(GLOBALRESEARCH) South-East Asia Geopolitics and Washington’s Creeping Front Against Thailand
By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, January 19, 2014
altthainews.blogspot.ca
What began as just biased, slanted reporting is now taking shape as a concerted and focused campaign to back the regime of unelected, exiled dictator Thaksin Shinawatra and his proxy regime run by his own sister, Yingluck Shinawatra. The West, the United States in particular, has been taking an increasingly harder stance against anti-regime protesters seeking to permanently oust Thaksin Shinawatra’s regime from Thai politics.
Biased reporting came from the BBC, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, theNew York Times, and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), just to name a few – but despite the wide variety of sources, there was one concerted message – the protesters were “elitist” and “anti-democratic,” trying to perpetuate a “class divide” by seeking to oust a “democratically elected” government supported by the “rural poor.”
One of the most recent pieces published by the Western media, however, broke the mold and went one step further. An editorial board piece in the Washington Post titled, “Thailand’s anti-democracy protests should provoke a harsh rebuke from the U.S.,” states in no uncertain terms that the US should condemn ongoing protests against unelected dictator Thaksin Shinawatra and his nepotist-appointed proxy regime led by his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra. The Washington Post argues:
Popular demonstrations against democracy are becoming an unfortunate trend in developing countries where elections have challenged long-established elites. The latest case is Thailand, where thousands of people took to the streets Monday to demand that the country’s freely chosen government step down, that an unelected council take its place and that elections scheduled for next month be canceled. The protesters’ strategy appears to be to disrupt Bangkok to the point at which the government will feel compelled to resign or be removed by the military.
Similar tactics have succeeded in bringing down two previous governments led by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his supporters since 2006, while a third was forced out by a dubious court decision. This time, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Mr. Thaksin’s sister, is standing firm, as she should. But she could use more support from the United States in rejecting an undemocratic outcome to the crisis.
Of course, nothing about the Washington Post’s comments is truthful.
Additionally, according to the Bangkok Post article, “Yingluck stands by Feb 2 poll ,” the regime showed reporters a letter from US Republican Congressman Michael Turner to President Barack Obama, citing the Washington Post op-ed, condemning ongoing protests as “undemocratic,” and calling on him to voice support for the regime’s sham elections in which major opposition parties are boycotting, and the ruling party is openly run by a convicted criminal/fugitive, Thaksin Shianwatra.
Worth repeating, until the Western media begins reporting it perhaps, is the fact that while Thailand is technically under the premiership of Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, by his party’s own admission, Thaksin is still literally running the country. The election campaign slogan for the last general election in 2011 was literally, “Thaksin Thinks, Puea Thai Does,” Puea Thai being his political party. Forbes would report in their article, “Thaksin in Exile: Advising Sister, Digging for Gold,” that:
Regarding his behind-the-scenes role in the party and policy, he is not shy: “I am the one who thinks. Like our slogan during the campaign, Thaksin thinks, Pheu Thai acts.”
The New York Times admitted in an early 2013 article titled, “In Thailand, Power Comes With Help From Skype,” that:
For the past year and a half, by the party’s own admission, the most important political decisions in this country of 65 million people have been made from abroad, by a former prime minister who has been in self-imposed exile since 2008 to escape corruption charges.
The country’s most famous fugitive,Thaksin Shinawatra, circles the globe in his private jet, chatting with ministers over his dozen cellphones, texting over various social media platforms and reading government documents e-mailed to him from civil servants, party officials say.
The NYT piece would also report:
“He’s the one who formulates the Pheu Thai policies,” said Noppadon Pattama, a senior official in Mr. Thaksin’s party who also serves as his personal lawyer. “Almost all the policies put forward during the last election came from him.”
Image: The New York Times openly admits that Thailand is currently run by unelected convicted criminal/fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra. Clearly any proxy government or elections in which it participates in are illegitimate by both Thai and international standards. Thaksin’s foreign ties are what have afforded him impunity regarding an otherwise cartoonish, 3rd world dictatorship.
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There is no question that a convicted criminal hiding abroad from a 2 year jail sentence, multiple arrest warrants, and a long list of pending court cases, is illegally running Thailand by proxy. Being unelected, Thaksin Shinawatra is by all accounts a dictator, and his “government” a regime, however cleverly they try to dress it up.
Elections in any other nation on Earth, including the United States, featuring a convicted criminal openly running a contending party would be unacceptable – and in Thailand as well, they are equally unacceptable. Protesters therefore are standing up against overt criminality, not “against democracy.”
