Intermission
The word had gotten out early that morning. Having spent nearly a month hunkered down at the 11th Regiment, protected by layers of razor wire and thousands of soldiers, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva had taken enough humiliation. Assembled at two symbolically charged locations in downtown Bangkok — at Saphan Phan Fa and at the Rajprasong intersection, surrounded by some of the world’s most dazzling shopping malls — the Red Shirts had spent weeks force-feeding the hapless Prime Minister repeated samplings of his own medicine. They had defied the Internal Security Act as well as regulations issued pursuant to the Emergency Decree — invoked for no other reason than to allow the Prime Minister to continue his poor impersonation of a statesman, wholly dedicated to the rule of law, while simultaneously giving him the power to make up the law as he went along. They had performed transfixing Brahmanical cursing rituals, spilling human blood at the Prime Minister’s residence, at the Government House, and at Democrat Party headquarters. Time and time again, they had crossed every line in the sand that the government had drawn by declaring various locations in the city off-limits to their marches. They had entered the grounds of the National Assembly, forced their way into the building that houses the Election Commission, and stormed the Thaicom station in Patum Thani in an attempt to re-establish PTV’s satellite signal. Perhaps most vexing of all, for a government that had spent weeks warning of grave security threats, the Red Shirts had been overwhelmingly peaceful, charming, and good humored. Security forces were frequently seen fraternizing with the demonstrators, whose forays around the city regularly attracted the sympathy of throngs of local residents.
By April 10, the government had seen quite enough. The operations would be carried out by thousands of soldiers, armed to the teeth, seemingly better equipped for a battle with an invading army than the dispersal of a crowd of mostly unarmed protesters. As the soldiers advanced towards the demonstration site at Saphan Phan Fa, on foot and in armored personnel vehicles, Minister of Propaganda Panitan Wattanayagorn publicly boasted that “order” would be restored by nightfall.
But things would turn out quite differently this time. This time, the demonstrators — the vast majority armed with rocks, sticks, the occasional firebomb, and whatever they could find on the pavement that could be thrown at the security forces — refused to play along with the same script that similar incidents have followed since 1973. This time, the demonstrators failed to offer themselves as the inert victims of another state massacre. This time, the demonstrators fought back, with breathtaking courage, against the same kind of military regime that violently suppressed every democratic movement Thailand has ever known. As the street battles unfolded, thousands of people continued to stream into the Red Shirt rallies, laying down their lives before an advancing army. Red Shirt leaders, whom the government had so often dismissed as mere charlatans and opportunists, did not shirk from their responsibility to lead the resistance against the violent crackdown. Whether they were motivated by old intramural grudges or active support of the Red Shirts, perhaps not more than a handful of men dressed in black — suspected to have been themselves military officers — assassinated the operation’s commander, Col. Romklao Thuwatham, and some of his lieutenants before vanishing back into the shadows. Shockingly, for a regime that last updated its playbook in the 1970s, it quickly became clear that butchering a couple dozen people would not be enough to silence the Red Shirts. This time, there would be no taking it lying down. Ceasefire.
The botched crackdown left 26 people dead — 21 Red Shirts, four military officers, and a foreign journalist. A few days later, the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD; Thailand is one of a growing number of countries where one can be for democracy without being against dictatorship, hence the redundancy) abandoned their encampment at Saphan Phan Fa and concentrated their forces at Rajprasong. The decision had its downsides. By retreating behind the barricades of a fortified compound in the heart of the city, the Red Shirts lost the mobility and adaptiveness that had enabled them to repeatedly embarrass the government over the previous weeks. But the upside was substantial. In a single move, the Red Shirts put the government in an impossible position — simultaneously making inaction untenable and action unthinkable. On the one hand, the occupation of an area of far greater commercial significance than Rachadamnoen Avenue placed Abhisit’s government under increased pressure from its own supporters to bring the demonstrations to a close. As the government wavered, coalition politicians grumbled, while the increasingly hysterical People’s Alliance for Democracy slammed the government’s failure to put down the Red Shirts whatever the cost. On the other hand, it would have been obvious to anyone who had ever taken a stroll across Red Shirt City at Rajprasong that their dispersal may not only have required a bloodbath evocative of the Paris Commune, but perhaps more importantly to lay waste to some of Bangkok’s most iconic developments. And the Red Shirts understood that, in this day and age, Louis Vuitton bags and Hermès foulards make for better shields than human shields.
Whether by choice or compelled by the military’s refusal to carry out his orders, in the end Abhisit had little option but to capitulate. He offered to dissolve the House in four months, a decision that would presumably have paved the way for an election in November. The offer, preceded by the usual platitudes about imaginary threats against the monarchy, was vintage Abhisit. Not confident enough in his ability to take action against people he had slandered as traitors and terrorists, at the same time the Prime Minister washed his hands of any responsibility for his miserable failure, prolonging his (and the country’s) agony for the sake of guaranteeing the long-awaited promotion of a handful of military men.
It might be worth asking how significant an accomplishment a November election might have been for the Red Shirts. Back in March, Abhisit himself had publicly stated his readiness to dissolve the House in nine months. Had it been worth holding out, at the cost of 30 additional lives, for a three-to-six-month discount on the proposed election timeline? This is a question that was no doubt spiritedly debated in the Red Shirt camp, as its leaders pondered a response. Since the breakdown of the televised “negotiations” with the Prime Minister, nonetheless, the Red Shirts had accomplished far more than an election to be held six months earlier than previously thought possible. Before the demonstrations even started, I noted that the Red Shirts’ goal was not merely to precipitate an early election, but rather to weaken the ancien régime to the extent that it would not be able to prevent the election from having any real consequence (see here; scroll down to the comments). Had the Red Shirts accepted to disperse, November’s vote would have take place in a context quite different from the situation the Red Shirts could have faced had they simply accepted Abhisit’s first offer and gone home.
For one thing, the myriad provocations that the Red Shirts had successfully carried out over the previous two months had not only exposed the dreadful incompetence of the country’s security forces, but also brought to the surface some troubling rifts within the military itself — damaging, one can only hope beyond repair, the credibility, confidence, and cohesiveness of the institution that remains the single biggest obstacle to Thailand’s democratization. The Red Shirts, moreover, had a chance to build an impressive organization and an identity of their own — decisively leading the movement out of the long shadow cast by Thaksin Shinawatra.
Perhaps most importantly, the Red Shirts had already all but destroyed Abhisit Vejjajiva’s political career — in the process, taking away the most handsome, mild-mannered, soft-spoken, and fiercely amoral facade available to this thuggish, unelected regime. To many among those who did not like him to begin with, Abhisit was now a murderer whose hands were covered in the people’s blood. To many among those who had no firm opinion, Abhisit was now just the last in a long series of weak Prime Ministers at the mercy of people and institutions he could never really hope to control. And, to many among those who enthusiastically supported his rise to power, Abhisit was now a coward whose failure to take decisive action bordered on treason. Under siege and seemingly in the throes of unharnessed desperation, the Prime Minister had played the “protect the monarchy” card from the bottom of the deck — alleging a fanciful conspiracy illustrated by the now infamous diagram that Colonel Sansern handed to reporters, with no sense of the ridiculous, in a gesture worthy of Inspector Clouseau. This could have been a blunder of potentially career-ending proportions. Manufacturing an existential threat to the nation might have served as a convenient excuse for mass murder. But if one is unable or unwilling to massacre hundreds of people, it is inevitable that those who believed the charges (or in any event found it convenient to hype the allegations) will judge the refusal to confront an existential threat head on as tantamount to dereliction of duty, if not out-and-out complicity.
