"Protests in Thailand echo a volatile past; Fervor renews fears of clashes" by Thomas Fuller | New York Times, November 12, 2013
BANGKOK — The fractious and volatile politics that destabilized Thailand several years ago returned to Bangkok’s streets Monday, with at least four large, simultaneous protests causing school closures and fears of clashes between rival groups.
The protests, some of them led by the country’s main opposition Democrat Party, were initially set off by the government’s proposed amnesty bill that would have eased the return of Thaksin Shinawatra, the polarizing former prime minister who was ousted in a 2006 military coup.
I'll be returning to that a bit later, but suffice to say for now that Thaksin was an IMF internationalist.
But the daily demonstrations, which have escalated since they began more than a week ago, have taken a broader antigovernment tone.
The tone of the coverage will be instructive going forward. I'm already inclined to believe this is a true grass roots protest and not a CIA-supported controlled opposition coup as we have seen in places like Iran and currently the Ukraine. The fact that this is the first I've seen of the protests (and last for a bit of a spell) is my first clue.
The protests have continued despite the Senate’s decision Monday to reject the amnesty bill and the government’s repeated claims that it would no longer support the legislation if it was voted down.
“The opposition to the amnesty bill has been deep and wide,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. “It has now escalated into an effort to overthrow the government.”
How could that be when we will be told Thaksin was so popular?
Some of the antigovernment demonstrators have aligned themselves with nationalists who have vowed to defy any ruling they deem unfavorable by the International Court of Justice over who controls the land surrounding Preah Vihear Temple, which is on a ridge along the Cambodia border.
Related: The Prince and the Preah Vihear
In a circumscribed ruling, the court said Cambodia controlled one part of the area around the temple — the promontory on which it is located — but said it was beyond the scope of the case to rule over the larger disputed area.
The protests have rattled the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s sister. Yingluck has repeatedly gone on national television to announce that the amnesty bill would not be considered in Parliament again and to plead with protesters to stop their demonstrations. The lower house of Parliament had passed the bill.
The bill initially angered many of the governing party’s own supporters, known as Red Shirts, because along with Thaksin it would have pardoned those held responsible for the crackdown on Thaksin’s followers in 2010, as well as overturning corruption cases.
Interesting, because the green highlights above are what is known as the Yellow Shirts. More on both later.
But the majority of Red Shirts now appear to have swung back to the government’s side and staged their own demonstration with thousands of supporters Sunday.
It should be spelled Red CIArts (pronounced Shirts).
Thai politics, which until recently had enjoyed relative calm during Yingluck’s more than two years in office, appear to have returned to the highly polarized and unpredictable deadlock between opponents and supporters of Thaksin.
And folks then got fed up with austerity while the elite continue enriching themselves. That's what this is about.
One of Thaksin’s rivals, Sondhi Limthongkul, described the political conflict as a battle of good and evil. In a measure of the frustration with Thailand’s political problems, he repeated the call he made several years ago during the height of political protests that power should be “returned to the king.”
He will be speaking later.
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Related:
Six Zionist Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
I just thought it important for you to see the prisms through which I get my news.
"Bangkok protests spur concerns about Thai stability" by Thomas Fuller | New York Times Syndicate, November 27, 2013
Protests all during the two-week interim?
BANGKOK — Thailand’s governing party accused protesters Tuesday of fomenting anarchy and trying to overthrow the government after thousands of people swarmed the streets of Bangkok, besieging key ministries and threatening to take their campaign nationwide.
Oooh, protesters besieging and threatening things! Definitely not a protest the agenda-pu$hing pre$$ prefers.
In a country that has become less governable amid a grinding and bitter political rivalry, protesters surrounded the Interior Ministry on Tuesday and threatened to cut off power to the agriculture, tourism, and transport ministries. Those actions followed the occupation of the foreign and finance ministries Monday.
WOW! I guess Thais really take no shit!! I'm sure there is a lesson for Americans in there somewhere!
“Occupying government property cannot be considered anything but insurrection,” said Kokaew Pikulthong, a member of Parliament for the ruling party, Pheu Thai.
The party said it had filed a petition with the attorney general’s office that accused protesters of trying to overthrow the government. Demonstrators, Kokaew said, “want Thailand to descend into anarchy.”
