The protesters remain firmly in control of Government House, but they’ve been largely pushed out of the news by all the hooplah surrounding Somchai’s appointment as prime minister. But the PAD is in no mood to compromise, and as Thaksin’s brother-in-law, he’s completely unacceptable to them. For now, it’s a boring standoff, but here is a good update in The Star out of Kuala Lumpur.
After weeks of standoff, we’re back to rioting again. Police some time ago issued arrest warrants for none PAD laders on charges of treason. Since last Friday, they’ve arrested two who were stupid enough to leave Government House, which is still firmly in control of the protesters. In response, the other seven leaders sent several thousand of their followers over to parliament last night (Monday night) to block access to the building by surrounding it completely.
This was clearly the last straw for the police, who about 6:20 this morning started firing tear gas. Dozens of canisters. The latest figure I’ve seen is 46 protesters injured, including one who looks like he lost a leg when it took a direct hit by an exploding tear-gas canister.
As I said, the arrest warrants were issued by police some time ago, but a court had agreed to review the legality of the charges. The leader who was arrested last Friday said he thought there had been an agreement with the police not to arrest anyone until the court decided. The second leader was arrested on Sunday while going to vote in the Bangkok governor election, and there is some speculation he may have set himself up. That second leader is named Chamlong Srimuang, a former Bangkok governor himself and someone who has demonstrated a real martyr complex time and again over the years. I believe he could very well have decided to become the next one arrested in a bid to break the standoff and sway public opinion to the PAD’s side.
There’s also speculation the government has finally started to arrest the leaders in a bid to strengthen ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s asylum bid in the UK, as well as that of his wife. They have reportedly just filed the official papers with the Home Office in London. Remember, the current prime minister is married to Thaksin’s sister; renewed strife in the streets and general howling for Thaksin’s blood could improve his chances of a successful application in London.
There’s a CNN story here.
Latest news, a bomb went off near or in the government party offices, one dead as far as I know.
Stay safe, guys.
Whee.:smack:
Yesterday (Tuesday) was quite a day. First of all, the deadline for the new government to read out its policies was almost up. The constitution stipulates a new government must give a public reading of its policies in parliament within 15 days of being sworn in, or else … I dunno, something bad probably happens. But this is why the PAD was trying to block access to parliament; they wanted to pevent the government from reading out its policies.
So at 6:20am, there was the aforementioned tear gas. One protester lost a leg, one a foot, supposedly by exploding tear-gas canisters, but some doctors are saying the injuries they’re seeing are consistent with more powerful explosives. Some protesters have reported seeing grenades bouncing around, but who knows? It’s entirely possible that the PAD itself was tossing some grenades, just to stir the shit.
That brings us to the “car bomb.” This was a Jeep Cherokee that seems to have belonged to a PAD supporter, and he was the one who died. Now, car bombs just are not the Thai way. We all used halfway to expect some car bombs here in Bangkok in the early days of the Muslim insurrection in our deep South, by Malaysia, which has been raging for, I think, 4-1/2 years now. But even then, no car bombs. New Year’s Eve 2006, several bombs, supposedly place by supporters of recently ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra and upon his orders, went off around Bangkok, placed mostly in trash cans. But no car bombs. This is SO un-Thai. So the police are speculating that this was not meant to be a car bomb, but rather either it had a natural-gas tank – which many of this type of vehicle now have in Thailand – that somehow exploded accidentally or the driver was in the process of delivering some incendiary devices to the PAD, and they all went off. The police are still looking into it. True, the explosion occurred outside of Chart Thai Party headquarters, and they’re a partner in the coalition government, but personally I feel this was an accident.
But anyway, it really started heating up last night. Gunfire was traded between some PAD elements and the police. At one point, national-police headquarters was coming under heavy fire (it’s close to parliament). At one point, protesters actually began ramming vehicles into groups of policemen, seriously injuring A LOT of them. Someone even tried to ram a six-wheeled truck into the police, but this didn’t work, although I’m not sure why it didn’t. The toll now is 2 dead and 420 injured. I was on the eastern edge of Bangkok last night and could see streams of police vehicles pouring into Bangkok up on the elevated Expressway, reinforcements. There are some army troops out now but not in force; they don’t want to raise fears of another military coup. I don’t believe the troops have been involved in any of the fighting yet.
There was a bit of humor amid all of this. Prime Minister Somchai was indeed able to read out his government’s policies to parliament, but I hear he read so rapidly that it was like he was trying to break a speed record. Then he tried to avoid the protesters by climbing over a barbed wire fence onto the old Vimanmek Palace grounds. (That’s not the current royal palace, but rather the resdince of Chulalongkorn V, the little boy in The King and I. It is open to the public for an admission fee and is the largest teakwood palace in the world. Quite a beautiful building.) But protesters had sealed that off, too, so he had to clamber back and was finally airlifted by helicopter. You can read an account of this here.