Still, the offer placed the Red Shirts before a difficult dilemma. On the one hand, rejecting the deal was sure to make them appear unreasonable to many among those who had remained “neutral” throughout this fight — perhaps especially, those urban middle class voters the UDD had worked so hard to court ever since it set up camp on the streets of Bangkok. On the other hand, Abhisit’s offer came with no real guarantees. To accept it without conditions would have meant for the Red Shirts to suspend their rally in exchange for promises many suspected to be empty. For one thing, questions remained over whether Abhisit could credibly commit to keep up his own end of the bargain. Considerable uncertainty, in particular, surrounded the outcome of two Constitutional Court rulings that might yet dissolve the Democrat Party in the weeks to come. It was (and is) still unclear whether the timing of the Election Commission’s decision on the long-delayed cases was mere coincidence, whether it was designed to induce the Prime Minister to leave or remind him he answers to higher powers, or whether it was merely a cheap trick to deflate the Red Shirts’ outrage against perceived “double standards.” Considering, moreover, that Thailand was now under the worst censorship regime since the days of Tanin Kraivichien (of book-burning fame), there would not be anything like a “free and fair election” so long as this kind of government stayed in office — it mattered little whether Abhisit or Chuan Leekpai served as the executive’s titular head. And despite the lip service paid by the Prime Minister to the need to investigate the deaths on April 10, everyone knows that human rights abuses on this scale have never received any proper investigation in Thailand, much less any real justice.
The UDD leadership sought to thread the needle by outwardly embracing Abhisit’s so-called “roadmap to reconciliation” (or better still, to the restoration of the lumpenproletariat’s lost acquiescence) conditional upon being granted two guarantees one would be hard-pressed to describe as unreasonable — the relaxation of censorship and the launch of an independent investigation into the April 10 incidents. The third condition — that Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban turn himself him to acknowledge criminal charges the police had not yet filed — seemed more specifically designed to derail the entire process. In so doing, the Red Shirts effectively threw the ball back into Abhisit’s court. The Prime Minister, his escape routes now blocked, would now have to pick his poison. His options were limited to dissolving the House, and hence commit political suicide, or crack down so ruthlessly as to not only self-destruct, but possibly bring the entire regime he represents down with him.
A few days passed, more deadlines to comply with the last in the government’s long series of ultimatums came and went, but in the end operation murder-suicide was a go. Abhisit took his offer of an early election off the table, as troops and armored personnel carriers gradually encircled Rajprasong. The first shot, fired by a sniper, rang out on May 13, assassinating the rogue Major-General Khattiya Sawasdipol. In the following days, the carnage unfolded as battles raged at Din Daeng and along on the southern edge of Lumphini Park. Ever obsessed with the appearance of urbanity and bourgeois propriety, the government placed signs designating “Live Fire Zones” — more specifically, killing fields where the military had essentially been given carte blanche to shoot civilians, journalists, emergency medical personnel, and generally everything that moved. After days of fighting, the siege of Red Shirt City successfully softened the UDD’s resistance, while the savagery displayed by the regime against its own citizens depressed the number of protesters left at Rajprasong. On the morning of May 19, the army easily overrode the Red Shirt barricades and penetrated their encampment. Faced with the certainty of defeat, the movement’s leaders saved the lives of perhaps dozens of their followers, many apparently determined to fight to the death, by waving a white flag. The surrender had to be announced in haste. Before they could persuade the weeping, jeering crowds of the wisdom of retreating, shots rang out and the Red Shirts leaders ducked for cover, scrambling to leave the stage and reach the safety of the nearby police station. Now leaderless, some of those left in the streets took out their anger and disappointment on some targets of opportunity and a few others of symbolic significance, setting a number of buildings ablaze as they scattered throughout the city.
In a strictly tactical sense, the operation proved to be a success. Though it was never in doubt that a modern army, even one as incompetent, would eventually defeat a few thousand protesters protected by several dozen lightly armed men, the final push produced far fewer casualties than many had feared — “only” 54 people are officially said to had died since Seh Daeng’s assassination. But even the government could not bring itself to describe the operation’s relative success as a victory. No government has ever drawn much in the way of a long-term benefit from a carnage of this magnitude. Besides reclaiming 2-3 square kms of prime real estate, at the total cost of at least 85 lives, the operation solved none of the current regime’s fatal structural flaws. And the extreme measures that the government was forced to take by the Red Shirts — the Emergency Decree, the suspension of most civil and political rights, the suppression of most alternative sources of information, and the establishment of a new organ, the Center for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES), bearing an uncanny resemblance to a hurriedly cobbled-up junta in the mold of Burma’s SLORC — wrecked the democratic appearances Abhisit had once taken great care to keep up. To defeat a movement that objected to its illegitimacy and authoritarianism, the government had to fully reveal itself as such.
As least by the official estimates, the battle that just came to an end was the worst episode of repression of pro-democracy demonstrators in the history of Thailand. And if massacres always have their supporters at the time they take place, any such support tends to fizzle as the stern judgment of history gradually sets in. History has a way of transforming those who witnessed episodes of state violence as idle by-standers and cheerleaders into former freedom fighters. Once he completes his “duty,” falling on the sword for people more powerful than himself, Abhisit will ever since be known as the butcher of Bangkok. Quite possibly, that will be the only thing for which he will be remembered.
It must be said that the Red Shirts do not emerge from Rajprasong looking especially good either. Thanks to their leaders’ decision to surrender, their last stand did not turn out like the Paris Commune. Still, they lost more than 50 additional people. Their support among middle class voters in Bangkok and some of the surrounding provinces will be compromised by their intransigence as well as the property damage inflicted in the wake of their surrender. Their leaders were arrested and might conceivably face more serious charges as a result of having forced Abhisit to murder more of their people. In addition, the arson attacks committed by some of their followers provided the government — and Thailand’s eagerly compliant media — with just the sort of apocalyptic images it needed to further dehumanize the Red Shirts, ignore the pile of corpses sacrificed on the altar of smoother traffic and a more satisfying shopping experience, and at least in the short run provide retroactive justification for the killings.
Then again, nothing really is lost — only the latest victims of state violence and civilian complacency will never come back. The movement’s support remains strong. In the North and the Northeast as among the urban underclasses, their supporters are not likely to shed any tears over the fact that some rich punk in Bangkok can no longer shop at Central World, when dozens of people like them lay dead at the hands of the government. If anything, those who already sympathize with the Red Shirts will likely react with justifiable disgust at the sight of upper- and upper-middle-class citizens in Bangkok making such a scene out of mourning the loss of a shopping mall — whose burning was compared, laughably, to September 11, 2001 — while they continue to shrug off (and in many cases celebrate) the murder of so many people. And the support for the regime is quite likely to only go downhill from here, as the deluge of lies and repressive measures necessary for the government to keep its story straight prove increasingly unpopular, or as the government’s roadmap to “reconciliation” proves to be nothing other than a futile, clumsy attempt to shove the toothpaste back into the tube.