Protest leaders, led by top opposition figures, are pursuing the seemingly quixotic goal of eradicating from the country the influence of Thaksin Shinawatra, the tycoon and former prime minister who has been in exile since a 2008 conviction for abuse of power.
Those are very key words employed by the propaganda pre$$ to let you know. Quixotic is a curious term they use for those things and movements they wish to ridicule. The government screaming insurrection and anarchy shows desperation.
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Must have caught the pre$$'s attention because....
"Protests over government move beyond Bangkok" by Thomas Fuller | New York Times, November 28, 2013
BANGKOK — Anti-government demonstrators who are seeking, in their own words, to “overthrow” the Thai government took their campaign outside of Bangkok on Wednesday, massing at more than a dozen municipal buildings across Thailand and forcing the evacuation of the country’s main criminal investigative agency on the outskirts of the Thai capital.
Protesters have shut down the Finance Ministry since Monday, and on Wednesday they marched to a large government complex on the outskirts of the capital and cut the electricity supply to the Department of Special Investigation, the equivalent of the FBI.
This is INSPIRING to me! God Bless Thailand!
Charupong Ruangsuwan, the interior minister and head of the governing party in Thailand, said that in addition to Bangkok there were protests in a third of the country’s 76 provinces, including all provinces in southern Thailand, an opposition stronghold.
The government’s response has appeared impotent in the face of protesters who have traversed Bangkok and shut down key government offices. Even the military appears to have retreated. The country’s top generals decamped this week from their headquarters to the safety of a well-guarded army base on the outskirts of Bangkok.
They are about to do more than that. What is it Mao said about the military, people, and water?
One of the country’s most senior officials in charge of security portrayed the government’s response as a calculated effort to allow the protests to die away.
Good luck with that!
Lieutenant General Paradorn Pattanathabutr, the secretary-general of the National Security Council, said Wednesday that the number of protesters was decreasing and that the government was counting on “dialogue,” not the use of force, to end the protests.
I love reading lies by the military!
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"Thailand leader seeks end to protests; Survived vote of no confidence" by Thomas Fuller | New York Times, November 29, 2013
BANGKOK — Ignoring Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s victory in a parliamentary no-confidence vote, protesters in Thailand continued their campaign to shut down government offices, cutting power Thursday to Bangkok’s police headquarters.
Cutting power to the police!
But the number of demonstrators appeared to have declined sharply, with police putting their numbers at about 15,000, compared with the tens of thousands who took over the Finance Ministry and surrounded other key government ministries earlier in the week.
“Their numbers are declining gradually each day,” said Major General Piya Uthayo, a police spokesman.
So sayeth authority!
Yet there were still large crowds on the streets Thursday evening, and the police tally did not take into account protests in the provinces, which began Wednesday and continued Thursday.
In other words, the authorities are in a panicked denial.
The parliamentary vote of confidence, which centered on the alleged mishandling of large government projects, was unsurprising given the governing party’s dominance in Parliament and the allegiance it commands in large swaths of the country, the result of years of policies that have sought to curry favor with rural areas.
People can only be bought off with chump change crumbs for so long.
In a speech Thursday, Yingluck, the sister of the former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, invoked Thailand’s long-serving monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, in urging protesters to go home. The king’s birthday, a national holiday, is Dec. 5, and many protesters are ardent royalists.
“This is a time when people will jointly honor his majesty the king,” she said.
Saying that the government wanted to avoid confrontation, Yingluck also repeated earlier offers of dialogue with protesters.
Akanat Promphan, a spokesman for the protest leaders, rejected Yingluck’s offer, calling it “insincere.”
Yingluck’s speech came after her government easily survived the no-confidence vote, winning 297-134.
Is it just me, or is the whole tone of this propaganda sympathetic to the government?
Thaksin, who was prime minister from 2001 to 2006, when he was deposed by the military, remains popular in the northeast of the country but is despised by some who are resentful of his political dominance and who say he has used that power to further his business interests. He has also been accused of overshadowing the king, who commands strong loyalty after more than six decades on the throne, especially among older Thais.
The protests this week were the largest in the country since 2010, when demonstrations were dispersed by a bloody military crackdown.
With critical media coverage and dwindling numbers of demonstrators, the protests appeared increasingly to be losing momentum.
Sigh. There they go again. Not only government but now the AmeriKan media has repeated the lie as if true even as they contradict it in the same piece.