As reported many times before, current anti-regime protesters are not trying to end “democracy.” They are simply trying to end the abuse of the democratic process by an overt criminal. Elections must be carried only after Thaksin Shinawatra and his entire political machine have been safely and completely dismantled.
But the criminal and illegitimate nature of the current regime is not the only only grievance protesters have. There is a more dangerous aspect of Thaksin Shinawatra and his political machine that protesters believe warrant his immediate and complete removal from Thailand’s political landscape – his unprecedented human rights abuses, including mass murder and multiple assassinations, both successful and otherwise:
* In 2003, he initiated what he called a “war on drugs.” Nearly 3,000 were extrajudicially murdered in the streets over the course of just 90 days. It would later turn out that more than half of those killed had nothing to even do with the drug trade. In this act alone, Thaksin earned himself the title as worst human rights offender in Thai history, and still he was far from finished.
* In 2004, he oversaw the killing of 85 protesters in a single day during his mishandled, heavy-handed policy in the country’s troubled deep south. The atrocity is now referred to as the “Tak Bai incident.”
* Throughout his administration he was notorious for intimidating the press, and crushing dissent. According to Amnesty International, 18 human rights defenders were either assassinated or disappeared during his first term in office. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) claimed in its report, “Attacks on the Press 2004: Thailand” that the regime was guilty of financial interference, legal intimidation, and coercion of the press.
Image: Anti-Thaksin activist, protest leader, and media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul’s van after being shot at by over 100 rounds in a failed assassination attempt carried out in broad daylight in 2009. Sondhi is just one of many of Thaksin Shinawatra’s enemies that have faced assassination.
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* In April of 2009 gunmen would fire over 100 rounds into the vehicle of anti-Thaksin activist, protest leader, and media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul in a broad daylight assassination attempt. He was injured but survived.
* On April 10, 2010, heavily armed professional militants deployed by Thaksin Shianwatra and his “red shirt” front targeted and assassinated Colonel Romklao Thuwatham who was at the time commanding crowd control operations near Bangkok’s Democracy Monument.
* In August of 2013, businessman and outspoken Thaksin opponent Ekkayuth Anchanbutr was abducted and murdered.
* Just this week, on January 17, 2013, a grenade was lobbed into a peaceful march through city streetskilling one and injuring nearly 40. Protest leader Suthep Thuangsuban was a mere 30 meters from the blast – clearly intended for him.
Journalists, human rights groups, and activists of all kinds fear a return of the atmosphere of terror and intimidation sown during Thaksin’s time in office and are determined to prevent this from ever coming to pass. One must wonder why these egregious human rights violations, the worst in Thai history, weren’t mentioned, let alone addressed by the Washington Post or US Congressman Michael Turner.
Washington Post, Michael Turner, are Covering for Wall Street’s Proxy of Choice, the Shinawatras
Could both US Congressman Michael Turner and the Washington Post not be aware of any of this? Could they have missed the New York Times and Forbes articles blatantly admitting the overt criminality and illegitimacy of the current proxy regime ruling Thailand? Does Turner or the Washington Post honestly believe a proxy regime openly run by a convicted criminal and human rights violator who was not on the ballot nor even in the country, constitutes a “freely chosen” and/or legitimate government?
Of course not.
In fact, the Washington Post’s own 2011 article titled, “Thaksin’s sister is front-runner to become Thai prime minister,” would openly admit the last general election was, “a referendum on Thaksin.”
Clearly, the Washington Post is intentionally deceiving readers to protect the Thaksin regime in which the corporate-financier interests that steer Washington Post’s editorial board have invested heavily.
To see just how heavily invested Wall Street and Washington are in Thaksin Shinawatra and his proxy regime, one must consider over a decade of Thaksin Shianwatra’s servile obedience to these foreign interests:
* In the late 1990?s, Thaksin was an adviser to notorious private equity firm, the Carlyle Group. He pledged to his foreign contacts that upon taking office, he would still serve as a “matchmaker” between the US equity fund and Thai businesses.
* In 2001 he privatized Thailand’s resources and infrastructure including the nation’s oil conglomerate PTT - much to Wall Street’s delight.
* In 2003, he would commit Thai troops to the US invasion of Iraq, despite widespread protests from both the Thai military and the public. Thaksin would also allow the CIA to use Thailand for its abhorrent rendition program.
* Also in 2004, Thaksin attempted to ramrod through a US-Thailand Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) without parliamentary approval, backed by the US-ASEAN Business Council who just before the 2011 elections that saw Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra brought into power, hosted the leaders of Thaksin’s “red shirt” “United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship” (UDD) in Washington DC.
