hard to disseminate and obfuscate, is that those elections in Thailand where the majority of the votes went to thaksin or his surrogates actually allowed them to use this so-called ‘majority’ to create a ‘tyranny of democracy’ or what is called ‘majoritarianism’.
It gave them the ligitimacy, because of your vaunted and vanilla democracy, elections to bastardized the real and honest ideals of ‘democracy’. A democracy that doesn’t just have elections as its main goal.
It gave them the keys to the piggy-bank – giving he and his puppets free-rein over the tresury of the country.
It gave him free-rein to create a fascist police-state.
It gave them a license to kill 3,000 men, women and childen including some small-time drug pushers, without actually shutting down the drug factories; with no arrests or siezures of assets of any druglords, many of whom were financiers and ministers of his party and government.
It gave him a license to torture and let die 83 Muslims at Tak Bai and 20+ at Krue Sae.
It allowed him to disappear during his regime, his surrogates and sisiter’s regimes, many human-rights activists and opponenets.
It allowed him and his red shirts to create and run state-sponsored a terrorist group to intimidate, harass, kill and maim opponents.
It allowed him to use the country’s advertising budget to corral local and international media, lobbyists, and journalists such as the ill-informed and predjudiced J. Head, and A. Marshall the most biased, vociferous and predjudiced amongst all of you.
It gave him free-rein, becourse of a parliamentary dictatorship stemming from your elections; to push through without any checks and balances improper and irregular fiscally unsound spending programs must of which was used to line the pockets of family and cronies.
The evils of thaksinism is endless but never one mention of them in your obfuscations, half truths and disseminations.
So at the end of the day corrution, graft, democratic tyranny, a fascist police state intimdations, harassment, murder, and etc., is preferable, as long as it comes through elections.
But a reset and reform of this, while democracy is growing and doing away with the loopholes and ability to undermine democracy is not.
Finally one question comes to mind;
How does one reform democracy and do away with corruption and graft, when the crooks have the majority and who control the ability to bribe abd buy votes with populist programs and enriching themselves at the same time?