And you wonder why I don't like reading this slop anymore?
But with no signs of reconciliation, the future of the protests remained unpredictable and civic leaders continued to warn of possible violence between opposing camps.
Oh, and WHO would BENEFIT there, huh?
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"Thai protesters break into army base" by Thomas Fuller | New York Times, November 30, 2013
BANGKOK — Antigovernment protesters broke into and briefly occupied the grounds of Thailand’s army headquarters, capping a week of dramatic, provocative gestures against the nation’s most influential political family.
But the protests are weakening, momentum is dropping, blah, blah, blah.
The protests against the dominance of Thaksin Shinawatra, the billionaire tycoon in exile, and his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, the prime minister, have included seizing of the Finance Ministry, cutting power to police headquarters, and occupying a large government facility.
The protests are the largest in the country since a military crackdown left more than 90 people dead three years ago. This time the government and the military have been restrained in their reaction.
Well, you see whose side the newspaper is on.
“We have not arrested a single protester,” a police spokesman said by phone.
You will see why later.
Protesters were said to have used slingshots against an officer, whose bloodied face was shown in the Thai media.
The first AGENT PROVOCATEUR EVENT!
Thailand has been shaken by more than seven years of demonstrations and unrest.
Now it's been seven consecutive years after two years of calm, blah, blah, blah, blah! WTF!!!!??
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"1 killed, 5 hurt when Thai political protests turn violent" by Thanyarat Doksone | Associated Press, December 01, 2013
BANGKOK — Aggressive political protests in the Thai capital turned violent late Saturday with at least one man killed and five wounded by gunshots in street fighting between supporters and opponents of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Now they are aggressive!
It was not immediately known who fired the shots or what side the victims were on. National Police Deputy Spokesman Anucha Romyanan said the dead man was a 21-year-old male with two bullet wounds.
The violence in the short run may stir fears of further instability like what plagued the country during related political conflicts in 2006, 2008, and 2010.
Any escalation of violence is likely to scare away tourists who come to Thailand by the millions and contribute a huge chunk to the economy.
But it may help the government by undermining the claims of its opponents to be carrying out a nonviolent campaign of civil disobedience. The violence is likely to scare away some supporters who would otherwise attend the opposition’s rallies.
A-HA! Agent provocateurs at work!
This stuff is getting SO DAMN OBVIOUS and SO EASY to SPOT it's SAD!
Matters were feared to come to a head Sunday, when the protesters vowed to seize the well-guarded prime minister’s offices.
The demonstrators are seeking to topple Yingluck’s government, which they believe serves the interests of her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a 2006 military coup after being accused of corruption and abuse of power.
The authorities have exercised extreme restraint over the past week as the protesters besieged and occupied parts of various government ministries and offices, aware that using force could tip public opinion and perhaps become an excuse for the military to take power in the name of restoring order. Conventional wisdom in the capital has been that the protesters have been seeking that.
Yes, the poor, put-upon government under attack, blah, blah, f***ing blah!
A special police-led peacekeeping agency said Saturday that the military agreed to send 2,730 personnel to help with security on the streets Sunday. Although the army has declared itself neutral in the current crisis, it deposed Thaksin in 2006 and shows little sympathy for him.
Translation: they are with the people!
The shootings Saturday night occurred after scattered violence during the day involving government opponents attacking several people they believed were going to a rally at a stadium of ‘‘Red Shirt’’ government supporters.
While the main sites occupied by antigovernment protesters remained peaceful, the violence broke out near a stadium where a crowd that appeared to number well over 50,000 Red Shirts rallied in support of the government.
Oh, so the violence IS being fomented by pro-government Red CIArts!
Initially the government foes milled around and jeered the supporters. But then two people were grabbed, one from the back of a motorbike, and beaten. Two buses were attacked, their windows smashed as passengers cowered inside. One protester used an iron rod with a Thai flag wrapped around it to smash the driver’s side window of one bus.
The buses and one taxi appeared to have been targeted because they carried people wearing red shirts. Police claimed soon after that they had the situation under control.
But after dark, attacks continued on individual Red Shirts, and the crowds on both sides grew.
They are what we call false flags, folks.
Many of the attackers were thought to be students from nearby Ramkhamhaeng University.