* Since the 2006 coup that toppled his regime, Thaksin has been represented by US corporate-financier elites via their lobbying firms including, Kenneth Adelman of the Edelman PR firm (Freedom House, International Crisis Group,PNAC), James Baker of Baker Botts (CFR, Carlyle Group), and Robert Blackwill (CFR) of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR), Kobre & Kim, Bell Pottinger (and here). Currently,Robert Amsterdam, of the Chatham House corporate member Amsterdam & Partners, serves as both lobbyist for Thaksin Shianwatra as well as his “red shirt” mobs, the UDD.
* During the most recent political crisis, the Western media has lent its full support to defending the Thaksin regime against protesters, as can be seen in reports by the BBC, Reuters, the New York Times, CNN, theWall Street Journal, and now the Washington Post.
The Washington Post’s condemnation of what it outrageously calls “anti-democracy militants,” is in defense of a loyal proxy, not “democracy.” That the Washington Post would also defend the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt alongside Thaksin Shinawatra in its latest editorial, is both telling and troubling.
While the Washington Post claims the US has done little to back the Muslim Brotherhood, sources indicate that a campaign of US-backed covert violence and terrorism is already underway to undermine the military government in Cairo. And while the Washington Post may publicly lament that Washington is not condemning harshly the protesters in Bangkok, we can be sure that covert support has already been ongoing for quite some time – just as rhetorical support from the likes of the Washington Post has.
Already, the only militancy seen, has been a nightly campaign of violence directed at, not by, the anti-regime protesters. That the Washington Post and US Congressman Michael Turner’s letter also omit this suggests silent complicity with the regime who is carrying out these acts of terror.
To ignore the greater geopolitical dimensions in which Thailand’s current political crisis is unfolding, would ultimately be folly.
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, THAILAND
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Chavez vs. Thaksin: How the Media Demonizes a Progressive Leader while Praising a Corrupt Autocrat
By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, March 06, 2013
Land Destroyer
Confounding was the Australian’s (newspaper) recent op-ed titled, “Death of a ruthless autocrat,” in regards to the late Hugo Chavez. Confounding not for the op-ed’s condemnation of socialist policies or its criticism of Hugo Chavez, an obstruction to Western corporate-financier interests in South America for over a decade, but because of the obscene hypocrisy displayed throughout, from a newspaper and a corporate-financier-academic establishment in Australia that coddles a figure in nearby Thailand that is every bit as guilty of everything it accuses Chavez of.
Image: When is blood-red socialism ok (Thailand) and when is it “ruthless autocracy” (Venezuela)? The answer depends on whether or not you serve Wall Street and London’s international order. Contrary to popular belief, socialism is not a unified global ideology and is instead like any tool – only as good or bad as the hands it finds itself in. The use of socialism by two governments no more indicates an affiliation than would guns in the hands of two opposing armies on a battlefield.….
The piece begins with:
HE was lionised as a hero by the Western Left, of course, but it would be hard to find a leader in recent history who more comprehensively betrayed the wellbeing of his country than Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. He was driven by an irrational, demagogic and self-defeating antagonism towards Washington that blinded him to his nation’s best interests.
The rambling narrative of the Australian equates to condemning Venezuela for not opening itself up to Western exploitation, domination by corporate-financier monopolies, and the folly of its challenging of the West’s campaign of global aggression from Mali, Libya, and Syria, to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
In fact, the Australian itself makes a point of condemning Chavez for his support of Saddam Hussein, who’s nation was occupied by the West during a brutal 10 year war, following a decade of sanctions that in total cost the lives of over 2 million Iraqis (including half a million children) and still counting. The Australian implies that Chavez was wrong to support Iraq, despite documented evidence that the Western assault on Iraq was waged upon a patently false pretense.
The Australian condemns Chavez’ “populist economics” and ends its piece by stating:
Thumbing your nose at Washington and aligning your country with the world’s worst dictatorships is a recipe for disaster. Those who come after Mr Chavez should see that and change course.
Thumbing your nose at Washington and its interests is indeed a recipe for disaster, as has been thumbing your nose at brutal empires throughout human history. Your nation will become the target of covert military operations, terrorism, political subversion, and economic sabotage, the very root of Venezuela’s current malaise. Thumb your nose long and hard enough at the West, and you may even become subject to an outright invasion, as was the case in Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Or, you may suffer a long-term proxy war, as Syria now faces.
