Thailand's Troubles

4 years 4 months

2010-09-19T20:18:00.007+07:00

When a few thousand people openly protest their support for a cause labelled terrorist by a government willing to use deadly force to suppress those who question its writ it is hard not to conclude that the spirit of the movement is far from broken.

The Red movement demonstrated that this afternoon and evening when they turned Ratchaprasong, site for a two-month sit-in protest which was finally brought to an end by troops using deadly force on the 19 May 2010, into a sea of red once again evoking the heady days of March, April and May. The graffiti, handwritten notices and banners were defiant, angry and confident, a mix of accusations and condemnation, demands and questions. The mood was joyful with singing and cheering, clapping and dancing. But amid the smiles, the feelings of solidarity, were not a few faces sad and serious. As ever people were polite and courteous, talking eagerly with new acquaintances.

Today was for the Red movement a commemoration of those killed on the 19 May 2010 by troops under the government of Abhisit Vejjajiva, of the rather misnamed Democrat Party, and the coup of 19 September 2006 when the elected government of Thaskin Shinawatra was ousted by troops serving the interests of an elite cabal which eventually engineered the government led by Abhisit.

His government has since the bloody day of 19 May made much of reconciliation and harmony but done precious little for justice. The arrogance, disdain and ignorance showed by him and those he represents and is associated with does not bode well for the future of Thailand. If there is any need of the reminder of the depth of feelings, the frustration and anger it comes no larger than the charred wreck at CentralWorld mall and its Zen Tower which were torched in a final spontaneous act of defiance by the remnants of the protest a few hours before sunset on 19 May.

Today's protest took place beneath that 19 story exclamation mark.

The government insists people of the Red movement simply don't understand. The government is right. People don't understand. They don't understand why they should accept double standards. They don't understand why they should be denied justice. They don't understand why their choice at the ballot box should be annulled by the power of an unelected minority. They don't understand how they can be citizens of Thailand if their voice expressed at the ballot box is silenced by those who will talk electoral politics but when it doesn't go their way will walk the way of the gun.

The government, for now, appears to be in a stronger position. It may hang on for a very long time. It will probably find a way to delay and evade holding an election. Or the end may come rather sooner. Even the strongest regimes can turn out to be brittle when many people stand up in public to say enough. The fall of autocratic states in Europe in 1989 culminating with the collapse of the Soviet Union is an example of what can happen. Alternatively if rulers and their acolytes and supporters decide to resist matters may take a nastier turn as they did in China and Indochina during the 20th century and in various European states starting with France in 1789. What will follow in Thailand is anybody's guess but it would be brave man who would bet on the status quo.

From 19 September 2010 Ratchaprasong protest

My gang will fight on and will win.

From 19 September 2010 Ratchaprasong protest

Only those who with something to fear, perhaps blood a on their hands, might disagree?

From 19 September 2010 Ratchaprasong protest

A good question.

From 19 September 2010 Ratchaprasong protest

I know you are scared of the people.

From 19 September 2010 Ratchaprasong protest

Release [our] leaders now now!

From 19 September 2010 Ratchaprasong protest

Abhisit is not the only one with an image problem.

From 19 September 2010 Ratchaprasong protest

Murderer.

From 19 September 2010 Ratchaprasong protest

An alternative view of Deputy Prime Minister Suthep.

From 19 September 2010 Ratchaprasong protest

Children, mothers and fathers of some of those killed receive a steady stream of donations.

From 19 September 2010 Ratchaprasong protest

Another good question.

From 19 September 2010 Ratchaprasong protest

Losing face

2010-06-09T06:00:00.000+07:00

Face, a carefully cultivated and respected reputation, is considered by many to be an important concept in the cultures of many east Asian societies like Thailand. Losing face can generate strong reactions including violence. The role of face as a motivating factor in the troubles in Thailand may never be satisfactorily resolved. What can be observed is who has lost face.

Members of the amart may have felt a loss of face because of the unparalleled political success of Thaksin Shinawatra. He in turn may have felt a loss of face when he was deposed as elected prime minister by the coup of 2006. People who voted for him may have felt a loss of face because the coup made their votes and the feelings and wishes they represent worthless, they may have felt more loss because the coup implied they were less equal than others in society which in turn perhaps contributed to the resurrection and rise of pride in an identity of prai, or peasants. The amart perhaps lost further face in the election victories of parties associated with Thaksin and his policies. Voters may in turn have lost yet more face when those parties were removed from government by court judgments the impartiality of which is in doubt. The deaths of dozens of protesters and defeat at the hands of the army on 10 April and 19 May could have cost more face.

If feelings are possible in equal strength regardless of material status, that they are common in their range to all people, then ไพร่, or prai (peasants, commoners), and อำมาตย์, or amart (elite, aristocracy), alike may feel a loss of face equally. Where the difference lies is in the capacity to act to generate, protect, avenge and restore face. In this a rich woman may have more capacity than a poor man. But when those who each only hold a little power lose face collectively then they may be willing to collectively pool their power to restore face. Who then has in sum lost more face? Tens of millions of citizens have been disenfranchised over the last four years, especially those who voted for the ideas and policies of Thaksin and the political party he assembled as their vehicle (and of course as a vehicle for his personal interests and rewards)? Does their collective power and the desire to use it to restore their collective loss of face equal or exceed that of those who lost face as a result of the rise to power of Thaksin through the ballot box?

Inequalities of a lost transition

2010-06-08T06:00:00.001+07:00

Political transition in Thailand has been underway since a band of Young Turks, inspired by their studies in Paris, led a coup to replace monarchy of absolutism with one constitutionally bound to a ceremonial role in 1932. Their efforts to introduce participatory politics in the mould of parliaments such as those found in the kingdoms of northern Europe were within a decade brought to an end by conservatives rather taken with the national socialism of Germany and similarly aggressive efforts of Japan to build nation and state through dictatorship and force. Since then Thailand has flirted with participatory politics yet remained firmly within the grasp of conservative elements who see their interests best served through a state of autocracy in one guise or another employing various devices including limits on freedom of speech.

Political uncertainty and the dominance and indeed substitution of personal interests over national interests have been accompanied by substantial development of industry and infrastructure compared with what existed prior to 1932. Furthermore since the end of absolute monarchy the country has appeared relatively peaceful except for the tumultuous 1970s and the years since 2006. That the country appears to have made orderly material progress makes recent troubles all the more surprising on superficial examination and gives credence to the claims protests are a charade staged by the money of Thaksin Shinawatra, the brusque, autocratic and impatient elected prime minister deposed in a coup in September 2006, and his associates to bring down the government and the individuals and institutions which have provided support in order to clear the way for his return from exile and to power.

How much money Thaksin and associates are funnelling into the Red movement and how it compares to donations from Red sympathizers, protesters and activists is unknown. How much control or influence Thaksin’s money buys is unknown. Thaksin’s ultimate aims are known only to him and his associates and may indeed include a return to power. Yet such is the anger, animosity and outrage he raises among some he would should he return, especially to active politics, run a high risk of assassination.

The focus on the influence and power of Thaksin may be overstating his reach and in doing so obstructing consideration of the structures of society upon which stands politics and protests. In those structures there lies much that runs counter to basic ideas of fairness and justice which appear to cross cultures and be perhaps the ideas most common to Man. They have been a feature of literature and theology since at least the times of Plato and other Ancients who put down their thoughts from the Nile to the Ganges to the Yangtze.

Thailand’s trouble is in becoming lost in transition since 1932 it has not been able to deliver much of the equalities of either liberal democracy or communist autocracy. Each system offers a different deal in terms of equalities which, with a nod to works of Atul Kohli and Adam Przeworski and other democracy theorists, may provide reason for citizens to buy into the system. Liberal (economy) democracy (power) balances social and economic inequalities with legal and political equalities. Communist (economy) autocracy (power) balances legal and political inequalities with social and economic equalities. In practise the equalities and inequalities are not quite so clear cut and the balances people perceive may shift over time particularly as economic fortunes wax and wane, information flows shift to alter perceptions, aspirations and interests.

Thailand, unable to construct a firm, dominant structure of one system or the other, is left with a hodgepodge structure of mechanisms, interests and aspirations leaving most too face a life under social, economic, legal and political inequalities. Not dissimilar structures are found in other countries, particularly in transition from one structure to another, including contemporary China as it attempts to build and secure what may be described as an illiberal autocracy.

Such structures are inherently unstable. They require great discipline or brutality, not infrequently bouts of extreme violence, or both to impose stability necessary for rulers to pursue their agendas, which may include national development, often mixed with maintaining the position, interests and privileges of competing elites ensuring vast material prizes accrue to them while leaving the majority with little. Thailand’s disparity of wealth, one of the greatest in the world, speaks of this. Some states, generally small and blessed with great commodity wealth such as Brunei, are able to avoid this fate, if they can also sidestep the resource curse, through state largesse to compensate for the costs of inequalities and economic consequences of great wealth disparity which necessarily limits domestic demand and thus the prospect of building a robust economy not hostage to fates of export markets.

The four inequalities underlying the structures of Thailand are accompanied by an economic performance which is not as impressive as it may appear. When compared to, for example, South Korea and Taiwan, which began their industrialization around the same time as Thailand, the economic performance of Thailand is disappointing, if not lamentable, in light of the favourable climate, a rich endowment of resources and a strategic location. South Korea and Taiwan have large middle classes, empowered and not uncomfortable working classes, and relatively accessible education able to meet the needs of developed society and economy. Perhaps a fifth of Thais may count as middle class, although defining class identities beyond narrow metrics such as income is an imprecise art and indeed may be getting harder, the working classes have been rather weak historically and have relatively little purchasing power because of low incomes and a high-level of indebtedness, and education has, despite much talk of reform, yet to develop the capacities to provide the knowledge and skills required for a developed society and economy producing high productivity, value and incomes.

Prospects for tackling political, and perhaps in due course legal, inequalities, brightened with the 1997 constitution and its model of participatory politics. Ordinary people were educated about the empowerment of voting under the rules of this constitution because it was their votes, some bought others not, which put in power the first government they felt was addressing their needs and interests. Votes were shown to bring benefits beyond their price on polling day. Consequently Thaksin’s second election victory was even greater than the first. Of course his party Thai Rak Thai spent heavily on promoting its policies through various advertising channels and arguably in doing so created for the first time a truly national polity. Money spent in this way undoubtedly helped to return the party to power and maintain its popularity. Similar dynamics are observed in developed countries which do not limit political campaign funds. America’s presidential election has since 1945 been one on almost every occasion by the candidate who was able to marshal a larger campaign treasury.

The participation and power felt by ordinary people as a result of the 1997 constitution was withdrawn through acts of disenfranchisement. The first was when Thaksin, under pressure from demonstrations led by his former business partner and media magnate Sonthi Limthongkul who is a progenitor of the Yellow movement which favours a strong monarchy and a limited electoral franchise, dissolved parliament in early 2006 as a prelude to a general election. The Democrat Party refused to partake in the poll claiming it was unfair. In doing that they undermined the validity of the election, they also undermined the fledgling participatory political structures which were showing promise of reduced political inequality perhaps even delivering political equality, which taken together served to undermine the rights of all voters tantamount to disenfranchisement. Their act paved the way for what was to follow.

The second act of disenfranchisement came with the coup which toppled Thaksin from his post as prime minister in September 2006. Supporters of the coup claimed they had to destroy democracy to save democracy. Yet surely the way to save democracy is not to put it to the sword but rather to participate with greater vigour, competition and engagement?

The third and fourth acts of disenfranchisement came when courts, in a country which frequently ranks among the ten most corrupt legal systems in the world, ordered the dissolution of Thai Rak Thai and then the elected government formed by its successor party. The first case was on charges of election malfeasance, the second case built around the late Samak Sundravej, then prime minister, appearing on television cooking which he had been doing for years and which was ruled to be illegal campaigning. Clearer cases of election finance improprieties dating back to 2005 for the now ruling Democrat Party are only due for rulings in August. These examples of legal inequalities echo with many ordinary people who openly talk of double standards. They see more double standards in the Democrat government’s zeal for prosecuting Red activists and protesters but indifference to bringing Yellows, including Kasit Piromya, the foreign minister, to trial for occupying Bangkok’s airports for a week in late 2008.

The reversal of the shift towards political equality and perceptions of very public displays of legal inequalities are factors which have contributed to the anger, frustration and mobilization taking shape in the Red movement. The ubiquity of internet and social media plus mobile phones has spread news, interpretations and feelings farther, faster than before and helped keep the issues burning. Until the inequalities of Thailand are tackled the government and elements it represents will in the face of strong and widespread demand for political equality only maintain their position at great cost, effort and probably violence.

Symbolic power

2010-06-07T06:00:00.001+07:00

Che Guevara was a not uncommon face among the protesters at the Red movement sit-in at Ratchaprasong in central Bangkok which was cleared by the army on 19 May. Guevara’s face was on t-shirts, stickers and badges, even a few hats and the odd flag.

From Symbols

He was not the only legend of communist revolution. Mao was also around, although not as much as Guevarra. Lenin appeared on a few badges and the cover of a magazine devoted to the Russian revolution of 1917.

From Symbols

There was Bob Marley too, who although never involved in a revolution is popular with disaffected youth around the world for his songs of protest.

From Symbols

One evening I heard a speaker invoke the myth of Robin Hood. Another brought up Troy.Mahatma Gandhi was there too on t-shirts and badges. If I recall rightly either Nattawut or Jatuporn was on at least one evening wearing a Gandhi t-shirt. Pridi Banomyong, considered by some historians to be the father of Thai democracy in the 1930s, was on badges and his picture along with a quote was hung from a skytrain pillar.

From Red Zone - Samizdat - messages, media, graffiti

This is incongruous because few among the protesters were talking about communism. At its heart the Red movement is not even about the consequences, manifesting has great disparity in wealth within Thailand, of the structure of power and society, rather it is about the causes, the inequalities of the current structure which generated the coup, display a particularly arrogant hypocrisy, and result in injustice, unfairness and inequity of opportunity.

Perhaps the only thread that binds these figures is that they in different ways challenged authority and its legitimacy, power and views. How much protesters know about these figures, their history and their politics is unknown. The limitations of the Thai education system suggest deep knowledge may not be widespread. On the other much is changing because of the activism of the Red movement and the reach of the internet and mobile phones.

A tentative conclusion may be that these historical figures, while losing their political roots as their images move around the world on the Jetstream of globalization, simply stand for resistance, revolt and revolution. Their appearance among the Red movement is then indicative of the mood and determination of the disenfranchised in Thailand?

The employment of these images of people symbolic of revolution, perhaps as devices for communicating and expressing resistance and revolt, may be indicative of a rising spirit of collective consciousness in the Red movement, a mobilization for redress. Such a mobilization of the mind or spirit is it seems being accompanied by the emergence of a formal, public character not only in the organizations within the Red movement, primarily the UDD and Red Siam, but especially in the development of the guards of the UDD.

In the early days of the sit-in protest at Ratchaprasong the guards dressed in casual clothes, their only markers being a hat or a scarf. By the second month they had matured. One group wore uniforms complete with insignia, perhaps representing a proto-militia or an expression of a desire or intention to move along such a route should matters take a turn for the worst.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

These guards were generally found around the stage and at times by the barricades, especially that opposite Silom. The other group, who appeared more like volunteers and were typically found manning checkpoints at the barricades, continued to wear a scarf or a hat, and not always that, as a badge of their duties.

From Red Zone

Whether the guards and their evolution into a uniformed formal and perhaps disciplined group is just posturing or something else may not be entirely clear until the history of these days and the movement can be explored in peace and safely written.

The diaspora factor

2010-06-04T06:00:00.005+07:00

Revolts against the state usually stand a better chance of bringing about a revolution when they can draw on support from the beyond the country’s borders. During the Cold War the most prominent benefactors supplying money and materiel were America and the Soviet Union. Lesser powers, some neighbours others not, have also lent a hand to insurrectionists or bolstered the capability of the state in question.

States are not the only actors however. Diasporas also play a key role, which since the end of the Cold War may be increasing. Diasporas were critical to the supply of funds, weapons and safe havens to guerrillas in Northern Ireland, East Timor and Sri Lanka. They also helped sustain the fighting when deep-rooted ethnic and religious identities were mobilized to tear apart Yugoslavia. Diasporas sometimes exhibit greater determination, if not extremism, then people at the centre of the conflict through the phenomenon of long-distance nationalism.

Thailand’s diaspora has grown markedly over the last two decades in tandem with globalization, particularly of labour and human trafficking, and the rise of middle class spending power on overseas education. Credible estimates of the size of the diaspora are hard to come by. What constitutes the diaspora is also open to interpretation. Do Thais studying or working overseas for a few years count as part of the diaspora? They might be considered the periphery of the diaspora. Thais who stay for more than a few years, perhaps because of a business or marriage, becoming formally resident may span the semi-periphery and core. Thais who have taken up citizenship of another country or people whose parents or grand-parents originated from Thailand might be considered the core of the diaspora.

The greatest diaspora appears to be in America, Los Angeles has Thai Town, a quarter where most shops and businesses are owned by Thais targeting primarily the ethnic Thai market. Second might be Australia, followed by the UK, Hongkong, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and then the larger countries of western Europe.

How politically engaged communities of the Thai diaspora are and what their views might be may not be known with confidence until studies are undertaken. There are however websites claiming to represent Red groups in America and some states, in the UK, in Germany and Australia. The most prominent member of the diaspora is Thaksin Shinawatra, the elected prime minister deposed in the coup of 2006, who faces a jail sentence for corruption should he return home and now stands accused by the government of terrorism.

Overseas Red networks are vexing the government which feels frustrated and threatened by their influence, imagined or real.

แต่ต้องยอมรับว่าผู้ชุมนุมมีเครือข่ายที่ทำงานอยู่นอกประเทศคอยป้อนข้อมูลที่ผิดๆ ให้แก่สื่อต่างประเทศ โดยมีอดีตนักการเมืองที่เกี่ยวพันกับพรรคไทยรักไทย กลุ่มธิงค์แท็งค์ (ถังความคิด) คอยชี้เป้าหมายความเคลื่อนไหวต่างๆ และมีการประสานงานกับสื่อมวลชนในไทย เพื่อบิดเบือนข้อมูลที่เกี่ยวข้องกับสถาบัน และสถานการณ์ภายในประเทศ
มติชนออนไลน์ Matichon 23 April 2010

Which may be read: It must be admitted the protesters have a network working outside the country to supply information which is very wrong to foreign journalists by means of politicians involved with the [dissolved] Thai Rak Thai party. A think tank has indicated their aims are varied and they are coordinating with reporters in Thailand too in order to distort information about the institution [monarchy] and the situation within the country.

The article went on to quote Sathit Wongnongtoey, a minister in the prime minister's office, warning in parliament:

"คนพวกนี้ทำงานเป็นขบวนการ มีเป้าหมายอยู่ที่สถาปนารัฐไทยใหม่ ดังนั้น สิ่งที่รัฐบาลกำลังทำขณะนี้จึงไม่ใช่การรับมือกับการชุมนุมธรรมดา แต่เป็นการรับมือกับขบวนการที่เตรียมการและมีเป้าหมายให้เกิดการเปลี่ยนแปลงครั้งใหญ่ขึ้นในประเทศไทย จะเห็นได้ชัดว่าแกนนำบนเวทีกลุ่มคนเสื้อแดงหลายคนได้พูดพุ่งเป้าถึงบุคคลระดับสูงที่ใกล้ชิดกับสถาบัน ซึ่งเป็นการจงใจ ซึ่งเรายอมไม่ได้ ดังนั้น จะต้องดำเนินการทุกอย่างให้คนเหล่านี้แสดงความรับผิดชอบ"
มติชนออนไลน์ Matichon 23 April 2010

Which may be rendered as Sathit saying: The people working in this movement have the aim of establishing a new Thai state. Therefore the government is taking which it is not to withstand an ordinary movement but against a movement with the aim of bringing a big change. Clearly it was seen at the stage Red-shirt leaders were speaking harshly towards people close to the institution [monarchy]. We will not allow this intention to be achieved. So we must use every means to show that they are responsible.

As is usually the case with the government he did not furnish any clear evidence to support the claims of the activities of Red networks overseas. Still graffiti and art around the Red Zone protest at Ratchaprasong expressed popular anger felt for privy councillors and politicians identified with the coup.

From Red Zone - Samizdat - messages, media, graffiti

What role, if any, the diaspora will play in the political confrontation in Thailand and whether communities will split and even use violence against each in their host countries is hard to estimate. The role of diasporas however in many civil conflicts suggests the Thai diaspora may play a greater role as the confrontation grinds on, especially if violence escalates and the Red movement reacts with force to counter the government’s growing use of force.

The growth of the Thai diaspora is another factor, like the changes in society in education and awareness plus the availability of information technology, which makes the context of the political breakdown different to the events of 1932, 1973, 1976 and 1992. The nature of the diaspora and its susceptibility to long distance nationalism may also have changed or be changing because of the information revolution, the total connectivity of society in Thailand, and the effects of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, feeds, chat and SMS.

To take a comparative in almost every village in Laos a family or two has arrived from China in recent years to set up a small shop or market pitch offering an Aladdin’s Cave of wares from the factories of Guangdong and beyond. In earlier waves of migration from China into Southeast Asia migrants often never returned home and have had sparse, if any contact with their relatives and hometown communities. Today Chinese migrants perched in their shops in the backwater villages of Laos are watching Chinese national and local television thanks to satellite and keeping in touch with family and friends by the internet and mobile phone and placing orders for more merchandise.

Although spatially they are far away from their community spiritually they remain close and are able to maintain and nurture relationships because of the elimination of geography by the technology of instant communication of information. They have one foot at home and one foot in the diaspora, they are not remote from life and its developments at home. There is no reason why such changes and characteristics should not apply to other diasporas elsewhere including Thais. How this may affect the passions and feelings which rose up in the past to shape long-distance nationalism as often tending towards more extreme positions remains to be seen. Thailand may be the first test case.

Fragments of nationalisms?

2010-06-03T10:33:00.002+07:00

Communal, ethnic or religious identities have in recent decades been at the fore of civil conflicts, such as Aceh, East Timor, Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka plus the contemporary conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Myanmar. In Thailand some of the violence in three provinces bordering Malaysia is it seems a campaign by ethnic Malays, many of whom see their religion of Islam as an identity too, to breakaway to form their own state.

Civil conflicts over political ideology and the nature of the state appear primarily to have been a feature of the historical anachronism of ideological conflict which shaped the 20th century. There are communal and ethnic aspects to the Maoist movements fighting today in India and Nepal.