The labor unions of state enterprises and some private companies are now threatening a major disruption of all utilities and train and air service. Sounds similar to what was threatened before, but the utility part fizzled out then. This time they sound serious. Most train service and a few airports in the South were down that last time, but now the threat is all train and air service will be forced down. Yesterday, an MP belonging to the ruling party was not allowed to board to a domestic Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Khon Kaen. The pilot refused to fly if any such MPs were aboard the plane. Story here.
Myself, I feel the authorities have acted with an amazing amount of restraint. It’s bad enough that these PAD idiots have occupied Government House all these weeks. Okay, that’s only the offices of the prime minister and his cabinet. But now they also want to disrupt parliament. Where will it end? The country HAS to be run somehow, even if it IS badly. In my opinion, and that of many others in Bangkok, this is going WAY too far. And there are some professional shit stirrers employed by the PAD. They are really pushing for a confrontation, and while it’s sad for anyone to have to die, I don’t see how these people can act surprised that the authorities will at some point fight back. These morons are treating this as a great big party. There’s quite a bit of news footage of them dancing, cooking out, having a grand old time. Many of them think this is just a big party, a game. A lot of them are about to find out what sort of game it is. With so many of the police now maimed, I’m betting their comrades are preparing for a major ass-stomping, and the protesters will be shocked that it can happen.
There’s a photo gallery of yesterday’s events here. And a CNN update here.
Again, the PAD are not the good guys, nor is the government. It’s bad guy versus bad guy. The PAD sucks, the government sucks. But it is never, EVER boring in Bangkok.
For what is worth, yesterday watching the news every now and then I saw a policeman showing a handful of grenades, not tear gas ones, honest kabooming hand grenades. I couldn’t understand what they where saying so I don’t know where they came from, but it looked like they had confiscated them.
That could very well be. There are some professional shit stirrers being employed by the PAD. And one of the two deaths apparently resulted from a protester’s own bomb going off while still being concealed underneath her clothing or in a bag. See here. The PAD is desperate to force the military into staging another coup, but so far the army’s not buying into it.
I saw a photo of what looked like a policeman throwing a smoking tear-gas canister at the protesters. But you don’t throw those things; they’re fired from a special gun. And indeed, in the cop’s other hand, there was such a special gun. What it looked like to me was a protester had picked up a canister and thrown it back at the police, and the cop in turn had scooped it up and was throwing it back at the protesters again. But the media were trying to make it look like the cops were throwing devices at the protesters. Bad show, guys. :mad:
Yesterday (Wednesday) was much quieter, although an empty police box in the area was blown up last night. The protesters have fallen back onto Government House – or Cesspool House, as it would be more apt to describe it now – to plan their next move. But the leaders are publicly vowing not only to continue the fight, but also in a non-peaceful manner from here on out. No more Mr. Nice Guy, they’re saying.
Regarding the Thai Airways captain who refused to fly with an MP from the main ruling People Power Party (PPP), he’s been suspended, but not before refusing two other PPP MPs on another domestic flight. The airline’s labor union said he was acting on his own but is arguiing that a pilot has the right to eject any passenger he’s not comfortable flying with.
More worrying is a group of doctors and nurses vowing not to treat police or military injured in clashes with the PAD. This also happened in Black May 1992; at that time, when the lobby of the Royal Hotel was being used as an impromptu emergency room, some doctors refused to treat any soldiers. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this Board, in Thailand the Hippocratic Oath, like most things over here, is negotiable. Fortunately, the Medical Council of Thailand has come out to say no, all doctors must treat all patients regardless of who they are.
Seems quite a few children were injured in Tuesday’s riots, because the STUPID parents carried them along. Shit, who in their right mind takes children to the site of a potential riot situation??? 
These parents ought to be bagged for child neglect.
There’s a fuller story on the lady who seems to have blown herself up here.
It also goes into the other death, that of a 50-year-old man. That one’s a mystery: “Forensic examination is continuing and hard material found in his wound is being tested at the Royal Thai Police Office.”
The Bangkok Post ran a detailed article describing four different types of tear-gas devices used by the police. Some are indeed thrown. One is a type of tear-gas “grenade” – small and round, does not look like a conventional grenade, but if some of the yokels saw these bouncing around, they could be forgiven for thinking them real hand grenades. (Still, in that photo I mentioned in a previous post, that was definitely a canister being thrown by the cop. I still think a protester had thrown it back first.) I never link to the Post, because after a day or two, they charge money to see their articles, the bastards, and anyway they don’t usually show photos with their online stories.