In reality, the Australian reveals what Hugo Chavez was really guilty of. Not of being a “ruthless autocrat,” or of being a socialist, but of being independent and for having the nerve to challenge the extraterritorial interests of an increasingly violent and unhinged West.
Thaksin Shinawatra – Populist, Socialist, Ruthless Autocrat, and Darling of the West.
Of course, the most preposterous statement of the Australian’s op-ed would easily be, “but it would be hard to find a leader in recent history who more comprehensively betrayed the wellbeing of his country than Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.” The Australian might start with Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand, propped up and coddled by the West since the 1990's, and to this day given free passage throughout the West despite being a convicted criminal and a fugitive from the law in his native country.
The Australian’s editorial board itself has lent support to his despotic, nepotist regime, currently led by his own sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, defending him as a progressive, pro-democratic force in Thailand. In a 2011 Australian news article preceding Thailand’s national elections, no where is found the same venomous language directed at Chavez in describing Thaksin’s own populist/socialist schemes. No mention at all is made of Thaksin’s grotesque human rights record – the worst in Thai history, his intimidation of the press, and his habitual assault on any and all who challenge him.
Indeed, while the Australian calls Hugo Chavez a “ruthless autocrat,” it was Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand who mass murdered 3,000 innocent people over the course of 90 days during a so-called “war on drugs” where police were sent into the streets to conduct extrajudicial executions. It would later be determined that most of the those murdered were not even involved in the drug trade. Human Rights Watch (HRW) would confirm this in their 2008 report titled, “Thailand’s ‘war on drugs’,” a follow up to the much more extensive 2004 report, “Not Enough Graves.”
To this day Thaksin counts his “war on drugs” as one of the many highlights of his 2001-2006 stint in office. And while the Australian fails to remind readers of this inconvenient fact, other Western propagandists, such as the Economist, boldly defend the mass murder that took place under his ruthless regime. In its op-ed titled, “Thailand’s drug wars: Back on the offensive,” the Economist states:
Faced with soaring methamphetamine abuse, Mr Thaksin ordered the police to draw up blacklists of suspected traffickers and “to act decisively and without mercy”.
The Economist would also go on to say:
On the streets of Khlong Toey, the largest slum in Bangkok, there is nostalgia for Mr Thaksin’s iron-fisted drugs policy. The 2003 crackdown drove up prices, smashed trafficking networks and forced addicts into rehabilitation programmes. In drug-ravaged communities, where the ends tend to justify the means, that was enough to turn Mr Thaksin into a hero.
The Economist finishes its op-ed by lamenting that the then military-led government which ousted Thaksin in 2006, had not kept up Thaksin’s abhorrent, extrajudicial campaign of mass murder:
You might expect a military junta with sweeping powers to have kept up the fight against such illicit activity. Anti-narcotics officials say that drug seizures have risen since the military coup in September 2006.
And more recently, the Huffington Post hosted Stanley Weiss of the Business Executives for National Security (BENS) and his op-ed titled, “The Oracle of Thailand,” where he praises Thaksin Shinawatra’s populist-socialist policies and suggests the US would be better off if it applied his “Thaksinomics” across America. Weiss openly admits that Thaksin Shinwatra, despite being a convicted criminal and living in exile, is running the country by nepotist proxy. Yet, he defends what he considers a brilliant exploitation of Thailand’s desperately poor, notoriously under-educated rural population, spinning it as:
The great innovation of Thaksin and Pansak (along with U.S.-trained academic Somkid Jatusripitak) was “the increased role of government in the allocation of credit,” as Chulalongkorn University Professor Pasuk Phongpaichit writes. But not just anywhere: “Thaksinomics” focused the government’s attention on the poor and rural areas of Thailand. Arguing that “a country is a company and a company is a country,” the self-described “CEO Prime Minister” approached the national economy like a business, looking for ways, as Pasuk explains, to “mobilize any dormant or unexploited assets including unused natural resources and neglected human resources.”
Tapping unused reserves of credit in the state banking system, the team created one rural credit fund after another. To lower household expenses, they offered low-cost housing and health insurance; provided subsidized credit for buying taxis and provided loans for children to get to school.
One might wonder how that is any different than what Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela, who also won over the population in part by using state money to subsidize his support base. The difference is simple: Hugo Chavez used socialism to co-opt the population in opposition to the Wall Street-London international order, while Thaksin Shinwatra co-opted Thailand’s rural poor on behalf of Wall Street and London’s interests.Weiss’ BENS front is lined with representatives of America’s Fortune 500 who have played a pivotal role in both Thaksin’ rise to power, and his continued relevance in Thai politics.