Political confrontation in Thailand has an ideological character arising from the inequalities of the structure of power. There is a regional aspect in that perhaps most sympathizers or supporters of the Red movement are found in the north and northeast. A social movement could not achieve great mass without support from people in these areas because they account for more than half the population of the country.

There is at least casual talk among Red supporters of separatism, breaking away from the state headquartered in Bangkok. Within the Red movement the UDD and Siam Daeng organizations do not appear publicly to be promoting such a move. Moreover, the Red movement and groups within it are national in character active throughout the country.

However, the primary mobilizing factor is the anger and rage at the abuse and injustices handed down by governments in Bangkok, especially the coup in 2006 and events thereafter, which have through their actions over the decades cultivated an impression that the government primarily acts in the interests of the elite and people in Bangkok. The governments of Thaksin Shinawatra, himself from the northern city of Chiang Mai, were the first many ordinary people felt to have made a genuine attempt to tackle the problems they face in their lives. His rule, for all its dark faults, like no other gave meaning to votes beyond their price on polling day. People feel their rights, voices and power have been taken away by the coup and the subsequent moves by old guard elites clinging to power and privilege.

Is there a budding contradiction between the national character of the Red movement and the anger for Bangkok? May a time come when the Red movement and its formal organizations have to decide whether to entail the heavy costs of fighting to change the structure of power emanating from Bangkok or take the possibly cheaper course of breaking away?

The administration of the state as historians like Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker, among others, have observed was modelled on that used by the British Empire in places like Malaya. For the purposes of the Empire and the era it might have represented the cutting edge in public administration. But that was over a century ago. Times have changed. Thailand’s administration has not changed greatly. In a sense this administrative structure has helped make possible the extraction from across the country of capital which has been concentrated in Bangkok. This has contributed to the imbalance in economic and social development, noted by Walden Bello, making migration anything but a choice for many people in the provinces looking for work or trying to make a sustainable livelihood. David Streckfuss recently highlighted the regional nature of grievances with the current structure of power and society.

Animosity, anger and violence have worsened over the last few years culminating in the use of deadly force by the state against mostly unarmed and peaceful protesters on 10 April and 19 May. Should these trends remain intact a greater conflict descending into a hot civil war is not unlikely. If the conflict continues might it awaken buried or suppressed ethnic identities?

Since the 1930s the Thai state has been attempting to build a nation around a single, unified identity of being Thai. While citizenship in many developed states is not based on ethnic identity but rather on what might be described as allegiance to the ideas and principles of the society, something like being a member of a club, citizenship in Thailand is closely, although not totally, connected to being identified by the state as being ethnically Thai. This is a relatively new identity derived, and even, usurped from the dozens of sub-groups within the Tai people or race who are found from eastern India to Vietnam, from southern China to Malaysia. Arguably Thai is the identity of citizens, some of whom are not ethnic Tai, of the political construct of Thailand, whereas Tai remains an ethnic identity.

Thailand’s attempts to forge a national identity of being Thai have sought to suppress the identities of Tai groups. The language of Bangkok, described as Khmeru-Thai by some linguists because so many words are borrowed from the Khmers to the east, has been imposed across the country as ‘standard Thai’. Yet it might be said to be anything but standard because it is not the language or dialect spoken at home by the majority. In northeast Thailand, or Isarn, people speak a variety of dialects of Lao, a sub-group of Tai. Lao dialects are quite similar to Muang languages or dialects of the north, or Lanna, which in turn are similar to the dialects of northwestern Laos, eastern Myanmar and the south of China’s Yunnan province. A Thai citizen who is a native speaker of Lao or Muang will probably find conversing with Tai in Laos, Myanmar, southern Yunnan, and perhaps even Vietnam or eastern India easier than a Thai speaking Khmeru-Thai, which many non-native speakers in Thailand still find awkward even after decades of this being taught in schools.

Lao and Muang have their scripts. In Isarn local scripts are rarely seen and hardly anybody can read or write them. In Lanna Muang has since the 1990s made something of a comeback, partly because the state in Bangkok lifted regulations prohibiting the public use of scripts of other Tai languages. Universities, temples and public buildings now often feature signs in Lanna and Thai. Language is important because it is often an element of identity and communicating the culture, customs and practises which inform an identity. The Lao and Lanna peoples of Isarn and Lanna do exhibit pride in their identities and have customs and arguably cultures which although similar are distinct from Tai of the Chao Phraya plain, Bangkok and the south.

These identities have not yet it seems taking on an active political character. Are there enough parts to constitute slumbering ethno-nationalisms? Is there a risk that as the political conflict continues to worsen questions over the legitimacy of the state will come to be accompanied by questions over being part of the country of Thailand? What will it take to awaken and harness ethno-nationalisms in Thailand, are local elites already putting plans together?

Geography of dissent

2010-06-02T20:06:00.001+07:00

The resistance and revolt of the Red movement has not overtly disturbed many parts of Thailand while flaring up aggressively in others. In Lanna, or the north, and Isarn, or the northeast, provinces such as Chiang Mai, Udon, Khon Kaen and Ubon Ratchathani have seen particularly strong public displays of the Red movement including in some cases using fire to destroy the sala glang, which is the centre of the state’s power in a province. Some provinces are under martial law, others not. In Bangkok resistance erupted in Bon Kai and adjacent Klong Toei and in Din Daeng and nearby Ratchaprarop.

Why does the Red movement appear to be particularly strong in these neighbourhoods of Bangkok and some but not other provinces? In the case of Bangkok these neighbourhoods are not well to do, being a mix of shophouses hosting a variety of businesses, merchants and markets, small workshops and a variety of accommodation, mostly lower end, some public, much private. Klong Toei also includes Bangkok’s largest slum. But these neighbourhoods are by no means unique in these respects. So why there and not elsewhere?

As for the provinces, some are among the most populous in the country, yet among the 20-odd provinces placed under martial law some are thinly populated, places like Nan. Some of these provinces, particularly Chiang Mai, are perhaps among the wealthiest places outside Bangkok. On the other wealth disparities may not be consistent between provinces. Why does the Red movement appear strong, more active and more rigorous in some provinces, but not others? What is the significance of the geography of dissent?

Media of the Red movement

2010-06-02T14:55:00.002+07:00

Newspapers serving the Red movement were publishing while the government was shutting down other media channels, such as community radio and television, and banning or blocking websites.

From Red Zone - Samizdat - messages, media, graffiti

This changed on 28 May when the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation ordered Voice of Taksin, ความจริงวันนี้ Truth Today, ไทยเรดนิวส Thai Red News and วิวาทะ Wiwatha to immediately cease publication because they were posing a threat to national security. Other publications, such as คนเสื้อแดง Red-shirt People and สถานีประชาชน People’s Station, which do not toe the government line appear also at risk given the trend. A responsible and conducive media was one of the conditions set by the government for holding elections in its roadmap.

From Red Zone - Samizdat - messages, media, graffiti

If Red publications are unacceptable what of ASTV, a television station, and ASTV Manager, a newspaper, both of which belong to Sonthi Limthongkul, one of the founders of the Yellow movement, which claims to defend the monarchy and favour a limited electoral franchise? ASTV’s outlets have on occasion used language inciting violence against people charged with lese majeste. For the Red movement it will be interpreted as another case of double standards.

That the government has decided to shutdown these publications can be interpreted as an indication that they were reaching a wide audience receptive to news, information and opinions questioning the legitimacy and narratives of the government. Truth Today and Voice of Taksin, in particular, were on sale at a few stalls in the Red Zone at Ratchaprasong. Vendors would wander through the crowd and McCafe selling mainstream newspapers as well as Red newspapers. Their distribution and popularity elsewhere in Bangkok and in the countryside are unknown. Thai Red News was available in Bangkok’s wealthy parts of Sukumvit.

From Red Zone - Samizdat - messages, media, graffiti

Their popularity can be crudely assessed by their size, endurance, and advertising. Truth Today, Thai Red News and Kon Seua Daeng, a broadsheet, are bi-weeklies or weeklies. They ran to 32-pages (somewhat less for Kon Seua Daeng) printed on higher quality, more expensive paper than daily newspapers. The page count is about a third to a quarter of the mainstream weekly news magazines. Truth Today, an offshoot of the Truth Today television programme and channel which some see as the beginning of the Red movement, was into its third year. Thai Red News was in its second year and Kon Seua Daeng is in its first year. Their endurance suggests they were popular because of their rich discourse of ideals and principles associated with liberal democracy through explanatory articles, commentary and opinion plus news, some written by well-known figures in the Red movement. Perhaps 10-20 percent of their space was sold to advertising, which in turn may be an indication of the size and purchasing power of the Red market.

From Red Zone - Samizdat - messages, media, graffiti

The endurance of these publications suggests they were profitable. The alternative explanation is an unsubstantiated claim that they were only possible because of the finance of Thaksin Shinawatra. All publications generated revenue from the cover price, typically 20 baht compared to 10 baht for mainstream dailies, and advertising. Companies aim to advertise in places they think can reach a wide and profitable market for their products and services. Truth Today and Thai Red News also offered daily news updates by SMS for 29 baht a month. Whether these are banned too is unclear. Truth Today was also advertising for agents to distribute drinking water and energy drinks under the brand of Truth Today. If that venture into diversification is successful it would indicate the brand has equity and traction, and in turn the ideas and issues with which it is synonymous, which could be extended into other businesses, especially those with low barriers to entry and fast turnover. Such subsidiary revenues might have been used to underwrite the flagship news product or support organizations within the Red movement, particularly the UDD which seems closely allied to Truth Today.

From Red Zone - Samizdat - messages, media, graffiti

These publications endurance, size and advertising indicate popularity of a degree, perhaps beyond what might be possible if they were simply vanity projects financed by Thaksin, in which the government saw a threat it could not tolerate. This may be an indication of the size and strength of the Red movement and the fear it is creating within the government and among its backers.

From Red Zone - Samizdat - messages, media, graffiti

There is in this censorship paternalism which positions people, who in the eyes of the law are adults fully responsible for their actions, as lacking the maturity to make the right decisions thus they will be made on their behalf by the state. It also reveals that despite the complicity of much of the mainstream media the government doubts its own ability to creatively win the argument about what is right for Thailand and who is best placed to form a government. Unable to argue successfully and unwilling to accept the result the response is to silence voices which disagree and may argue more persuasively. Not dissimilar approaches were used in the communist states of Europe and the Soviet Union. They eventually failed.

Narratives of denial and delegitimization

2010-06-02T12:08:00.001+07:00

“According to Lt Gen Dapong security officials have entered the area on Thursday and found gas tanks that were wired with explosives and ready to go off hidden inside the Four Seasons Hotel.”
Bangkok Post 20 May 2010

Evidence or independent verification to substantiate the claim appears absent. Soldiers did show me what they said was an improvised explosive device, or IED, made from a small fire extinguisher wedged behind a barrier put up to prevent entry to the Four Seasons car park on Mahadlekluang 2. The top appeared to have been sawn off, suggesting the extinguisher’s metal case was filled with something other than chemicals to extinguish a fire. Assuming it was a live IED raises questions of who made it, who planted it and to what ends? Circumstances suggest elements in the Red movement may have been responsible. Other suspects include third hands and state agents. Without a thorough investigation to identify the culprits conclusions can go no further than speculation.

The gas-tank plot fits the narrative of elements in the Red movement as terrorists. This appears to have begun immediately after the grenade attacks on Silom on 22 April when Suthep Thaugsuban, the hardline deputy prime minister, accused the Red movement of being responsible while blaming the attacks on terrorism. Without firm evidence Suthep claimed some of the grenades were fired from near the Rama VI monument, at that time surrounded by a Red camp. Without an impartial investigation it remains an allegation, which would not seem a responsible approach for a government which claims to believe in principles of democracy. It seems the Central Institute of Forensic Science was unable following its initial investigation of the scene to assemble evidence to implicate a particular party. Even if elements in the Red movement are responsible, as the government claims, it is arguable whether it is terrorism. That may be a matter for impartial courts.

The terrorist narrative is particularly powerful since the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001. At its core the terrorism narrative attempts to remove reason from the Red movement, it denies validity to the issues they voice. It is associated with fear, uncertainty and extremism. The terrorism narrative demonizes the selected group, in this case the Red movement. Demonization can draw a strong psychological reaction because as Carl Jung observed it provides a target for the sub-conscious to project internal anger, conflict and fear, of aspects of character hidden deeply, associated perhaps with the shadow persona, because the conscious self dislikes or is afraid to admit them.

The terrorist narrative discredits and delegitimizes the Red movement while claiming legitimacy for any actions taken by the government including its own use of terror through the deployment of soldiers who have it seems shot dead and wounded many more civilians from positions high on tall buildings in the neighbourhoods of Bon Kai, Din Daeng, Ratchaprarop and perhaps elsewhere. Supporters of the government may find the demonization aspect of the terrorism narrative particularly seductive because it tees with their distaste, disdain and even intolerance towards the Red movement. Neutrals may also be swayed by the demonization to lend their support to the government.

Demonization opens the door to legitimizing active mobilization for people who refuse discussion and debate in preference to the relative simplicity and assurance of violence against the other. A door to radicalization of a section of the population may be opened up by the terrorism narrative as people move through demonization, legitimization and mobilization. If the government tries to take a road back to a more moderate position it may lose the support of this section of the population who in turn may be ready to transfer the support and legitimization to a more aggressive or extreme group of leaders. Suthep's recent claim rumours were being spread about the government using violence to discredit the government seem nonsensical given the photographic and video evidence to the contrary, however if seen within the light of the government shoring up support among its sympathizers and by insinuation implying anti-state elements are seeking to tarnish and undermine the government then it may in fact be a calculated statement.

Protesters were drunk and high claimed at least one tweet shortly after 19 May when the troops firing rifles killed dozens as they moved in to clear the protest. No evidence has substantiated the claim protesters were drunk and high. Even if they were does that justify deadly force? The intoxication narrative runs counter to anecdotal experience. During daily visits morning noon and night over the two months of the Red movement protest at Ratchaprasong I never saw alcohol on sale. I did see a small group of young men who were sleeping at the end of one of the Ratchadamri sois on some evenings drinking a little. They never appeared drunk and kept to themselves. As the tension was building in the days immediately before 19 May a 7-Eleven on Lang Suan, which was then within the Red zone, was looted of alcohol, cigarettes and food, including ice cream. By desperate Reds or common thieves who can say?

On 19 May around 10 or 11am I crouched down with a few young guys from Bangkok by the steps of the footbridge over Ratchadamri by the American Universities Association. One offered me a sip of his beer. He was the only person I saw that day with alcohol and he was not drunk, indeed given the firearm violence being employed by the state at that moment to kill, wound and perhaps terrorize, a little alcohol to calm the nerves might not be unreasonable. I met him again late in the afternoon as we watched men scrum over pennies from a safe looted from Central World. He saw it a stupidity, disappointment was written across his face. He wasn’t drunk. In two months of observation I never saw people appear to be drunk or high yet alcohol and narcotics are part-and-parcel of life, especially socializing, for people across society regardless of location across Thailand.

The intoxication narrative explains the violence by retreating protesters as hooliganism, thuggery, relieving the observer of having to consider that the protesters were venting anger, frustration and rage triggered by the government’s use of disproportionate force to silence their voices of grievances arising from their ideas, interests, interpretations, hopes, aspirations and even their worth or value as equal members of society, a position revealed to be a fraud by the coup which sent a stark message that some are more equal than others, that their voices counted for less than others.

One of the oldest narratives draws on the origin of rural roots to dismiss the agency of protesters. In this narrative rural is synonymous with stupidity, ignorance and gullibility which explains why people from the fields are poor. As Red protesters built up their barricade at the end of Ratchadamri on the evening of 21 April perhaps less than a hundred people stood outside the Au Bon Pain bakery on Silom opposite Ratchadamri shouting insults at the Red protesters many of which included references to buffaloes and other rural imagery. One interpretation is that rural people are like buffaloes slow, even slothful, and easily led. People of the Red movement are dismissed by detractors as rural folk being misled and manipulated by the money and promises of Thaksin Shinawatra.

The narrative ignores the diversity of the Red movement, especially the protests in Bangkok which were attended by many people who were clearly rather middle class in their wealth. The army estimated 70 percent of the protesters were from Bangkok and neighbouring provinces. Some of these may be seasonal or long-term migrants from rural provinces, while others are born and raised in the supposedly more sophisticated and intelligent urban provinces. It is a narrative reveals something about the ignorance, prejudice and bias of its purveyors.

The narratives of terrorism, intoxication and origin are explanatory devices which would appear to offer comfort because they help to make sense out of what appears confusing and even impossible developments particularly for people who hold world views which do not permit the possibility of certain groups having legitimate claims, feelings and agency. The narratives disparage, delegitimize and destroy the agency of protesters and their claims, interests and issues while conversely reinforcing the confidence, legitimacy and righteousness of the narrators. There is a sense of refuge about such narratives which suggests their subscribers may nurse fear not only of what might become but of the limits of their comprehension and the challenge to their world view. The narratives also provide reason not to inquire, objectively, which may arise from a contradictory confidence in their position and perhaps associated values which dictate that some are worthy of more privileges than others despite over 60 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Is burning buildings in a political conflict common arson?

2010-05-24T16:44:00.000+07:00

Fire was a weapon used by protesters of the Red movement in response to the assault by troops firing rifles on the protest in central Bangkok. Civic and commercial buildings were torched around Ratchaprasong, the site of the two-month peaceful sit-in, elsewhere in Bangkok and in some provinces. These acts have been widely described as arson. But is that apt given the political context of the violence?

Arson generally refers to setting alight of property with malice or for some personal gain for example through an insurance claim. In civil contexts this seems fairly clear cut and usually draws stiff penalties in most societies given the danger it poses to life, the damage it wreaks on livelihoods and hurt it causes to the soul. Arson then is a criminal act that may deliver a material or other benefit to the arsonist. In cases where the fire is set purely for the pleasure derived from watching fire it may be more accurate to speak of psychotic arson.

However burning property during the course of the political violence that is war usually goes without punishment unless it can be shown there was no military advantage whatsoever to be gained from destroying property. Nevertheless given the chaos that reigns on the battlefield and the difficulty in finding suspects and witnesses such crimes are rarely punished.

A comparative may be drawn with killing for which there are various degrees with varying punishments reflecting the context and provocations. In battle killing is legitimized, there is no punishment for the participants. However killing in war outside of battle may be considered a crime. Troops who shot dead protesters resisting their advance along Ratchadamri are not facing investigation over the killings. Neither are commanders or ministers.

In the torching of buildings that followed the disproportionate use of violent coercion by the state to clear the protests protesters took up calls by their leaders to respond with fire. Many incidents of torching were of buildings with political connotations, although some were not. Fire may be considered in this instance a weapon of the weak.

Is it then appropriate to describe the torchings as arson given the common criminal connotations this carries? Does the description of arson serve to delegitimize their protest as political opening the way for categorization as simply criminal, or in the government's narrative of fear as an act of terrorism? Would it be more appropriate to describe the torchings as political arson or political burning? What is appropriate punishment for burning buildings for political motives in response to state excess?

To be a citizen

2010-05-23T23:02:00.001+07:00

This has not and is not a protest simply over the distribution of wealth and great economic inequality, which is itself a consequence of the structure of power. It is primarily about what it means to be a citizen of Thailand, about what kinds of equalities and inequalities are acceptable to society which bought into a constitution guaranteeing equal political rights to all through one-man one-vote. That principle was tossed aside by those who instigated the military coup of September 2006 against elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Whatever his shortcomings, his disdain for democracy and apparent taste for thuggery, he was elected repeatedly by a majority who felt his policies were squarely aimed at their interests, nevermind that he and his allies were also deriving their own benefits. Nobody elected the army. Nobody elected the อำมาตย์, or amart rendered as approximating the elite/aristocracy or perhaps the powers that be. The อำมาตย์ and previous governments had ample opportunity to serve the interests of the masses. They did not. That is their responsibility, a legacy they appear to be willing to defend with all the force of the state.

A popular interpretation is that the millions in the Red movement, which includes the UDD, Siam Daeng, other groups and many who hold Thaksin in high esteem, are the puppets of Thaksin, that he pulls all the strings. They may be right. Thaksin was mentioned by speakers at the Ratchaprasong stage and occasionally phoned in or tweeted encouragement. Many speakers however talked much more about double standards, about principles and ideas of what they imagine to be the pillars of participatory politics and a just society governed by a state with their consent.

Without firm proof there is no reason not to consider that among the protesters many, poor, middle class and even wealthy alike, feel a great affront at having their choice at the ballot box annulled by a powerful few. It is an affront they readily admit with little prodding in conversation time and again. An affront felt deeply because of the weight of a history of coups, state violence and absent justice for hundreds, at least, killed by the state for protesting for their political rights. The fires are out for now but it may be just the beginning of a long conflict.

War, like?

2010-05-23T22:51:00.002+07:00

The Red Zone in central Bangkok was like another country, it had its own structures, its own ways, its own security, medical, food services. There was a freedom of expression of certain ideas and criticism probably not possible so openly outside in Thailand. In a sense there was an element of invasion, occupation, insurrection, secession.

As the protest at Ratchaprasong, which arguably could be construed as civil disobedience advocated by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King among others, was crushed by the state on 19 May protesters replied with a 'scorched-earth' withdrawal setting alight buildings many of which could be associated with power and privilege of people and families, อำมาตย์, or amart, associated,in their eyes, with supporting the government they consider illegitimate. In about half-a-dozen provinces ศาลากลาง, or provincial halls, were torched. There have been reports of Thai flags and identity cards being burnt in some provinces. Torching of buildings in the context of a political protest crushed by overwhelming force of arms by the state is it not arson but a weapon of the weak.

After dispersing the protesters troops did what troops do after victory they appeared to help themselves to the spoils of what was left behind by the defeated protesters who had fled, stacking their trucks with fans, provisions, speakers, medical supplies, and anything else lying around of value. To be sure this was not looting. How much of this booty would have gone to waste is hard to say, but whether it was appropriate is debatable particularly as some of it was clearly private property people might have returned to collect. A shame because their conduct generally was probably much better than their predecessors ordered to suppress civilians. In doing this they acted like a victorious army, further feeding into the sense of a war.

What is the significance and implication of targeted destruction of symbolic emblems and physical representations of the power and administration of the Bangkok-centred state and its supporters? Do such actions cast the Bangkok-centred state of Thailand as an occupier in the north and northeast where people can fall back on history, myth and lore of chiangs/xiangs, principalities and kingdoms stretching far back beyond the emergence of modern Thailand and even the precursor kingdom of Siam? And more recently the tales of the communist insurgency of the 1970s? What remains of the old insurgent camaraderie and networks? Are such flagrant acts indicative of deep and strong feelings of anger and injustice?

