More Fighting in Thailand in the Next Two Months?

[TotallyOz]

I have a few friends that are part of the higher ups with the Yellow Shirts. I have known them for over 20 years and back to my undergrad days. I had dinner with them recently and they predicted that there would be more fighting in the next 1-2 months.

 

According to them, the government is going to try to find a way for Thaskin to get his money back if if that happens, all bets are off with regard to how big the hatred will get.

 

Being state side for a long time, I had not heard much about this recently and I guess I thought it was a thing of the past. I thought when the new Prime Minister was elected that the people knew she would try to get the money back for her brother. Am I wrong?

 

Also, for those that know this country and politics more than I do, can you envision more fighting in the coming months?

[KhorTose]

I have a few friends that are part of the higher ups with the Yellow Shirts.

 

Really?? I have never met anyone who is a yellow shirt, but I live in Chiang Mai and I am not terribly rich. Most of the people who oppose the red shirts seem very anti democratic and they belittle the red shirts as ignorant farmers, despite the fact that they are clearly the majority in any free election. I almost feel like asking you if they goose step when the walk, but that would be rude.

 

According to them, the government is going to try to find a way for Thaskin to get his money back if if that happens, all bets are off with regard to how big the hatred will get. Being state side for a long time, I had not heard much about this recently and I guess I thought it was a thing of the past. I thought when the new Prime Minister was elected that the people knew she would try to get the money back for her brother. Am I wrong?

 

Yes, it does look like one of this governments high priorities is to return Thaksin and allow him to get his money back. However, that is not what they said when they were running. I have to admit I am disappointed in some ways that this is one of their goals. However, what Thaksin was tried for was bunk, and what he should have been tried for was already being done by politicians on both sides, so I am not sure what is fair. However, the fact they were so low key on this issue prior to the election does make the red shirts look pretty bad.

 

Also, for those that know this country and politics more than I do, can you envision more fighting in the coming months?

 

I doubt it. In light of the clear red shirt majority and current world affairs I believe that even the yellow shirts realize that Thailand will be severely damaged if this was to occur. However, with the yellow shirts total unwillingness to share power with the not-connected and rural, and leaders like Sondi, anything is possible. Furthermore, if the Yellow shirts were to seize power, my red shirt friends seem prepared this time to make it a civil war. In which case I would hate to be a farang in Thailand

[Rogie]

Furthermore, if the Yellow shirts were to seize power, my red shirt friends seem prepared this time to make it a civil war.

 

That would be my guess too. But can the Yellow shirts seize power? They can certainly try something along the lines of their blockade of the airport or Parliament, but would they succeed? Probably unlikely. The airport manoevre was devastating and showed their ruthless disregard for anything other than themselves. Perhaps you could say the same thing about the Red shirts occupation of a part of central Bangkok, paralysing many businesses.

 

No, I do not think the Yellow shirts can do much without the army on their side.

 

The government have to tread carefully to avoid alienating the army and they have to be careful not to fall into the trap many in the establishment are only too ready and willing to spring, but that topic is best not gone into here.

[Bob]

The only group that possibly could seize power in the country is the army. Whether the yellow shirts can egg them on again (repeating what happened in 2006), I'm not sure.

 

But I can't see any civil war. Thais in general are simply too politically docile. After the coup occurred in 2006, I asked a couple of Thai friends in Chiangmai what they thought about the army seizing power and the answer I got from both was "not my business." I was dumbfounded by the answer (in the US, an attempted coup would be met within hours by 30-40 million armed civilians on the streets) and wondered who's business it was if not theirs!

 

Michael, when you say the "yellow shirts", who do you mean? The PAD wackos? For god's and sanity's sake, I hope your acqaintenances have no connection at all with one of the PAD leaders, ol' wacky Sondhi Limongkul! He's quite the piece of work.

[Guest snapshot]

My BF's being getting more and more calls from people he knows in Thailand who want to get out and come to Australia to study or work... I wonder if this has anything to do with it.

[Rogie]

I have a few friends that are part of the higher ups with the Yellow Shirts.

I was doing some business with a senior figure in the Yellow Shirts a few months ago

 

Ha! I love it when people make those kinds of comments. Usually they are proved wrong, but there's the rub, not always. So it would certainly pay to keep on top of the various manoeuvrings behind the scenes. I agree the two most likely tinder boxes are the two referred to by Michael and HeyGay.

 

I don't know why Snapshot's BF's Thai contacts are wanting out - why not ask your BF next time you see him Snapshot? Presumably the only Thais with a realistic chance of getting a work permit in Australia are those with expertise the Aussies themselves are in need of.

[KhorTose]

My BF's being getting more and more calls from people he knows in Thailand who want to get out and come to Australia to study or work... I wonder if this has anything to do with it.

