Well, a few of them anyway. Isolated to the area around Government House (our version of the White House) and some other government buildings. Story here.
This has been a LONG, long saga, dating back to and beyond our military coup on September 19, 2006, that overthrew Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who took office in early 2001. But in this latest installment, for three months now there’s been an ongoing street protest against the new government, which is viewed as a Thaksin proxy. Not a series of protests, but rather one never-ending around-the-clock protest. Today, tens of thousands – the linked article says hundreds of thousands – finally took over Government House, several ministries and a government television station. I believe they’re still holding most of the buildings.
I had some sympathy for the so-called People’s Alliance for Democracy back when they simply opposed the old Thaksin government, because he’s a true bastard. But now they’ve morphed into these Nazi louts who are pretty much demanding they be the ones to decide who can and can’t be in power. And as much as I dislike the new prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, I have to say he’s shown remarkable restraint so far. Can you imagine what the response would be if protesters made a serious attempt to storm the White House and several Department buildings in Washington (regardless of who was in power)?
But Samak has warned that his patience is wearing thin, and he did play a role in a student massacre at one of the universities here in October 1976 (his name is spelled Samak Sunthornvej in that link). The protesters seem to be angling for another military coup to overthrow the government again, which is probably the only reason that Samak has not hit back yet; he knows that would probably plunge the situation into total chaos, with the military intervening again. But this can’t go on, and I expect something pretty big to happen soon. But then I’ve been expecting a coup since long before now.
Interestingly, the rioters are threatening to shut off electricity and water to government buildings. If they’re smart, they’ll think to do it only to ones not being occupied, but I don’t know about this crowd.
And speaking of photos, in the CNN story linked to in the OP, unless they’ve changed out the photo, it looks like they’re waving around what we Yanks call a Sambo doll and the Brits call a Goliwogg doll. What THAT’S doing there is beyond me. Down in the very front of the photo.
Sam, have you lived in Thailand long enough to have been under Shinawatra’s rule, and is he really as bad as I’ve been hearing? If Pol Pot was a 10 on the naughty rulers scale, what rating would Mr Shinawatra have?
I’ve been here since LONG before Thaksin. But comparing Pol Pot and Thaksin is apples and oranges. That would almost be like comparing Hitler and Nixon. Thaksin did not initiate any mass murders on Pol Pot’s scale. But, for one example, his anti-drug crusade did allow local police to kill several thousand people they had personal grudges with in the name of eradicating drugs, which they finally declared Thailand to be free of (much to the delight of the smugglers and dealers). And many business rivals of his associates and even Cabinet ministers were found dead.
Thaksin was and still is more Al Capone than Pol Pot. He’s just a gangster who made it big. His Cabinet was filled with gangsters, too. It was a miserable 5-1/2 years. But he has his biggest support upcountry among the rural folk, whom he showered with money. He held a weeklong reality show where he “camped out” (in luxury style, of course) for a week in this godforsaken corner of Bumfuck, Thailand, glad-handing around. The local rubes STILL haven’t gotten over it. “He’s the ONLY prime minister who’s ever come to see us,” they like to croak. Well, yeah, but exactly WHAT good came of that?
Yeah, no worries. The ONLY – and I mean THE ONLY – subject that is taboo is the royal family. You can generally dis the politicians all you like.
However, Thaksin did have a strategy of taking journalists to court who wrote bad things about him in the press. The journalists could all document their facts, but Thaksin had the money and wherewithal to prolong the court cases indefinitely, pretty much bankrupting several journalists. That was another thing that went over bad with the people. But the cases were finally thrown out, and now I believe he is in turn being sued by the very same journalists for knowingly bringing false lawsuits. Plus he is now a wanted fugitive from justice on the run. I’m good.
What I don’t understand is what these guys actually want. Do they have a coherent set of demands? Or is it just for the sake of maintaining the rage?
And, how to they justify attacking a somewhat democratic parliament under the banner “People’s Alliance for Democracy”? Is this like the Democratic Republic of Germany or Korea?
I’d have to go with “sake of maintaining the rage.” And what they seem to want NOW is to pick and choose the country’s leaders themselves. They keep changing what they’re all about.
The leaders of the PAD are men of questionable integrity to say the least, such as Sondhi Limthongkul and that godawful poser, Chamlong Srimuang. But the government side is all bad, too. There are no good guys in this fight.
The kingdom’s Democrat Party, currently the parliamentary opposition and Thailand’s oldest political party, are Thailand’s good guys. Their leaders are generally well respected and considered upright. Unfortunately, Democrat administrations seem to be like Ulysses S. Grant’s, in that the while the leader may be clean, corruption runs rampant all through the lower levels. It’s this disdain for the lower-level corruption that always gets the Democrats booted out of power at the polls. Every party that has replaced them has been more corrupt, only even at the top.
Meanwhile, the police seem not to have stormed Government House after all, at least not the whole place. There have been some clashes, but the police are trying to hold back. The government is clearly afraid of army intervention should the situation spin out of control violently.
“The gift of Bangkok is that it never bores.” – Local author William Warren
We were sent in when the locals murdered the British Governor (A local lad on the lawn of what was the equivilent of Government House) in Bermuda in what is for most of you the dark ages.
Quite honestly we weren’t there to preserve any sort of status quo,by that time G.B. was Empire weary,we honestly couldn’t give a flying fuck about what regime was in charge in whatever piece of the world but being British and I totally swear this on anything you choose to ask me,we couldn’t allow one mob of the locals to oppress another mob of the other locals.
If we hadn’t of been so bloody "decent"there would have been a hell of a lot of Brits who might just have lived out their lives instead of being killed “Tout Sweet” trying to save the local bigots and their followers from murdering each other.
I happen to know someone in contact with both sides of the conflict, “right to the very top” I’m told, and I believe it. My source says I would not believe some of the things I could be told, but I bet I would.
One thing is clear: This is Samak’s battle to lose. The PAD have overextended themselves badly. They’ve alienated many in their support base. As long as Samak does not say or, especially, do anything over the top, he’ll come out ahead. But that’s a pretty tall order for Samak. He is an oafish boor famous for shooting off his big mouth in crass ways. Then there was that 1976 massacre mentioned above that no one doubts he had a hand in. I am told that he IS being held back by certain parties; my guess is it’s certain members of the military, or maybe even Thaksin himself.
This is not directly related to the protest, but it will give you an idea of our prime minister’s character, and it does not seem worth a new thread of it’s own. Here is outrage expressed by the Burmese at Samak’s remarks that Aung San Suu Kyi is nothing but a “political tool” for the West.
So in essence we have the same question we did in Algeria a few years ago: is a democratic election (or in this case, a “people’s revolution”, which votes in a party dedicated to the overthrow of democracy, democratic? I would be on the side of these guys, if only they had a vision of a better idea to replace what’s going on now.
No wonder Sydney is full of superb Thai restaurants!