By contrast the violence in three Malay-majority provinces in southern Thailand have not so far seen the destruction of key point buildings or infrastructure symbolizing the Thai state. The comparative is limited perhaps by the extensive deployment of security forces in these provinces. Nevertheless after six years of violence, not all of it political by any means, it does seem strange that separatists there have not effected a successful attack on a prime symbol of the state or its agents such as assassinating a provincial police or military commander or general.

Hello to arms?

2010-05-23T22:33:00.001+07:00

I spent most of the afternoon on 18 May at the Bon Kai barricades observing, listening, talking a little. I caught a snippet of a conversation which ran something like traders had visited Red areas offering weapons but nobody was buying. Why I don't know. Cost perhaps. Wariness of crossing the final line because to buy weapons signals the end of hope and the beginning of a war?

Still if this continues then how long can it be before Thailand's large black market in military weapons finds a way of satisfying demand to redress the force asymmetry, to even up the negotiation by force between the state and its discontents?

Armed "civilians" have already made appearances on 10 April, when men-in-black were filmed taking a few shots at security forces, and possibly after the assassination of Major-General Khattiya Sawasdipol, or Seh Daeng, on 13 May when explosions and gunfire were heard almost every night in the vicinity of areas of Red resistance around Din Daeng-Ratchaprarop and Bon Kai. Gunmen were also seen on 19 May around Ratchadamri and Siam Square.

How significant is the sight of civilians using weapons against security forces in a political conflict in Bangkok? Can they be dismissed as the agents of third hands rather than the vanguard of a Red militia aiming to match the government's use of coercion with their own force to pursue the movement's aims? Is there any substance to a claim made by Jakrapob Penkair some time ago that for two years weapons had been smuggled in from Cambodia to Isarn? What happened to hundreds of thousands of small arms left over from the Cambodian wars? Anecdotally the Red movement seems far from defeated so what's next?

What happened at Siam Square?

2010-05-23T22:29:00.001+07:00

Gunfire echoed from the Siam Square neighbourhood as the sun began to set on the 19 May. It continued sporadically through the night into the morning according to press reports. A woman with her baby who had taken refuge in Wat Pathuwanaram called me frequently after dawn to tell me she could still here shooting. I heard a few shots as I walked towards west along Rama I past smoking wreck of Central World. One man came towards me suggesting I turn back. However there were no more shots thereafter.

I was told a man had left the temple that morning only to end up shot. That I could not confirm. Inside the temple I met a man who recounted how six people, mostly medics, were shot dead near one of the temple gates during the night. It is unclear whether these six include two people reportedly shot dead around 6pm on 19 May. A scrawny middle-aged man in shorts and t-shirt led me in to the temple to see the bodies as shots rang out. I only saw one body. A man ten-minutes dead, his eyes held shut with surgical tape.

Today the traffic barrier around the skytrain pillar on the east side of the Henri Dunant intersection between the temple and Paragon mall had been hit by around two dozen shots.

From Aftermath 100520

They were probably aimed at the gunman with an M16 who I saw around 5pm on 19 May. A few more shots had struck the pillar and also around the traffic lights fixed to the footbridge above. When I inspected this position on 20 May there were four spent cartridge cases and two live rounds, perhaps misfires.

From Aftermath 100520

Siam Square today betrayed no obvious signs of exchanges of gunfire, no bullet holes in glass or chipped concrete and brick. There is of course the burned-out shell of the cinema and a few shops and banks on the northeast corner of Siam Square beside the Henri Dunant intersection.

So what happened at Siam Square? There was gunfire. There was at least one gunman. There were troops advancing from the west. The government says troops found a handful of rifles in the area and a Red guard leader near the temple told me there were more gunmen in Siam Square. a few others said similar things. But nobody could say exactly how many gunmen were in the area of Siam Square. Some said they were Red, one was not sure.

Who were they? Reds? Third hands? Agents of a militia that is growing underground in the countryside? Why would a handful of gunmen take on hundreds of troops? Did the gunmen escape? Did they would or kill any troops?

Coercion and consent

2010-05-23T22:20:00.003+07:00

Operation Ratchaprasong to put an end to the peaceful protest, arguably an act of civil disobedience in a form akin to a sit-in, on 19 May was an act of coercion to impose the will of the government administering the state.

Coercion came in the theatrical form of overwhelming force of arms. Every infantryman carried a rifle with live rounds. Perhaps one-in-four or one-in-five soldiers also carried a shotgun. Many seemed issued only with buckshot ammunition rather than rubber bullets. Such force is disproportionate. Only a handful among the few thousand remaining protesters were armed with rifles. These gunmen appeared to be in the rear. What arms the protesters did have amounted to slingshots, sticks and bang fai, or homemade fireworks. All can cause some pain, but they are rarely deadly. Especially against soldiers sheathed in body armour.

A proportionate response would have been troops well drilled in using shields and batons, plus perhaps an incapacitating agent such as tear gas or pepper spray and possibly a few stun grenades. A handful could have carried shotguns with rubber bullets or riot guns firing plastic baton rounds. In the rear a few marksmen could have stood ready to take down any gunmen who refused to lay down their weapons or were firing at troops. But this was not the response. The response was troops equipped for battle against a similar foe. This was a grand display of coercion. And a deadly one killing a few dozen, perhaps more, around the Rama IV monument and along Ratchadamri. All that can be said is that the death toll could have been much higher and that the troops who reached Ratchaprasong behaved well treating people firmly but respectfully.

The protesters barricades were built by laying one tyre on to of another, topped off with bamboo pikes and in places wire. In the context of the history of Bangkok they were quite shocking. They too were an act of theatre, demonstrating to themselves and the state their belief and determination in what they were doing. In practical terms they were flimsy. The state used armoured-personnel carriers topple the barricades, clearing the way for soldiers and the press to dramatically clamber over. It made for a gripping television and teed with the state's claim that the Reds were terrorists who could only be dealt with through military might gone hunting.

The barricades could have easily and effectively been cleared by a couple of large bulldozers, either military or leased from a civilian contractor. Troops and the press could then have run through without the drama of clambering over the barricade.

Coercion imposes rule by force, it is the method of autocracy, the antithesis of participatory politics. Coercion implies the state is either unwilling or unable to imagine and create alternatives to win from the people their consent to rule. In participatory politics, typically through the secret ballot of elections, everyone is equal through the right to cast one vote. In doing so they give their consent to the state to rule and to submit to its dictates if they are reasonable including the right to use a proportionate amount of force to keep the peace, usually through civilian policing.

The promulgation in 1997 of a constitution, drafted with public participation, clearly put the power of delivering legitimacy to a government to manage the state into the hands of the people through regular elections on the principle of one man one vote.

Many citizens however withdrew their consent because the principle of one man one vote was arbitrarily annulled by the action of a military coup deposing the elected prime minister in order to protect and preserve the interests of various elites, including the อำมาตย์, or amart rendered as approximating the elite/aristocracy or perhaps the powers that be. In taking this step their action sent a message to the citizens of Thailand that some were more equal than others, that the voice and interests of some counted more than others.

In times past this may not have generated a great backlash, certainly nothing the state could not handle with a little brutality. Today is different, partly because ordinary people are more educated and some are more cosmopolitan, but equally, if not more so, because of the power of mobile phones and the internet which totally connect society. Anger, frustration and resentment at the insult that was the coup was multiplied through instant solidarity and it was kept very much alive by mobile phones and the web. Each time the party chosen by the majority was dissolved by the courts the effect was magnified.

Many who disagreed with their disenfranchisement by the coup and the judicial dissolutions of the parties they chose to hand legitimacy to rule came to support or participate in the Red movement, either informally or through groups like the UDD and Siam Daeng. This reaction to resist through social movements is an attempt to regain their power and authority to hand down legitimacy to a government to administer and direct the state in the best interests of society not a select few. Their withdrawal of legitimacy was expressed through public protests and civil disobedience.

This drew a half-hearted response from the government to regain consent in its attempt to dictate and impose a road map for elections which ignored protesters demands for justice for those killed by the state on 10 April at Ratchadamneon and in the government's tepid reaction to negotiations, even on the evening of 18 May.

Coercion is not going to be cheap. The events of April and May have created instant narrative, through videos and photos distributed by mobile phone and the internet, DVD and CD, newspapers and magazines. Experiences of those who participated in these events have equally become instant myth and lore again due to the tools of telephones and the web for creating and sharing information.

The counter-reaction against consistent coercion may not come immediately. The backlash against the coup took a few years to build. Nevertheless a reaction seems more likely than not. The trends appear set. The government and its masters have opted time and again for coercion. Disenfranchised voters across social classes, and their elite cheerleaders and donors, have demonstrated their determination and courage to stand up to the state's coercion. Unless the government changes tack matters seem set for a downward spiral into a dark and deadly place.

Cambodians and Burmese

2010-05-20T23:24:00.001+07:00

Cambodian mercenaries were manning army positions protesters told me at Bon Kai and Din Daeng during the afternoon on 18 May. The only evidence they could offer was that some of the troops they had tried to talk to could not speak Thai. A young woman, who was still selling drinks outside the Erawan Hotel while her baby perhaps just a year old lay sleeping on the ground as the army was advancing up Ratchaprasong, called from within the refuge of Wat Pathumwanaram to tell me it was too dangerous to outside as there were Burmese troops. Later when I reached Siam Square, where there had apparently been fighting between armed civilians and troops I only met Thai infantry.

Could the government find enough Burmese or Cambodian mercenaries, put them in Thai uniforms and train them with Thai weapons at short notice? What benefits might there be other than increasing numbers of dependable troops in light of rumours of many junior soldiers being red?

Or might it be that these rumours are without substance but spread and are believed because they relieve people of having to accept that they are facing, and being shot by, soldiers who like themselves are Thai? Some may be comforted if it is Burmese or Cambodians who are there to impose the state's will and defend its interests because of the generally negative stereotypes attached to these nationalities?

Not dissimilar is the disagreement and even mystery over the identities of a handful of civilians with rifles who it seems fought with troops in and around Siam Square. I got no closer than eight, maybe six, feet to one man with an M16 for just a few minutes. It was not possible to talk. Some protesters say these men are Red, a proto-militia perhaps, but one protester insisted their identity and motives were a mystery. But what could motivate a small group of men other than anger, belief or vengeance to fight against the much greater numbers of the army when their only advantage may have been intimate knowledge of the urban terrain? On the other hand it may not matter because that they were there and fighting troops makes for common cause with people of the Red movement, whether they of the mind to pursue their demands by peace or through force. Thus their exploits may enter into Red mythology. Are these men drawn from the same group of men-in-black caught on film on 10 April? The armed man I saw was only wearing a black jacket, his jeans were blue and he wasn't wearing a hat or balaclava. Being dressed quite differently from the men-in-black may suggest he was from a different group?

There is a large black market in military weapons in Thailand. Hitmen, enforcers and mercenaries are apparently relatively common livelihoods. It may not be difficult for either the government, Reds or other elements to finance hired hands to do violent work. Many hands may willingly take up such duties spurred on by the intensity of feelings and the depths of division in the country. This violent backdrop, the lack of evidence, and the interests of all players to pin blame on rivals for killings forms a difficult environment for building confidence, stability and engagement but a fertile one for rumour and suspicion.

After the battle

2010-05-20T20:59:00.005+07:00

From Aftermath 100520

Troops sweeping Lang Suan using speakers to tell people to stay indoors for their own safety because there may be bombs and armed militants

From Aftermath 100520

Central World

From Aftermath 100520

Firefighting

From Aftermath 100520

Firefighter

From Aftermath 100520

Zen department store in Central World collapsed in spite of an extensive system of sprinklers for suppressing fires

From Aftermath 100520

Weary after a long night

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Smouldering

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Zen

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Windows

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Sharpshooter at Siam

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Troops

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Happee

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Love

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Siam Theatre

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Spoils

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Spent cartridge cases and a live round at the skytrain-pillar traffic barrier opposite Paragon where a civilian was ready to meet advancing troops with his M16

From Aftermath 100520

Special-operations police

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Police officers wait for nervous civilians wary of leaving Wat Pathumwanaram because they did not believe the police promise of safe passage and transport home

From Aftermath 100520

Leaving

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A leader

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A police officer reassures this woman's relatives she can safely leave and go home

From Aftermath 100520

Waiting to go home

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Time to go home

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Corpses of people shot inside the temple by the gate the night before

From Aftermath 100520

Offerings for the spirit

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Tears of a medic for a lost friend

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Of course you can go home we have medical teams and transport for you outside

From Aftermath 100520

Don't smile she said to her friends

From Aftermath 100520

Bangkok City of Life - Chidlom

More photos

Like it never happened

2010-05-20T19:44:00.004+07:00

There is as of this afternoon little trace of the protesters camp around the Rama VI statue at the southwestern tip of Lumpini Park. The clean up there is astonishing. It is as if nothing happened, that landscapers have been around to prepare the area for turfing. Litter, debris and leaves have been swept into small piles. The tents, screens, tyres, pikes, cooking equipment, trucks, montages of the killings of 10 April and everything else are gone. Feeding off patches of damp sticky earth and piles of debris are rather a lot of flies, indeed far more than there are on hundreds of bags of trash strewn across Wittayu between Lumpini police station and Sarasin.

Rama 4 along the south side of the park was also quite clean. I did find five marbles, like those some protesters were using in slingshots, a plastic bullet fired by a shotgun, and a spent 5.56mm cartridge case with the stamp RTA (Royal Thai Army).

Wittayu on the east side of the park had not been cleaned up at all. Not only were there hundreds of bags of rubbish but the police bus torched some days ago was still there. Police prisoner vans were still parked out front, a net stretched from them up to the top of the station to keep off grenades. Sarasin too was also still a mess. Ratchadamri between the skytrain station and just north of the Rama IV statue is still off limits. Troops claim there are improvised explosive devices. A soldier did show me what appeared to be an IED made from a small fire extinguisher wedged behind a barricade erected to prevent access to the Four Seasons Hotel car park. Earlier this afternoon explosive-ordnance disposal personnel detonated what they believed to be a device on Sarasin.

How many really died or were hurt as the army charged in with armoured personnel carriers and troops armed with rifles and shotguns? Were armoured personnel carriers even necessary when perhaps among the protesters only a handful were armed with rifles, would not large bulldozers have been more than adequate to demolish the fearsome but rather flimsy barricades? Just an efficient clean up and return to normalcy or something else? Rubbing out the stain, erasing history?

Showdown in Bangkok

2010-05-20T02:45:00.002+07:00

I awoke expecting another day of grinding protest out on the streets and making plans for another unremarkable day. That was not to be when the condominium security guards told me there was shooting, the army was moving in and already were casualties, deaths. They were tense, frequently chatting on their radios I presume to guards of buildings in the neighbourhood and perhaps their company headquarters.

I walked out on to Ratchadamri where all eyes were looking south towards Rama 4 and Silom. Perhaps a dozen or so people were watching on a television thick smoke curling around a tower of Chulalongkorn hospital at the southern end of Ratchadamri. I initially thought the hospital was on fire. It turned out to be the long tyre barricade opposite the hospital and Silom.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

From the south came small explosions and the occasional searing crack of gunfire.

At the junction of Ratchadamri and Sarasin beside the northwest corner of Lumpini Park hundreds of Reds were gathered, many crouching or kneeling, others standing. Smoke obscured the view to Silom. Their mood was defiant, stoical, unbowed yet they had only slingshots, sticks, machetes, small petrol bombs and grenades improvised from fireworks. Murmurs and chat frequently gave way to jokes, giggles and laughter. One thing they were not was thirsty, boxes of water cups or bottles were never far out of reach.

To the south where the barricades once stood people were resisting the troops, earning in return injuries and for some death. Rescue pick-up trucks and ambulances would occasionally speed down the street to receive the casualties upon which would draw packs of press photographers and cameramen. Dead and injured were taken to the Police General Hospital at Ratchaprasong. On one occasion an ambulance crossed the junction only to reverse at high-speed after it seemed to be the target of some sort of grenade. A Red guard said it was thrown from a small building in the northwest of the park. He said inside there were four soldiers. One medic returned winded, collapsing on the plants alongside the road. He said troops were shooting at medics trying to evacuate the dead and wounded. Still people would run forward to help evacuate casualties. On one occasion dozens surged forward in what could have been confused for a charge.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

Meanwhile an armoured personnel carrier and troops were slowly advancing west along Sarasin towards Ratchadamri accompanied by explosions and shooting. Soldiers moved slowly pausing frequently for 20-30 minutes. Then more shots and explosions. Then nothing. As the army ebbed forward, so the Reds and the press would retreat amid a cacophony of shouting. A middle-aged woman with a chubby face in a red t-shirt said in good English there were snipers in the towers of the hospital shooting at Reds near the barricades.

The Reds however remained calm. They were not a rabble, there was order and organization among their number of protesters and guards. Some were in small teams, perhaps friends. They were a mixture of Bangkokians and provincials. More than a few were carrying radios.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

Others had a role, like an old farmer from Chiang Mai who carried a large box of dressings and first-aid materials. Occasionally someone would come by handing out small wads of cotton wool soaked with a strong spirit not dissimilar too menthol. The cracking and splintering of glass being hit by a blunt instrument in the Regent office building drew immediate shouts of อย่า (yaa - don't) from many guards on the street. A man emerged from the side of the building with shaggy hair, a thin metal pole and a homemade rocket. Guard leaders quickly gathered around him telling him not to damage property and asking who he was and what he was doing. They sent him off down towards the frontline.

By around midday Reds had pulled back to beneath Ratchadamri skytrain station, which some guards, or perhaps militia is more accurate, were using as an observation. Some reporters saw one man cross the street with a rifle. Others went up to the station where they saw a three or four men with rifles before being turned away. In light of the country's bloody history of soldiers killing civilian protesters that some people should be armed is understandable. Whether they are really Reds or sanctioned by leaders of the UDD is unknown. Deploying soldiers with assault rifles and shotguns to confront protesters bearing rudimentary weapons not unlike those found on medieval battlefields would appear disproportionate. Most soldiers could have confronted protesters with shields, batons and pepper spray while armed troops stayed in the reserve. It would appear the militia in the station did not exchange fire with the troops because around 1pm calm fell across the battlefield. Rice and curry was brought down to the Reds in white polystyrene boxes who ate greedily.

The calm prevailed for a few hours during which the UDD leaders surrendered drawing ire from many of the protesters still at the Ratchaprasong stage which throughout the morning had broadcast speeches and martial music. Reds on Ratchadamri, mostly poor young men, began to attack the Four Seasons Hotel and Peninsula Plaza with slingshots and anything else they could use to smash windows. Some were trying to start fires. Thick black smoke of burning tyres on the side street of Mahadlekluang 1 rushed into the sky wrapping around a hotel and giving the air a nauseous edge. Plumes of tyre smoke were also rising from barricades at Chidlom, Chidlom bridge and it seemed Phloenchit.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

At Central World they gave full vent to their frustration, disgust and rage on this glittering symbol of wealth, privilege and power that will never be within their grasp. Windows were smashed. Molotov cocktails and homemade grenades rained into doorways. Rubbish was thrown onto the flames. Yet their efforts to torch the mall and attached office building were a tragicomedy of errors, bad throws and duds. Sadly pathetic. Still they kept on. A few men were just smashing windows for no apparent reason save anger. Nevertheless they kept on with their efforts to burn.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

A safe was pulled out of the mall and eventually smashed open. Inside were a few small bags of coins and banknotes. They descended upon them like jackals on to carrion, pushing, shoving, tearing. A guard leader said they only wanted money to eat and go home, he told them to share the money a few hundred baht each. There was not even that much to go around, mostly coins. One man held up two 50-baht notes and a smile. A Bangkok guy said they were fighting over nothing, pennies. Meanwhile the burning continued. Cooking-gas bottles were taken up to the fires their taps full open releasing a powerful hiss of gas which quickly became a roaring jet of flame.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

Back at Ratchaprasong few were left. Vendors tried to cart away what possessions and stock they could. A few people sat around, lost without the protest.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

People picked about the belongings left behind by protesters who had fled out of the area or into Wat Pathumwanaram, pulling out clothes or pulling plastic bottles out of the debris and dropping them into large black plastic sacks to sell later.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

At the Pratunam bridge, north of the stage, adjacent to the Ratchaprarop live-fire area, another tyre barricade was burning fiercely while grey-brown smoke was slowly rising out of the Central World. The fires had finally taken hold.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

Amid the press and lingering protesters a couple of soldiers with rifles and shotguns calmly walked in. More followed. They were polite, telling people we are all Thais, go home. A few men were stopped and asked for their papers. After perhaps 20 minutes the platoon left heading east along Chidlom.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

Back west to the Henri Dunant-Rama I junction beside Paragon mall a middle-aged man in a black jacket, glasses and flecks of grey in his black hair was crouched behind a concrete traffic barrier. His accomplice had a slingshot. He had an M16.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

Walking back to Central World the fire was burning fiercely, glass was cracking and popping as the flames climbed higher and charcoal-grey smoke billowed. Nevertheless the area seemed placid, otherwise quiet.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

That changed with cracks of gunfire coming from Siam Square. Most people had taken refuge in the temple. Those on the street were keeping close to cover. A guard leader said they didn't care if they died or not, they had nothing, all they could do was fight and if they died well there were 20 million more across the country. He said there were armed militia in Siam Square battling with troops. He didn't know how many or what rifles they had. Next to the temple two men disagreed about who the militia were. One said they were Reds, the other said he didn't know who they were but they had come to help the Reds. He took us into the temple to see a fresh corpse, shot in the chest ten minutes before nearby.

From Battle of Bangkok 100519

A man in t-shirt and shorts picked up a bamboo pike with a white flag and readied to run out it seems into Siam Square to help casualties. He was called back. Gunfire intensified. It was time to leave or be trapped in the temple for hours well into the night.

Come early evening ความ จริงวันนี้ (Truth Today - a Red media organization which was a reaction to the coup of 2006) reported 42 dead and 361 wounded. The numbers may have been much higher had the army charged in with armoured personnel carriers and heavy, sustained gunfire. Nevertheless the operation has come at the cost of more than lives and wounds. The protests have ended in blood. Accounts and pictures have spread across the country. It has become instant mythology, the narrative, the history people use to shape their identities and frame their grievances and aspirations in a changing Thailand in which the consciousness, the sleeping resentment and entitlements of the masses have now well and truly awoken. Militia fighting, quite likely to their deaths, in Siam Square may well become heroes, legends to inspire others. Dozens of buildings are burning across Bangkok and in provincial capitals. Thai flags are reportedly being burned in Chiang Mai. Is this the end of the beginning?