Earlier promises to the contrary notwithstanding, this was nothing close to a “final battle.” Indeed, given that the millions-strong crowds never materialized, this was a battle that would certainly not have been final even if the Red Shirts had ultimately won it. Nonetheless, Thailand seems to have reached a point of no return — perhaps more fittingly, the “end of the beginning” of what is still going to be a difficult transition. The road ahead remains long and uphill; along the way, it will no doubt be marked by victories as well as demoralizing setbacks and unsavory compromises. To borrow imagery from a stirring speech that Nattawut Saikua delivered in 2008 (EN, TH, video below), however, the sky is closer today than it has ever been. The old order is dead. Those who would seek to restore it are badly wounded. And while the star of its big-time players is fading fast, the establishment’s bench is not deep on charisma, competence, and legitimacy. Most important of all, the Red Shirts have already conquered that once-elusive “rightful place” where they can firmly “plant their feet,” having busted down the gates of a political system from which the masses have long been excluded. The Red Shirts have already seized for themselves the right to be “Thai” by colorfully rejecting their old status as second-class citizens. To those inhabiting both the earth and the sky, who so often described them as corruptible and unprincipled, they have already shown the strength of their hearts and the fortitude of their souls. Having now shattered a once impenetrable noise barrier of censorship and indifference, their deafening cries already fill the high heavens.
(6 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Great analysis as usual.
I think you’re underestimating the damage that looting and damage after the protest will do to the Red Shirts. Several previously neutral Thai people I talked to are disgusted by the destruction of malls around Siam and Victory Monument.
To my surprise, loss of people’s lives (especially low-class people’s lives) does not cause much outrage among Thais, as it would in the west. Not sure why. Maybe it’s due to karma, or maybe due to the fact that a body is quickly burned and taken out of sight, while a burnt out shopping mall is an eyesore that stands for a long time, leading to a loss of face and reminder of conflict for everyone.
More “political poetry”, brilliantly lyrical writing Federico, this is the kind of piece Ji Ungapakorn would love to write but he simply doesn’t have the talent.
crocodilexp: Thanks. It’s true that the loss of life has gone for the most part unnoticed in the wake of the dispersal. However, I suspect that this does not speak to the way many people in Bangkok react to the loss of life in general; it’s the way they react to the loss of THESE lives.
Let’s try a bit of a thought experiment. Suppose Somchai had dispersed the PAD occupation at Suvarnabhumi, causing the same number of dead and injured as this crackdown did. Suppose also that the airport had been partially destroyed as a result. What would the front page of The Nation look like? Would they be mourning the loss of parts of the airport, or would they focus on the people who died? That’s why I think this reaction is ultimately counterproductive. It proves the UDD’s point that their people are looked upon as second-class citizens, if not animals. Their lives aren’t even worth the value of commercial property.
Excellent writing. I share many of your sentiments. Unlike the pampered classes who still don’t get it.
Let’s try another thought experiment. Take any major city in the Western world, have protesters take over an iconic portion of it and disrupt the lives of everyday citizens unconcerned with the protest du jour, and then have the government fired upon by the protesters when they try to enforce the law to get them out, resulting in the deaths of government forces. How would the government respond? I think waiting a month and proposing a compromise before taking another stab at dispersing the protesters beats par for that course.
The cause may be just, but the methods of the protesters were not. The Nation’s spin may be bad, but I don’t see yours as any better. For all of your talk about hidden power in the government, you don’t seem to explore why this protest happened now and who financed it (and I’m not just trotting out the Thaksin bogeyman here) besides saying it was necessary to happen now to keep the government weak. Was that necessary for the benefit of the reds or for those who think they own the red cause (in the sense that they were the ones most profiting from it)? Those folks were afraid of a Democrat government giving out just as many table scraps as they ever did leading up until the next election. That couldn’t be allowed to happen and is as bad as the means the powerful yellows used to keep Thaksin and his cronies out.
As for the value of human life, I don’t recall the yellows sacrificing their pawns.
Several previously neutral Thai people I talked to are disgusted by the destruction of malls around Siam and Victory Monument.
To my surprise, loss of people’s lives (especially low-class people’s lives) does not cause much outrage among Thais…
The residents of Bangkok are truly a disgusting lot. And so provincial that their the sheer revulsion their back slapping celebration of their latest round of murder against the Thai people elicits from residents of planet earth is completely absent from their calculations. And they usually calculate so well.
No… not only have The Red Shirts… already seized for themselves the right to be “Thai” by colorfully rejecting their old status as second-class citizens, they have called into question the allegiances of the residents of Bangkok. The right of their oppressors to claim to be Thai.
Who are those people in Bangkok? How did they come to live in Thailand?
Wok Yai:
Thanks for your comments, but you need to check your facts:
1. If you look at the history of most Western countries, you will find that the struggle for democracy was waged much more violently than anything the UDD has done. Not that I like to see any violence at all (and whatever violence they engaged in was pretty counterproductive), but let’s keep this in the proper context please.
2. No Western government would have reacted quite this way. Europeans are quite used to fairly disruptive protests; the government doesn’t go in guns blazing to disperse them. For an extreme example, check how the American government dealt with the LA Riots in 1992 (which, again, were much more violent than the UDD protests). The way it went about it was nothing like the what we have seen in the past few days. No assassins, no “live fire zones,” and less than a handful of deaths (most of the 52 people who were killed in the LA Riots were killed during the riots themselves).
3. You claim that the government was “fired upon by the protesters when they try to enforce the law.” Not quite. On April 10, the government had begun to fire on the Red Shirts way before it started taking fire itself. As for “the law,” really? This government essentially staged a coup by imposing a state of emergency that allows it to decide what “the law” is on any given day. Look at how the Greek government dealt with the fairly violent recent protests. No junta, no state of emergency, no censorship of media. What do you think would be left of Athens if the government had fired upon the protesters and had killed 100 people, even after the Greek protesters killed three innocent civilians?
4. Check the news reports about the airport occupations from back in 2008. There was much talk of human shields. The only difference is that back then the government wasn’t willing (and perhaps not able) to massacre those people.
Who are those people in Bangkok? How did they come to live in Thailand?
I think you’re confusing me for one of The Nation’s op-ed writers. What I’m trying to get at is, Athens, LA, or wherever is not going to allow itself to be shut down for over a month under threat of violence. Sure, they’re going to negotiate with protesters and in general these things don’t get out of hand like they do as of late in Thailand. Here, we had negotiations where one side said, “Give me elections now or else,” and the other said, “We’ll give you elections in 6 months.” If you’re Abhisit last week, what is the right answer? Give in to red shirt demands? Well, hope you’re not planning on flying out of Thailand in the near future. Allow this thing to fester indefinitely? They tried that for a month, and my take was some significant portion of the red shirts/black shirts were intent on getting a reaction and would be ratcheting up the pressure until they did. Negotiations were ridiculous–too many cooks on the red shirt side, and yellow shirts and who knows who else also wanting to be at the table. Meanwhile, you’re pissing off the people who just want their lives to go back to normal (by far the group I’m most sympathetic to).