Yesterday (Thursday), treason charges were dropped against the nine PAD leaders, although lesser charges remain. BBC TV just reported the seven who are not already in custody are now in the process of turning themselves in now that those charges are dropped, but they are expected to be released immediately on bail. No one is giving up Government House, and a BIG rally is planned for this weekend by the PAD, which is causing concern about the possibility of further violence.
There’s a good story here about the possibilitym of a return to military rule in Thailand. I and many others in Bangkok would welcome this, and not for the reasons the PAD want it. It’s so someone will finally crack down not only on Thaksin and his minions, but also the PAD.
Rumor has it, the prime minister is about to resign and the parliament dissolved.
I have to say I miss political stability; that’s saying something from someone that lived all his life in South America. :dubious:
Oh, don’t worry, you’ll get used to it eventually, hehehe.
The prime minister has suddenly canceled a planned trip to neighboring countries. Laos is traditionally the first foreign country a new PM visits, and he was due to arrive in Vientiane tomorrow (Sunday). He was also going to go to Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia. That’s all off now and is probably the reason for the rumor. We’ll see how that develops.
Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunand, Thailand’s foremost forensic expert – for those of you familiar with Thailand, she’s the spiky-haired Goth-looking lady, a really cool person – and her team yesterday (Friday) inspected the scene of Tuesday’s clashes. They took samples from the scene and from victims’ bodies and clothing. She said she could find no trace whatsoever of any explosive residue. If there’s one person in Thailand in any position of authority that you can trust, it’s she. If she says it, that’s good enough for me. She is absolutely incorruptible and has been in a few tussles with the police over the years for her straight reporting of facts. She did say the police would demonstrate all of the types of tear-gas devices used next week and that she would collect the chemical residue from that for comparisons, but really, no explosves were used.
So why did so many protesters lose body parts? The blame is starting to shift to the Chinese. It seems our tear-gas devices were bought from them, and they seem to be of low quality. High-quality devices do not rip body parts off of nearby protesters, but apparently the Chinese devices do. Gee, and you thought you were put out by the lead paint in your children’s Chinese-made toys and malamine in your Chinese-made milk products; I advise you to get rid of your Chinese-made tear-gas devices.
And the rumor is gaining steam. See here. And after only a little over three weeks in office.
Well, the prime minister’s not resigned or dissolved parliament yet! And there’s supposed to be a major rally outside of police HQ on Rama I Road right about now.
One small update on the residue collected by that forensic expert. She confirms here that all of the residue collected from victims and their clothing matched residue on the barrels of police tear-gas launchers. I like this part: “Of all six models of equipment tested, she said the US-made models were most effective. A model found to have contained excessive explosives was a Chinese-made one.”
Things have sort of settled down since the violence of October 7. I think the way in which the situation got so completely out of hand shocked both sides. But the PAD is still mouthing off belligerently. The big protest planned for this past Monday in front of police headquarters was called off. The leaders said they did not realize the cremations for last week’s victims had been scheduled for that day, but this place is so Machiavellian that there’s no telling what the real reason was for the cancellation.
And they’re alienating the good folks upcountry, to, the salt-of-the-earth types. There’s a good story about that here in the International Herald-Tribune. The PAD leaders have been calling the country folk “misguided and ignorant” for continuously voting Thaksin and his ilk into office. Well, I wouldn’t be quite that harsh, but it is true they’ve largely been voting with their wallets. Billionaire Thaksin has showered the folk with cash and real and promised projects to vote for his people, and they do it regardless of how patently unrealistic many of the promises are. But still, such remarks are not going to win the PAD any points.
Tests have now proven rather conclusively that the deaths and injuries from that day came largely from the Chinese-made tear-gas canisters, which apparently explode too soon and too forcefully. (Not much further word on that vehicle that blew up, but they seem certain now it did not belong to the guy killed in the blast after all.) The government is now rounding up all of the ones they have left and will destroy them. Sheesh! There was lead in the paint of children’s toys made in Chine. Then melamine in milk products from China. And now even their tear-gas canisters will blow your body parts off! What is it with China that it can’t seem to make anything right???
And Prime Minister Somchai is now being investigated by the country’s independent anti-graft agency for dereliction of duty while he was permanent secretary of the Justice Ministry.
Sounds like the Democrats & Tennessee.
How’s the nascent war with Cambodia coming along?
I need to start paying more attention to world news. Or is Thailand the only place this crazy?
There was some pretty serious stuff going on in parts of Georgia with the Russians recently. Afghanistan and Iraq are still fairly hot spots. Zimbabwe is a mess and Somalia has a pirate problem. Those are a few moderately crazy places off the top of my head.
I just started a thread on it here.
Never a dull moment.