Police Deputy Spokesman Anucha Romyanan said later on a special television broadcast that fighting broke out between groups of men who threw rocks and other objects at each other and that anti-riot police who were not armed attempted to separate them.
There was no active effort by police on the ground to restore order, though a police helicopter flew overhead.
The dead man was identified as Thaweesak Photkaew, 21; two bullets had entered his left ribcage.
In addition to the five other men suffering gunshot wounds, emergency services reported another five people hospitalized with injuries. Several people at the scene appeared to have head injuries.
The week of dramatic protests against Yingluck’s government has included seizing the Finance Ministry, turning off power at police headquarters and camping at a sprawling government office complex.
An ill-advised bid by Yingluck’s ruling Pheu Thai party to push an amnesty law through Parliament that would have allowed Thaksin’s return from exile sparked the latest wave of protests.
Because Yingluck’s party has overwhelming electoral support from the country’s rural majority, which benefited from Thaksin’s populist programs, the protesters want to change the country’s political system to a less democratic one where the educated and well-connected would have a greater say than directly elected lawmakers.
That is SUCH A LIE!
"Former Left-Right Alliance against Globalization and America
by Thongchai Winichakul
28 July 2008
28 July 2008
Article
Almost all Thai rightists I interviewed for my recent research perceived that the threats to Thailand today are capitalism and America. Even lifelong anti-communist ‘Phor’, an alias used for this research, who has tenaciously held the idea of national security being under threat from two strands of communism, sees that Thailand has to be cautious of the CIA interfering and agitating groups of Thai people to the point of being a threat to security. Of course, they were well aware that the threats from capitalism and America are not one and the same as the communist threat.
Almost all Thai rightists I interviewed for my recent research perceived that the threats to Thailand today are capitalism and America. Even lifelong anti-communist ‘Phor’, an alias used for this research, who has tenaciously held the idea of national security being under threat from two strands of communism, sees that Thailand has to be cautious of the CIA interfering and agitating groups of Thai people to the point of being a threat to security. Of course, they were well aware that the threats from capitalism and America are not one and the same as the communist threat.
The rightists’ discourse of capitalist threat obviously differs from the leftists’ Maoist anti-capitalist discourse of 30 years ago. These rightists speak pretty much the same anti-neo-liberalism and anti-globalization language which Thai intellectuals and activists have adopted since after Oct 6, 1976.
Although all the interviews were done years after the 1997 economic crisis, the pain caused by the capitalist crisis was still alive in their memories. Their discourse on the cause of the crisis turned out to be nationalist and against ‘farang’ or western capitalism, pointing to western capitalist giants led by the US bullying emergent smaller capitalist nations. For the ease of digestion and propagation, it was made a story of conspiracy among a handful of global political and financial figures, often including George Soros in particular. The ‘Washington Consensus’ was understood simply as a plot by western capitalist neo-conservatives to destroy smaller states. With the calamity besetting Thai nationalist capital which had eagerly embraced globalization over a decade earlier, globalization has become undesirable. Their discourse against western capitalism was therefore not of a socialist bent, but was outright nationalist, against those ugly farangs abusing decent Thais.
Most of the interviews were done during the years of Thaksin administration which was seen as representing the evil western capitalism, subsequently labelled as ‘vicious or immoral capital’. The exasperation against Thaksin and globalization and the global anti-American sentiment fed into one another. Among the rightists I interviewed then, only one person liked the Thaksin government, and the rest were suspicious of Thaksin because he was pushing the agenda of globalization.
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Thaksin lives in Dubai to avoid a two-year jail term for a corruption conviction he says was politically motivated.
Oh, right, the popular and beloved leader is living in exile.
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"3 dead as Thai political foes clash" New York Times, December 02, 2013
BANGKOK — The week-old campaign of antigovernment protests in Thailand entered a dangerous new phase Sunday after shootings involving rival political camps left at least three people dead and more than 110 wounded in Bangkok.
Many areas of the sprawling capital remained unaffected by the demonstrations. But the shootings and the increasingly provocative moves by protesters spread fears that unrest could move beyond the pockets of Bangkok where demonstrations — and violence — have raged.
Oh, now they are provocative!
As protesters seeking to take over the prime minister’s office clashed with riot police, Bangkok’s largest shopping malls, which normally teem with visitors on weekends, hastily announced that they were closing for the day.