Battle of Bangkok pictures

Truth and reconciliation

2010-05-18T11:33:00.000+07:00

Acrid smoke and tear gas filled the air, thousands marched, tyres and buildings burned, there were rapes and killings. Today some of the buildings still stand gutted by fire, blackened by smoke. For the dead and injured there has been no investigation, no justice. Indonesians spent their weekend reading the recollections and thoughts of victims, witnesses and analysts as newspapers marked the bloody events of May 2008 which brought down the dictator Suharto.

Indonesia thankfully avoided going down the path of Yugoslavia and instead has, so far, taken one rather similar to that of India. Indonesia's economy is booming, its banks are strong, the government is despite corruption managing to run its finances prudently. Indonesia's media is among the freest in the world.

But the trappings of success mask ugly truths. The state has yet to tame the power of the country's oligarchs, its robber barons and political kingpins. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who made her name attacking corruption and ensuring fiscal probity, resigned earlier in May to take up the number two position at the World Bank after losing a political battle with Aburizal Bakrie who was facing a large tax bill. The state's failure to make the law supreme is matched by its amnesia over the events of 1998.

Until the state can provide a measure of justice in day-to-day life and for its own failings and atrocities its legitimacy will remain in question. Matters may be out of sight and out of mind or accepted with a shrug as people go about trying to make their livelihoods under the claws of corruption but they are not forgotten or accepted. The pain, the anger, the resentment is there beneath the skin, festering, where it only takes a scratch for it to well up. Protests and confrontations are now a staple of life in Indonesia, bigger problems cannot be ruled out if the economy turns sour.

Thailand's troubles have a dark heritage too. There has been no justice for those who were killed or vanished when citizens challenged the state in 1973, 1976 and 1992. There is little indication matters will be any different for those who have died since 10 April.

How states and societies can resolve their conflicts and shift to a paradigm where the law reigns supreme is it seems something humanity finds difficult to effect. South Africa opted for something like total transparency with a truth and reconciliation commission. Yet today the promise of liberal democracy has turned out, so far, to be an empty one for most who still live in squalor, earn little and face rampant crime with a worse death toll than many wars.

Nevertheless the steps taken by Indonesia are probably in the right direction, particularly the freedom of the press and speech, but the road is it seems a long one, the destination lies clouded on the horizon. If Thailand is to move to a better place it too needs to take steps on the road being followed by Indonesia. Today's confrontation, if it does not descend into civil war, may be the start.

The government's road map to trouble

2010-05-14T18:41:00.000+07:00

The road map for elections presented by the government was taken in many quarters as a positive step towards reconciliation. The UDD, the largest group within the Red movement, welcomed it as a starting point for negotiations. But as the days passed their demands grew as did the divisions it seems within their leadership. The government responded by tearing up the road map.

The UDD may appear intransigent, uncompromising and poorly led. Yet their reactions were to a road map presented by the government which claimed it was acting with the best of intentions. The content of the road map suggests otherwise. The words of the road map amounted a grand and arrogant exercise in imprecision reflecting either division about what to concede or an intention to deceive, to beguile the protesters into quietly and peacefully leaving Ratchaprasong. Abhisit Vejjavija, the prime minister, set a date for an election which was not within his authority but vested solely with the Election Commission. He could though have set a date for dissolving parliament, but he never got any closer than indicating a loose timeframe.

The points of the roadmap did not point clearly towards an election, they pointed to endless opportunities for the government to claim its conditions for an election were not being met and thus cancel the election. It is easier for the government to use violence against the protesters when they are outside of downtown Bangkok out of international sight in the provinces.

A clear and precise road map may not have provoked confusion and division among leaders of the UDD. Instead it could have built confidence, demonstrated sincerity, and created an atmosphere for meaningful negotiations. If the government ever was serious about peace it went about it in a strange way that suggests it was only ever serious about destroying the protest and preserving the interests of those who stand behind the government and perhaps the Democrat Party as it faces dissolution.

India, Nepal...Thailand?

2010-05-14T18:17:00.000+07:00

Thailand may have and yet still appear to some observers, especially those who take an elite perspective, an unlikely place for civil conflict with a significant class aspect. Two examples indicate that a deep conflict, with a class basis, is not unlikely, indeed a black swan.

One viewpoint on developments in Thailand simply holds that Thais are too poor, uneducated and therefore stupid to form opinions, hold views, and act for themselves rather than as pawns for others with money and power.

Two comparatives question this assertion.

In Nepal, where illiteracy, malnutrition, education and communication are far worse than Thailand, the strain of communism fashioned after Mao Ze Dong struck a chord with many, generating cause and passion to put down their hoes and pick up weapons. The Maoist insurgency in Nepal went in not much more than a decade despite the efforts of the better equipped and supposedly trained Nepalese army from being a spot of trouble in some remote districts to forming a coalition government and may now be on the cusp of taking full control of the government and state.

In India, the Naxalite-Maoists have been fighting for what they see as justice and equity, since 1967. They are now active in one-in-three districts. In many of the communities in which find support illiteracy, malnutrition and education are not much better than Nepal. Communication is rather better.

If people who might be dismissed by elite perspectives as uneducated and ill-equipped to think are willing to rise up and fight, seemingly without the financial support of immensely wealthy people, then it begs the question why ordinary Thais who are rather better educated and in generally much better health should not decide that their best interests and aspirations for a more equitable society and politics may only be attained by standing up to protest and if necessary fight. Prospects for a deep civil conflict, perhaps even war, are a black swan that may soon land.

Double standards

2010-05-14T17:44:00.001+07:00

After the grenade attacks in Silom and the clashes between Reds and security forces in northern Bangkok, in which one soldier was shot dead, Porntip Rojanasunan, director of the Central Institute of Forensic Science, or CIFS, quickly arrived on the scene to lead investigations.

After the clashes on 10 April at Ratchadamneon in which 20 protesters were killed, most it seems by troops shooting into the crowd, and five soldiers including officers close to the queen, there were no reports it seems of the CIFS director securing and investigating the crime scene. An investigator, seemingly from forensics, did make a brief examination of the spot where a Red flag bearer fell after being shot from a nearby armoured personnel carrier spilling across the tarmac his brains.

The CIFS is a relatively new agency of the Ministry of Interior, it is understaffed, has an inadequate budget, and huge log of cases worthy of investigation. It has on many occasions revealed criminal activity and incompetence by state agencies especially the police, which maintains its own forensics unit. Nevertheless the CIFS is a state agency and to some degree a tool of the government's interests, intentions and policies.

That the CIFS was widely reported to be investigating two incidents the government was manipulating to place blame and discredit the Red movement, to paint them as 'terrorists' falls into the narrative of the Red movement that politics is rife with double standards, something they are campaigning against.

The government's claims to be working to peacefully resolve the situation and to negotiate with the Red movement fall flat when its agencies appear, even if that is not the intention, of acting partially.

The pawn fallacy

2010-05-14T17:09:00.001+07:00

A strand of perspective permeating the news, some dinner conversation and critical discourse boils down to viewing developments in Thailand as a game played by elite factions using society as a chessboard upon which the masses are but pawns.

This lens employs a narrow focus for examining the Red movement, the people of which, particularly the farmers, assembly hands and labourers, are discounted as nothing more than drones buzzing around for a little nectar. The root of this lies in their education which typically is less than ten years (although the trend is to more years in school due to government policies since the 1990s) and is of poor quality because of the state of the Thai public education system. Limited education is for many erroneously equated with low intelligence.

As people of the working class or peasantry account for the majority of the Red movement the movement itself is dismissed as illegitimate, a tool for Thaksin Shinawatra, the elected prime minister ousted by elements of the army in a coup in 2006, and his allies to return to Government House. This overlooks a simple truth that for any social movement is to achieve mass in Thailand it will necessarily include many poor people with limited education because that is the situation of most Thais, that is what their state has given them after decades of corruption and elite interest in self-enrichment dressed up as national interest.

The perspective extends towards justifying the legitimacy of the government and the use of violence against the protesters because as they are poor, under-educated and pawns of Thaksin they can be discounted as can their cause, it is simply a front for a wealthy man who while in power showed little interest in strengthening the institutions of electoral politics and disdain for the law. In this regard however Thaksin is no different to most Thai leaders, and indeed is perhaps rather better than the tyrants of the 1950s and 1960s.

But what of the fact that there are rather a lot of people in the Red movement who are decidedly middle class? That few speeches talk of Thaksin and that there is within the Red movement criticism of Thaksin and support for ideas and principles bigger than Thaksin, that is beyond his control if it ever was so? Can mere money buy the passion and dedication exhibited day-in, day-out in the Red Zone for two months? Can money cause people to confront troops armed and permitted to shoot to kill with sticks and stones? Are the Red movement political schools in the provinces teaching justice, fairness and rights to empty heads?

The perspective is comfortable and seductive for some, and sub-consciously reflexive for others, because it avoids the horror and challenge of trying to understand, explain and countenance the existence of mind and thought among those who are supposed to be stupid, fools and bumpkins. There is no need to spend months in the fields or on the factory floors to realize this is simply false. At times it seems every other taxi driver in Bangkok has something interesting, insightful and revealing to say which knocks a chip and more out of this perspective.

Beneath this perspective is a presumption that people never change, ironic for a society in which the religion professed by most reminds all that everything is impermanent. People do change, they are changing in Thailand because of their growing cosmopolitan experiences, internet and telephones, and the rising tide of ideas, knowledge and viewpoints washing in from overseas and welling up locally.

Furthermore the perspective views the masses as apathetic and essentially powerless. It overlooks that the poor engage in quite sophisticated livelihood strategies and are able to demonstrate great patience in waiting for the right opportunity to move. It also ignores that while individually their power is limited, when pooled together it can be great - and infectious because open solidarity is a huge inspiration.

The perspective denies that people told that they were all equal citizens with an equal right to cast equally valid votes have thoughts, feelings and emotions amounting to anger and just cause when the political party and its leader, Thaksin, they voted for overwhelmingly is deposed by a cabal of generals, aristocrats and jealous business tycoons.

Either Thailand is a country of electoral politics, with all the shortcomings and ugliness that may go with that, or it is not. If it is the former than an coup and allied shenanigans which brought the Democrat-led coalition into power, are untenable or if the latter than the system is one of sheer hypocrisy and those making a case for it with nouns drawn from the language of democracy are hypocrites.

This is clear to many ordinary people in society. They talk and discuss. They exchange ideas, thoughts and images by internet and telephone. They are listening to rousing and often sophisticated speeches from the UDD stage at Ratchaprasong, transmitted by myriad methods across the country. Over the last few months I have heard speakers at Ratchaprasong draw comparatives to Dracula, Robin Hood and Troy. Speeches, even if the allusions are not well understood, are not falling on deaf ears pinned for decoration to drones.

Thailand has never experienced the degree of transparency and diffusion of information and ideas as it is experiencing today. Views may be fuzzy, many may still struggle to see Thaksin's faults and apply the same standards to him as they are to Abhisit Vejjavija and the perverse joke of his Democrat Party, but they are nonetheless soaking up many ideas and principles, they are giving voice to their thoughts, fears and aspirations.

Recognizing that the masses are capable of forming opinions of what is in their best interest as allegedly equal citizens in Thailand is going to be essential to finding a way out of the falling rubble of the old system to a better system able to deliver what is good for the majority and what may in time lead Thailand to a better society, one which is less corrupt, better educated, and more equitable.

But this process of change is going to be messy, yet that is no reason to deny that it should not be taking place. There will never be a right time to begin. There can be then no better time for the people of Thailand to begin making that change, and making it positively, than today. The scale of support for the Red movement suggests that this happening, this is the beginning of change.

Who shot Seh Daeng?

2010-05-14T15:47:00.004+07:00

Who shot Seh Daeng เสธ.แดง, the army general Khattiya Sawasdipol (พลตรี ดร.ขัตติยะ สวัสดิผล) who has been something of a self-appointed security consultant to the Red movement, in the head on 13 May as he was talking with reporters may remain a mystery.

From Red Zone

Responsibility for setting the stage is a little clearer. The government said it would deploy snipers to engage 'terrorists' among the Red movement. Announcing the use of snipers against a civil protest without any hard evidence of firearms among them may be considered excessive or expedient depending as much on the observer's politics as any objective assessment of risk.

While that debate continues, the announcement can be seen for what it was, that is a crude threat to intimidate protesters and a license, perhaps an accidental one, for a deliberate assassination attempt by the government, by dissident elements within the state, by Seh Daeng's enemies (of which there may be many given his colourful life), or by elements seeking to spark a conflagration in expectation they will be the ones standing amid the smouldering ruins.

The shot was taken under somewhat difficult circumstances. It was night, the ambient lighting was poor and there may have been shadows to contend with plus the wind. On the other hand the shot was probably taken from the surrounding buildings, either through a window or from a rooftop. The sniper was probably within a few hundred metres and using an advanced night scope. He was probably a soldier or paramilitary policeman, probably serving or retired from one of the better trained units perhaps special forces. How many Thais could have confidently executed this task without hitting any of the surrounding journalists? Perhaps a few hundred.

The question is on whose orders or on whose account were they acting?

A subsidiary question is were those ordering or paying the sniper aware in advanced that Seh Daeng would be at the barricades near Silom or had they deployed snipers for some time in preparation to eliminate targets of opportunity?

On what grounds can the shooting of Seh Daeng, even by the government should that be the case, be anything other than attempted murder?

Democrat Party dissolution after 12 August?

2010-05-08T16:31:00.007+07:00

The ill-lit road to elections later this year is unlikely to be smooth judging by recent events. The Democrat Party is struggling to please all sides with its vague road map drawn up to show the way from the current stand-off to an atmosphere suitable for elections in November.

The path may go by way of amendments to the constitution, perhaps to reduce punishments for politicians found guilty of election offences, which may be contentious and could require a referendum. Time for amendments will run out when parliament is dissolved, probably in September. The route ahead may before then run into a mire.

The Democrat Party faces charges of breaking the law on party financing. If found guilty the penalty is almost certainly immediate dissolution. Kitisak Ratprasert (กิตติศักดิ์ รัฐประเสริฐ), a retired general, expects a judgment after 12 August.

หลังวันที่ 12 ส.ค. อาจเกิดความเปลี่ยนแปลง ทางการเมืองครั้งใหญ่ โดยพรรคประชาธิปัตย์ ซึ่งเป็นแกนนำในการจัดตั้งรัฐบาล อาจถูกยุบพรรค จากคดีเงินกองทุนเพื่อการพัฒนาการเมือง 29 ล้านบาท และ คดีเงินบริจาค 258 ล้านบาท โดยมั่นใจว่า พรรคประชาธิปัตย์ จะถูกยุบพรรค ถึง 90 เปอร์เซ็นต์ เพราะการกระทำความผิดจากทั้ง 2 คดี ค่อนข้างชัดเจน
ไทยรัฐ Thai Rat 8 May 2010

Which can be read as: after a change may happen to a new political path because of the Democrat Party, which is the leader in arranging the current government. The party may be dissolved from the case of political party development funds worth 29 million baht and the case of donations worth 258 million baht. Confidence is 90 percent the party will be dissovled because the wrong doing in these two cases is rather clear.

Thai Rat cited an interview Kitisak gave to radio station FM 100.5.

Kitisak, according to Thai Rat, is close to Democrat Party elder statesman Chuan Leekpai. Kitisak is also on the board of the New Politics Party, setup by Sonthi Limthongkul the founder of the yellow-shirt People's Alliance for Democracy, or PAD, which has condemned the Democrat's proposed road map to elections in November. Kitisak expects an interim government to replace the current Democrat-led government.

How and who will form the interim government is an open question. It may not be easy amid the bitter divisions and the high stakes in play. Dissolution of the Democrats followed by a struggle to form an acceptable interim government ahead of the military reshuffle and appointment of a new army commander in September may for the ambitious be an opportunity ripe for a coup.

Given the uncertainties ahead pencilling in elections for November can be interpreted as a great gamble when a poll could be held before judgment is passed on the Democrats. If the Democrats are not dissolved it may look to the Red movement like yet another case of double standards. If nothing else it will serve to top up their passions.

Assuming the risks are clear either the Democrats and their allies are confident they can keep politics on course for a vote in November or they or some among their number have in mind other plans which do not include an election. That may bring the country a few steps closer to civil war.

Vote for war?

2010-05-06T02:26:00.002+07:00

An election may not bring reconciliation but confrontation and even civil war warns Sodsri Sattayataam of the Election Commission in an interview with Thai Rat.

แต่สิ่งที่จะต้องทำเร่งด่วนคือการให้จบเรื่องปัญหาขัดแย้ง ซึ่งนายกรัฐมนตรีอาจจะมองว่าขยายผลจนกระทั่งให้มีกองกำลังต่างชาติเข้ามาจะ...ซึ่งคนไทยไม่อยากให้มีกองกำลังต่างชาติเข้ามาเหมือนดูแลการเลือกตั้ง...แต่ถ้ามีสงครามกลางเมืองเมื่อไหร่ก็จะเข้ามาทันที
Thai Rat 5 May 2010

In other words, what must be done urgently is to end conflicts. Therefore the prime minister probably will have to watch out for expansion of these effects that will bring in international forces even though Thais do not want them to enter to oversee the election. But if there is a civil war they will come immediately.

Whether the United Nations can muster enough troops from states with little interest in Thailand when it already has more troops than ever deployed on peacekeeping duties is questionable. Further more the nature of a conflict within Thailand may not be of the order requiring international intervention.

Nevertheless another warning from a senior civil servant of the risks of domestic conflict may be indicative of the sense of unease and fear that the powers and interests behind the government may not accept an election that is likely to see the Red movement decide the next administration.

Sodsri reportedly argued any amendments to the constitution during the next few months, particularly regarding penalties banning politicians from politics for five years, must be approved by citizens in a referendum to be legitimate.

ควรจะต้องถามประชาชนว่าสมควรหรือไม่ ไม่ใช่เป็นเฉพาะฝ่ายการเมืองอย่างเดียว แต่จะต้องจะมีการสอบถามประชาชนในทุกภาคส่วนด้วยว่าการแก้ไขรัฐธรรมนูญ ในประเด็นนั้น ๆ

Which can be read as, the people should be asked if amendments are appropriate, it is not only a matter for the politicians. Various questions about the constitution must be put to the people.

This may pose another test for Abhisit, who Sodsri rebukes for trying to set an election date which is the prerogative of the Election Commission. She is also concerned the fate of Abhisit's Democrat Party, which faces charges of election misdemeanours carrying the penalty of party dissolution, further muddies a turbulent situation.

Long road ahead

2010-05-06T01:27:00.017+07:00

A road map out of the current political deadlock presented by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was accepted by the Red movement's UDD according to early reports by much of the mainstream press during late afternoon of 4 May.

As the day was giving way to night UDD leaders in English and Thai made their position clear on the stage at Ratchaprasong in the heart of the Red Zone. They accepted the road map as a starting point for talks leading to agreements on various matters particularly a date for the dissolution of parliament.

The UDD stated that it wanted an independent public investigation into violence on 10 April which left 25 people dead including 20 Red protestors, many of whom appeared to have been shot by troops. They called for probes into other matters. They also called on the government to stop accusing the UDD and protestors of trying to overthrow the monarchy. They demanded the government stop blocking their broadcasts and websites.

The UDD explained Abhisit's proposal of an election on 14 November was unacceptable as the power to set election dates does not reside with the prime minister but with the Election Commission. The UDD said the protest at Ratchaprasong could not end until Abhisit exercised his authority to set a date for the dissolution of parliament. At 9pm Abhisit explained five points, which lacked substance except for number four, of the road map on television.

Hope, or perhaps wishful thinking, that the country was now on a road out of the crisis began to evaporate during the following day. The UDD called for clarity over the dissolution of parliament, while parties of the ruling coalition sidestepped the matter. Prospects for sincere negotiations by the government are in question if the prime minister starts by making a proposal which is not within his power. Failure to clarify the matter by setting the date for dissolving parliament does little to inspire confidence in Abhisit's ability or suggest accord between the jockeying factions and interests behind the government who pull his strings.

Abhisit's termination of talks, seemingly on a whim, with the UDD in April raises doubts over his sense of purpose and bearing.

The road map is vague and offers little in the way of clear direction. That leaves negotiations wide open perhaps raising chances of finding middle ground. It also carries risk of dispute and discord.

Muddle that it is a handful of scenarios emerge.

First, during the next few days Abhisit sets a date for the dissolution of parliament, perhaps in September, followed by agreement with the UDD on some other matters and the end of protests at Ratchaprasong.

Second, a date for dissolution of parliament is followed by acrimonious talks leading to rising tensions.

Third, Abhisit refuses to set a date for dissolution of parliament until the government is satisfied that the conditions laid out in the road map are achieved. Elections are postponed.

Optimistically, should the first scenario comes to pass it may give rise to expectations of an end to the political crisis. This is unlikely. At best this may be the end of the beginning because of the great changes taking place in Thai society. The election of Thaksin Shinawatra ten years ago marked the beginning of great structural change in Thai politics, a revolution in slow-motion. This coincided with two other critical trends.

First, the information age was dawning across Thailand as mobile phones and internet use spread from the wealthy to the middle class and five or six years ago reached a critical mass of connections among ordinary workers and farmers. The government's information strategy suggests its masters refuse to see this change.

Second, workers and farmers have been on average staying in school longer, at least until 14, and have been travelling further spatially, not just to Bangkok but in greater numbers to work overseas where they see first hand what better governance, and in some cases democracy, delivers. Economically they have been jumping between occupations expanding their experiences and social connections. That added to the information age has left them rather more cosmopolitan than is belied by the impression common in the media and among the elite of simple witless folk.

The result is rising expectations. People are acutely aware of what they have not got that they need to lead what they imagine will be a better life. Thaksin's policies were felt by many to have brought great benefits to their lives. He also had the good fortune to ride a cyclical economic recovery. Thaksin fought his first election campaign with a manifesto, a simple one. He implemented much of it. During his second campaign his party continued to market itself with lists of policies on billboards. Other parties for the first time dropped pictures of their candidates and leaders in favour of their policies - all copied from Thaksin's party.

Policies now count, they are on the rise and are becoming, if they are already not, as important as personality. This marks a change in perceptions, attitudes and engagement among the electorate and is indicative of growing sophistication. The rise of policies may continue until they are considered more important than personalities. Still old habits die hard, more than a few elections may have to pass until policies are firmly in the front of voters' minds.

