I should point out that these are two different incidents. Thaksin DID negotiate to buy an English football team while prime minister but was eventually forced to give up the quest. When he later bought Man City – now believed to have been on behalf of that sheikh I mentioned earlier – that was after his ouster by the military.
Also, the poor Thais don’t really pay any taxes, so it’s the middle classes subsidizing (and thus opposing) Thaksin. Thaksin’s electoral strategy is giveaways to the poorer Thais while enriching himself off of the middle class taxpayers.
Also, Thaksin was and still is quite the showman. Toward the end of his premiership, he spent a week in one of the poorest shitholes of Thailand: a district in Roi Et province called At Narong. He and his cabinet spent a week living there. My best friend in Thailand is an American who has lived in the provincial capital for 20 years, married to a wonderful local lady and has two lovely daughters. He speaks not only Thai like a native, but many if not all of the regional dialects. He works with farmers. He even has a seasonal radio program on a local station giving farmers advice. My friend tells me that to this day, the residents of At Narong still natter on about “Thaksin’s the only prime minister who ever came to see us!” And my friend says he dearly would love to tell them, but doesn’t for fear of upsetting some good friends: “Yeah, well what the hell did he do for you except hang around for a week or so, eh? Answer me that!”
I wasn’t here back then, but from what I know the country wasn’t nearly as divided as it is now then, neither authorities so inept at dealing with the situation. Besides this attack on the skytrain station is terrorism targeted against civilians going around their daily lives, I don’t know if that sort of things happened in 1992…
Until a few weeks ago my girlfriend used that station every day when coming back from work, at around the same time the attacks happened. Thank goodness she started taking the car to work.
Well, you know how in the 2006 coup, whole families turned out to have their photos take with the soldiers in and around Royal Plaza, and it was a festive atmosphere? In 1991, you could, and many did, get your ass shot off by sticking your head out the door in the wrong neighborhood. Two backpackers from Khao San Road were killed, one of them I recall being a Swede who thought he’d just wander over and take a look. So many civilians were being shot that many doctors and nurses began refusing to treat any soldiers brought in, Hippocratic Oath be damned. They don’t refer to it as Black May for nothing.
And then there was the 1976 massacre of students at Thammasat University, the culmination of three full years of social tensions. That was by soldiers and police, but also by what they called “Red Gaurs” and “Village Scouts,” the red shirts of the day and supported by the police and military On October 6 of that year, they launched a huge assault on students protesting the return to the country of a deposed prime minister – sound familiar? – and the Red Gaurs, along with some police and miltary, attacked the students, who were lynched, burned alive and otherwise brutalized. From the excellent Thailand: A Short History, by the late David K. Wyatt: “Many Thai were revolted by the barbarity of this episode and feared for a future that now looked very bleak for a Thailand convulsed by political violence.” And one of the main coordinators of that violence at Thammasat? The recently deceased Samak Sundaravej, the red-shirt supporter who was the first one voted in as PM following the 2006 coup and who maintained to his dying day that only one person died, and then accidentally.
There have been other periods too, and this is really nothing new for Thailand. But unlike some other countries in the region, we get long periods of stability between the times of troubles, and thus with each new round of instability, people are shocked, Shocked I say! that this could possibly occur. It may take a few years, but it will setle down eventually. I’ve always thought they held elections much too soon after the 2006 coup; they really needed to deal decisively with this whole Thaksin thing before trying to put any sort of democratic veneer on public administration.
I was not here for the 1970s troubles, but the country was fairly divided back then, with a large communist element thrown in. I have faith it will all work out in the end, but not immediately, and not as long as Thaksin remains at large and not as long as the present wet dishrag of a prime minister cannot make the army at least look like it’s obeying him.
At the risk of sounding racist, I’m not sure I could explain to poor rural Thais why the cited Thaksin actions were perfidious. In a chat with a middle-class rural Thai, who supported Thaksin strongly, I mentioned a 1997 incident, well reported in Bangkok newspapers, in which Thaksin clearly cheated the public treasury of many millions of dollars. I expected him to show surprise or disbelief; instead he said he was well aware of the incident, and asked “Wouldn’t you have done the same?”
