Gaybutton Posted May 21, 2010 Posted May 21, 2010 PM: Order is Restored in Bangkok, Provinces Published: 21/05/2010 Order has been restored in Bangkok and other provinces and the government will continue to swiftly restore normality throughout the country, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in a nationwide televised address on Friday. "You can be assured that this government has every intention of moving the country forward, restoring order, making sure that our recovery is well on track, and that we will do so in a transparent manner," he said. An independent investigation into unrest in Bangkok will be held and rehabilitation will be part of the plan to bring the country forward. "We recognise that as we move ahead there are huge challenges ahead of us, particularly the challenge of overcoming the divisions that have arisen in this country," he said. PM: Order is restored in Bangkok, provinces ____________________ Thailand Works to Restore Order By the CNN Wire Staff May 21, 2010 Bangkok, Thailand (CNN) -- Thai officials created two programs Friday aimed at returning life to normal in the nation's capital after clashes between anti-government protesters and troops crippled the city for days, a government spokesman said. A rapid-response team of police and civilian city officials will start patrolling Bangkok to ensure stability, prevent disruptions and help people resume their daily lives, spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said. And a new business relief center will give companies that nee assistance a chance to register, starting at 3 p.m. (4 a.m. ET). "We'll be looking for measures in the next few days to make sure that in this transitional period, Thai society is in the process of healing," Panitan said. A dusk-to-dawn curfew for 24 provinces is scheduled to remain in place through Sunday. Thai premier unveils reconciliation plan after chaos - CNN.com Quote
Guest fountainhall Posted May 21, 2010 Posted May 21, 2010 "What's Next?" is surely the crucial issue for everyone involved in the fiasco of the last few weeks. On another thread, KhorTose and I sparred a bit on revolutions, how they come about and how they are funded. We stopped the discussion when it ventured away from the basic thread. But we could equally have gone on to look in some detail at the outcomes of various world revolutions. Of course, Thailand has not yet had a full-scale revolution (although some posters seem to think it may come soon), and so any discussion may be somewhat premature. But it does strike me that whilst the causes of revolutions are often fairly obvious, the results are in many cases not what the people expected - or even wanted. Can we really say that the Russian people were in general better off after their revolution? Did they foresee the outbreak of civil war in the countryside, or the emergence of Stalin who not only liquidated millions but displaced countless millions more? The same goes for China. After Mao came to power in 1949, the lot of the ordinary Chinese showed little if any improvement at all. Indeed, with the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Let the 100 Flowers Bloom" campaigns, tens of millions are known to have starved to death. Many others died or were later persecuted in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. So the benefits for the poor in both China and Russia did not start to trickle through the system for many decades - and only after many of their revolutions' original aims were completely abandoned. I fully accept that these are two extreme examples, and one could quite easily list others with more benign outcomes. I cite them only in the hope that it may spur a bit of discussion - bearing in mind the constraints on content which have also been the subject of another thread. Quote