People are better prepared than ever to weigh policies, to ponder and perhaps query thanks to the information age. Not only do people have more information and more sources than ever before, but they are able to discuss and share with more people than ever before unbounded by spatial constraints because mobile phones are on the floor of every factory, on every desk, in every paddy field. Feelings, ideas and thoughts have never been able to spread so easily because before mobile phones few Thais had a phone at home.

Demand will then continue for change. It is not going to abate with an election. The UDD, a mass membership social movement, will probably put Peua Thai, a party backed by Thaksin, into power at the next election. But when the party's performance sags it will either back other parties or itself perhaps split giving birth to new movements and groups with different ideas and demands.

Over the last ten years the forces that shaped power and society in Thailand have begun to rust in the face of political and social change. That rust will continue to corrode the old forces, it may well be impervious to even the most vigorous attempts to stem and reverse the rot. Those that have benefited from the old forces or believe they have, their lumbering mass poking through the curtain into the public realm as the People's Alliance for Democracy who wear yellow shirts and other smaller groups, may fear they have much to lose. An election, unless rigged, will hand government to those who are being lifted up by the new forces. Are they going to go with a bang, are they going to meddle and baulk giving life to the second or third scenarios?

The changes coming as old forces are washed away by new forces are slowly changing and restructuring power offering up great opportunity, something that happens rarely, once in a century or even a millennium. This may generate competition among factions or groups eager to capture the bounty and positions up for grabs because of this change and transition.

A glimpse may be seen in Iraq. After Saddam Hussein was toppled by the American-led invasion a power vacuum ensued, in part because the invasion force was so wholly unprepared for occupying, administering and rebuilding such a large country with fissures of religion and tribe running deep. The civil war that ensued between multiple elements and the shifting alliances and interests by which it was characterized represented a competition for capturing and building positions of power and interest before a new structure of power became set in place. This competition may not be over.

Similarly, Thailand is entering a transition as old forces are replaced by new forces generating a new structure of power. Until that structure is set everything is up for grabs. Thailand perhaps lacks the deep fissures of Iraq and is fortunately seeing the old structure dismantled slowly rather than in a few days. Nevertheless the transition that is underway and at its most visible in Ratchaprasong will take not months but years, perhaps decades, to find its end in a new structure of power and society.

UDD questions and answers นปช คำถามและคำตอบ

2010-05-05T22:25:00.006+07:00

The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, or UDD, which is the core of the Red movement has published its positions and aims in English and ไทย.

To read page-by-page move the mouse to the end of either image below.

English

ไทย

I feel happy

2010-05-04T01:19:00.001+07:00

Lek is a bright-eyed young city girl who exudes confidence. She works in field marketing for a manufacturer of aromatic inhalers and massage oils. She's probably been to university, she speaks some English and even a little Vietnamese.

Yet she isn't home watching MTV or flicking through YouTube. Instead she's walking around the Red Zone with her friends. Her mother is somewhere near the stage at Ratchaprasong.

Lek's not going home tonight.

She'll walk to and fro between the stage and the barricades, and when she gets tied she'll go lie down and sleep at the tent for people from her province of Samut Prakarn which is part of the urban sprawl of Bangkok. How many people in her province are Red? She reckons 80 percent.

Come 5am she'll get up, head home for a shower and then be off to work.

She comes most nights. Why?

"When I'm not here I worry, I am afraid. When I'm here I feel happy, I feel I am helping, I'm with other people, I feel we're together."

Middle-class urbanites like Lek are not supposed to be Red. The government and media generally portray the Red movement as a gathering of farmers and labourers. Provinces around Bangkok are not supposed to be Red. Anecdotal as this evidence is, it is not unusual.

The Red movement is much broader than the government or mainstream media pretends, it cuts across class and through society.

I won't allow it

2010-05-04T01:05:00.002+07:00

Muttu wears an easy grin on his round face with eyes with a glint of copper in the murk of the night down on the Red barricades outside Lumpini Park opposite the business quarter of Silom.

Coming from Sakhon Nahkon, a province of rice farmers, he was a taxi driver but is not a guard for the Red movement. In his mid-30s he has a wife and son back home. He doesn't worry too much about not earning much money these days because back home his family have a house and fields.

Just another man from the country with just six years of school under his belt and not much behind his eyes? Hardly. Like many rural folk these days he is more cosmopolitan than he might appear, indeed he is perhaps a bit of an extreme. He worked in Israel for some years doing various jobs including planting peppers and cooking in a hotel near the Dead Sea. In Haifa he had a girlfriend from Solvenia.

He's also worked in a factory in Taiwan.

Perhaps because of his experiences, what he's seen and heard, and the rich media environment he's got an opinion or two.

He's come to join the Red movement in Bangkok, to be a guard because he is angry about the coup of 2006, he dislikes the government which he thinks is not legitimate because it did not win an election.

Asked about Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjavija's proposal tonight to hold elections in November Muttu said it was unacceptable.

"I can't allow that, these people are murderers, they killed the people on 10 April, they are tyrants. They have to go now, we need elections now, we can't wait until November."

"What kind of democracy is this? Mark [Abhisit's nickname] went to Oxford. Oxford the top university in the world. Is this what he learned about democracy at Oxford?"

He thinks the government is controlling the media. "The television, the newspapers, they only report what the government says and thinks. They don't report what we think. I don't believe them, they just lie."

The feelings and ideas of one man. But only one man?

Disinformation and deception

2010-05-04T00:48:00.000+07:00

Truth is a slippery fish at the best of times.

Trying to pull the truth out of the muddy and turbulent currents of the crisis swirling around Thailand is made all the harder by troubling statements coming from the government and repeated often without question by the media, especially the English-language newspapers.

The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation seems to be making policy based on ideas and opinions rather than facts (if the reporting is correct, that is).

[Colonel Sansern Kaewkamnerd] said the anti-government leaders should allow reporters to ask people at the rally whether they want to continue the protest or return home.

He said the protesters were being overseen by the UDD guards.
Bangkok Post 3rd May 2010

One interpretation of these two sentences is that the government believes or is trying to create the impression protestors at Ratchaprasong are there under duress rather than expressing their feelings of their own volition.

The suggestion that people are only there under duress might, just might, be more tenable were the crowd static. It is not. There is a core of people who are camping in the streets, yet even they come and go. The crowds usually swell come late afternoon and evening as the heat eases and people finish work.

Having spent a considerable amount of time in the Red Zone around Ratchaprasong I have yet to see any evidence of coercion or oppression, indeed life in the zone feels a little freer and happier than the old Thailand that lies beyond its borders.

At the barricades nobody is counting who comes or goes, taking names or any other information. All guards do is politely, and often with a smile, check bags and vehicles for weapons.

Sansern reveals more about how the CRES works (again assuming the reporting is accurate):

Col Sansern said the CRES wondered whether the protest leaders were hiding weapons in Lumpini Park, as they refused to retreat from the area.

Wonder? Where are the facts?

The key fact is that the Red movement is not occupying the park. There are no Reds living or camping in the park. Some may visit during the day as any member of the public does. Most of the park's entrances are not blocked by Red barricades.

It would be no trouble at all for police and troops to enter and even occupy the park. Why then are they not in the park making thorough checks to dispel or confirm the suspicions of the CRES?

Sansern's baseless accusations and insinuations fit a pattern which amounts to a deliberate and crude attempt to disinform in order to deceive. Or if not that than simply ignorance.

After the grenade attack on Silom on 22 April Suthep Thaugsuban, a deputy prime minister, claimed the grenades were fired from within the Red Zone and were therefore fired by protestors. Suthep, among others, has called protestors of the Red movement terrorists.

Accusations without independently verifiable evidence might be libel, they may even be lies. They do little to improve the image of the government among the Red movement. They may however of use as disinformation to deceive government supporters and possibly foreign governments.

The government's efforts to manipulate the information-space are matched by its moves to stifle opposition voices and media by shutting down websites, radio and television, or using charges of lese majeste.

Foreign diplomats have also been put on notice.

This is not to say the Red movement is only issuing statements or making charges based on facts.

However a government which claims to be legitimate and aspires to the values and norms of democracy should have confidence and respect for the power of the truth and should hold facts in high regard.

The government's actions however belie its words. They are actions which are not conducive to peace, negotiation and resolution. Rather they suggest the government would like to pursue matters by other means.

Way out or another twist in a troubled road?

2010-05-03T21:53:00.001+07:00

Gridlock in Thailand's politics may be broken if the Constitutional Court orders the dissolution of the ruling Democrat Party perhaps as early as the middle of May.

The time for the Democrat Party to resolve or end on its terms the current confrontation in Bangkok with the Red movement may be but a few weeks.

On 12 April the Election Commission recommended the dissolution of the Democrat Party over two cases dating back to 2005.

Since the Commission's recommendation on the cases that have languished for years pundits have speculated that the Democrat's dissolution would result in an election without the ruling party appearing to have surrendered to the Red movement which in turn would achieve its key aim of an immediate election.

Expectations for such a way out of the current dead end may be rising. Thai Rat put the pathway into print in a commentary "ทางออกที่ศาล รธน.?" on 30 April.

But will an election bring an end to the troubles?

The Red movement may not be satisfied.

Those who oppose the Red movement and favour a political setup which institutionalizes the power and control of certain elite factions including elements of the army, such as the People's Alliance for Democracy, who wear yellow shirts, may not accept such an outcome.

Elements of the elite and army may also find such an result troubling.

An election will almost certainly hand a huge victory to Peua Thai, the party closely associated with Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister ousted by a military coup engineered by elite elements, in September 2006.

A return to government for a party or coalition with close ties to Thaksin may set the stage for his return, which would be welcomed by many members of the Red movement and feared perhaps by those responsible for the coup and subsequent efforts to destory parties associated with Thaksin.

On the other hand if the court decides to drop charges against the Democrats the Red movement will see yet another example of the double standards. Indeed a court ruling in the Democrats favour may serve to embolden and refresh the Red movement.

In the absence of compromises, amnesties and genuine commitment to electoral politics Thailand will continue its dangerous journey along a trouble road, perhaps to war.

Civil war?

2010-05-02T17:26:00.005+07:00

On the streets and in the press there is open talk of civil war. Whether there is any substance to such concerns necessarily requires a consideration of what civil war might mean in the context of Thailand and what capital may be available to prosecute goals by means other than debate and negotiation.

Whether, when or if there is or will be civil war in Thailand begs the question what exactly is civil war?

There is not yet a definition which is widely accepted. More common and simpler definitions use quantities, declaring a civil war to be under way when each side has suffered 100 deaths, or the entire conflicted killed at least 1,000 people, or there have been 1,000 casualties per year.

The problem with quantitative definitions is that as medical care improves more people are likely to survive wounds suffered during battles. This can be observed in the falling death rates and rising injury rates seen since the Second World War in wars involving belligerents with access to reasonable medical care. That said, the nature of conflict can modify this trend by influencing the type and scale of casualties and the ability of medical services to deal with those casualties.

The other problem is that since at least 1945 weapons, especially rifles, have been designed to cause incapacitating injuries rather than immediate death because injuries require immediate care by comrades and medical services which ties down manpower, slows momentum and undermines the ability to successfully implement plans to prosecute the aims of the war. Whereas the dead require no immediate attention for obvious reasons. Therefore it is more efficient and effective to injure than kill.

Qualitative definitions require organized groups to be engaged in violence to take control of the state, change state policy or effect secession. One of the groups may be the state, however in some circumstances it is questionable whether an effective and legitimate state exists.

The changing nature of conflict only adds complication. Conflict today may be prosecuted through means which do not involve direct violence. Attacks using software programs to undermine or shutdown systems, particularly command, control and infrastructure, are perhaps the best example.

What is war anyway but a violent form of pursuing ends which appears the most effective and efficient given the resources available and the prospects for success using other means?

What then is the opposite situation of war – peace, accord, harmony, order, law? What are the other means – negotiation, debate, discussion, persuasion?

In Thailand today there is generally speaking peace in the sense that in most places most of the time people can go about their business without fearing for their lives. But harmony seems to be fading, order has broken down quickly into deadly violence on numerous occasions in a few places, that although still relatively infrequent may be increasing. The situation then is somewhat fragile and vulnerable to more violence.

The exception here is the three provinces along the southern border which approximately one thousand people per year have been killed since 2004 in a complex situation in which violence may be the means of separatists, criminals, politicians, clans and officials pursuing different agendas.

Negotiations in recent months between the government and the UDD, the main organization within the Red movement, have broken down. An offer by the UDD to resume talks in April was rejected by the government.

Meanwhile the Red movement has been building and reinforcing barricades around Ratchaprasong in central Bangkok to attempt to thwart moves by the security forces to clear the protest. The government has promised to use force at an appropriate time.

It appears then that the situation and means are tilting towards continued conflict and greater violence. In the absence of means other than violence or where violence and its tools appear in ascendance to speak of war, or a sense of war, may not be premature or inaccurate.

To pursue aims primarily through physical violence that may involve securing or expanding territory requires two primary forms of capital – labour and money.

If the north and northeast are imagined as the strongholds of the Red movement they clearly have a much larger population, perhaps double or more, than that of Bangkok and southern Thailand, which appear to be predominately opposed to the Red movement. However Bangkok and southern Thailand may have greater wealth, or potentially ability to generate the money to finance violence.

However as recent conflicts from Africa to Afghanistan have indicated fighters armed with rifles and grenade launchers can be very effective in resisting and pursuing aims even where an opponent may have the most advanced weapons.

That may augur in favour of the Red movement. Yet the demography of Thailand suggests neither side has many young people, especially men, to spare on the battlefield. Thailand’s birth rate is low because of successful family-planning programmes in the 1970s and 1980s resulting in an aging population.

Given the need to produce food and generate revenue to fund an organized society with a central authority, or government, neither side may be in a position to deploy large numbers of its population into aggressive, sustained and large-scale forms of violence, particularly those required to expand and secure territory.

The economy of the country has become increasingly national over the last few decades. Much of the labour for the factories in the industrial heartlands surrounding Bangkok comes from the north and northeast. A substantial amount of the electricity for these factories and Bangkok also comes from the north and northeast, as does much of the food.

Livelihoods of many individuals, families and communities of the north and northeast are not derived only from the land, with many migrating, often for many years, to work in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces. Most of the agricultural produce and products from the north and northeast is still exported through ports close to Bangkok.

Breaking the economic links that tie the country together while not impossible would be costly and perhaps self-defeating, it may even raise interest and eventually capacity for the north and northeast to breakaway, trading through ports in China and Vietnam. Should some sort of temporary division cut across the country it is conceivable that it may slow but not obstruct migration and trade.

Unlike many civil conflicts, the divisions in Thailand so far lack the great mobilizing forces of religion or ethnicity (although if the division and conflict persist a stronger sense of separate and unique identity might arise in the northeast and north where the language is quite different from that spoken in Bangkok and the south but rather similar to that of Laos, parts of eastern Myanmar and southern Yunnan in China). The conflict in southern Thailand is an exception, but it is also less than germane to the political dispute affecting the whole country.

Conflicts where religion or ethnicity are among the key mobilizing forces have within them an element of survival, they are primordial perhaps, which may lead people to make greater sacrifices and fight harder.

So far this aspect is limited or absent in Thailand. Neither side is threatening to eliminate the other, rather they are in dispute over the nature of the political system, the governments it produces, and in whose interest the government is making policy. The dispute to some degree reflects the changing character and connectivity of society.

Another feature of grinding conflicts within the borders of a country is support from overseas. Few rebellions aiming for autonomy or secession succeed without external support, either from a state or a diaspora or both. If states or the diaspora emerge as supporters for either side then the conflict may be intensify, coming perhaps to resemble that which gripped Sri Lanka, Nicaragua or Northern Ireland, generating more deaths and injuries and possibly great damage to the economy.

Just how far people are willing to go remains to be seen, but if violence becomes the currency of engagement then it may be that the interests of each side are better served by controlling territory within which to preserve and legitimize their position while seeking to eventually bring about a unification and resolution by a variety of means.

Civil conflict or war in Thailand may then be fairly static, more like that dividing Korea or the inter-state war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, rather than fluid such as the wars in Afghanistan, Congo, Somalia or Yugoslavia.

While a scenario like Yugoslavia cannot be ruled out, on balance it appears conflict on Thailand could be drawn out but at a low-intensity with relatively few casualties and with relatively little economic disruption. In the absence of serious negotiation this may be considered war. In the absence of a high-casualty rate it may be considered a conflict, troubles.

Whether the situation in Thailand is conflict or war may not matter. What matters is that the most efficient mechanisms, including electoral politics, supremacy of the law and clean courts, for arbitrating power, balancing interests and providing a sense of justice, fairness, peace and security are broken.

Until they are fixed and embraced by all will there remain potential in Thailand for trouble?

Uniform problem

2010-04-27T23:29:00.001+07:00

Why are the army and police appearing to be part of the problem rather than a solution to the challenge of the Red movement and the troubles facing the government?

The government wants to disperse Red protests yet the army and police have, with the exception of the failed operation of 10 April, proved reluctant and less willing to work together than usual.

Some theories and rumours boil down to rivalries and interests of different cliques within the army. Police are upset over the handling of senior police promotions and reshuffles by a government that came to power by way of a fix engineered by the army. In turn the army got back into politics by way of a coup in 2006 which deposed Thaksin Shinawatra, the elected prime minister and former police colonel.

Others point to the fallout should operations to disperse Red protests prove more deadly than that of 10 April which left 20 protestors dead, many shot by troops, and also killed four soldiers. Soldiers or police implicated in a bloody crackdown on Red protests could face difficulties should the Red movement prevail, voting in a government, one that might conceivably be headed by Thaksin. Instigators of the coup might then also be looking at trouble, perhaps at best exile.

Promotions and concerns about consequences appear then to be at least some of the causes that have the army and police marching time, preferring the sidelines to the frontlines. However they are also symptoms of structural troubles which shape the army and police as sources of insecurity and instability rather than security and stability.

While politics has evolved in Thailand since 1973 and shifted perhaps most significantly after the 1997 constitution that appears to have been a consequence of the uprising against army dictators in 1992, there has been little reform of the military and police.

Neither are particularly effective at what modern militaries and police are supposed to do. Their actual effect seems rather closer to an occupation force, there to put down threats that may emerge to the existing structure of power and prizes.

Both are quite effective however at providing comfortable, even highly lucrative, livelihoods for their members and the well-being of their families but not without pain. Promise of riches and more makes both institutions rather attractive, despite the generally low regard in which they are held by society. Great rewards attracts some people, perhaps many, who would otherwise go elsewhere for their livelihoods. It just so happens that being an armed uniform offers the best deal compared to other opportunities.

This might seem strange at first. Official salaries, as they are for most public servants in Thailand, are low and unlikely to buy the good life. A barista in Starbucks in Bangkok earns as much, if not more, than a police officer fresh out of the academy. That might reflect the values of a society which places a premium on people able to make drinks in an airconditioned environment over someone who is supposed to maintain order and security out on the sweltering smoggy streets. Anecdotal experience suggests that actually citizens and business want professional, effective, honest security forces more than baristas.

To compensate for low official salaries the military and police seek out alternative sources of income from petty corruption all the way up to grand corruption on procurement and trafficking in unregulated commodities such as military weapons and narcotics.

The army seems to have more official businesses, which may draw comparison with the militaries of Pakistan or Turkey, than the police. Like the police many soldiers also engage in unofficial business. To take a simple example at most discos and nightclubs in Thailand, including those open after the legal closing time of 2am, security is provided, efficiently, by smartly dressed and usually polite off-duty soldiers, and sometimes police, who may be in uniform. Historically a precedent might be the tax farming which was common before the advent of modern Thailand in the first half of the 20th century.

Rewards from these alternative sources of income generally increase as a soldier or police officer attains higher rank. Promotions then are sensitive in the army and police because of the power and opportunity they bring for accessing unofficial income, arising from legal and illegal business.

While the scope of unofficial income is almost unlimited it is accompanied by uncertainty over prospects, rewards and benefits. A soldier or police officer has to milk every opportunity while they can because it be may be lost in a new posting or even a promotion to a less lucrative unit. They may also face competition from other soldiers and police, especially those in different factions or patron-client networks. There are also pressures to generate revenues, either to send up to patrons or to send down to clients.

Within these organizations interests are further warped by the market for positions and promotions. Factors that may influence a career are merit, money and mediation. Merit being how well someone performs. Money being how much they can spend to pay for a position or promotion. Mediation being the scope, strength and influence of their connections whether through classmates, family, friends or patronage. Consequently professionalism and expertise may not be the best investment of time and effort to build a career and improve livelihood and well-being.

The nature of a livelihood in uniform is a reflection of the essentially unregulated structure of income, advancement and power in these organizations. In turn this attracts some, perhaps, many members who think more like opportunitists or entrepreneurs rather than public servants.

People in these organizations have to balance the demands of their official duties with the demands of maintaining or improving their livelihoods in an unregulated market. Uncertainty demands more time and effort to manage, it is in effect more inefficient than certainty.

They are however not entirely a law unto themselves. They have to balance the demands of competing factions and the give-and-take that goes with allying with power networks outside the uniform, especially politicians. They have a vested interest in cooperating to protect the existing power structure and the government in order to protect the structure of the unregulated markets within their own organizations from which they derive their rather lucrative livelihoods.

Why then are coups not more common when they would offer the uniforms a chance for even greater income? One explanation may be that in controlling the government they effectively become regulators, while also remaining actors. That brings costs and probably risks that may not always be worth the rewards. It is for many simpler and easier to focus on making headway in the markets of their own organizations while protecting the existance of those markets through cooperation with other power networks.

However there are times when they may have to take action outside their organizations up to and including shaping governments through back-room fixes or coups.

Structural instability of these security organizations augurs against their agents beingefficient executors of their official duties and responsibilities. Consequently public and national security and stability are going to be less than desired. This generates costs for citizens and business because insecurity and instability requires mitigation and adaptation. The most efficient and cost-effective solution is paying taxes to fund well paid, well equipped and regulated security forces.

Until the structural problems of Thailand's security forces are fixed they will always remain a potential source of instability and insecurity for politics and government. Political reform may face limits if it is not accompanied by reform of security. Reform of the army and police will not be easy and may face great resistance. Nevertheless until it is achieved politics and society in Thailand will be dogged by instability and insecurity. A starting point might be a decent, respectable salary.

ไพร่

2010-04-25T21:17:00.000+07:00

ไพร่, which sounds like prai, was a dusty word which rarely saw the light of day. Now on every other t-shirt worn by people of the Red movement printed large and proud is prai.