As for ‘the law’ in Thailand, sure, I laugh about it too. And have for a while. From the tea money traffic stops to who is allowed to kill folks at a nightclub. A lot of people, red and yellow, don’t like those things. And the shenanigans over cooking shows and maids owning all of someone’s assets…it’s bogus. Certain aspects of the government’s handling of this episode are also bogus. They shouldn’t shut down the red shirt media, they shouldn’t make up ridiculous restrictions on protests. But I don’t think it’s ridiculous to say you can’t take over a major portion of the city for a month until you get your way. Just because you feel your cause is just does not justify all of your means. How many people are red shirts and yellow shirts? How many people just want to get across town or into their soi and don’t want to be annoyed, searched, interrogated, shot at, etc? At some point the government has to have the right to say, “We’ve indulged you enough…go home or face the consequences.”
As for April 10, my understanding is that the army went in with rubber bullets, at least initially, something that police in the US aren’t averse to using (Boston police killed a young woman back in 2004 during a Red Sox postgame celebration/riot with them). Now, do you know they switched to real bullets before they started taking gunfire? I don’t know what happened and I doubt more than a handful of people do.
Bottom line, there are a handful of people on either side who are pulling the strings, and they’re jockeying for position for military reshuffles, police tea money, control of graft, and all the other spoils. These protests are the games they play with other people’s lives. If you want to believe this protest was some spontaneous, grass roots coming together of red shirts at this time to demand an election in 15 days, that’s your right. If you think this protest helped Thailand, that’s also your right. I would disagree. If your instinct is to reply ‘but the yellow shirts did X’ every time, I don’t think that’s going to help Thailand. At this point, I think the scoreboard has enough stats for the yellows, reds, Thaksin, and the current government. But here we are, with that current government. What fraction of the people do you think would prefer things to have gone on as they were before this most recent protest until the next election? How many are too little before you deem your cause more important than them living their lives?
WokYai:
Allow me to clarify three points. First, i never said that the government had no right to clear those areas. It just didn’t have the right to do so in a way that makes a mockery of every human rights convention in the process. Second, this is not “my cause.” It’s their cause. I just happen to support their right to fight for it without getting butchered in this fashion. Third, there is no doubt that the motives of those who are involved on all sides are mixed. But most of the struggles that have ever achieved anything in the history of mankind were no different in this regard.
and now, after the call which united Bangkokians in “cleansing their streets,” no more red dust remains … I am just wondering when us kids will be curfew free again?
Many (most?) Bangkok people people accept the double standards in Thai society as part of the Thai identity. Although there is not an official caste system, there is a powerful social hierarchy that quietly forbids people from different classes from mixing. Sure, they can politely interact in the Thai manner, but not as equals.
I believe this is the perspective of Bangkok Thais who criticize international media as “unbalanced” or “not understanding Thailand”. They don’t believe that there are two sides to every story or that all Thais have equal value. If one believes most of what the government claims, then of course CNN will seem pro-Red. If you believe rural people are expendable second class citizens, then you will similarly think their lives have less value than landmark buildings in the City of Angels.
Reds also recognize the double standards and hierarchy in Thai society. However, they believe that they should at least be equal in the eyes of the law. I hope their leaders do some serious soul searching and find a way to peacefully fight for their cause. (Whether they can do so without Thaksin’s money is question I’d like to see those more qualified than myself and the government to tackle.)
one of the root problem is that most thai (and those who live here long enough) believe that they are helpless to the system, and are justifiably so. it is a corrupt system, in the name of democracy, but a system that has fed us reasonably well. therefore, why not just live well along, and avoid hard work and its the full potential.
we are pretty comfortably as it is, as typical of us, we won’t understand the majority, until we experience the hardship ourselves, while conveniently blaming it on others or the system for our minor inconvenient, or wait for someone else bravery.
only if we could paint a vision of full decomcracy and its benefit, that would be enough to attract a force of change, without having to go through more suffering. but that is a dream. hardship is the fuel, a vaccination for the tough road to liberty.
i know there are also bangkok people who do care for the lost of lives (though out numbered), but are hopeless as a result of the system production. a nudge in the right direction such as your article will go a long way.
I was an eye witness at Khok Wua on April 10 and can tell you with full confidence that the first LETHAL attacks did NOT come from the army side.
What actually happened at Khok Wua was this:
Not long before 8:00 PM the army made a push forward from Thanon Tanao towards Ratchadamnoen Avenue which the red shirts occupied. The army used lots of tear gas and rubber bullets. Please note that both the both tear gas and rubber bullet guns make a loud bang but the sound is very different from M16 rifle fire (which became very evident later). I was standing just behind the army lines as they did this.
Rewind a bit: The army had already done similar a few times that evening but with little effect. During the army’s previous tear gas and rubber bullet operation I was standing amongst the red shirts at Khok Hua discussing politics with a foreigner directly behind the red shirt lines. A few minutes into the operation a protestor suggested to us to move to a safer position. There was a risk of being hit by a rubber bullet but there were many others just standing around so it didn’t feel so dangerous. I was taking pictures and videos.
More than a hundred loud bangs but certainly no bloodshed. I decided to move back to the army side in Tanao (via the back street near the post office.)
Back on the army side the army again launched a similar attack before 8:00 PM. But this time the bangs were more intense and continued without a lull. The army were actually advancing this time. Their 4 or so previous similar assualts had little effect. My reading of their previous actions was that the army were not serious – they were following orders but only half-heartedly. Many soldiers were obviously disregarding orders and their commanders were turning a blind eye.
In the middle of this intense tear gas and rubber bullets operation at around 8:00 PM there was an explosion and many soldiers started running back. Some were hopping – obviously with leg injuries and then about 12 solders were dragged out with serious injuries. It was later reported that 3 soldiers were killed in that grenade attack. I was lucky to be standing about 40 meters away at that moment.
Within seconds of that lethal attack everything suddenly changed. There were intermittent bursts of rifle fire as the soldiers were dragged away to safety. Within about 5 minutes, the riot control army were replaced with a small contingent of soldiers with M16s. I had just taken cover in a laneway leading to Tanao before a serious gun battle erupted. There was a lot rifle fire and about 5 explosions presumably grenades. There was one shirt burst of automatic weapon fire. The battle lasted about 45 minutes. I wasn’t able to see the battle directly from where i was standing but the bullet holes in the steel shutters along Tanao clearly show bullets came from both sides and some from a high angle toward the army positions.
Interestingly there is a video on YouTube which shows similar to what I witnessed near Khok Wua. The location is not far from Democracy Monument. It clearly shows the army firing tear gas into the air and making a push forward, then a grenade explodes injuring lots of soldiers. A friend of mine was hit by shrapnel in a similar grenade attack at Phan Fa. He reported seeing almost the same thing as I had experienced. Up until that grenade he felt relatively safe and was taking photos – just like me.
video of grenade attack
Please take careful note of the plumes of smoke shooting upward as you hear numerous bangs increasing in intensity just before the explosion. There are other YouTube videos taken around the same time frame showing the clouds of teargas.