Thaksin had been prime minister from 2001-2006. Long before Thaksin Shinwatra would become prime minister in Thailand, he was already working his way up the Wall Street-London ladder of opportunity, while simultaneously working his way up in Thai politics. He was appointed by the Carlyle Group as an adviser while holding public office, and attempted to use his connections to boost his political image. Thanong Khanthong of Thailand’s English newspaper “the Nation,” wrote in 2001:
“In April 1998, while Thailand was still mired in a deep economic morass, Thaksin tried to use his American connections to boost his political image just as he was forming his Thai Rak Thai Party. He invited Bush senior to visit Bangkok and his home, saying his own mission was to act as a “national matchmaker” between the US equity fund and Thai businesses. In March, he also played host to James Baker III, the US secretary of state in the senior Bush administration, on his sojourn in Thailand.”
Upon becoming prime minister in 2001, Thaksin would begin paying back the support he received from his Western sponsors. In 2003, he would commit Thai troops to the US invasion of Iraq, despite widespread protests from both the Thai military and the public. Thaksin would also allow the CIA to use Thailand for its abhorrent rendition program.
In 2004, Thaksin attempted to ramrod through a US-Thailand Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) without parliamentary approval, backed by the US-ASEAN Business Council who just before 2011?s elections that saw Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra brought into power, hosted the leaders of Thaksin’s “red shirt” “United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship” (UDD).
Image: The US-ASEAN Business Council, a who’s-who of corporate fascism in the US, had been approached by leaders of Thaksin Shinwatra’s “red shirt” street mobs. (click image to enlarge)
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The council in 2004 included 3M, war profiteering Bechtel, Boeing, Cargill, Citigroup, General Electric, IBM, the notorious Monsanto, and currently also includes banking houses Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Chevron, Exxon, BP, Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck, Northrop Grumman, Monsanto’s GMO doppelganger Syngenta, as well as Phillip Morris.
Photo: Deposed autocrat, Thaksin Shinawatra before the CFR on the even of the 2006 military coup that would oust him from power. Since 2006 he has had the full, unflinching support of Washington, Wall Street and their immense propaganda machine in his bid to seize back power.
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Thaksin would remain in office until September of 2006. On the eve of the military coup that ousted him from power, Thaksin was literally standing before the Fortune 500-funded Council on Foreign Relations giving a progress report in New York City.
Since the 2006 coup that toppled his regime, Thaksin has been represented by US corporate-financier elites via their lobbying firms including, Kenneth Adelman of the Edelman PR firm (Freedom House, International Crisis Group, PNAC), James Baker of Baker Botts (CFR), Robert Blackwill of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (CFR), Kobre & Kim, and currently Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Peroff (Chatham House).
Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Peroff, would also simultaneously represent Thaksin’s “red shirt” UDD movement, and was present for the inaugural meeting of the so-called “academic” Nitirat group, attended mostly by pro-Thaksin red shirts (who literally wore their red shirts to the meeting). Additional support for Thaksin and his UDD street-front is provided by the US State Department via National Endowment for Democracy-funded “NGO” Prachatai.”
Time to Grow Up
It is time for the general population to refine their understanding of socioeconomic-political processes. Socialism is not an internationally unified political ideology. It is a set of tools that is only as good or as bad as the hands that wield them. And just because these tools can be found in two different hands, does not mean that both hands serve the same agenda – no more so than would guns in two opposing armies’ hands indicate a mutual agenda or alliance.
Hugo Chavez used socialism to build a support base, because if he didn’t, Wall Street and London would do it themselves with their proxy opposition front in Venezuela – just as they have done in Thailand with Thaksin Shinwatra.
The proof is in the West’s own narrative, where they hypocritically celebrate Thaksin Shinawatra’s “Thaksinomics” while condemning Chavez’ “Chavismo.” It would appear that socialism is only “ok” if it is used to co-opt the population for the interests of Wall Street and London. “Thumb your nose” at the West, and it doesn’t matter what socioeconomic strategy you employ, you are a “ruthless autocrat” whose days are numbered and whose memory will be immediately defiled upon your passing.
Governments do not adhere to political ideologies, they simply use them when and where profitable. In the US where a corporate-financier oligarchy literally writes the policy for politicians on both sides of the aisle, the use of socialism and “free market” economics is done in tandem to achieve a multitude of goals that would be impossible using only one or the other. While the West itself placates its population with socialism, such policies are condemned when employed contra to their interests, especially when used to galvanize a population against Western advances – as was the case in Chavez’ Venezuela.