Prai has perhaps a dozen meanings including cad, citizen, plebian and proletariat. In the context of the Red movement protest, which includes an element of class conflict and rebellion over inequality, prai frequently means commoner and peasant.

Asked to explain prai a middle-aged Thai woman, who had been to university, worked in an office and was with the Red movement, said prai were people who have nothing, the lowest people.

Nothing. Nothing of what?

Many people of the Red movement at Ratchaprasong, and elsewhere, also describe themselves as จน (more formally ยากจน), which sounds like jon, meaning poor. Being jon is part of being prai it seems. In some contexts jon may also be derogatory perhaps because it sounds a little like โจร, which means criminal. So while people who think of themselves as poor describe themselves as jon, they may also feel uncomfortable when people who are not jon refer to them as jon.

People who are jon feel they have insufficient material wealth and the means to attain such wealth necessary for a good life and secure well-being. They then do have something, more than nothing, but that something is judged as inadequate, as good as nothing. Nothing then represents an extreme in a material sense.

Insufficient material wealth, being jon, is for prai a source of suffering because it impinges upon physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. Why are they unable to attain sufficient material wealth?

Poor health, bad education, limited or expensive credit, information asymmetry, rigged markets and corruption are some of the structural factors stacking up to trap many as jon. These factors affect capacity to access or make use of opportunities. Prai are then jon because they lack opportunity. That is a matter of equity, reflected in the vast wealth disparity in Thailand, among the widest in the world.

How then are the poor finding common cause with people who are not jon, even prosperous and of such means and occupation as to be middle or even upper class?

What seems to be the thread which binds them together is a sense of injustice and unfairness which springs from the illegal removal from power by an illegal coup of Thaksin Shinawatra, the elected prime minister, in September 2006.

Many people of the Red movement, especially those who are jon, want the value of their votes, which the coup took away, restored by the return of Thaksin Shinawatra as prime minister. Others who do not think highly of Thaksin want the value of electoral politics restored by an end to coups and the interference they represent in politics by bases of pwoer which lack the legitimacy which arises from the sovereignty of the people.

In a sense of political rights all people, no matter their material wealth, are left with something like nothing when a coup takes away their power to vote and decide on the government. They are commoners, serfs even, people who are judged as lesser by those with the power and will to effect a coup. All people in a political sense then can be thought of as prai.

So far I have not met people who think of themselves as prai in the sense of political rights. That does not mean people are not thinking in this sense, or that it might not yet become part of the popular collective conscience as ideas, thoughts and meanings continue to evolve in these unsettled times.

Prai in its socio-economic sense finds a comparative in India's lowest class, the dalit or untouchable.

Dalit consciousness began to rise and shame turned to pride during the first-half of the 20th century as politics evolved in the run up to India emerging from the British Empire. Mahatma Ghandi called the dalits God's children. They have since become a significant force in Indian politics.

Poor people reappropriated prai this year, shearing it of shame to turn it into a badge of pride, identity and solidarity. Prai too are now a major force in Thai politics. This began before prai consciousness when Thaksin and his associates designed clear, simple policies assembled into a manifesto to win votes from the masses in a way more efficient and effective than buying votes.

Now that there appears to be prai consciousness it may be hard to put it back to sleep. In coming out of the factories and fields, the slums and the villages to stand up together in defiance of those who took their rights away at gunpoint they have shown they are a force not only at the ballot box but also in the battle to change Thailand, to shape the future of Thailand for their children.

If the prai remain awake, their identity enduring, they will not only have irrevocably changed the political landscape, they will also have changed society and the economy.

Local suppliers have during the last few weeks brought products for prai to the market. So far mostly apparell, often mixing political messages and images of Thaksin.

Products targetting other needs of people in the Red movement, particularly those self-identifying as prai, may be on the way. In the last few days cheap phones have appeared in red.

If major local and international suppliers of products and services begin to offer products for prai and the Red movement it may indicate the durability of the prai identity and the shift it represents in society and the economy.

Prai has demonstrated its power as an identity in a time of tension and confrontation. The extent of the Red movement, especially in northern and northeastern provinces, may indicate the number of people identifying as prai could run into millions. What becomes of prai as an identity and mobilizing force in society warrants close observation given the numbers involved. There may be much to learn.

How did prai appear as an identity in the current turmoil?

Are these processes ongoing and will they affect the future of prai?

Can prai identity endure as a source of political power like India’s dalits?

What sub-identities or groups are there in prai?

Will prai also become associated with poverty of political rights?

Mixed messages, muddled minds?

2010-04-25T00:27:00.000+07:00

Peace and understanding were on the mind of General Anupong Paochinda, the army chief, after a meeting with his subordinates on Friday 23 April:

ส่วนแนวทางแก้ไขปัญหาที่ดีที่สุด คือ การสร้างความเข้าใจให้เกิดขึ้นในสังคม เพราะถือว่าทุกคนเป็นคนไทยด้วยกัน การใช้ความรุนแรงไม่ได้ทำให้ปัญหาหมดไป

ยืนยันกับประชาชนว่าการใช้ความรุนแรงไม่สามารถทำให้ปัญหาจบลง

การใช้กำลังเพื่อสลายการชุมนุมจะทำให้เกิดผลกระทบและความเสียหายมาก และไม่สามารถทำให้ปัญหาจบได้
Thai Rat 23 April 2010

In plain English Anupong said the best way to solve the problem is to create understanding within society because he believes that as everybody is Thai, using violence will not make the problem go away. He confirmed to the public that violence is unable to end the problem. Using troops to disperse the assembly (of protestors) will cause consequences and great damage, and is unable to bring the problem to an end.

These and other points in the Thai Rat report appeared to be aimed not at the public but also unit commanders and the rank-and-file.

Recently Anupong said a political solution is the best way to solve the current political problem not force.

A tougher stance was taken by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjavija on Saturday 24 April. He rejected a compromise offer from the Red movement because:

they use violence and intimidation

adding

Tomorrow everything will become more clear when I and the army chief will jointly appear on my weekly television address
Agence France-Presse 24 April 2010

Thai Rat in an SMS update reported the government said troops were still ready to dissolve the demonstration at Ratchaprasong the appropriate time being when there were less protestors.

Meanwhile the UDD, the mass-member organization at the heart of the Red movement, claims an army source has warned the army will move in on the protest at Ratchaprasong by Monday.

On one hand the army commander is counselling against using force, warning of severe consequences, while on the other the prime minister rebuffs a compromise offer from the Red movement and the government confirms troops are still an option.

What to make of this muddle?

Anupong and Abhisit playing nice guy, tough guy while talks take place off-stage with the Red movement?

Factions within the government and army disagree over the best course of action?

Abhisit is unable to impose control over the government and army?

Anupong is warning commanders thinking of disobeying his orders or staging a coup to think again?

Anupong can afford to be a dove because he retires later this year, whereas his deputy and nominated successor General Prayuth Chan-ocha may secure his career prospects and all the benefits that go with that in an army which is as much business as it is military if he is a hawk ready to keep a government allied to the Red movement, and quite possibly the man the army ousted from elected office Thaksin Shinawatra, out at all costs?

Ebb and flow

2010-04-24T13:55:00.000+07:00

Wednesday brought foreboding. By late afternoon offices and some shops in Ratchaprasong were shutting down after the government advised them to suspend operations. In the evening Reds and anti-Reds furiously hurled bottles, rocks and anything else at each other. Order was restored during the course of which troops appeared to threaten to shoot police.

Thursday began with four companies of troops and police (perhaps Border Patrol Police) moving in on Khon Kaen to retake a train carrying army vehicles held up by the Red movement. Confrontation loomed. Force and deaths carried the risk of sparking an uprising across northeast Thailand.

Relief came with an agreement Reds could ride with the train to ensure the vehicles were going to the deep south and not Bangkok.

What light, what hope, this brought was lost when night came bringing darkness and fear after five M79 grenades exploded in Silom, killing one and injuring around 80. Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban was quick to pin the blame on the Red movement. Baseless accusations in the absence of the hardest evidence in a delicate situation can hardly help matters.

Expectations of a crackdown, possibly a coup, grew when on Friday the skytrain announced it would shut down six hours early at 6pm. The subway withdrew services beneath Rama 4 which runs past Silom and Ratchadamri, frontline for the Reds and anti-Reds.

Shortly after 6pm General Anupong Paochinda, the army commander, said force would not be used to disperse the Red movement because it would not solve the political problem.

After Thursday's tensions, Friday evening seemed a little less dark with flickers of optimism.

Saturday morning's heavy rain washed away the intense heat of the last few days, but not the tension. Prospects for peace were once again uncertain, perhaps in retreat, with Thai Rat reporting the Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situations confirming the army is ready to dissolve the Red movement at the appropriate time when there are fewer protestors.

With Red movement numbers strong and their mood unbowed when will that time be?

Then and now

2010-04-23T14:44:00.000+07:00

Protetors on the streets, troops shooting civilians, government stumbling and tottering, Bangkok today might not seem much different to Bangkok in 1992, 1976 and 1973.

Simple images may suggest continuity belying change, yet scratch a little deeper and the differences are there, starkly.

In 1973 and 1976 Thailand was an overwhelmingly rural, agrarian society. Education for many meant leaving school after four or six years. Even in 1992 the great migration from farm to factory was perhaps still accelerating. In those years communication was slow and difficult, only a few had mobile phones in 1992.

Protestors in those days reflected more the society of Bangkok than Thailand, they were more middle class, many were students from dozens of universities in the city. Perhaps the biggest contribution from rural folk was the soldiers ordered to suppress the protests with their boots and shots.

Since 1992 society has become more open and permissive. Open protest has become a part of life. Camps of protesting farmers have frequently taken root outside the Ministry of Agriculture lobbying for changes in policy or more support. Perhaps in retrospect this culture of protest camps foreshadowed the sit-in protests of today.

In 2010 Thailand is perhaps as much industrial and service as it is agrarian. One in five, perhaps even one in four, make their living in the industrial heartlands of Bangkok and its surrounding provinces. Most now stay in school until 14 or 15 and many finish high school at 17, going on to colleges and universities.

Media saturates daily life. Dozens of channels beam into the televisions in every home. Advertising is ubiquitous, Bangkok is billboard city. Mobile phones and the internet have totally connected society.

All this makes for a more cosmopolitan society. Country girls are no less hip than their city sisters these days. Fashion has never travelled faster. Nor has food. Many of the larger districts now have big-box supermarkets lined up with half-a-dozen American fast-food franchises. When pizza and KFC are available by delivery in half an hour in a village of farmers something has changed. Nowhere seems remote in Thailand anymore. Currents of urban society flow through every village.

Protests in 2010 appear to better reflect the society of Thailand than those in the past. While perhaps most people who come and go to the protests, especially in the evenings, are from Bangkok and the surrounding provinces, or live these places while still thinking of a town or village up country as home, those now camping on the streets are from the fields. That they can come in such numbers is an indication of how much better transport is in Thailand today.

Most troops still come from the farms. But with so many protestors from the farms too the troops may have to fire on their own people if they follow orders in the coming clash of Ratchaprasong.

Today electoral politics are established as the way for changing government. The coup of 2006 tried to smash that, to shape outcomes more to the taste of certain elites, but failed. Previous protests were at least in part about trying to establish electoral politics to replace dictatorship. Today's protests are, at least in part, a reaction to the coup and a mission to restore electoral politics, no matter how ugly and flawed it may be.

Protests in 1992 which brought down a military dictatorship, at the cost of dozens perhaps hundreds killed or disappeared, were a watershed which resulted in a few years of public consultations before drafters drew up the 'peoples constitution' which went into effect in 1997.

Events of 2010 are an even greater backlash than 1992 because they are truly national. The consequences of this may not be clear for many years, they may be no less than those of 1992, they may even be greater.

Totally connected

2010-04-23T13:58:00.000+07:00

Weapons. What do you think of? Guns, grenades and bayonets? What about the pen? Today is the mobile phone mightier than the sword?

Shake anybody old enough to drive a motorcycle upside down by the ankles and among the odds and ends falling out of their pockets will be a mobile phone, perhaps two.

Odds are walk into five homes and at least one will have a computer, perhaps two, hooked up to the web, probably by broadband, perhaps by mobile phone.

Tabloids frequently splash headlines of superstars or politicians caught in compromising situations by a clip.

A clip being a video shot by a mobile phone. Thailand's 'clip culture' from trading films, pictures, ringtones, wallpapers, games and more is as strong, vibrant and profitable as anywhere.

Thailand has probably reached mobile and internet saturation, a situation of total connectivity, an always on(line) society.

As with vacination it is probably the case that not everybody has to have a mobile phone or internet access for total connectivity effects to change society and its economy. In vacination many diseases can be effectively eliminated when four out of five people are innoculated.

Having a mobile phone and internet in most households may be enough for total connectivity to take effect on the way information, ideas and issues flow across society affecting what people know, understand and think.

Off course today there are few, if any, off(line) societies. But there are many where large sub-societies, especially the mass of the poor and labouring, are still mostly offline.

What happens to a society switches from off to on? In an offline society people are passive consumers of information, which moves relatively slowly. In an online society people are active consumers, producers and transmitters of information, almost instantly. In an online society everybody is a node, everybody is an element of the society network.

In a totally connected society people are able to react quickly to information, to share and to find common cause. In Thailand barely a day or two after the clash and deaths of 25 people at Ratchadamneon on 10 April ever enterprising vendors where offering CDs and DVDs of the fighing, mostly compiled from videos shot with cameras and phones posted on the web.

It seemed like everybody was taking photos and videos with their phones of the aftermath. Wherever montages of photos of that day and night are posted on the streets of the Red Zone people cluster around, many taking photos with their phones.

Photos can be sent instantly anywhere in the country by multimedia messages. Images and videos can also be uploaded over the mobile internet.

The phenomenon of the Red movement, its rapid development, its reach into every village and perhaps even every army platoon and police station, its power to mobilize, its access to information within the state, may not have been possible without mobile phones.

Of course social movements have grown to large scale and achieved great effect in less on societies, such as Nepal, Iraq or South Vietnam, but to do so requires people to devote more time and effort, which is time and effort lost to livelihoods and households, than perhaps is the case in totally-connected societies where information could not be any more convenient.

Thailand is probably the first totally-connected society to experience such deep civil discord, perhaps even existing in a state of cold civil war.

The current situation may even be a direct consequence of being a totally-connected society.

And if Thailand's cold civil war turns hot it may be the most developed country yet to fall upon itself.

Weak points

2010-04-22T23:56:00.000+07:00

Defending and holding Ratchaprasong against an army attack, if enough troops can get close enough, may be possible because the Red movement has had time to prepare. Roads are barricaded with trucks, tyres and bamboo pikes.

The area has its weak points, particularly the block on the west of Ratchadamri formed by Chulalongkorn Hospital, the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, Police General Hospital and Royal Thai Police Headquarters.

Rat runs connect each of these with Ratchadamri and Henri Dunant. Were troops to reach the heart of the city in strength they would conceivably push through from Henri Dunant via any or all four institutions to force their way into Ratchadamri and up to Ratchaprasong.

The grounds of Royal Bangkok Sports Club are perhaps half a square mile, mostly open and unobstructed golf fairways and greens surrounded by a race track. This area could be pressed into service for detaining the thousands that might be arrested in the Red Zone.

It would also be a useful landing site for dozens of helicopters, each wave landing a few companies, perhaps a battalion, of troops. Waves would have to arrive frequently perhaps every 15-30 minutes.

Whether the army has enough operational helicopters and the expertise for such a large operation is unclear.

The use of a helicopter on 10 April to drop tear gas grenades on Reds at Ratchadamneon indicates the army sees a role for helicopters in suppressing protests.

This is the more likely role for helicopters in the coming move to clear the Red protest, that and inserting observation teams and perhaps snipers on to rooftops.

Unless the Reds in Ratchaprasong have rifles and heavy machines guns, and people trained to use them against moving targets, there may be little the Reds can do save set fires to fill the air with thick smoke. They may have to torch buildings.

Boom boom bang bang

2010-04-22T23:39:00.000+07:00

Nightfall in the Red Zone brings a change in the sound of the city. The din of traffic has been replaced by the echoing speeches, claps and cheers which when they die down give way to something like silence.

Last night after midnight there repeated pops, bangs, booms and reports combined once thwapawapa thwapawapa of a helicopter lazily slinking through the blistering summer air.

Eerie and ominous. Yet calm prevails. These are not, yet, a consequence of gunfire, the heralds of war, but fireworks.

Tonight the pops, bangs, booms and reports started not long after darkness swept across the city. Every so often came the thwapawapa thwapawapa.

Around 8.30pm five deeper, sharper booms ripped through Silom as five M79 grenades exploded, killing one and injuring 90.

Whoever ordered the attack was not intending to kill many because if they had they would have.

Instead using a weapon primarily designed to injure, rather than kill, signals they are trying to stoke fear, anger and suspicion, perhaps hoping to trigger clashes between civilians that may test the security forces to the limit thereby creating a situation conducive to a coup.

Suspicions are already high that these black hands or third hands were at work on 10 April when 25 were shot dead, most it seems by troops. Who they may be will probably remain a mystery. UDD leaders already claim elements in the army are preparing false-flag operations.

Deepening suspicions amid growing uncertainty and ripples of rumours bearing few facts may lead people to move to pre-empt attacks by attacking first.

Whether cool hearts and calm minds can prevail we can but hope.

Mission impossible?

2010-04-22T02:32:00.000+07:00

There is much talk now of troops, perhaps after a coup, moving in to put down the Red revolt and resume state control over what is now the Red Zone radiating out from Ratchaprasong.

Friday night or Saturday would be convenient because business in Bangkok would be closed, there would be less traffic, and it would leave Sunday to clear up the bodies, rubble and get the streets in order for Monday.

It seems simple. Send in troops armed with batons, shields, riot guns, shotguns and rifles to clear out thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of people from the Red movement who if they are armed at all are only visibly now armed with sticks and spears. Although tonight I did see one older man with half a dozen arrows (perhaps made from bamboo) slung across his back, but no sign of a bow. Surely then the troops should be able to quell the uprising?

First, hawks in the government and army need to identify troops they believe they can trust not to mutiny and to do finish the job, at any cost if necessary. There are suggestions the Queen's Guards could be dependable.

Are there enough of them to take on tens of thousands of Reds, many armed with sticks and spears who may well know the city's complex urban terrain better than the troops? Maybe, maybe not.

They may have been preparing for this since the debacle of 10 April which resulted in 25 deaths, including at least four soldiers. They will need equipment, which if not sufficient may have to be bought at short notice, perhaps from China. Tonight around Silom troops are armed with batons, shields, some shotguns, and various rifles, but I did not see one carrying a riot gun which fires rubber or plastic bullets.

The Queen's Guard has a major base in Prachinburi, a few hours east of Bangkok. Whether they can deploy in strength in battle order into the heart of downtown Bangkok without being spotted or facing blockades seems questionable in light of Reds in Khon Kaen on 21 April holding up a train transporting army vehicles south. Reds think to Bangkok, the army says to the deep south which has been gripped by violence for six years.

Troops might come in from other bases outside in Bangkok or troops in Bangkok might be used. But all may face problems of obstruction.

Even if enough loyal troops can reach the heart of Bangkok to move in on Ratchaprasong would they be willing to shoot on thousands from across the country, including many from Bangkok, potentially at kith and kin?

Events of the 10 April may suggest some troops would rather surrender their weapons to the Reds then shoot.

Of course it is possible people opposed to the Reds, whether Yellows or another colour or neutral, might try to assist troops in their passage to Ratchaprasong. Whether they have the numbers, the motivation and the organization to match the Reds is in doubt for now.

If enough loyal troops can be assembled they could if they push hard enough reach and clear Ratchaprasong. But to do so they will have to do much shooting. The cost will be high, high indeed. The consequences may leave the army with nothing but a Pyrrhic victory.

Ingenuity

2010-04-22T00:17:00.000+07:00

What people with time on their skillful hands may make out of the mundane, simply rubbish can be surprising.

Under a canopy in the Red Zone outside Pathumwanaram temple, wedged between Siam Paragon and Central World malls a few minutes walk from Ratchaprasong, a plumpish woman with a round face sat folding strips of plastic cut from discarded water bottles, of which there are a lot with thousands of thirsty protestors.

From Red Zone

Along with a few friends, or perhaps relatives including a lean man with sun-worn skin of a farmer edging into old age, they were weaving the strips of plastic into a mesh. The result strung between two posts of the canopy on which sat a smiling young man was the net of a hammock.

From Red Zone

They told me they were from Khon Kaen, a province in the upper northeast where the Reds movement is strong, strong enough to hold up a train transporting army vehicles.

I asked why they were weaving plastic and if they did this back home. The old man told me with a chuckle they were doing it because they had nothing else to do.

What they were also doing was being inventive, ingenius, using the skills and bent for improvization borne of living close to the land to turn the abundant rubbish of a city into a resource.

The value of the energy and water transferred into the plastic during production was being put to further use instead of being lost as rubbish, or consuming more energy and water in recycling.

If the protests continue for much longer they might be selling bottle-plastic hammocks in a few days.

Crackdown will spark war

2010-04-21T18:25:00.000+07:00

On Monday Thai Rath, Thailand's best-selling daily newspaper, ran as its top story a warning from Senator Direk Teungfang:

ดิเรก ถึงฝั่ง" สว.นนทบุรี และอดีตปธ.สมานฉันท์ฯ เตือนรัฐหากใช้กำลังปราบรุนแรง จะเจอสงครามทุกจังหวัดแน่ แนะทางแก้เริ่มจากถอนทหาร-เลิก พ.ร.ก.ฉุกเฉิน นำเข้าสู่โต๊ะเจรจา ยันการเมืองต้องแก้ด้วยการเมือง...
Thai Rath 19 April 2010

Or in plain English Direk warns if in case the government uses force it will face war in every province for sure. The way to repair the situation is to withdraw the army, end emergency rule, lead the way into negotiations to support an improvement in politics.

Direk, who spent much of his career in the provinces as an administrator, is now the president of a senate commission for reconciling politics through reform and studying revision of the constitution.

What may come to pass - scenarios

2010-04-21T18:08:00.000+07:00

The situation is deteriorating somewhat, the government has warned businesses in Ratchaprasong to shut. Public agencies often use scenarios in formulating policy and making preparations for what is unknowable: the future.