Another video taken at Khok Wua prior to the escalation shows people on the red shirt side firing a rifle at the army.
You can also see evidence of a sniper up on the balcony of a building shooting towards the army.
video showing agentes provocaturs operating at Khok Wua
I think it is extremely important to know what really happened on April 10 because I’m sure that had a lot to do with the army’s terms-of-engagement around the Rajprasong area later. The army knew they were confronting a well-trained militia, the men-in-black, most likely led by General Khattiya alias Seh Daeng.
Khattiya himself claimed the red-shirts won the April 10 battle with the help of a secret army he called the “Ronin Warriors”. In February, he boasted of training hundreds of former Ranger paramilitary troops to protect the Reds.
Seh Daeng exposes himself
There are lot more angles to this story than what appears at first sight and certainly different from how most international media are portraying the events.
Anon:
Thanks for your account. The question of who shot first in the specific battles you were talking about is a little contested. Other people (btw, not Red Shirts) who witnessed the battles in that area have told me something quite different. Besides, the fact is that reports of people being treated with gunshot wounds were coming in throughout the day — hours before the beginning of the battle you were referring to (that’s what I was talking about in the quote you singled out). You might argue that those were rubber bullets, but rubber bullets can easily be lethal when fired at a close distance. Some of the injuries I saw of people shot during the day could have proved deadly if taken in different parts of the body.
Either way, even if we concede that the army only began shooting after it took fire itself, that certainly does not imply a license to shoot at anyone. And we have seen the army take out a number of people (with a precision that suggests intention) who seemed to pose no real danger to the shooter. The guy holding a flag whose brains were splattered on the road comes to mind.
That being said, I agree with two points. First, it would be important to find out exactly what happened. Unfortunately, I don’t believe we will ever know for sure. Second, the fact that the army did take incoming fire on April 10 certainly had a lot to do with the rules of engagement adopted in the crackdown at Rajprasong. Again, I have no problem with the army shooting at people who are shooting at them (and, when you do that, accidents will happen). My problem is that the vast majority of those killed in the May crackdown do not seem to have been posing an especially imminent danger to the soldiers. In fact, while we do have reports of men dressed in black firing M-16s or M-79s on both April 10 and May 19, there do not appear to have been more than a handful of people spotted using those kinds of weapons in both occasions. In fact, at least to my knowledge, nobody carrying those weapons actually ended up dead.
Anon: I don’t disagree with your eye-witness account of April 10 as most videos and other accounts support it. Several things, however, just don’t make sense with the government’s explanation of events.
1. Shouldn’t have the government been prepared for armed resistance from Seh Daeng? It seems like they were caught totally off guard, which doesn’t foster alot of confidence in military intelligence or decision making ability. They either underestimated Seh Daeng, Thaksin, or infighting in the military. My guess is the latter because the first two were on the top on their list of stated worries.
2. If the armed resistance was pro-Red, why did so many reds die from sniper head shots? Most of the soldiers died from the initial grenade attack. After that, it was mostly protester casualties. Did government snipers react by taking out reds to intimidate and disperse the crowd? I don’t believe that the red militants would have intentionally killed their own. Maybe mercenaries hired to create mayhem and finger pointing, but not red militants (if they were present).
3. It’s possible that the MiB were mercenaries hired by Mr. T. It’s also possible that there were a military faction sympathetic to the red cause and/or highly resentful towards the current regime. This can probably never be proven, but definitely possible. Especially when you think about the PR effort to have the PM and Army Chief appear jointly on TV saying that everyone was unified within the government and armed forces.
4. Of the 500 armed terrorists estimated by the government, how many have been caught, photographed, identified, or killed? It seems like the term terrorist is being used quite loosely now, though the ones with weapons seems very elusive. The government has the public believing that these terrorists shot the journalists and unarmed protesters in the days leading up to the crackdown. The available evidence points to indiscriminate shooting by the military, but I am ready to believe the government if/when they can provide credible evidence beyond the small cache of antique weapons displayed a few days ago. Were the reds armed? Yes, very few of them which hurts the reds’ credibility tremendously. Are the reds a terrorist organization? As a witness of reactionary riots and fires in other countries, I say no.
kjf: you said …
The question of who shot first in the specific battles you were talking about is a little contested. Other people (btw, not Red Shirts) who witnessed the battles in that area have told me something quite different.
Please note that 3 separate observations at 3 quite different locations show a consistent pattern. Non-lethal force invoked a lethal response. Those grenade attacks show a co-ordinated action rather than an uncontrolled reaction by a crazy red shirt protestor with a grenade or IED.
When the army responded to the grenade attacks with live rounds it is only logical that any ordinary peaceful red-shirt protestors would run for cover. The M16 fire was only sporadic for the first 10 minutes giving any peaceful protestors at Khok Wua sufficient time to get to safety. The 45 minute gun battle which followed was obviously with a trained militia armed with rifles and grenades.
It is also quite likely a lot of untrained red shirts decided to foolishly join in the battle with improvised weapons or stand put to become martyrs. It is difficult to reconcile anybody of sane mind to stand around long after it becomes obvious live ammunition is being used and people around them are getting shot. There was plenty of opportunity to flee to safety. During the 45 minute battle at Khok Wua there were periods lasting a few minutes each when no shot was fired. I remember the relief felt thinking the battle was over – but each time it proved to be only a pause.
Regarding the assessment of who shot first one should also take into account the numerous terrorist attacks on both institutions and innocent people that occured prior to any outbreak of violence relating to street protests. After the red shirt protest started on Mar 12 there was a sudden surge in grenade attacks around town obviously designed to intimidate the government, perceived enemies, and innocent citizens of Bangkok. There is evidence to suggest that Gen Khattiya (Seh Daeng) was the mastermind and his “Ronin Warriors”. or other agents under his command, the operatives in these attacks.
The strong influence the red shirt leaders had on both the protestors and their militant faction cannot be overlooked when assessing culpability in the violence. The red leaders and their puppeteers should be held accountable for their devious manipulation of innocent people into becoming either sacrificial lambs or turning disgruntled marginals into becoming angry militants.
I call it manipulation because they deceived masses of people into believing a number of crucial lies. One of the most powerful lies is the claim that the current government is illegitimate because it was installed by the military, or the claim that is was not democratically elected. Repeated reference to the 2006 coup, when their beloved leader Thaksin was ousted, overshadows the fact that elections have been held since.
This issue of legitimacy is crucial when assessing any justification for the protestors’ use of force against the government, or the government’s use of force against an armed protest which was holding the country to ransom and making unreasonable demands.
The power and influence of propaganda which uses a pro-democracy banner (ticket?) should not be underestimated. That word “democracy” has become a sacred one for citizens the world over who have been struggling for centuries, for a decent share of wealth, power and opportunity, against the hegemony of corrupt and greedy elites. That word “democracy” has become sacred for good reasons, but to this day it remains more an illusion or dream than any manifested reality. But still the international media appear to become mesmorized by the mere mention of the word and expose a gross naiveity regarding Thailand’s recent political history.