Nearly 3,000 soldiers arrived in the capital to shore up critical government buildings.
Suthep Thaugsuban, the leader of the antigovernment protesters, said he met with Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Sunday but told her he would accept nothing less than having her elected government step down to be replaced by an appointed council, the Associated Press reported.
Thaugsuban said the meeting was held under the auspices of the military, which says it is neutral in the conflict.
Protesters have banded together in a seemingly quixotic attempt to end the influence of Shinawatra’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire tycoon and former prime minister. Thaksin Shinawatra’s political party has captured the allegiance of voters in the Thai countryside, winning every election since 2001.
There is that word again.
The protesters say they are frustrated with the dominance of Thaksin and are disillusioned with the current democratic system.
Rigged elections and corruption will do that.
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"Thai Police Put Down Their Shields and Let Demonstrators Enter Compound" by THOMAS FULLER, December 2, 2013
BANGKOK — After a day of fierce clashes between antigovernment protesters and the police, Thai officials on Tuesday announced a new and novel tactic. Riot police officers cleared away barbed wire, put down their shields and opened the doors to a police compound that the protesters had vowed to besiege.
“In every area where there has been confrontation, we have now ordered all police to withdraw,” Bangkok’s police chief, Kamronvit Thoopkrachang, told the Reuters news agency. “It is government policy to avoid confrontation.”
Protesters who entered the compound were greeted politely by the police, and they even posed for photos together. As the protests appeared to wind down, the police also opened the gates to the prime minister’s office.
Are they winding down?
Verbatim print from my paper starts here:
On Monday, the Thai police had aggressively stepped up their defense of government buildings in Bangkok, firing a hail of rubber bullets and tear gas and using water cannons. A criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Suthep Thaugsuban, the leader of the demonstrations, on charges of rebellion, which is punishable by death or life in prison.
They sure flipped quick!
“We have to fight from every angle, fight until we win,” a weary-looking Mr. Suthep told thousands of supporters late Monday. But protesters have been increasingly pressured to go home as Thailand enters its peak tourism season. Analysts say another key deadline is the birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who turns 86 on Thursday. Continuing the protests on his birthday would be considered an insult to the king, who is highly revered by the protesters.
Most of the Bangkok area, which has a population of about 10 million, remained calm on Monday, and a vast majority of businesses here in the capital were open for most of the day, including shopping malls that had shut their doors as a precaution on Sunday. Yet in areas targeted by protesters — particularly those around the prime minister’s office and the metropolitan police headquarters — clashes were intense.
Bloodied demonstrators, many of whom threw stones at police officers, were carried away from those areas with injuries from rubber bullets apparently fired by the police. Two men had bullet wounds, doctors at a Bangkok hospital said. By late evening, as two trucks burned near the prime minister’s office, the government said that 98 people had been injured on Monday.
Protesters have set the ambitious — and, according to many analysts, unachievable — goal of ridding the country of the Shinawatras, the country’s most influential political family. Led by Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed as prime minister in a military coup in 2006 and now lives in exile, the family has spearheaded one of the most popular political movements in modern Thai history, winning every national election since 2001.
Mr. Thaksin fled overseas in 2008, just before being convicted of abuse of power in a highly politicized trial.
Implying innocence?
The current prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, who is Mr. Thaksin’s sister, sounded both firm and conciliatory on Monday. “The government is leaving open every option for discussion,” Ms. Yingluck said. But she rejected protesters’ demands for a “people’s council” of unelected representatives to replace the country’s parliamentary democracy.
The protesters’ proposal has been ridiculed by academics and openly questioned by some members of the opposition Democrat Party, who are allied with the protesters.
Ms. Yingluck was more diplomatic in rejecting the idea. “At this point, we don’t see how we can make it happen under this Constitution,” she said.
The European Union’s office in Thailand issued a statement late Monday saying it was “very concerned to see the occupation of public office buildings, television broadcasting stations and intimidation of the media.”
Ah, some EU disapproval only adds to the suspicions.
The police said they would allow peaceful demonstrations to continue, including in the capital’s historic district, where tens of thousands of protesters have gathered for the past week. Crowds there have swollen in the evenings to create a carnival-like atmosphere, with demonstrators offering foot massages and free food. Protesters who occupied the Finance Ministry and a large government complex last week announced over the weekend that they would seize more government buildings.