Scenarios for Thailand:

1. Compromise, peace and relative order restored, country muddles along

2. Crackdown succeeds, Abhisit stays on as prime minister, negotiations, reconciliation, and elections

3. Crackdown succeeds, Abhisit faces revolt in the north and northeast and sustained resistance from the many shades of Red (especially if more than a few dozen Reds are killed during the crackdown)

4. Crackdown fails, government falls, elections or a coup

5. Coup (to free Abhisit from being tarnished by what may come), then successful crackdown, possibly followed by Red rebellion and strongman state like Burma or Laos but with economic costs because information and internet will be tightly controlled and America and Europe may impose sanctions

6. Coup provokes clashes within the army, Reds and Yellows clash on the streets, civil war (frontline roughly along the border of the Isarn plateau and the northern fringe of the central plains)?

Sticks and spears

2010-04-21T02:53:00.000+07:00

I headed out a little after 9pm my mind only on getting to the supermarket before closing time. I forgot to factor in the nature of the Red Zone to fascinate and surprise. I had a feeling there were more protestors walking to and from Ratchaprasong than usual, some were unusually carrying bamboo staves and spears.

I had also heard of barricades and spears at the southern end of Ratchadamri between Lumpini Park and Chulalongkorn Hospital opposite Silom and its towers of offices. I thought if I walked quickly I could take a peak and still get to the supermarket before closing. The air was filled with shouts and gunfire.

Nobody ducked, people continued walking, eating or watching the public screens relaying events on the stage at Ratchaprasong. The screens were showing video of the events of 10 April when perhaps 20 protestors died from gunshots, many it seems fired by troops who can clearly be seen in broad daylight shooting not in the sky but horizontally, at protestors. The noise of gunfire and shouts was blaring from the speakers strung up all down the street.

Bamboo staves and spears were heaped in a head-high pile beside Lumpini Park. Help yourself. Standing by the pile were three men and a woman with a shaven head. One of the man waved his hand and asked me not to take a photo. I asked why not. The woman pulled rank, leaving me free to take a picture.

From Sticks and spears - Bangkok 20th April 2010

More and more graffiti condemning the government, often in very strong personal terms, and demanding change is marching across public space.

From Sticks and spears - Bangkok 20th April 2010

At the mouth of Ratchadamri opposite Silom perhaps a thousand stood, most carrying bamboo staves and spears. Many were shouting across the traffic of Rama 4 at a crowd at the mouth of Silom from atop a barricade of tyres and bamboo.

From Sticks and spears - Bangkok 20th April 2010

Reds armed as they were with their staves and spears were in good spirits, orderly, organized and polite as usual. The ground behind the barricade was littered with crushed rock, pieces the size of tennis balls. A truck began to play their song, their anthem, causing them all to break out into singing, dancing and more cheering.

From Video

A pickup truck pulled up from behind their lines. Half a dozen men rushed over to unload bundles of more bamboo staves and spears.

From Sticks and spears - Bangkok 20th April 2010

Are they being supplied for defence against an army assault expected this weekend or are they being supplied to fuel militancy and give people the means to fight or attack if they feel slighted or threatened, in other words to escalate the situation?

From Sticks and spears - Bangkok 20th April 2010

Across the ever busy Rama 4 and beneath the flyover which runs below the skytrain viaduct were beside the subway escalator perhaps a hundred people jeering at the Reds over at the barricade. Beside them stood a few dozen or so police. Their faces said it all. Glum and miserable, wishing they were anywhere but there.

From Sticks and spears - Bangkok 20th April 2010

Staves and spears against police and troops with access to rifles, machine guns and helicopters begs a trite comparison with the film Avatar.

Industrialism in Thailand, as in many countries, has socialized huge costs on to the environment and rural folk, mostly farmers. They have been feeling the consequences for decades, from enclosure of common lands, ruined fisheries and flood cycles upset by dams enclosing rivers to generate power to feed the factories around Bangkok, the government's failure to deal with the economic structures which keep millions in hock to moneylenders and rice millers, and so on and on.

Of course industrialization has created work, and wealth. But at great cost. The anger now bubbling to the surface and filling the streets of central Bangkok and elsewhere in the country indicates many feel the costs and benefits, opportunities and possibilities have not been well shared. The answer to a more equitable distribution, and perhaps better sustainable industrialization, they think lies with their power to vote in elections to decide who governs Thailand. They call it democracy.

This bizarre situation kept me preoccupied such that when I walked away the supermarket was already shut. Still the restaurant from Ayutthaya now set up outside AUA serves delicious pad Thai.

Why am I here?

2010-04-21T02:05:00.000+07:00

As the sun was setting on the Red Zone I walked down from the skytrain station at Siam Square on to the street below, the usual snarling scrum of buses and taxis, cars and trucks replaced by the stalls and sounds of the protest contrasting sharply with the opulence of the malls.

From Red Zone

I walked east under the thick dirty-cream concrete viaducts of the skytrain to Ratchaprasong, moving through the crowds of protestors past stalls catering to a protestor's every need.

Walking away from the stage I saw a young woman wearing a cowboy hat picking up some food from a free distribution point. Depending on who you believe, these are either funded by donations from Red community groups around Bangkok and beyond in most provinces, even many districts and villages, or the bills are paid by Thaksin Shinawatra, the deposed prime minister, and his associates. I think funds are coming from both sources, the former may even be more significant, especially as an indication of activism, interest and mobilization.

We smiled and traded hellos. She had a small white polystyrene bowl with slices of fresh guava. She offered one to me. She told me she was 18, from a province by the sea not so far from Bangkok called Rayong, and is a student studying business administration at Bangkok University. I asked who she came with. She said her mother, indicating to the slightly shorter woman walking beside her who I had not really noticed.

I said hello and we began talking. Her eyes were bright, her mind buzzing, electrified by the protest. She was rather plain, simply dressed, no red except a small plastic clapper. A market vendor or cleaner perhaps. Actually she has a degree and works in a travel agency owned by a European who sympathizes with the Reds.

Deaow told me she came everyday in the evenings because she is angry about the politics of Thailand, the corruption, what she saw as the double standards of the current government led by Abhisit Vejjajiva and the Democrat Party. She said Thaksin did a much better job of administering the country, she felt she was better off, that there was more opportunity.

She felt she had to bring her daughter, Noi, along to open her eyes to the problems and politics of Thailand. She wanted her to have the experience, to know and understand.

I never asked her daughter's birthday, but as she is 18 now she was born in 1992, the year troops in Bangkok last shot dead dozens, perhaps hundreds, of protestors demanding change.

What's it all about?

2010-04-17T17:32:00.000+07:00

Trouble began when in September 2006 troops and tanks seized Government House in Bangkok to depose the elected government led by controversial tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra.

He swept to power in 2000 after winning an election with the strongest popular mandate ever in Thai politics. Overwhelming victory went to Thaksin’s party Thai Rak Thai – Thais love Thais – because he and his partners used their fortunes to craft a manifesto of policies, which were result of grassroots research, to fix problems facing business and the masses, the workers, the farmers, the poor.

They took this approach, running the first modern political campaign in Thailand which made extensive use of local and national media, because vote-buying, which had been a key factor in elections since at least the 1980s, was costing more and more yet its effects less and less certain. Better than to win votes through people’s wallets was to go after their hearts.

Many ordinary people felt as Thaksin, as prime minister, delivered on many of his election pledges. Perhaps no policy had a greater effect than making public healthcare affordable. People who had for years been sick found they could now afford treatment. Loan funds were established for each village, providing an alternative source of credit at lower rates than the usurious moneylenders.

Whether the policies were ever effective as claimed hardly matters. What matters is what people with votes thought. They expressed their satisfaction by handing his party an even greater victory in the 2005 election. Thaksin was now the first prime minister to serve a full-term, he was also the first to win a second consecutive election, and the first to form a government entirely from one party.

His government was strong – for better or for worse – a result intended by the 1997 constitution, the country’s best which was drafted with public consultation.

Until Thaksin’s clique turned Thai politics upside, a revolution by other means, politics had been dominated by elites close to the royal family with their hands on the army and the bureaucracy. Their interests have been mostly closely represented by the Democrat Party, which is a regional party strong in Bangkok and southern Thailand.

In the 1970s and 1980s provincial bosses began to lay claim to power on the back of Thailand’s booming export economy. They could use money to deliver votes in the brief periods of electoral politics that invariably came to an end with a coup.

Thaksin comes from the northern province of Chiang Mai. He is by far the most successful of the provincials, building a conglomerate that spanned telecommunications, transportation, real estate and more. He was also a police officer, a background rare among Thai leaders. Since the 1950s a background in uniform usually means the army. Civil or military bureaucracies have been crucial sources of influence and muscle for aspiring leaders.

Despite his popularity, he does not have the stature of someone like say Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi or Vaclav Havel. He is better company for Silvio Berlusconi and Hugo Chavez. Thaksin had a dream, a vision for Thailand which many found inspirational.

He let himself down with his disdain for institutions of democracy, the law, and an aversion to paying tax. He showed scant regard for human rights. Allegedly a few thousand were extra-judicially killed in his war on drugs, yet not one kingpin was brought before courts. Dozens were killed by troops and police in two brutal events in the deep south were violence rages between various groups. The body of a human-rights lawyer kidnapped, allegedly by crooked cops, in broad daylight on a busy Bangkok street in 2004 has still not been found.

Were it not for these faults, plus his apparent arrogance, impatience and endorsement of violence, he may have been the man to lead Thailand to a better place, he would have been a great leader, a legend.

Nevertheless for ordinary people his shortcomings were outweighed by the breath of fresh air he brought to Thai politics and their measurement of his impact upon their lives. His popularity was second only to that of the king so it was said in a country where harsh lese majeste laws are used to ensure only adoration and worship of the monarch in public. But what if Thaksin’s popularity was different, what if he was directly touching more lives in more tangible ways, could his popularity have been greater in different ways?

To counter Thaksin’s ballot box success would have required the Democrat Party and its wealthy sponsors to invest substantially more money in developing a unique policy manifesto and nationwide campaigning for many years. It appears the party could not attract enough money, despite even $7.5 million allegedly donated illegally by Prachai Leophairatana, owner of insolvent Thai Petrochemical Industries. He felt slighted by Thaksin because his government did not bail out his huge petrochemicals firm, which eventually fell under the control of state oil giant PTT.

Meanwhile Thaksin’s popularity was generating jealousy and envy. Sonthi Limthongkul, a media mogul who whose tottering business empire was propped up by Thaksin until he cut off the money, began to raise questions in 2004 about Thaksin, particularly over corruption and loyalty to the monarchy. Sonthi in quick time became an ardent monarchist. He formed, with support from others including Prachai, the People’s Alliance for Democracy to unseat Thaksin. They became known by their yellow shirts.

To counter the Yellows and prove his mandate Thaksin called an election in early 2006. The Democrat Party refused to take part. The election, which was won by Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai, was annulled by the courts.

Unable or unwilling to spend time and money to smash Thaksin in an election interests opposed to him came together to create the conditions for a coup under the auspices of General Prem Tinsulanond, chief adviser to the king.

The coup in 2006 disenfranchised the majority of the electorate who had voted for Thai Rak Thai. In May 2007 a constitutional court, under the watch of the military junta, ordered the dissolution of Thai Rak Thai and banned about 100 of its executives, including Thaksin, from politics for five years.

Whether the offences were matched by the punishment is debatable. Whether the court was fair and impartial is in doubt given the corruption permeating the courts in Thailand. Whether judges could be relied upon to judge without fear or influence under a military junta is also in doubt.

The result further disenfranchised voters. Their sovereignty as the ultimate arbiter of power, a key tenet of electoral politics in a democracy, was effectively annulled. Anger abounded, people seethed, if anything Thaksin’s popularity grew stronger.

They expressed their will in subsequent elections by voting for parties seen as proxies for the disbanded Thai Rak Thai and Thaksin. These governments were pilloried by Sonthi and his Yellows. They seized, with the acquiescence of factions in the military and perhaps the police, Bangkok’s international airport for a weeks in November 2008 in an attempt to bring down the government.

The courts struck removed one prime minister for appearing on a cookery programme on television. Voters were disenfranchised yet again.

The Democrat Party came to power by forming a coalition government to fill the void, not as a result of an election. In parliamentary electoral systems voters do not usually vote directly for the prime minister. He or she is usually elected by the party or coalition with the most members of parliament. This is how Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Democrat leader, came to be prime minister.

In contrast to Thaksin he was presented as a man of principles, morals and integrity who would act fairly and justly. Much was made of his claims to honesty and elite education in the UK. He did nothing however to tackle the corrupt in his own party, government, the bureaucracy or the military. Nor did he show much enthusiasm for bringing the Yellows to justice for running amok through Bangkok, seizing the airport, and other alleged offences. In that respect he was no different to any previous leader, they have all been cool to cleaning up their own houses first, instead preferring to pile charges on to opponents or whoever else happens to be the pariah of the day.

Abhisit and his party were not only seen as illegitimate in the eyes of perhaps the majority of the electorate, the manner in which they came to power, and their policies and actions made them an easy target for a counter movement, the National United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship, or UDD, which has become known for red shirts.

The Reds leadership has is rather different from the Yellows. Weng Tohjiirakarn was with the revolutionary Communist Party of Thailand in the 1970s and thereafter became a democracy activist. Veera Musikapong was jailed for lese majeste in the 1980s and has served as a Democrat MP. Jatuporn Prohmpan was a student activist in the revolt against the military dictatorship in 1992, which fell from power after shooting dozens dead on Ratchadameon in Bangkok’s old royal quarter.

The Reds campaign has drawn widespread support, accusing the government of being dictators, charging it with double standards, and calling for the dissolution of parliament and fresh elections.

Yellows and their supporters, mostly middle class and elites in Bangkok and southern Thailand are certain the UDD is a front financed by Thaksin and his allies, paying people to join protests. Similar charges were made against the Yellows.

It is comfortable conceit to believe the usually docile masses are unable to form or hold opinions, that they cannot think for themselves, that they do not have enough education to understand politics or take part in elections, and that instead they are manipulated and paid to protest. Chit-chat with taxi drivers, hawkers, small business owners and others in Bangkok and around Thailand since the coup anecdotally suggests this is not the case.

Nevertheless if this conceit is the case the elites which have ruled Thailand in their own interests since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932 have only themselves to blame.

They through their decisions and policies created the conditions prevailing in Thailand today. Education is widely considered poor, even the World Bank recently expressed concerns. They created the system which made Thaksin and conditions in which someone like him could rise to power. They could have introduced the policies he did long before he did. The result is that Thailand today languishes far behind South Korea, which was a little less developed than Thailand in 1960, which is a high-tech export powerhouse, has a strong domestic market, and powerful unions. Asia's Germany perhaps.

In the absence of indisputable proof that protestors are only acting in response to payments from Thaksin it is necessary to consider the possibility people are angry with being poorly treated by the state for decades, that anger over atrocities by the army and police lingers in folk memories, and that they are angry at being disenfranchised by a coup and subsequently by questionable courts.

Reds currently occupying Ratchaprasong in central Bangkok are a mixed bunch. Some have indeed come in from the countryside. They may be spending their own money, taking time off from their livelihoods. Or they may be receiving money from Thaksin. But what if they believe in their protest yet would otherwise be unable to express their feelings because they are too poor? What use then are rights in a democracy if people are too poor to use them? Would they be wrong in taking money from a benefactor whose interests align with theirs in such a situation?

It is also possible that they are being supported by donations from Reds in their district or province. Groups of Reds from districts or provinces proclaim their presence at the protests through signs and banners. Reds at the protests are making donations and joining the UDD. While donations might be enough to cover travel and food for protesters are they enough to pay for the generators, power, speakers, stages, camera crews, portable toilets and so on? Perhaps. Or maybe these big bills are being picked up by the Thaksin clique? If so, Red leaders may well know. Are they exploiting the Thaskin clique or is the clique using Red leaders?

Red numbers swell come late afternoon and early evening when the weather is a little cooler and the working day ends. Many arrive in cars and taxis, rather than on public buses used by the poor. That so many people come day after day to join those camping in the heat and discomfort of the street calls suggests the Reds are more than a paid mob, that they have substance.

Walking among them reveals more hints of interest that would seem hard to buy or stage. They talk with passion about politics, their ideas and views of elections, the government, the military and democracy. They enter McDonald's at the heart of the Red Zone in ones and twos, sitting down with a coffee, shake or fries, and quickly fall into conversation about the issues with people they never knew from quite different backgrounds, even social classes.

The nature of Reds' substance is difficult to pin down because there are many shades of Red. Just as the Yellows are a coalition of interests, so are the Reds. The Yellows vision of politics has no place for ordinary people. The Reds are a little clearer and inclusive, galvanized by a very clear infringement of democracy, which is the toppling of an elected government by the army.

Their motivations and numbers appear to have been reinforced by Reds shot dead by troops, on Saturday 10 April, who were sent to break up the protest by the government led by Abhisit and his Democrat Party. Thais thought the days of soldiers shooting protestors were consigned to the past. They thought the same about coups.

Whether the Reds can sustain beyond the current crisis to be a force for positive change in Thai politics and society remains to be seen. That may only be so if they can move out of Thaksin’s shadow and call him to account should he return to power and attempt to engage in his old ways. If they do not then they too will be guilty of the charge they make against the Democrat Party and its government, that is double standards.

The Reds to change Thailand may have to establish a political party. Its success, especially without wealthy backers, may be the litmus test of what the masses want and what limits Thaksin might face.

Life in the Red Zone

2010-04-16T18:24:00.000+07:00

The Red Zone in central Bangkok is a growing world of its own, where people freely listen, share and discuss critical, perhaps even revolutionary, ideas and opinions with a passion rarely seen in normal times.

In past periods of political forment much of what was said and happened in Bangkok would have slowly filtered piecemeal into the provinces. Today with mobile phones anger, ideas and reports are flowing almost instantly across the country forming an alternative narrative to much of the press, especially television, which emphasizes the views and positions of the state.

The heart of the Red Zone is at Ratchaprasong, an intersection overlooked by smart malls, Police General Hospital and the Erawan shrine. Above run the viaducts of the skytrain. From here the zone now extends west along Rama I past Siam Square to the Pathumwan intersection, north to Petchaburi, some lanes of which are turned over to car parking for Bangkok Reds coming in for a few hours, east to Wittayu and the corner of the British embassy, and south along Ratchadamri past Lumpini park to the intersection with Rama 4 by the Silom business quarter. It may yet seep further across the city.

By day the streets within the Red Zone are not too difficult to walk, by night the ground is packed with supporters who live in Bangkok come to spend the evenings listening to speeches, the occasional song and feel the power of solidarity.
At the Red Zone’s borders with Bangkok controlled by the government are checkpoints. Large trucks are parked across the roads as barricades. Most are not fuelled by diesel but from six-foot long tubular tanks of far more explosive natural gas.

Guards search people and vehicles entering the zone for weapons. Guards also sit and stand around in the Zone helping to direct people and vehicles to maintain a sense of order and protect key points.

From Red Zone

At some checkpoints a dozen or so relaxed police sit and stand around smiling and chatting besides stacks of shields. Many are wearing body armour over their backs and chests.

On the back of one policeman I saw stuck over the word ‘police’ a poster of the prime minister looking tired. It is a common picture in the Red Zone, tacked to walls, signs and lampposts. Beneath the less than complimentary picture of the prime minister are the words ‘tyrant’ ‘murderer’ ‘killer of the people’ and beneath that three pictures of dead protestors from 10th April among them the flag bearer with his head ripped apart apparently by a bullet fired from a nearby armoured personnel carrier. Some people are confident the Bangkok police, particularly junior officers, are Red.

Beyond the checkpoints lies a different world, where the streets now belong to people rather than traffic. A liberation of sorts for a city with almost no pedestrian areas, where, until recently, the cars ruled the streets.

The streets to Ratchaprasong have the feel of a refugee camp, a rather happy one where people have come by choice to express their anger and demands. Awnings erected in recent days now cover much of the streets, providing shade from the scorching summer sun. People from outside Bangkok, mostly poor, are camping, lying on thin sheets of plastic sold by wandering hawkers, some have brought tents.

From Red Zone

Many have brought thin mattresses, mats and folding chairs. People snooze in hammocks strung between lampposts and signposts. Aromatic smells rise up from cooking over small charcoal braziers.

From Red Zone

Monks have come in too. Some sleep on a makeshift wooden platform beneath Ratchadamri station, others camping in the gardens of the Four Seasons Hotel.

From Red Zone

Every so often there are blue tarpaulins, strung up for privacy within which people can shower. There are also portable toilets as well as mobile toilets provided by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. The city sends water trucks during the day to replenish supplies and rubbish trucks to collect the orderly piles of garbage.

Some food and soft drinks are free. There are also many stalls however selling noodles, curries, barbequed meats, fruit, juices, coffee, tea and more. Nobody appears to drink alcohol, none is on sale except at the 7-Elevens.

Never ones to miss an opportunity, market vendors quickly moved in ready to satisfy every need. They are selling clothes, Red apparel with slogans like ‘citizens’ and ‘dissolve parliament’, goggles reputedly offering protection from tear gas, and mobile-phone accessories. Some stalls operate charging services for phone batteries. DVDs are being sold of the violence on 10th April which killed at least 24, most of whom were Red protestors.

From Red Zone

Photo montages of those killed that day are posted here and there, rarely without onlookers, who frequently take photos with their phones.

From Red Zone

The sick and the weary can find relief at the massage and medical services scattered about.

From Red Zone

There are a few desks where Red officials, perhaps volunteers, sit receiving donations.

From Red Zone

During the last day or so dozens of large generators, some on trucks, have been moved into the Zone. An indication perhaps of growing power needs of more and more people and speakers and possibly preparations to ensure the show goes on should the government cut power to the Zone. Whether the government can cut off utilities could depend on the colour of utility workers.

The government labels the Red Zone ‘dangerous’ which is readily reported by the local press. Many Bangkokians, who have not been to the Red Zone perhaps because they are not Red, fear the Reds, believing they are thugs, roughnecks and hired hands.

Life in the Red Zone could not be more different. It is peaceful, people are friendly, people are cooperating to make life their better. Smiles are never far away.

From Red Zone

Saturday's clashes - video view

2010-04-13T14:33:00.000+07:00

Confrontations in Bangkok on Saturday 10th April were caught on video from the civil and military sides. Put together they paint a broader picture raising more questions.

Tony Joh was among the Reds in a surreal face off against the military. Amid the shouts and cries, claps and cheers, soldiers and protestors are shaking hands. Speakers on an army truck play an old Thai melody. Cracks of five gunshots cut through the scene followed by dozens more. Joh is unclear who fired first, or even what they are firing - blanks, live rounds, or plastic or rubber bullets. Demonstrators respond with anything they can lay their hands on. A few petrol bombs are thrown and there is the dull boom of a grenade exploding among the troops, followed shortly after by another. Joh captures the organization and discipline of the Red security guards. They arrange evacuation of wounded soldiers volunteer ambulances.