The illusion of democracy is especially relevant in Thailand where the practice of vote buying is so prevalant that it is accepted as normal – a vestige of a traditional patronage system. Thaksin’s TRT and his proxy PPP party were both convicted of electoral fraud, primarily vote buying and naked pork barrelling, and therefore lacked legitimacy.
Prior to the most recent election held in December 2007 a pre-election poll of 1,507 Thai adults in 16 provinces, conducted from Nov. 16 to Nov. 19, 2007 by Bangkok University showed the Democratic Party led by Abhisit was favoured by 43% of the population compared to 24% who supported the People’s Power Party. Thais wanted Abhisit to be PM in 2007
The actual results in 2007:
The People Power Party received 37% of the vote, winning 233 seats.
The Democrat Party received 30%, winning 165 seats.
5 minority parties won the remaining 83 seats
Wikipedia: Politics of Thailand
As usual there were numerous electoral irregularities. Over 1000 reports of vote buying were received by the Election Commission.
EC: Over 20 candidates likely to be disqualified.
Evidence of poll fraud mounting.
The People’s Network for Elections (P-Net) was concerned about the amount of vote buying going on.
Dirty tricks in the North, Isan
Note that Thaksin had vastly more funds available for buying votes than anyone else so had a huge advantage in the “Money Politics” part of the contest.
Interesting how the actual 2007 election results were so different to the polls! Also interesting is how the PPP and Dems had almost equal numbers in the proportional party list vote (not shown here).
It’s clear that the 2007 elections were bought, not won in a balanced and fair election as so many Thaksin supporters would like people to believe. In July 2008, Thailand’s Supreme Court ruled that house speaker Yongyuth Tiyapairat a key ally of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was guilty of vote fraud. Mr. Yongyuth was caught on video tape paying local village leaders 20,000 baht each to influence voting. The PPP were also proven to be involved.
After the vote fraud ruling the Supreme Court had a legal responsibility to petition the Constitutional Court to make a ruling on party dissolution. But there was a mysterious obstacle causing a delay in this process. It wasn’t until the yellow shirts siezed the airport that the Constitutional Court finally opened the case for party dissolution and within a few days the PPP was gone.
The remaining MPs formed a new coalition and voted for Abhisit to become the next prime minister. This much criticised parliamentary vote is not unlike what happened in Britain recently. It is a normal part of the democratic process.
With Abhisit as PM perhaps Thai people finally got who they chose in 2007? (based on the pre-election poll of Nov 2007 which indicated a landslide vote of 43% Democrat compared to 24% PPP.) Frankly I have more faith in the Bangkok University poll than the jungle full of dirty tricks which plagues Thailand’s election processes.
I have attempted to address some points of legitimacy comparison but as yet haven’t delved into the Thaksin corruption aspects.
For that i’d need to write for a few months and consume lots of megabytes!
Actually I wanted to cover the role and culpability of the red shirt leaders in inciting violence.
But sorry, my time has expired for today …
Anon: Nobody has seen a shred of evidence connecting the red shirts to the various grenade attacks that have taken place around the city since the time the rally started. Judging from the way things have worked in Thailand in the past, my guess is that those investigations will actually lead nowhere (and not because the perpetrators covered their tracks flawlessly).
Now, with regard to the election results. Those elections took place under military rule, according to rules designed by people hand-picked by the junta, and in a context where Mr. Abhisit had the full backing of the state and the military. If anything, my guess is that the final result probably understates the gap that existed between the Democrat Party and the PPP in terms of voter preferences. As for the vote buying, I never quite believed it sways that many votes (though it might get people to the polls); either way, the Democrat Party routinely uses much the same practices (it’s just more likely to get the blind eye treatment from the authorities). As for the poll by Bangkok University, it looks like a load of BS to me. In fact, see here for a comprehensive discussion of various polls taken prior to the 2007 elections:
http://bangkokpundit.blogspot.com/2007/12/further-evidence-of-sinking-poll.html
I have never been a fan of Thaksin (much less Samak). And, in the interest of full disclosure, I was hoping they would lose at the time. But it looks to me like the 2007 elections were won fair and square; in fact, in a context where the deck was stacked against the PPP.
kjf,
My concern regarding the Red Shirts is that they are, as McCargo has suggested, a patronage network driven by “personal loyalties and emotional attachments” rather than a movement with any underlying ideology, and that their political leadership (the Peua Thai Party) lacks credibility.
I would not suggest that the people who protested were paid lackeys or that they do not have anything to protest about. Clearly, Thailand is riven by inequality. However, I do not see how the Red Shirt movement can lead to a fairer society given their political leadership.
Thailand, like many developing countries, has for years been a dysfunctional democracy. This has been well documented (e.g. Corruption and Democracy in Thailand). The leaders of the Peua Thai Party, it seems to me, are some of the worst examples of why Thailand’s democracy is so dysfunctional. When we talk of double standards, and the outrageous way the rich can get away with almost anything in Thailand, surely we are talking about the likes of Chalerm and Chavalit?
The Red Shirts could, as you and many other people seem to believe, represent a progressive political movement. However, when I look at the Peua Thai Party, I can’t help wondering if they could not be more accurately described as a reactionary movement supporting the interests of various regional godfathers who wish to maintain their access to state coffers.
In Jamaica, a bloody battle is taking place as the authorities seek to arrest the drug lord “Dudus” Coke. He is apparently very popular in the neighbourhood of Kingston where this is taking place. While I understand why such people become popular, criminals are not the answer to the problems of the poor in the developing world.
Kjf (author): ‘Those elections took place under military rule, according to rules designed by people hand-picked by the junta…’
Yes the coup was a military coup, but the ‘new rules’ did not alter the way elections are held in Thailand. You neglect to mention that the new constitution was put to a referendum in August 2007 and was ratified. In other words, Thai people voted for the new constitution. Are you implying that the 2007 elections were undemocratic? How would you suggest the transition from coup to democracy should have been managed? Former TRT politicians were happy to contest the election and were up to their old tricks; they could have boycotted it. The constitutional referendum could have been boycotted by voters, but there was a 70% voter turn-out.
Brighton: The new constitution did alter the electoral rules. We went from a system of 400 single-member districts and 100 additional seats distributed through proportional representation at the national level to a system where 400 seats were apportioned to a mix of 1- 2- and 3-member districts and an additional 80 distributed through proportional representation in 8 regions. Not to get too technical on this, but the result of scrapping the single-member districts was to essentially weaken the dominance of the largest party in each region and create greater dispersion of seats (i.e., to increase legislative fragmentation). The way the PR districts were designed (rather awkwardly) was said to have been for the specific purpose of diluting the PPP’s vote (I haven’t run the simulations myself, so I’ll leave it at that).
As for the way the constitution was approved, recall that serious restrictions were placed on the ability to campaign for NO votes, while the military aggressively pushed YES votes (still they lost in Isan, while the vote was close in the North). Also, recall that the junta said at the time that if the referendum had failed, the military would have been free to re-introduce any of the (many) constitutions Thailand has used in the past decades. Among them are some rather illiberal constitutions, so it made sense to go along with the current draft (even for some opponents of the junta) and possibly try to change the constitution at a later time (did not happen thanks to the intervention of PAD and the courts).