That's right, it's almost like a circus!
Of course, I was told those same protests were dwindling and losing momentum.
Times search brought more for me to bring to you:
Demonstrators spent Sunday and Monday dismantling razor wire and pushing over dozens of concrete barriers erected by the police to protect the prime minister’s office.
“I would like to urge your cooperation in not attempting to invade the area behind the barriers,” Lt. Col. Anchulee Thirawongpaisal of the police said Monday in a televised news briefing. Journalists using miniature drones mounted with cameras — an innovation not widely used in the many previous bouts of unrest in Thailand — circulated videos of the battles between a thin line of riot police officers protecting the prime minister’s office and protesters attacking the barricades.
Do I really have to type comments about bias anymore? The thin blue line being attacked by protesters?
Protests reached a climax over the weekend when a group of students allied with the antigovernment demonstrators clashed with the government supporters known as red shirts.
Shootings involving the two groups left at least three people dead and dozens injured. As of late Monday, the government reported that the total number of people injured since Friday had risen to 201.
The demonstrators are divided into disparate factions.
United in wanting Yingluck and Thaksin's tyranny gone.
Some are allied with the Democrat Party, the oldest political party in Thailand, which broke with tradition this year and joined street protests. Others come from an ascetic Buddhist sect, vocational schools and an ultramonarchist grouping known as the yellow shirts.
Globe isn't color blind after all.
The protests were set off by the government’s effort to push through an amnesty that would have broadly applied to any politics-related cases since 2004. Critics said it would help ease Mr. Thaksin’s return to Thailand by wiping clean pending corruption cases against him and voiding his conviction. The government withdrew the amnesty bill last month after a public outcry, but Mr. Suthep, the protest leader, expanded protesters’ demands to include the elimination of what they call the “Thaksin regime.”
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"Thai police cede ground to protesters; Shift in tactics follows days of deadly clashes" by Todd Pitman and Jinda Wedel | Associated Press, December 03, 2013
BANGKOK — Antigovernment protesters crossed heavily fortified barriers and reached the gates of the Thai prime minister’s office and the city police headquarters without resistance from police Tuesday.
Police used cranes to remove concrete slabs and barbed wire barricades on a road leading to the police headquarters after agreeing to let the protesters into the building. After bitterly resisting them with tear gas and rubber bullets since Saturday, police also stood by as protesters removed the barriers to the prime minister’s office and walked through on Tuesday.
Looks like surrender to me.
The unexpected return to a strategy of minimal resistance suggests the government no longer wants to confront the protesters after three days of clashes that have left three people dead and more than 230 injured and raised concerns about the country’s stability.
Government officials did not comment on the developments, and it was not clear if this would provide more than a lull to the violence and the crippling political deadlock that undermines Thailand’s democracy, economy, and tourism.
After breaching the barriers on the road, the protesters milled outside the gates of the prime minister’s office, known as Government House, and made no attempt to go through the gray gates of the sprawling compound.
‘‘This is a victory for us. This is a victory for the protesters,’’ said Kusol Promualrat, wearing a military camouflage green jacket, standing in front of the gate.
The police pulled back ‘‘because they know that if this doesn’t stop more people will get hurt, more people will die.’’
On Monday night, protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban told his supporters to storm the Bangkok Metropolitan Police Bureau, one of the main buildings they have vowed to seize as part of a campaign to topple the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Like I keep saying, read the subtle little word clues.
At the same time, Yingluck told a news conference that while she is willing to do anything it takes to end the violent protests, she cannot accept Suthep’s demand to hand power to an unelected council.
Then call off the government goons and agent provocateurs.
Yingluck was elected with an overwhelming majority in 2011, and many observers see the protesters’ demand as unreasonable if not outlandish.
Really?
In some of the worst clashes since the protests began last week, protesters on Monday commandeered garbage trucks and bulldozers and tried to ram concrete barriers at the Government House and other offices. Police repelled them by firing tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets, as protesters shot back explosives from homemade rocket launchers.
The protesters, mostly middle-class Bangkok supporters of the opposition Democrat Party, accuse Yingluck of being a proxy for her elder brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. He was deposed in a 2006 military coup but remains central to Thailand’s political crisis.
