I read the local paper’s coverage, which I suspect was just wire service splat. They portrayed the red-shirts (Shinawatra supporters, I think I have the colours right) as populists, which obviously in US plays toward sympathy, as the opposite of populist is like tyrannical. I would guess, from your description, that they are using a façade of populism to work their graft and corruption behind the scenes and mete out just enough candy to keep their supporters happy. The piece did not offer much detail on the opposition
Clearly US style “democracy” is not a very good fit for Thailand, hell, it barely works in the US. Maybe they can figure out some kind of workable system, but with pressure from the West, hope seems dim.
Thanks again, Siam Sam, great to hear from ground level.
The wife and I expected to see some soldiers today. We were in the Siam Square area. Nary a soldier in sight. Didn’t see any at the Ratchaprasong intersection as we passed above it on the Skytrain, and that’s usually ground zero for the protesers. So we haven’t seen a soldier at all during this coup or under martial law before it.
However, it looks like a few hundred red shirts did take to the street in northern Bangkok, defying the ban on group gatherings. And at Victory Monument in central Bangkok, not too far from where we were. That last one had some pushing and shoving. These were isolated incidents, but the BBC coverage insinuates it’s citywide. Another protest in the northern city of Chiang Mai was broken up with four people arrested. But it’s pretty quiet almost everywhere. However, people seem to feel this is just the start and that the red shirts will instigate violence before long. Several prominent red shirts are refusing to turn themselves in to the army and are prepared to go underground.
Meanwhile, the army chief today dissolved the Senate – that was all that was left of parliament after Yingluck dissolved the Lower House last December – leaving all parliamentary power in the hands of the National Council for Peace and Order, headed by the army chief. He also removed the national police chief, the head of the Department of Special Investigation and the permanent secretary of the Defense Ministry.
Haha! Thaksin’s son was arrested at Chiang Mai Airport in the North for supporting the protests up there. The spoiled brat’s been flown back to Bangkok to be detained here. And the Bangkok police chief has resigned.
Just catching up on the happenings here, after learning of the coup via radio this week. That I found after hearing how Thailand had slipped into it’s first recession in many years. This all has a potential financial impact for my family, so I’ll start paying closer attention. My sister and law and her family are scheduled to make their trip to Thailand in July. I haven’t heard any talk of amending those plans. No one in my immediate family had planned to make the trip this year.
Thailand has not entered a recession … yet. That’s usually defined as two (2) quarterly contractions in a row. The economy contracted slightly year-on-year in the first quarter but grew slightly in the fourth quarter, so it depends on the second-quarter figures, which won’t be known for a few months. However, it’s not looking good.
It did enter what they kept calling a “technical recession” two or three years ago, not “many” years ago, I think on the back of the flood crisis, but bounced back quickly. (I think “technical recession” was their way of putting as positive a spin on it as possible. It was two quarters in a row, but then it returned to growth the following quarter, IIRC.)
The graft and corruption wasn’t “behind the scenes”, but extremely blatant. I brought this up in conversation with an intelligent middle-class Thaksin supporter and his attitude was that successful frauds demonstrate intelligence, which is a desireable quality for a leader. :smack:
I live in a province controlled by a Godfather allied with Thaksin but most of the middle-class Thais near me who aren’t allied with the political machine are opposed to Thaksin and quite happy about the coup.
Many of us have been rooting for a coup – What took them so long?(*) It’s disheartening to hear Kerry and the Western press condemn the coup; I hope that’s just posturing and that they really aren’t so ignorant or cynical.
The coup is being called รัฐประหารแบบนุ่มนวล – ‘coup d’état of a gentle style.’ The way the Army chief first declared martial law and expelled red-shirts from the capital, and waited to declare coup may have been an intelligent ploy to minimize risk.
Looks like the Government Complex is being spiffed up and put back in shape for a reopening this week. The anti-government protesters have all left that area, of course. The main passport office will reopen tomorrow (Monday), but the temporary ones set up will all still be open this week.
I guess Immigration will be back in operation too. I use the Immigration office in central Bangkok for Board of Investment-related farangs (Westerners) and don’t have to make the long slog out to the Government Complex, but I know that a lot of farangs have been inconvenienced by this. But now that I think about it, I’ve seen a lot of those farangs at the BoI one inside the city, so maybe they won’t be too happy about that after all. It’s really a long ways to go just to report your whereabouts every 90 days like foreigners have to do.
It’s the noon hour Sunday, and something’s afoot in Bangkok. The red shirts used social media to send out a message to meet at the McDonald’s in Amarin Plaza at the Ratchaprasong intersection. And they appear to have shown up in force. The local stations aren’t showing that of course, but BBC is. And while there weren’t any soldiers that we could see at that intersection yesterday – although we did pass above it rather quickly – they’re out in force today. Until now they’ve been exercising a degree of restraint, but it looks like soldiers have poured into that area today and formed a human cordon to block off the demonstration outside the McDonald’s in order to prevent any others from joining. It’s understood that the red shirts are desperate to provoke some sort of violence to show the world, and I doubt they’ll stop until they realize their goal.
Red shirts upcountry have been told to meet at any fast-food facility that’s at hand, but I’ve not heard about anything happening outside of Bangkok.
This is the sort of nonsense that threatens to keep the curfew in force for a while. But some of the bars have been making use of the curfew to stage “curfew lock-in parties.” You show up before 10pm, then you’re locked inside as a guest of a “private party” until 5am, when the curfew ends. At least two bars have done that now including one last night owned and operated by an Aussie I know.