Joh withdraws to the west of the Democracy Monument to recover from tear gas. Shooting continues, it seems mostly into the sky. If those shots were with live rounds gravity would have brought them back down conceivably striking people. A flag bearer parades a Red banner despite the shooting, most of which seems to be into the night sky. He bears some resemblance to the flag bearer shot in the head that night.

Joh returns to the Red frontline to witness troops exiting an armoured personnel carrier protected by a screen of Red guards. A protester who tries to attack them is pushed back and scolded it seems by a female guard. Spent rifle and shotgun cartridges are passed to Joh. The rifle cartridge rims are round which may indicate they were live rounds as blanks can have crimped ends. He does not find plastic or rubber bullets, which are usually chunky not dissimilar to AA batteries in size. Nor does he find shotgun 'non-lethal' 'bean-bag' rounds or rubber pellets.

Though among the military vehicles Joh does not appear to see the Red flag bearer who is probably lying nearby, shot from an armoured personnel carrier, the road splattered with his blood and brains.

Film shot from behind the army line in Dinso Street begins with shots, fired into the air it appears, shortly followed by a grenade exploding among the closely-packed troops. This takes place after about three minutes have elapsed in Joh's first video. Many troops are carrying old M16 rifles, some have the new Israeli TAR21. It is hard to see any carrying plastic or rubber bullet weapons.

Wounded troops lie around groaning and being comforted by their comrades. There are few if any medics giving immediate attention. There are no stretcher bearers nor it seems ambulances. Were the army properly prepared for the situation?

France24 at the end of a news report shows soldiers taking aimed shots south along Dinso towards protestors.

At some point during the clash a Red flag bearer, possibly the one seen parading the banner around the Democracy Monument at the beginning of Joh's second film, is shot in the head, it seems from an armoured personnel carrier. I was also told this by a few people at the scene a few hours later. It remains unconfirmed. Yet the way the flag bearer falls suggests he was struck by a round from the south, close by, probably the armoured personnel carrier. Another possibility, perhaps a remote one, is he was shot by a Red or the mysterious third hand, a ruse frequently used for deflecting and dissipating blame for trouble in Thailand. This film is graphic clearly showing the impact of the bullet on his head.

All the films so far were taken either from behind Red or army lines at Dinso Street, running north from the Democracy Monument about 8.30-9pm. Around the same time action was taking place on parallel street of Tanao. Here it seems five people were shot. What is unclear is who the people in black are creeping out from the Reds to fire a few shots north along Tanao seemingly towards troops. The silouhette of the foresight indicates the rifle is a Kalashnikov or derivative. Rifles issued to Thai regular forces and police are M16s, G5s and TAR21s. Kalashnikov types are used by some irregular militia units, especially in the north. They are also common the large black market in military weapons in Thailand.

Reds may say this unit is a third hand. The government claims there were 'terrorists' among the Red ranks, perhaps infiltrators, the third hand.

Taken together these films suggest the army was ill-prepared for the mission. Why was it necessary to confront a peaceful, if bold, rally with troops armed with assault rifles, few riot guns (plastic or rubber bullets) and at least five armoured personnel carriers? Where were the army medics and ambulances? Why do the troops appear to be without commanders much of the time milling around waiting for direction?

It seems clear the Red guards are highly organized and trained. Major General Khattiya Sawasdiphol, colloquially known as Seh Daeng, has claimed for some years he his training Red guards. It may be that this training, whoever it is by, and organization is made possible by money from Thaksin and his associates. That said, Thailand is rich in civil society with thousands of well-organized groups. Although less likely it may be that the Red security have come together through their own efforts, perhaps led by ex- (or serving) military or police officers.

Two grenades were thrown and some shots taken from Red lines. Reds also threw petrol bombs. Given the history of the Thai military killing demonstrators it should not be surprising if the Reds have taken precautions. One question this raises is when do civilians have the right to take up arms against the army that is supposed to protect their country from external aggression not suppress peaceful, if inconvenient, demonstrations? The Red organization, particularly security, may also be seen as a response to the shortcomings of earlier demonstrations in stand-offs with the military.

The onus may be even greater now for the Reds to show that even if they receive financial support from the Thaksin faction that they are not his stooges and are campaigning for better, cleaner politics and the supremacy of the rule of law in Thailand. More than ever they need to make this clear to counter accusations and suspicions that they are in Thaksin's pocket.

A rising tide?

2010-04-13T11:48:00.000+07:00

Reds at Ratchaprasong were somewhat thin on Monday afternoon. Of those that were there many cowered under umbrellas not from rain but seeking shade from the scorching summer, or hot season, sun. Nevertheless despite the heat and less company they remained in high spirits.

From Red Zone

Come nightfall with the heat ebbing just a little and the burning rays of the sun gone numbers quickly swelled.

From Red Zone

Indeed by 9pm I think there had never been so many Reds.

From Red Zone

Heat and the sun aside, many work during the day. Words and pictures of the deaths of Saturday night, particularly of the Red flag bearer being shot in the head seemingly from a nearby armoured personnel carrier, perhaps had 48 hours spread far and wide by email, chat and mobile phone. Finally, Monday was the eve of the three-day holiday for the traditional New Year, what Thais call Songkran, in Theravada Buddhist communities which is most of Thailand.

Usually the city is, apart from a few spots where thousands throw water and smiles at each other all day and all night, empty for the holiday. Migrant workers leave for their homes in the provinces, while Bangkokians seek relief from the heat and fresh air, either at resorts or visiting relatives. However the dramas in Bangkok may give some - residents and migrants alike - purpose to stay.

The Reds have a team of passionate, entertaining and rousing speakers, such as Jatuporn Prohmpun, below, who speak forthrightly about the wrongs and ills of politics and societies, giving life to popular accusations, discontents and frustrations. Whether they genuinely believe what they say or are telling the crowd what they want to hear to build support for the next election who can say? Nevertheless the quality of their oratory is not in doubt and has been recognized by a public-speaking consultant.

From Red Zone

There is plenty of clapping, cheering and even laughter. Such theatre, plus a sense of solidarity and participation in, well, history does not come around often.

Opponents of the Reds, mostly smug Bangkokians, insist the protests are fake, a mob well paid by the widely popular Thaksin Shinawatra, the telecoms tycoon who was removed from his elected post of prime minister in a coup in 2006. Some may be, but such are the numbers and such is the duration of the protests, which show no signs of abating, not to mention the strength of feeling heard in conversation or among people vocally discussing politics at the protests or in the markets that it would be surprising if most were there simply for a bit of money.

It is also hard work in the heat, even at night. The cars parked around the Red Zone and beyond are more than just a few beat-up pick-ups, there are in fact many smart, new cars symbollic of the middle classes and those far wealthier. Hardly the sort of people to sit or stand in the heat, by day or night, for a few hundred baht. Many appear to take pride in their Red garb, clearly more than a few women have spent some time in front of the mirror styling themselves in Red fashions. That may suggest they care not only about politics, but about how they make their statement and express themselves.

On the flip side it was said when the Yellows were riding high that many of their number were also being paid, by interests represented by media tycoon and one time business partner of Thaksin, the firebrand Sondhi Limthongkul who reinvented himself as an arch-royalist and appeared to draw the anointment for his Yellow shirt movement from the queen.

Whether the Reds will remain in such strong numbers through the holiday and thereafter remains to be seen.

Calm, resolute and hopeful

2010-04-12T18:25:00.000+07:00

After Saturday evening's battles, deaths and injuries in Bangkok the city and indeed the country seemed lost, many doubted the government's line and wondered if local news reports were telling the truth. What would come next in a country with a history of deadly coups and brutal crackdowns on protest?

Reds gathered at Ratchaprasong, a smart shopping quarter in downtown Bangkok, as the sun set in perhaps greater numbers than ever before to listen to fiery oratory from the stage, frequently raising their clappers and cheering. Their mood was resolute and defiant in the wake of the fighting between troops and protesters on Saturday night at Ratchadamneon that left at least 21 dead.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

Walking west from Ratchaprasong along Rama I beneath the skytrain viaducts past the Police General Hospital and the Royal Thai Police Headquarters towards Siam Square more people sat or stood listening and applauding. At the junction on the corner of Siam Paragon, a mall, a small crowd gathered around a man holding up photos of a man shot in the head.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

Nearby people were inspecting body armour worn by a Red which was hit by a live round. Some thought he was dead but the man standing by this display said he was in hospital. A note posed the question whether this could have been caused by a 'fake bullet' perhaps a reference to blanks or baton rounds rather than live rounds. The government claims troops did not fire live rounds at protestors.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

I received a text warning me of a rumour the queen's guards were massing for an attack at Ratchadamneon at 8pm. We headed there in tuk-tuk because the only taxi nearby didn't want to go. To see if the rumour had any substance we told the driver to head north of Ratchadamneon, the most likely approach route for troops. This was the direction they came from the previous evenings.

As on the previous night the police were not to be seen. On any other night police are usually visible, often manning road blocks. The only sign of the security forces was a police pick-up truck. Strangely it wasn't from Bangkok but from the province of Chanthaburi, three-to-fours drive east, closer to Cambodia than Bangkok.

We left the tuk-tuk on Nakhon Sawan at the bridge across the Krung Kasem canal. Beside the bridge were two abandoned, damaged army trucks. The bridge was barricaded by logs and wire. As we walked down the quiet street towards Ratchadamneon I fell into conversation with a portly middle-aged woman and two young men following her, perhaps her sons or staff. She was on her way to join Reds at Phanfa. I told her I heard the queen's troops were coming. She said she didn't like the queen.

They were not the last weary words we heard that night for the monarchy, something Thais have become more willing to express in private in recent years. These are opinions they should be free to voice without facing jail but are not. Nevertheless it is still probably the case most Thais respect the king and do not, yet, seek a republic. If anything they may prefer a monarchy of the European figurehead variety.

At junction with Chakkaphatdi Phong we encountered another barricade mostly of wire manned by Red guards, including a few women. Incongruously off to the east side a dozen policemen stood around with riot shields while the Red guards held shields they had won off the troops. I asked a Red what the police what the police were doing there. He told me they were to ensure everything was correct. I interpreted that to mean they were to stop looting, they were simply too few and unarmed to control a crowd. So far there have been no reports of looting and the Reds are invariably polite and respectful in my experience.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

Some of the police wear po-faced. I asked them if they were Border Patrol Police, like those guarding police headquarters. A slightly skinny policeman with eager eyes replied earnestly that they were from the force of Roi-et, a province in the northeast which is considered a Red heartland. He told me they were to ensure safety, of whom or what he did not say. Why provincial police have been drafted into Bangkok is a matter of speculation. The most likely explanation seems to be the Bangkok police need support. However there is talk the Bangkok police are mostly Red. Then again the police have long been thought of as loyal to Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister deposed by the coup of 2006 who retired from the police with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

At Phanfa the crowd was strong, the mood stoical. Speeches echoed eerily through speakers strung all around and along Ratchadamneon. We walked along Phra Sumen to enter from the north Dinso, where troops abandoned five armoured personnel carriers, two humvees and a light truck the night before.

There were many more people than the previous night. They were scrawling slogans of disgust, anger and disdain on the army vehicles.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

They stood around sharing stories and opinions. Everybody was taking photos, mostly with mobile phones, especially of the site were a Red flag-bearer fell from a gunshot to the head.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

Shops along Dinso were shuttered, except an internet cafe, a minimart and pharmacy, and a Chinese bakery selling cakes. People get hungry. Life goes on. Beyond the abandoned army vehicles people were flocking to the Democracy Monument. More paintings and slogans had appeared since Saturday night.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

There were photos of the flag bearer shot in the head on Dinso. His death is emerging as one of the iconic images of the fighting, captured as it happened on video and by cameras and mobile phones. I asked if anybody knew is name, where he was from. A middle-aged woman with a cherubic face and wire-frame glasses told me he was Nattawut Paentong, 36, from Samut Prakarn, a province neighbouring Bangkok, where he worked for a district administration organization. In death he looked strangely at peace.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

On the west side of the Monument artists were daubing slogans on cardboard boxes, an activity in which the public joined eagerly. Messages invariably condemned the government and the military, particularly Abhisit Vejjavija, the prime minister, and General Prem Tinsunalond, the king's confidante who many believe to be the great puppet master of Thai politics.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

On the east side the people swirled and queued to pay their respects to symbolic coffins setup in honour of Reds killed the previous night. On each coffin was a picture of a dead protester. People circled touching and praying at each coffin, some lit candles. One of the dead is Grienggrai Kamnoi, who is or was a seaman in the Navy. Beneath his picture is his home address in the province of Roi-et, the same as the police on duty at the Red road block on Nakhon Sawan.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

Above the coffins were wreaths sent by prominent well-wishers including Somchai Wongsawat, a judge who was prime minister and is the brother-in-law of Thaksin Shinawatra, who also sent a bouquet.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

On Tanao where five people were shot dead, including two at the end of Khao San Road opposite Burger King, the street had been swept of detrius left by the battle. As elsewhere people were taking photos of the impromptu shrines and of the vehicles which bore the brunt of the assault. On the corner stood alone a Thai-Chinese woman, perhaps a student, her black t-shirt contrasting sharply with the milky skin of young and kindly round face. She was handing out small pieces of black cloth each with a safety pin. She told me they were for mourning the dead.

I kicked around the splintered sticks of bamboo, plastic water bottles, rubble and other rubbish swept into the gutters looking for empty rifle cartridges and baton rounds. I found none.

A tuk-tuk driver standing nearby asked me in English for what I was looking. I explained in Thai and asked why I could find nothing. He said they were all taken away. I asked him what happened. He said troops advanced south along Tanao and east along Khao San, explaining how two people came to be shot on Tanao and another two at the junction of Khao San and Tanao outside Burger King. I asked if he knew which units were sent to clear the protestors. He wasn't sure but said one group was Border Patrol Police. This remains unconfirmed. He did say one of his friends, also a tuk-tuk driver working around Khao San, was killed. Another friend standing beside him said he himself was struck by a baton round lifting his shirt to show a dressing.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

A silver shop showed signs of being hit by small arms fire, perhaps less than dozen shots. Given the tight confines of the street and the intense fighting which appears to have taken place there is very little damage from gunfire. Similarly I could no indication of gunfire striking the Democracy Monument, which it might have were many shots fired by troops to the north in Dinso Street.

This may indicate the security forces fired few shots and those were carefully aimed indicating a degree of discipline despite Reds appearing to hurl a few grenades and take a few shots. Some 21 people were killed, including 5 soldiers, and around 850 injured. Relatively few deaths may indicate restraint by the security forces or a refusal to shoot by many soldiers.

We walked back along Ratchadamneon were people stood, sat, ate, slept and received massages as one speaker after another took to the stage to criticize and condemn the government and the elites. Walking back north along Nakhon Sawan an old man slept peacefully beside the street.

From 100411 Bangkok aftermath

Back at the road block I asked a Red guard where they got the wire. He said in English they took it from the army, just like the shields lying around, as they needed it stop further attacks from the troops.

Another attempt by the military seems unlikely for now. But who can say? Some generals it seems are mortified by the botched operation of Saturday night. Unless they are prepared to machine-gun protestors and send in tanks there seems little way of the impasse but an election.

Aftermath of confrontation in Bangkok - 10th April 2010

2010-04-11T16:30:00.000+07:00

Speeches, shouts and cheers from the huge crowd of 'red shirts' at Ratchaprasong in downtown Bangkok replaced the usual city hum I hear in my apartment. At about 10pm on Saturday 10th April I walked a few minutes to join the crowd, which appeared larger than that I'd seen on the previous Friday evening and the Saturday afternoon before.

The usually traffic clogged intersection overlooked by three upmarket shopping malls, the Erawan hotel and the Police General Hospital was a sea of red - t-shirts, bandannas, hats and the clappers and horns that have become de rigeur for recent protests.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

Men, women and children, young and old, cheered and clapped as the speakers condemned the government, its ministers and their actions. They were calm, orderly and polite. There were plenty of smiles, something not so common in Bangkok these days. They seemed in fine mood despite the clashes and deaths during the afternoon and early evening a few miles away in the old royal quarter.

I mingled with the crowd for a while and then walked past the Police General Hospital. Perhaps 20 constables stood around on guard duty leaning casually on fences without riot gear, weapons or hats. They chatted easily with some of the reds. Further along I walked by police national headquarters. Inside the fence a coil of wire had been strung. Behind that every 20 metres or so stood a tense policeman in riot gear. The abbreviation in Thai on the riot shield indicated these men were from the Border Patrol Police, a paramilitary unit.

Seeing no sign of police or troops massing to disperse the protest at around 11pm I took a taxi to Ratchadamneon. Lan Luang was blocked with cars and crowds so I got out of the taxi and made my way through pick ups and cars bearing red slogans, typically 'yoob sapaa' (dissolve parliament), and reds with all the usual paraphernalia plus sticks as well as batons, odd bits of body armour and a few shields won from the troops a few hours before.

Lan Luang leads into Phanfa, where five streets meet at a wide low bridge over a canal overlooked by a stout white turret from the old city wall, a branch of Bangkok Bank in a modern style, the low-rise art-deco office buildings of Ratchadamnoen Avenue and an unusual temple the central building of which is black the name I know not. Here the crowd beneath the strong streetlamps and lights illuminating large pictures of the king and one of his daughters, who is without doubt the most popular royal after the king himself, was another large crowd listening and cheering to the speeches being made by speakers on the stage.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

I picked my way through the crowd to Ratchadamnoen, a wide avenue down which were pitched tents offering variously some shade from the fierce dry-season sun, food, t-shirts and the like. More people, mostly men, were carrying sticks or batons and shields formerly in the hands of soldiers. The mood was strong, defiant and good-natured.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

At the Democracy Monument, which as current events show is a monument to an aspiration, a dream, there were on the south side a few ambulances and a few policemen who did not seem on guard or uncomfortable. Further along Ratchadamneon one of the tents housed the 'Nightingales' offering 'a democratic team for primary medical care'. The doctors and nurses there were treating an old man for tear gas and a guard of the Reds for a severe bruise to his right thigh caused by a baton round (rubber bullet). I asked him if it hurt. He replied stoically 'nid nid' (a little). I suspect it hurt rather more than that.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

Continuing along around midnight I reached Khok Wua where Tanao Street runs north-south across Ratchadamneon. Tanao is a narrow street, particularly compared to the eight- or ten-lane Ratchadamneon, lined with century-old quaint shophouses some of which still have their original folding doors and diamond-tile roofs. On the north side of Khok Wua at the mouth of Tanao yellow metal fences had been arrange haphazardly to cordon off a small area stained with the blood of someone who had earlier been shot it seems by troops trying to force their way down Tanao. People were standing around muttering curses, shaking their heads and reaching into their pockets to toss coins and notes.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

A little further north along Tanao between Burger King and the mouth of Khao San Road, which is usually packed with Thais and foreign tourists, were more impromptu barricades surrounding pools of drying blood were two more people had fallen to the soldiers' bullets, or so it was said. In one a stick had been wedged upright and on top hung the hat of the stricken Red, quite probably among the dead.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

Beyond that were perhaps half a dozen cars and pickups which bore signs of bearing the brunt of a furious assault. They had been struck by baton rounds and not a few live rounds, which judging by the trajectory of the holes made by the bullets were not fired into the air but at the protestors. Men and women, young and old, Bangkokians and provincials, poor and well off, were peering into the wrecked vehicles, pointing at bullet holes and taking photos.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

The street itself was covered with shattered glass, stones, bamboo sticks and much else, a flotsam of the surges of struggle between the troops and the Reds. It is quite incredible that the Reds managed to hold their ground the troops eventually retreated given how much better armed, prepared and supposedly trained the troops were.

I walked back to the Democracy Monument, which has been wrapped in a shroud and the golden symbol of the constitution draped with red cloth. There were four or five large canvasses hung around perhaps only painted by their artist in the last few days.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

There was a thick crowd around the mouth of Dinso (pencil) Street leading off north from the Monument. They were busy working at something. I soon saw at what.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

They were trying to dismantle three tracked armoured personnel carriers. I saw a few of them lift up a heavy machine gun, probably a .50 calibre, which was carted off to where I do not know. Men were at work, some were holding torches while others were using screwdrivers or improvising tools as necessary to remove or trash whatever they could from the vehicles' batteries to head lamps to smoke-grenade launchers. Behind these vehicles two more armoured personnel carriers were being dismantled.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

One man had found a box of green AA batteries which he was handing to anybody near the rear door of this vehicle saying 'lakkatan' (evidence). He gave me two. Two humvees were also being stripped down by the crowd. One was being manhandled into the centre of the street.

In the middle of this column of vehicles, between the vanguard of the armoured personnel carriers and the humvees, was more blood. Elsewhere the blood had either dried up already or the quantities were not so great. Here was different. The blood formed a thick slick perhaps six feet or more long across the street. As elsewhere there were Thai flags, Red bandanas and scarves and a growing collection of coins and notes. Some said there the Red here had been shot in the head. They pointed to what were they said were bits of his brain.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

A forensics officer turned up to take a close look. I could not tell which agency he was working with because in Thailand the police have their own forensics unit which competes with the Central Institute of Forensic Science, which has become legendary for pulling apart shoddy cases by the police or uncovering cases of police crime.

From Bangkok unrest 100410

Assuming that this was the blood of a Red shot in the head, and there are media reports of at least one such case, it is curious indeed that he, fore nobody spoke of a she, came to be shot in the middle of the column. He may have been shot as the column advanced down the street, but if that was the case it would have taken some skill and care for the vehicles to maneouvre around his body and the gushing blood. Whether he was shot by a soldier in one of the armoured personnel carriers or by another in one of the humvees may never be known. He was however probably shot at quite close range, perhaps not more than 30 or 40 feet. Where he fell and the arrangement of vehicles suggests he was shot deliberately.

The Prime Minister's claim of troops only shooting into the air with live rounds is incorrect and may be an outright lie. It has yet again been shown that Thai troops are ill-led, ill-equipped and ill-trained for tackling civil unrest without resorting to deadly force. Whether troops mounted their assault with orders to shoot at demonstrators or did so for reasons of personal malice may again never be known. But sending under-trained and poorly-led troops, with little experience of such imbroglios, into a tense and difficult situation with live rounds is a recipe for trouble.

Once again Ratchadamneon is splashed with the blood of those seeking what they think is a better way, a step towards something like justice and democracy. So it was in 1972, 1976 and 1992. There may be more to come.