I'm sorry, folks, but I can no longer take seriously this shit-shoveling garbage.
Until this past weekend, riot police generally avoided engaging the protesters.
Analysts said the protests could wind down very fast as the birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej approached. The monarch, who is revered, turns 86 on Thursday.
Political instability has plagued Thailand since the military ousted Thaksin, who remains hugely popular among rural voters, in 2006.
Thailand's Silent Majority.
Two years later, anti-Thaksin protesters occupied Bangkok’s two airports for a week after taking over the prime minister’s office for three months, and in 2010 pro-Thaksin protesters occupied downtown Bangkok for weeks in a standoff that ended with parts of the city in flames and more than 90 dead.
Those were protests very much supported in my paper.
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"Thailand awaits its king’s speech amid unrest" by Grant Peck | Associated Press, December 05, 2013
BANGKOK — As violence between antigovernment protesters and police died down Wednesday in the Thai capital, people of all political persuasions waited to hear if their king would offer advice in his annual birthday speech to help resolve a crisis that has left the nation deeply divided.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who turns 86 on Thursday, has often served as a unifying figure in times of crisis.
Many people are hopeful the king can step in — as he has done decisively before — to ease the current standoff, which results from years of enmity between supporters and opponents of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin was deposed by a 2006 military coup after being accused of corruption and disrespect for the king.
As a constitutional monarch, the king has no official political role, but no other figure commands the same moral authority or the same loyalty from the armed forces in the coup-prone country.
On two occasions when the country seemed to be coming apart, his intervention turned the tide, restoring peace literally overnight.
When a pro-democracy uprising against a military dictatorship in 1973 left Bangkok in a state of anarchy, with the army ready to unleash a bloodbath, he showed support for the demonstrators and persuaded the dictators to go into exile.
A similar disaster was avoided in 1992 during another mass protest against a military-backed government. After a crackdown threatened to spin out of control, the king summoned the protest leader and the prime minister to a meeting where he chastised them for tearing apart the nation.
The latest conflict is far less severe, but it is violent and seemingly intractable.
Traditionally the king speaks his mind during his birthday speech, one of the rare occasions on which he talks directly to the public. He often makes his points through humor and aphorisms, but their meaning is usually clear.
Sukanya Chaisilapin, 27, said she thought his speech ‘‘will be a way out.’’ ‘‘Previously his majesty has given speeches about reconciliation and unity, and it could help with this kind of situation,’’ she said.
Janwadee Jilao, an executive, said the king has never ignored political strife. ‘‘He comes out and looks after and cares for all of his people. Even though there are two political factions, I believe that if Thais go back to loving each other, it will be because of his majesty.’’
But Thailand’s political environment has changed since 1973 and 1992, when public sentiment was solidly on one side against military leaders.
The king is a less vigorous figure than he used to be. In July, he ended a nearly four-year hospital stay — initially for treatment of a lung infection — to live in a palace in the seaside town of Hua Hin, where he is to deliver his speech.
The monarchy, once an untouchable institution, has also fallen in esteem in recent years after being abused for political gain by different parties.
Those who sought to oust Thaksin accused him of trying to usurp the king’s authority, and some alleged that he sought to establish a republic.
The 2006 coup that toppled Thaksin polarized Thailand. He had won the support of the urban poor and rural majority by implementing populist programs such as cheap health care, while many in the urban-based elite see Thaksin as a corrupt threat to their privileged positions and to the monarchy.
What do we do when a distortion and lie is repeated and repeated and repeated?
When can AmeriKa get a Thaksin?
Thaksin’s supporters believe the king’s top adviser helped arrange the 2006 coup. While the king kept out of the fray, his wife, Queen Sirikit, made a show of support in 2008 for anti-Thaksin demonstrators, creating the perception that the palace had cast its lot with one faction.
That faction happens to represent most of the people.
Thaksin-backed parties have won every election since 2001, and his supporters feel that moves against the former prime minister and his allies amount to disenfranchising them. Thaksin’s opponents have proposed a change in the democratic system that would shift power away from directly elected politicians.
Despite laws mandating harsh punishment for any insult to the monarchy, critical discussion of the institution has grown in recent years, though normally in private. Even ardent monarchists voice concern about the institution’s future, fearful that the heir apparent, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, cannot live up to the legacy of his father.
Worry about that later.
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