Ploenchit and Chidlom Skytrain stations, which serve that area, have been closed. Arrests of some protesters have been made, which seems to have angered the others, who forced the soldiers up onto what’s called the Skywalk, an elevated walkway in that area. Gunshots have been heard.
Haven’t heard anything else from the Ratchaprasong intersection. But I have heard that the bars in and outside of the Nana Plaza red-light district have been flaunting the curfew by staying open until midnight or later. It seems tonight (Sunday night), they’ve made a unified decision to all stay open until 2am. Also heard there’s not much of a problem getting a taxi during curfew hours either. The other bar areas are slowly coming back to life as they start seeing what they can get away with themselves.
That’s all well and good, but I hope the people staying out understand they are taking a risk and that there could be consequences if the authorities decided to tighten up.
The army is denying it’s detained Thaksin’s son, and the kid’s sisters are denying it too. Still a lot of confusion.
But farmers who have been stiffed in the rice-pledging scheme will start getting paid tomorrow. That might just capture a few hearts and minds, as they were about fed up with the Yingluck government dragging its heels on payment.
Yingluck’s just been released from detention, it was announced. She’s been ordered not to involve herself in politics and must request permission before leaving the country.
Curfew just started again … or so we think. Someone in Krabi province, down in the South, told me it seems like the curfew there has been called off. I’ve not heard that. But the entire South has always been Democrat territory and anti-Thaksin from the get go. Except for the Muslim insurgents in the very deep South, who are angry no matter who it is in power, the coup is very popular throughout that region. So it wouldn’t be surprising if they’re lax about it down there.
The Expressway out our window looks fairly deserted but not completely so. And again, it sounds like a lot of businesses are starting to ignore it. We could be looking at a de-facto end to the curfew in the very near future.
Yesterday’s red-shirt demonstration ended up moving to Victory Monument, also in central Bangkok, so Victory Monument Skytrain Station was also closed. All stations were open in the evening, but mass transit is still shutting down at 9pm.
Looks like the junta isn’t going to tolerate much more resistance. Many civil laws have now been suspended, and lese-majeste and security law violations as well as defying junta orders can now be tried in a court martial without a lawyer for the defendant and lengthy prison sentences possible. Update here.
Stay safe. I’ve been lurking in this thread since it started, its good to get first hand reports. The news reports I’ve been seeing are very different than you are telling.
Its like how you will hear that Texas is going up in flames, but won’t know that Houston will be safe.
A street sweeper found a hand grenade at a bus stop in central Bangkok this morning (Monday morning), just sitting there. Called authorities, and they removed it.
The curfew is an odd one, much looser than previous ones. My friend whom I spoke with in Krabi was definitely wrong that the curfew there had been lifted. There were rumors going around yesterday to the effect that it would be lifted in some upcountry locations, but no. Still, it could have looked like it was lifted, as much as it was being adhered to. Here in Bangkok, even though mass transit is still shutting down at 9pm and most department stores and shopping malls at about 8pm, I’m having people tell me they’re out late with no problems, and taxis aren’t hard to find. One lady said she goes home about midnight – 3am one weekend night – and passes through six army checkpoints, but they just wave her through. I may have to test the waters myself soon in this regard.
As I often say to some people when they ask about the political situation here, you’ll know the provervial really sh*t hit the fan when the cut the soap operas.
As for the coup, I don’t like it, not one bit. Even though I think General Prayuth is a honorable man (or as honorable as they get in the Thai Army), too much power in one man is always dangerous.
On the other hand I understand why things have come to this, and a pox on Thaksin, his band of brigands posing as a political party and his cult followers for bringing this on on the country.
Just yesterday they captured two suspects for a terrorist attack on Trat province in April I think, two 5 year old kids that were helping their mother at a food stall were killed when assailants fired grenades and assault rifles on an anti-government rally site.
For months attacks like that have been carried out with impunity against anti-government protests sites, state and independent agencies that were threatening PTP’s hold on power. Not one single arrest by the police in all that time, then just two days after the coup the suspects and the weapons used on those attacks start to be found. Obviously the police was stonewalling the investigations, worse than that, one of the suspects arrested (in the process one military officer was killed) was a policeman.
Just before the coup a cache of weapons was found by a joint police/army patrol in the car of the then acting PM aide (and more allegedly in the house of another politician) and it was reported that high ranking politicians and police hierarchy lobbied to bury the issue.
To me all adds up to a government using terrorism with the complicity/assistance of a friendly police force. Some were absolutely blatant about their bias, like the Bangkok Metropolitan Chief of Police having in his office a picture of Thaksin (fugitive on the run for those not familiar with the situation) pinning his insignia on with the caption “All I have is because of you”. I don’t expect such man to show any interest in finding out who was killing an maiming Thaksin’s opponents.
For example a woman blew a whistle at Thaksin’s ex wife in a shopping mall, during the next few days one grenade and one pipebomb, IIRC, were thrown at that protester home, and her mother’s home was riddled with more than one hundred bullets, I didin’t expect the police to move a finger on that case because it just happened that the chief of police was Thaksin’s ex brother. :smack:
Next step for the Thaksin political machine is, IMHO, to stage a few deaths during an anti-coup protest, have some “third hand” mingle with the people and shoot at the security forces. It is horrible, shocking and they’ve done it before in 2010 to “get things moving”.