A large portion of rural Thais tend to be very honest people. Still, one wonders if their mindset somehow relates power and wealth to crime and dishonesty.
Your friend’s response surprises me not at all. But I’m curious which incident you’re referring to. Thaksin did not become prime minister until 2001, although he was active politically at that time. All I can think of is he may have used his inside information of the coming economic crash on July 2, 1997 to take advantage of currency trading. Many wealthy politicians did the same.
Yes, I think that must be it. I found this in Thaksin’s Wikipedia entry:
**"On 15 August 1997, Thaksin became Deputy Prime Minister in Chavalit Yongchaiyudh’s government, after the Thai baht was floated and devalued on 2 July 1997, sparking the Asian Financial Crisis. He held the position for only three months, leaving on 14 November when Chavalit resigned.
During a censure debate on 27 September 1997, Democrat Suthep Thaugsuban accused Thaksin of profiting from insider information about the government’s decision to float the baht, but the next Democrat party-led government did not investigate the accusations."**
He was deputy PM at the time, only briefly, and no doubt did enrich himself. Note that the Suthep mentioned is a deputy PM now and is the one who spoke on live TV after last night’s bombings and is in charge of the emergency center tasked with suppressing the red shirts. These guys are all old foes.
Ah, or this one:
“In March 2007, the Office of the Attorney-General charged Thaksin’s wife and brother-in-law with conspiring to evade taxes of 546 million baht (US$15.6 million) in a 1997 transfer of Shin Corp shares.”
That one HAS been in the news a lot lately.
I don’t have a scorecard on which politicians scored on 1 July 1997, but I think Thaksin’s was the biggest. My understanding is that the Bank of Thailand had effectively closed its “Dollar Window” but opened it specially for preferred customers the day before the devaluation. If that’s not perfidy, we’re using different dictionaries.
(Charges were filed against B.O.T. officials, IIRC, but not about insider trading allegations, rather for the fact of the devaluation itself!)
Again, shrug One offense out of many and one that happened 13 years ago. I’m not sure what sort of outrage you’re trying to work up to here.
There’s something profoundly sad about Thai politics and its crises.
The People Power movement that overthrew Marcos in the Philippines was regarded as a triumph for democracy; am I wrong? And sides in many conflicts are similarly drawn, or is it an illusion caused by my ignorance?
I feel somewhat less ignorant about Thai politics, and I do not see the 2010 crisis as having anything to do with democracy! With fighting in the streets one would like to believe there’s something noble at stake, but No: It’s just Thaksin wanting his billions back.
The 1973-1976 crisis was before my time but, without defending the stupidities and excesses of the military, both the 1991 and 2006 military coups were more to restore democracy than to attack it. (Please be aware that in countries dominated by kleptocracy and vote buying democracy does not equal elections.) Educated Thais demonstrated against the military governments of 1991 and 2006 but finally may be learning their lesson: AFAIK, students and professors have generally not joined the red-shirt side.
One of the most poignant and peculiar ironies of Thai politics is that Gen. Chamlong, ascetic Bangkok Governor and hero of the 1991 demonstrations, is the very man who brought Thaksin into politics. 
:mad: :smack:
I’m not sure what we’re trying to debate now. My conversation was several years ago; I brought it up here to demonstrate a middle-class rural Thai’s thinking.
If it were my goal to demonstrate Thaksin’s perfidy, it would still seem a fine example. I’m really unclear about the reference “what sort of outrage you’re trying to work up to here.”
Oh, Please! Chamlong. Yuck! What a litle martinet he is. Same same, just a different style. Don’t be fooled.
Look, I don’t disagree with much of what you say, but the situation in Thailand seems to be gnawing at you excessively, and there doesn’t seem to be anything really specific that you have a chip about, just things in general here. There’s not much I can say since I agree the situation sucks, but most of us who opt to live here simply deal with it.
Good luck with your endeavors. I’m off into the city now.
EDIT: Just to clarify for the sake of accuracy: The coup was in 1991, but the demonstrations were in 1992. Black May was May 1992.
From where to where? I’d like to take a spin down the Asia Highway to Rachada Road, but would prefer not to hit any traffic jams, let alone grenades. 