All in all, I wouldn’t say that the 2007 elections were “undemocratic.” They were acceptable by international standards, but it is important to recognize that they took place in a context where the playing field had been tilted as much as feasible in the favor of the Democrats (or, perhaps more precisely, against the PPP). My point was not that the 2007 elections mean nothing; quite the opposite. The point was that the conduct of the election possibly depressed the gap between PPP and the Democrats in terms of both votes and seats, because the deck was in many ways stacked against the PPP.
kjf: Thank you for clarifying the situation. Your statement that, “All in all, I wouldn’t say that the 2007 elections were “undemocratic.” They were acceptable by international standards…” is more accurate than your previous statement, “Those elections took place under military rule, according to rules designed by people hand-picked by the junta…”
Unfortunately, catchy but misleading statements as that above, when made by academics such as yourself, are often picked up by foreign media and used to background what is in fact an incredibly complex set of circumstances and events.
Also, you alluded to the fact that under the 2007 constitution the electoral system reverted in some senses to that of 1995. I think I would be hard pressed to find one Thai in ten who could adequately explain the system or how it has changed over the years; of course the same widespread ignorance of the ‘nuts and bolts of democracy’ applies in many Western countries as well.
On your point about the prohibition of the expression of opposition to the constitution I think it is fair to argue that it is important to attempt to restrain political parties from engaging in a propaganda campaign around a constitutional referendum. I do recall documents providing a ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ case being distributed in the lead up to the referendum.
Importantly, people were free to boycott the referendum and the elections but a majority didn’t, so I think there was an attempt and desire by politicians and voters alike to restore ‘democracy’. I don’t think anybody believed the 2007 Constitution would forever remain the constitution of Thailand, but it was a step along the path of restoring democratic processes. The inability of the parliament since that time to agree to how to formulate a new charter is another story which has all but disappeared and been subsumed by more recent events.
Hi KJF,
This is RSIS (Singapore) article I received by mail recently.
He claims that Abhisit came out of it all in a stronger position than ever.
How would you evaluate his claims?
AN AMERICAN assassin hired by a local Sukhumvit-based boss learns compassion the hard way in the movie Bangkok Dangerous. He eventually loses his nerve and is reduced to an emotional pancake. By contrast, in the real world of Thai politics, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva used “an iron fist in a velvet glove” tactic while dealing with the Red Shirts at Lumphini-Rajprasong. Abhisit avoided a critical error by not imposing martial law. Instead, he imposed a state of emergency.
The difference between martial law and a state of emergency is that the former weakens and destroys the economy in the long-term. Martial law is a sign of political weakness and authoritarianism. The suspension of civilian rule would have heightened human rights abuses. For these reasons, Abhisit was prudent not to impose martial law: it would have “killed the goose that laid the golden eggs”.
The Lumphini-Rajprasong Camp
The Red Shirt Camp, adjacent to Bangkok’s main shopping belt, was an area of 3,500 metres protected by wooden barricades, walls of tyres, and a cache of stolen weapons. The Red Shirts showered and slept there. They ate from mobile kitchens and make-shift stalls. The proprietor of one of these stalls named “Carlos” – who also works as a foreign embassy driver by day – identified groups of intelligence officers in surveillance-mode outside the Camp. He said, “Red Shirts for the poor, Yellow Shirts for the rich”. This was their slogan for class war. But was there ever one in the first place?
Some of the richest people in the world are Thai. Indeed, many Thai people in Bangkok experience a standard of living that is well above many of their Asian counterparts. Thailand is also home to several Thai billionaires. Thai culture tends to make even the richest-rich avoid ostentatious displays of wealth. Despite the value placed on humility, the neo-liberal capitalist machine is alive and well in the Land of Smiles. Class distinctions between the richest-rich and the poorest-poor remain stark.
Class War?
Not a few months ago, luxury cars were on display in high-rise shopping centres while a man without limbs begged for baht in his own urine several stories below along the filthy pavements of Ploen Chit. In a Sukhumvit Soi, a beggar-woman and her crying child live off refuse and restaurant waste. The World Bank, the UN and other world international agencies have held many seminars and conferences on rural poverty and more often than not, Thailand is included in some way or form. At least 19% or about 4 million people form the poorest poor in Thailand’s rural northeast; while the fewest poor are discovered in Bangkok with 1.9% or about 91,500 people.
Almost two years of sporadic demonstrations led “foreign experts” and armchair critics to predict that time was right for a “class war”.
Genuine class war draws from a build-up of tension between disenfranchised workers and the capitalists who exploit them. The surplus value of labour is thus squeezed out by offering little (to no) pay, long hours, and impoverished working conditions. Also known as the proletariat, these unhappy workers must be well-organised and well-led for a class to become a class-for-itself as opposed to a class-in-itself. Obviously, this was not the case in Bangkok. The workers were insufficiently disenfranchised, they were inadequately led, and the State was not a horrible, repressive, ogre of persecution. In other words, life in Bangkok is neither solitary, poor, brutish, nasty nor short.
Class Welfare
Rather than class war, it appears that for most of the country, the State, led by Abhisit, had managed the limited insurgency very well with the kind of class-welfare for the injured and those who properties and businesses were affected. To its credit, the State announced provisions for a 778 million baht fund to help those in the Lumphini-Rajprasong area. Over 27,000 workers and 1,500 businesses were affected. The affected areas amounted to less than 2% of Bangkok Municipality but also accounts for over 60% of central Bangkok’s revenue. The State also approved in principle several banks’ requests for aid.
To its credit, the State delayed land and home taxes in the affected areas till September 2010 as well as postponed corporate tax and VAT payments for retailers who had their businesses closed but were still paying rent and workers’ salaries. Abhisit effectively used this class-welfare strategy to turn the tide against the Red Shirt insurgents.
Will Thaksin return?
For a class war to emerge, the rural areas have to be captured before the metropolitan urban centre (in Bangkok). The failure to effectively stage a class war in the rural areas had doomed the Red Shirt insurgency from the beginning. The Red Shirts would have won if they had captured Ayutthaya, Chaiyaphum, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Chonburi, Khon Kaen, Nakhon Ratchasima, Nakhon Sawan, Nan, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Samut Prakan, Si Sa Ket, and Udon Thani before capturing Bangkok. Thaksin’s obvious absence merely postpones the fate of his fledgling followers.
Over the next few months, Thaksin has one final chance to return and lead his followers. Meanwhile, the Red Shirts will morph into another kind of entity before the next election. The Red Shirts may have lost the battle at Lumphini-Rajprasong, but they have not yet lost the war.
In Bangkok Dangerous, Nicholas Cage playing the American assassin, lost his emotions, anonymity, became careless, and asked questions. Prime Minister Abhisit on the other hand won hands down at Lumphini-Rajprasong because he didn’t lose his political nerve.
Anonymous:
I think the analysis you pointed to has a number of problems.
