The Tragedy in Thailand

For those concerned about the political situation in Thailand, rest assured that Phuket is safe and that most of the incidents are happening in Bangkok and the northern provinces.

 

Phuket is South Thailand, which has a strong support for the democratic party (i.e. Yellow Shirts). South Thailand is largely anti-red-shirts and residents here would never allow a red shirt protest to take place here.

 

That said, I have to add my two-cents worth on the situation in Bangkok.

 

For those just catching up on this, the geist of the whole thing summarized as follows:-

 

• Thaksin got ousted as PM of Thailand after he sold the satellite to Singapore’s Temasek Holdings (satellite belongs to govt, he used his power as govt to make it a private entity and sold it and reaped its benefits)
• He changed laws so as to avoid paying heavy taxes for the sale
• Got caught on both counts and had to flee the country/
• Political upheavals as new PMs come and go,
• Elections took place and Thaksin’s political party won again because they managed to buy votes.
• yellow shirts protested to overthrow the govt because the previous PMs after Thaksin were all his puppets and under his payroll, and they were about to change the laws again so that Thaksin can come back again without getting jailed for his corruption
• Finally peace prevailed with Abhisit coming into power after a constitution , a righteous and sauve politician who is NOT under Thaksin’s payroll.
• Verdict on Thaksin’s fortunes about to take place, Thaksin got his puppets in place to stage a protest should the ruling be unfavourable. (He was already sentenced to a jail sentence and is effectively a fugitive. A freeze on his assets would mean he would have no more money to escape to other countries in style and luxury. Interesting how it is the other corrupted countries that were willing to let Thaksin into their country to stay. He must have paid millions as a token of “investment” in order to be able to stay, so you can imagine if he has no more money, he will have to come home to Thailand to face the music)
• Courts ruled that 50% of Thaksin’s assets would be forfeited. Given that he has billions of dollars, this is quite generous.
• Red Shirts come out from the poor northern regions of Thailand to protest in Bangkok. They are obviously PAID, no one really does this for free. Apparently the going rate is THB 500 – 1000 day depending on the activity. This amounts to much more than they would earn per day as a poor farmer in Isan. The women can also finally hold a dignified job as a protester than as a prostitute. Imagine, if you hold the fort for 1 month you get the equivalent of a manager’s salary! So these poor people with very low education took up this easy job. Not hard to convince them as well since they have so little education and who doesn’t like earning easy money?
• During the protests, Abhisit got the army to standby in case of violence, as the Red Shirts are very unpredictable and prone to violence, unlike the yellow shirts. The Red Shirts see this as Abhisit being scared. In the meantime a series of grenades were going off in the city, mainly targeting government offices and Bangkok Bank (the bank involved in the freezing of Thaksin’s assets)
• The Red Shirts’ leaders were going towards the idealogy of how the working class of society eg. The farmers, unemployed and whores are being taken advantage of by the rich and elite i.e. normal people with an education and working in a decent 9 – 5 job. They are saying that Abhisit is an elite because of his high education and working for the good of the elite only. Like they would ever get a PM with only high school education, so this whole point about being educated is what? You are going to blame Abhisit for studying too much? This also worked well with the lowly educated cos it seems like a worthy cause to be fighting for. But just to be clear, Abhisit did ask them what policies did he make that they thought were pro-elitist and they erm and ahh their way through the interview. Someone didn’t do their homework or perhaps because there really wasn’t anything wrong with the policies to begin with. Whatever they threw at Abhisit, he threw it back at them with a clear concised answer that they couldn’t really say more.
• Red shirts want to Abhisit to resign and call for new elections. The problem with this is that 70% of Thailand is made up of these poor northern pple ( I don’t want to generalize cos I’ve met really kind-hearted and smart Isan people as well) and judging by what happened in the last election, it is most likely that a puppet political party of Thaksin would win again and thus begins the whole drama once again. Abhisit is wary of this vicious cycle and has repeatedly asked for the real reason for re-election and to ask for time for this government to phase out naturally based on the normal 4-year election period. It is like…another 9 months to the new election date anyway, can’t they wait?
• Abhisit requested to meet with the Red shirts leader and the negotiations were broadcast on national TV, live. There the whole nation see what bumbling fools these Red Shirt leaders are and they are going along without a plan. Once again, when Abhisit asked about which policy they were unhappy about, they said this and this, and Abhisit was like “Do you know that this policy was implemented during Thaksin’s government and that I am only continuing it?” and they were like uh…then they talked about stupid stuff like how Abhisit lied to the nation that he was in a car that was attacked by Red shirts at the ASEAN summit incident last year. I was like “Does this really matter to future policies?” and Abhisit was like pissed too cos he was in the car and there are pictures of him in the car, but the Red Shirts kept insisting that he wasn’t in the car. Like….if he wasn’t in the car, why did they still attack the car anyway? This stupid line of reasoning took up a good 10 minutes of negotiation time, all because the Red Shirts didn’t know what to talk about. They have no clear picture of what they really want besides to get rid of this government and let Thaksin come back to Thailand again. I particularly like the part when they said that Thailand has caused Thaksin not to have a home and Abhisit was like “I want him to come home too. There are lots of people waiting for him to come home and answer to the troubles he cause, so please tell him he is always welcome in Thailand.”
• Abhisit asked also what they plan to see in the new elections, and they were like “True democracy” It’s like reading off a script, and when Abhisit asked what is true democracy, they were speechless. You can so tell they are just mouthpieces for Thaksin, people with no true understanding of a country’s politics, just puppets being used for a personal gain.  
• During the negotiations, the Red Shirts have demanded that the army back away from the protest site, and Abhisit has ordered them to move away as well, to avoid the situation from flaring up. The Red Shirts see this as the Army being sympathetic to the Red Shirt’s cause. I’m sorry but it’s just utter bullshit lah, whenever I listen to their channel. I never thought people could use such foul language on public TV – calling Abhisit’s team members a shithole, asking him to eat shit…stupid things like that? It’s like playground taunts, how professional is that? And after a while they run out of things to curse the person with, they start criticizing his physical appearance – fat like pig, short like monkey, skinny like pole…and the Red shirts there just keep clapping after every sentence. Most absurd scene of brainwashing I’ve ever seen.
• After two days of negotiations, it was an obvious failure because not only did the Reds not have any clear plan of what they want, they are stubborn as hell. They won’t back out of their demands even though they could not properly explain why they want a new election. So why waste time talking?
• In a bid to shut down the protestors, they cut the transmission to PTV, where Thaksin phones in regularly to video-conference with the protestors, to stop Thaksin from fanning the fire. Army was also sent to clear the protest venues. The Reds went crazy and stormed the TV station. Army deployed to control the crowd with pressure jets and tear gas.
• The next day, the protestors stormed the capital city. Armies were put in place to clear the venues once again, and there were rumours that it would be a violent confrontation as word has gotten out that the Red have got hold of ammunition like machine guns and hand grenades. The army, however, was only equipped with tear gas and rubber bullets. I mean that’s fair, the army cannot go out into a confrontation with civilians using real guns right?
• Violence erupts as the Reds threw live grenades and fired real bullets into the crowd. The media caught scenes of this, the media, who was standing alongside the army filming the whole process, was attacked as well. Resulting casualty – 19 dead, 800 over injured.
• A ceasefire was agreed upon at 9 pm that night as the injured were rushed to hospital. The Reds held 4 army troops as hostage. And then the Reds went into hospitals to steal the bodies of their dead comrades to parade on TV (which I think is totally barbaric and dates back to Middle Ages), so as to fan the flames, to incite more hate against the government whom they accuse of killing the people, but the media caught everything on film, all the grenades and bullets came from the Red side, not the armies, whom they saw were only using tear gas and rubber bullets. So the media refuses to film the gory sight, and as of yesterday, the media were banned from the protest grounds by the protestors cos they refused to side with the Reds.
• A Japanese reporter was killed from a gun-shot wound from a real bullet. The Reds leaders are claiming that the army killed the people, but it’s just backfiring on them because no sane army leader would allow his soldier to carry a live ammo when dealing with civilians, not when the situation is as volatile as this.  
• As of today, the Reds just kidnapped the CEO of CATS Telecom in an attempt to get the connection back for PTV. It’s like a drug, this video conferencing with Thaksin. I guess they don’t know what to do next if they don’t talk to the guy who started it all in the first place. Great leadership really.