 

All right anything can happen. We not only got heyguy back but BeachLover is here again. Next, I am waiting for Mother Theresa to raise from the grave

[Guest thaiworthy]

Next, I am waiting for Mother Theresa to raise from the grave

 

Here I am. Bless you, my son. Now for my next feat of magic . . .

[Guest HeyGay]

Don't wish for what you can't deal with, if BL is here or one of his other handles , Combat and Co....you will open pandora out if the box again, like riding a bucking bronco machine with the ride of your life, so try not to out him, unless he goes away, as we know bitterness eats the host like rust

[Guest jomtien]

There are things that just don't get talked about on the boards.

 

You would think people would know this by now.

 

But noooooooooooooooo.

 

Thread locked

[Guest jomtien]

Back by popular demand.......

 

Thread opened!

[KhorTose]

Thanks for listening.

[Guest fountainhall]

I second that!

[Guest fountainhall]

Returning loosely to the subject of the thread, there’s an interesting article in today’s Nation about what it terms the “paradox” facing the country. It highlights the plight of two women. One is the mother of a young lady killed during the April 2010 crackdown; the other is the widow of an Army officer killed while attempting to repel a red-shirt protestor. Both seek justice for the deaths. As the writers claim –

 

How can the first woman see justice and the second one see peace restored with partisan politics playing a bigger role than truth where the cases of their loved ones are concerned?

 

Pessimists, they point out, cannot see justice being served. And even if everyone tries his best “a paradox can occur.” This would arise if some red shirt members are convicted of “terrorism; yet at the same time, the claims of a massacre are upheld. Both sides then become equally guilty.

 

There is another scenario. If the "terrorists" are found guilty, then the case against the authorities deemed responsible for the shooting could be automatically weakened. Alternatively, if the "terrorist" suspects are acquitted, the claim of a “massacre” will carry a lot more weight.

 

The writers also acknowledge the problem facing the Attorney General’s office. This is pursuing the claims of “terrorism” but is supposed to be a neutral body. Another government agency, the Department of Special Investigation, is pursuing the case of those deemed responsible for shooting the red-shirts! With both agencies under government influence, how can they impartially handle cases that “underline the country’s political divide?”

 

In other words, how can we expect justice from this kind of situation?

 

http://www.nationmul...c-30189130.html

[Rogie]

Pessimists, they point out, cannot see justice being served. And even if everyone tries his best “a paradox can occur.” This would arise if some red shirt members are convicted of “terrorism; yet at the same time, the claims of a massacre are upheld. Both sides then become equally guilty.

 

There is another scenario. If the "terrorists" are found guilty, then the case against the authorities deemed responsible for the shooting could be automatically weakened. Alternatively, if the "terrorist" suspects are acquitted, the claim of a “massacre” will carry a lot more weight.

 

There were so many incidents in spring 2010 I cannot see how to avoid 'paradoxes' happening. Neither side can claim wholesale rights to being in the clear as far as acting outside the law is concerned. One skirmish may be the red shirts 'fault', another the army's, and so on. To just take two examples as cited in the OP, the 'young lady' and the 'widow', and focus the microscope on to those without recourse to the bigger picture running in the background seems far too skewed to me. Unless we are talking about setting some sort of precedent - such a happens in law when a new situation arises that needs clarification - dealing in isolated cases doesn't seem that helpful other than to the individuals concerned (the 'young lady' and 'widow' in this case). What about everybody else with a grievance? When do they get their chance to see 'fair play'?

 

The writers also acknowledge the problem facing the Attorney General’s office. This is pursuing the claims of “terrorism” but is supposed to be a neutral body. Another government agency, the Department of Special Investigation, is pursuing the case of those deemed responsible for shooting the red-shirts! With both agencies under government influence, how can they impartially handle cases that “underline the country’s political divide?”

 

I don't know anything about the mechanisms of government to be able to comment on that. Does anyone with a good knowledge of Thailand have any idea how the proposed system as described above could be improved on?

[Bob]

There were so many incidents in spring 2010 I cannot see how to avoid 'paradoxes' happening. Neither side can claim wholesale rights to being in the clear as far as acting outside the law is concerned. One skirmish may be the red shirts 'fault', another the army's, and so on.

 

From my point of view, one can't look at or understand the events of 2010 without being aware of prior history. The redshirts, in my view, were reacting in large part to the coup and the events that preceded the coup. Remember, the yellowshirts occupied Government House for 6+ months and then also occupied the international airport for a week or more - all without police or soldiers attacking them (and, from what I've seen so far, essentially no retribution at all). Had that happened in the west, the cops would have been in there in minutes/hours and a whole lot of people would have been thrashed and sent to jail. Anyway, back to the point of this story, everybody (including the redshirts) could see that such actions were taken without any real consequence. So, instead of occupying a seat of government or the airport, they chose for whatever reason to occupy a section of the business district. My guess is that they (the redshirts) thought there would be little or no repercussions from doing that (thinking they would be treated the same as the yellowshirts mobs).