First, it’s not Abhisit’s constitutional prerogative to impose martial law; that decision wasn’t his to make. One could argue (I think rightly) that it was generally a good idea not to impose martial law, but at this point the difference is largely semantic. The state of emergency allows the government to do pretty much as it pleases anyway, so martial law would have done the government very little good in that sense. The big difference between martial law and the SOE is that under the former the military runs the show and the civilian government serves at the pleasure of the military, while under the SOE the military runs the show so long as the civilian government doesn’t see it fit to lift the emergency decree. In this sense, sticking with the SOE can avoid giving the impression that a coup has been staged, but those appearances seem to be fading anyway as the SOE is kept in place long after any “emergency” has passed (again, SOE is designed to deal with “emergencies,” not to solve long-standing political problems or round up people you don’t like).
Second, though I agree with the writer that this is not a class war (or at least not exclusively something about social class), I would take issue with both his general definition and his reading of the Thai case. Most important, the notion that the workers in Thailand are not sufficiently disenfranchised or exploited to stage a “class war” strikes me as ridiculous. Revolutions with prominent class dimensions often take place in relatively advanced societies where the lower classes are more educated and resourceful. Marx himself thought communist revolution to have been far more likely in advanced industrial societies than in relatively backward societies. Modernization theory predicts much the same thing (it’s modernization that leads to democratic revolution, not desperation or backwardness; moreover, it is precisely as a society becomes more affluent that demands for economic redistribution intensify).
For this reason, it strikes me that you can stage a “class war” whatever the gap between rich and poor (and whatever the level of desperation of the lower classes) so long as the goals are the abolishment of class distinctions or something like Marx’s “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Note that the Red Shirts want neither of these things. Their economic demands, in particular, are limited to greater economic opportunity, development, and some welfare programs. This is the reason why this conflict DOES NOT strike me as a “class war.” It’s not about the players; it’s about the goals.
So what is this, if not a “class war?” Don’t have time to go into this in detail right now, but this strikes me much more as a sort of civil rights movement than a movement for the reordering of class relations. The UDD’s demands are mostly focused on reforms in the system of government — a switch to a kind of government that guarantees equality before the law and operates accordingly to popular sovereignty (no reserve domains for unelected institutions, no subversion of the people’s will through coups and the like). Class comes in (together with ethnicity and regional origin) as one of the markers for the kind of identity that the members of the movement share (or at least as one of the markers that defines the constituency whose rights the movement claims to advance). As such, this is less of a “class war” than it is an “identity conflict” where class forms one of the dimensions of this identity.
As for whether Abhisit comes out of this “looking better than ever,” I have my doubts. I am on record (here and elsewhere) as saying that I believe his political career is essentially over beyond this stint as Prime Minister (which might itself last a few more weeks or months). I might still be wrong (my record on prediction isn’t especially stellar), but at this point I see no reason to walk this assessment back.
I think it’s worth noting Thaksin’s role in derailing the peace talks as mentioned in WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704852004575257790134925082.html?mod=WSJ_World_LeadStory
Some excerpts:
1. “People on both sides of Thailand’s political divide with knowledge of the negotiations say that Mr. Thaksin’s interventions—which they say included a number of new demands that ended up slowing the talks intended to end the political standoff—delayed an agreement for new elections that would have enabled the protesters to call off their months-long rally. His machinations prompted the most senior opposition Red Shirt negotiator to quit in frustration, according to these people.”
2. “But in recent weeks Mr. Thaksin has kept in close contact with rogue military officers training a paramilitary “people’s army” to attack troops and turn Bangkok’s streets into a war zone, according to opposition members involved in the conflict.”
3. “At a luxury hotel near the Red Shirts’ camp in central Bangkok, a team of Mr. Thaksin’s lawyers and advisers regularly conferred with protest leaders and other negotiators to ensure that Mr. Thaksin was kept in the loop over the past several weeks.”
4. “People involved in both government and opposition camps say Mr. Thaksin urged hard-liners to come up with fresh demands that stalled the process, ultimately leading to the talks’ collapse.They say Red Shirt leader Veera Musikapong quit the negotiations in disgust.
“He was questioning why they were bothering to talk when Mr. Thaksin was delaying any progress,” says one person involved in the mediations. Mr. Veera is in army custody and couldn’t be reached for comment.”
My first post! Hahah – Thailand has been a class war for 200+ years. It’s just that one class accepted 4th class status for generations and never fought back until recently. In our day however class war should really be called “Doing business in Thailand” or “The Status Quo”… “law and order”…”the legal system” …etc. So, Thaksin or no Thaksin, money or no money, I suspect they will keep coming. To pretend otherwise is courting disaster. At the very least, we know that their eyes are open and they are watching …and waiting.
And while you guys were pontificating, in case you didn’t notice, the Mandate of Heaven passed. I hope you are aware of the consequences and make your plans accordingly.
Cheers
“The old order is dead. Those who would seek to restore it are badly wounded.”
I don’t wholey agree. You make it sound as though change is inevitable and democracy will eventually occur. The Establishment may very well be a wounded wolf, but the Reds have tried to back it into a corner. A frightened, wounded and cornered wolf is probably the most dangerous. It has a split moment to make its last attempt to secure its freedom or die.
I believe the next elections will reveal the hands of all players, but I also fear the government may try to cancel elections from occuring.
There have been a series of grenade attacks around Bangkok now, and nobody knows who’s doing it. If we look who is to gain from them, however, it’s not the Reds. The government is using the grenade attacks to justify increased grip on security and media cencorship and the harsh punishment of Red leaders. If the Reds want free media and elections, it makes no sense they’d be the culprits.
Abhisit has now been quoted in The Nation as having said elections will only take place in peace. But what if Abhisit or the PAD or someone else in the Establishment is behind the attacks? I believe they are, as they’re the only ones who benefit.
The risk is, either way, the security siuation will decline leading up to the elections and the government will claim elections cannot be held in that state. No doubt the PAD will do something to encourage this with protests and make the rest of the world believe Thailand is in trouble and the following actions may actually be necessary.
The PAD have formed a political party, New Politics Party, and through them have claimed only 30% of the government should be elected and the remaining 70% should be appointed; essentially, the PAD stands for the destruction of democracy. The only way they’ll get this realized is through a situation as such I’ve mentioned where they create enough havock to put off the elections and the military will suspend the 2007 constitution in favor of this sort of government.
What other choice do they have? You think the government, military and PAD are going to accept open elections? Losing power yet again to the lower class? I don’t think so.
So Thailand is on the brink; if elections are held, Puea Thai will probably win, if not by an outright majority, through a dual party coalition. If that happens, they may finnally have the power to destroy the old order and move forward as a real democracy. On the other hand, you have a violent and radical military/government backed by big business that’re bent on staying in power at all costs. Yes, we may end up finnally being a democracy, or we may slip into a regime not much different from Burma. It could go either way.
So what should the Reds do? Percieve this threat to democracy and continue to protest and demand elections, yet at the risk of creating the very situation they’re trying to avoid. Or should they stay quiet and hope the government/PAD/whoever stops throwing grenades and elections actually take place? I don’t know. If there are more protests, I’ll know why, however.
Leave your response!
RECENT POSTS
RECENT COMMENTS