In reality, socialism is but a single tool. An entire nation cannot be sustained upon it, no more than an entire house can be built using only a hammer. The true test of a government is not whether it uses socialism or not, but with what other tools it employs it. A nation must seek to build upon socialism’s stop-gaps with sustainable, pragmatic solutions. Outside of Wall Street and London’s international order, many nations are doing just that, but progress is difficult to gauge when the West arrays the summation of its influence and power against such progress.
The general population’s habit of perceiving socialism, capitalism, or any other socioeconomic system as a unifying ideology is folly. The ruling elite, whichever side they stand on, do not see such systems as unifying ideologies, but merely tools. It is time for the general population to look at how these tools are used, and whose hands they are actually in, instead of fixating on the tool itself as being inherently “good” or “bad.”
The story of Chavez and Thaksin illustrates the double standards and hypocrisy hidden in plain sight and casts doubts on narratives proposing anyone using “socialism” is part of a unified global cabal. Such a notion falls flat unless financial and political ties can be documented. In the case of Hugo Chavez and Venezuela, the chasm between his movement and the West’s use of socialism couldn’t be any deeper or wider.
Labels: HUGO CHAVEZ, THAILAND, THAKSIN SHINAWATRA, VENEZUELA
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Thai crisis exposes class struggle
Can economic justice resolve political conflict? What if a divided country were to try geonomics? They’d pay no taxes on their labor. They’d pay land taxes or land dues, but get back a fair share. Would that strengthen a shared identity? We trim this 2008 article from BBC News of November 8.
By Jonathan Head
With the backing of powerful military and palace figures, they have helped unseat one prime minister and two members of his cabinet.
The embattled government, led by allies of controversial former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has in vain protested that it was popularly elected less than a year ago. Now it has started fighting back with a series of mass rallies by its own red-shirted followers.
This is a dangerous contest between two power-hungry political factions who see it as a zero-sum game, in which they either win everything, or lose everything.
But it has become much more than that. The rift has split Thai society, along regional and especially along class lines.
In a north-eastern province bordering Laos and a known Thaksin stronghold, callers to talk radio are fired up. An old lady says, "Listen to me, soldiers, if you dare try another coup, forget about getting roses, because I will dress myself entirely in red -- red hair, red panties, red bra, red fingernails -- and jump in front of your tanks. You will have to run over me, a grass-roots woman, and crush me to death."
The show finishes with a rousing song, scorning "educated people" for their ignorance and lack of manners.
The PAD implies that the millions of rural people consistently vote for pro-Thaksin politicians are either bribed or do not understand what they are doing. It is the justification the PAD gives for demanding a parliament which is part-appointed.
A typical farmer replies, "If the PAD cannot convince me that their version of democracy will help grass-roots people like me, then I will fight them to my last breath," she said. "They should treat us with respect, not as people they can just squash under their feet."
An academic explains, “We have a wide gap between rich and poor. The poor did not receive anything from the state for a long time. Then, for the first time, Thaksin gave this opportunity for them."
Local people say the populist policies of Thaksin Shinawatra, like universal healthcare and the village loan scheme, brought big improvements to the quality of their lives.
But time and again they cite something else -- dignity. They told me he offered them the hope of improving themselves, without making them feel small, or humble.
His darker sides -- abuses of power, human rights violations, arrogance -- were brushed aside as less important.
The northeast province of Isaan has long been the butt of jokes in Thailand. It has a culture and language closer to that of neighboring Laos than the central plains around Bangkok. It supplies much of the cheap, migrant labor to the capital.
In the late 1990s, Thaksin Shinawatra was the first politician to court rural voters directly, with appealing policies, rather than relying on the local godfathers to deliver their support. In doing so, he has awoken a new political self-awareness in a previously passive region. And Isaan people are furious about the comments they are hearing from the PAD in Bangkok.
At the first of the big rallies in Bangkok, when the former prime minister phoned from somewhere overseas, a huge roar went up from the 60,000 red-shirted faithful. There were more than a few tearful faces in the crowd, far larger than any the PAD has managed to attract this year.
Thaksin, stuck in exile, faces a two-year prison sentence if he comes back.
The demonstrators held up a banner with the words "NO MORE COUP" in bold red letters. It seemed more of a warning than a plea. One man turned to me and said: "If the military mounts another coup, this time the country will split, and there will be civil war."
Labels: DEMOCRACY, THAILAND
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