 

They obviously were wrong as the essentially army-arranged government ultimately reacted otherwise. And, to be fair, there was some provocation by small numbers of redshirts and by other unknown groups (either disguised redshirts, army or pad provocateurs, or whatever). And there's no doubt that some things just happened and events spirralled out of control.

 

But the redshirts represented, for better or worse, the have-nots and the government/army/yellowshirts represented the amataya or, if you like, the elite. That's the divide that's always existed in Thailand and "them-that-have" have always had a tendency to react badly to any element of Thai society that either criticizes them or, god forbid, actually might demand a fair piece of the action.

 

Unless/until there is a fairer division of the wealth and power of the country, things ain't gonna change. The only issue is whether the have-nots will ever get to the point of some form of revolution and that, in my view, just isn't in the cards. As noted above, I asked several Thais what they thought of the coup after it happened and universally I got the same answer: "not my business." While I first thought that maybe the answer might have been a polite way to say they didn't want to discuss such a topic with a foreigner, I recalled that I knew most of them well and they weren't reluctant to discuss much more sensitive topics with me before; so, I've somewhat concluded that Thais really don't "have it in them" (for better or worse) to fight for certain democratic principles we take for granted in the west.

 

I don't evision further fighting, at least not within the forseeable future.

[Guest fountainhall]


. . . focus the microscope on to those without recourse to the bigger picture running in the background seems far too skewed to me

 

I am sure the authors merely selected these as examples of what was, as you suggest, a much bigger picture.

 


The redshirts, in my view, were reacting in large part to the coup and the events that preceded the coup. Remember, the yellowshirts occupied Government House for 6+ months and then also occupied the international airport for a week or more - all without police or soldiers attacking them (and, from what I've seen so far, essentially no retribution at all) . . . instead of occupying a seat of government or the airport, they chose for whatever reason to occupy a section of the business district

 

I believe Khun Bob is essentially correct. The catalyst was the yellow shirts seeming to get off scot free with massive disruption. And the underlying cause was the disparity of wealth, power and influence within Thai society.

 

Whether we liked him or not (and I didn’t, despite some good he did for the people), Thaksin’s populism opened the floodgates. There had been demonstrations before in Thailand’s shaky democracy. I was in the city during the May 1992 crackdown when anti-government protests resulted in killing. The 1973 massacre was much worse. Yet 2010 was on a scale so much larger than ever before. I believe any responsible government should have – and could have – moved in to restore order at a much earlier stage, at least to ensure that the protest did not move in to the city centre. In that case, violence just might have been avoided. But, as in the case of the yellow shirts, the government was totally paralysed. In the earlier case, no attempt was made to bring in forces to protect the airport when the yellow shirts intentions were obvious. In a rather typical Thai way, both governments avoided confrontation, rather as though by dismissing the problems they would just go away. So neither government emerged with any credibility, in my view.

 

But let’s remember for a moment what happened when the red-shirt protestors left the bridge area and moved in to Rajaprasong. They basically isolated the city centre with Wild West type stockades, blocking off entire streets with menacing looking defences.

 

 

 

 

The yellow shirts had eventually retreated – peacefully, as I recall. The red-shirts were clearly there for the long term and they were prepared for a fight. We’ll probably never know who started the first round of shooting. Thereafter, though, the agonizingly slow negotiations with the government did eventually seem to result in an agreement to end the blockade – Abhisit’s ‘reconciliation road map’ that would include a general election later in the year. This was actually accepted by the red-shirt leaders on May 3.

 

leader Veera Musikapong announced: "Redshirt leaders unanimously agree to join, and welcome, the reconciliation roadmap proposed by the prime minister to prevent further loss of life."

http://www.guardian....iation-election

 

Yet, in another meeting, one of the leaders received a phone call. From that point on, reconciliation was at an end and more bloodshed the result. I don’t think we’ve ever found out who made that call, but it was widely reported to be from Thaksin.

 

I’ll just add one more pet theory to the point made by Khun Bob. The inequalities in Thai society are largely a direct result of endemic corruption. Of course there are other reasons, but I believe that corruption is the root cause. Get rid of it, and you can start creating a more fair and just society. Yet, absolutely no-one is prepared to go down that road. Leaders tinker with ideas and sound bites, but nothing happens – and nothing will happen. It is the ever-present blight that will just get worse.