 

So basically, my conclusion from this fiasco? It’s time to use the law to clamp down on these idiots. Abhisit has been patient enough, and some has accused him of being weak because he waited too long in handling the Reds. But like I said, it’s like a father with 2 sons who are fighting with each other, who are not agreeing with each other. He cannot side with anyone but be objective. He is PM of both opposing parties, the Reds want him out, the yellows call him weak, and then there are those like us who see his actions was properly considered, with the right amount of thought put into it. You cannot rush a plan, what kind of government are you if you used force and violence to push the Reds out? You are just a tyrant, and that gives more cause for the Reds to fight.

 

I sympathise with Abhisit because I think he sincerely believed that he could win the Reds over with persuasive reasoning and logic, but unfortunately, those barbarians don’t understand enough politics to tell right from wrong. Like I said, like preaching to a bull, utter waste of time. You can tell all along that they have no clear goal, and no clear plan on how to achieve the goal. I mean the blood splashing and all with no considerations to health and sanitation issues? All they know is that they get money for every day they are there to protests, if they lost a limb for the cause they get paid more, as long as Thaksin can pay, they will stay. I guess now that Abhisit knows that it’s a waste of time to use reason, I will fully support him to use brute force to get these criminals out of the streets. They shoot at people, they kidnap people, they steal bodies and they killed innocent people. They deserved to be tried as criminals.