-
Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more
Thailand imposes a state of emergency
- Thread starter The Don
- Start date
Eddie Dane
Philosopher
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2007
- Messages
- 6,681
I don't understand the situation.
The protesters try to pressure the military into deposing the elected government.
Because it isn't democratic, apparently.
Maybe they are getting what they want.
The protesters try to pressure the military into deposing the elected government.
Because it isn't democratic, apparently.
Maybe they are getting what they want.
I'm not at all up on this but it seems that there is a split in Thailand over the Shinawatra family. One have seems to wand rid, the other half keep voting them in :L
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25825872
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25825872
Foolmewunz
Grammar Resistance Leader, TLA Dictator
There's a very deep rift here and I'm beginning to think there are factions on both sides who actually want a shooting war to break out.
I think Yingluck reacted as I did to the BIG protests. "Meh, they were calling for over a million people and only very generous camera work made it look like even 100,000, half of whom were bussed in for a visit to Bangkok." I've been in protests during the VN war that were about a million. There were less than a tenth of that.
I'm not sure if they think that there's so little support that they could actually wade in and disperse the demonstrators. I sincerely doubt that they can. Thai face is a big thing and if there is any indication of push coming to shove, the yellow shirt supporters will come out in droves.
Politically, though, push has already come to shove. The neo-fascists (yeah, that's what I called them) blocked the registration - not of voters, but of candidates. There may be districts with no one officially registered to run for the seat and thus no quorum when the government reconvenes. Now, rather than saying, "Well, we need an emergency act to find some way of registering your candidacy other than walking to an arena through a crowd of protesters....", they've gone to the judiciary to try to get the election blocked. They say "pushed back", but they've offered no solutions as to how/when and it's quite obviously the groundwork to declaring that "We need a committee of concerned citizens to run the country until then because the CARETAKER government can't do so."
The thing is.... the only thing stopping the EC and the judiciary is the masses supporting the red shirts. And that, traditionally in Thailand, is not enough. Someone compared this to the GOP fighting to hold onto their past and being unwilling to recognize the demographic shift. Here, the paleos have recognized that they'll never get elected again, have said so, and have declared, "So what? We still want to be the government."
Hitherto, it was only Suthep (the leader of the protests and former DP Minister In Charge of Shooting Red Shirt Demonstrators) who seemed to be pushing for someone to open fire. My feeling was that he felt that if he could get less tear gas and rubber bullets and more actual gunfire, then the military will step in. Now? I'm concerned that there's a faction in the red shirts who want the same thing.
I think Yingluck reacted as I did to the BIG protests. "Meh, they were calling for over a million people and only very generous camera work made it look like even 100,000, half of whom were bussed in for a visit to Bangkok." I've been in protests during the VN war that were about a million. There were less than a tenth of that.
I'm not sure if they think that there's so little support that they could actually wade in and disperse the demonstrators. I sincerely doubt that they can. Thai face is a big thing and if there is any indication of push coming to shove, the yellow shirt supporters will come out in droves.
Politically, though, push has already come to shove. The neo-fascists (yeah, that's what I called them) blocked the registration - not of voters, but of candidates. There may be districts with no one officially registered to run for the seat and thus no quorum when the government reconvenes. Now, rather than saying, "Well, we need an emergency act to find some way of registering your candidacy other than walking to an arena through a crowd of protesters....", they've gone to the judiciary to try to get the election blocked. They say "pushed back", but they've offered no solutions as to how/when and it's quite obviously the groundwork to declaring that "We need a committee of concerned citizens to run the country until then because the CARETAKER government can't do so."
The thing is.... the only thing stopping the EC and the judiciary is the masses supporting the red shirts. And that, traditionally in Thailand, is not enough. Someone compared this to the GOP fighting to hold onto their past and being unwilling to recognize the demographic shift. Here, the paleos have recognized that they'll never get elected again, have said so, and have declared, "So what? We still want to be the government."
Hitherto, it was only Suthep (the leader of the protests and former DP Minister In Charge of Shooting Red Shirt Demonstrators) who seemed to be pushing for someone to open fire. My feeling was that he felt that if he could get less tear gas and rubber bullets and more actual gunfire, then the military will step in. Now? I'm concerned that there's a faction in the red shirts who want the same thing.
Foolmewunz
Grammar Resistance Leader, TLA Dictator
Oh, and we're okay. We're a couple of hours southeast of Bangkok. There have been no activities here, at all.
"Bright lights, big city." is great, but there are certainly advantages to living in the boondocks.
Foolmewunz
Grammar Resistance Leader, TLA Dictator
Well, one day into the "restrictions" and no action taken by the government or police. They are trying to emphasize the difference between their government and the previous one. Under the DP (yellow shirt) appointed government (after a judicial coup declaring the red shirt party illegal) when the red shirts got rowdy and blocked intersections and buildings, the government invoked its emergency powers... And then sent the military in at night to round them up and get them out of the park. Result: 30 dead and hundreds of injuries. The minister in charge of that round up? The current "neutral" protest leader, Suthep.
I'm pleased to see that this is no longer getting play in the western press as a people's uprising. Every article includes the fact that they want to not have elections and be appointed to take over the government. This is the reality. The thing that concerns me is that so many people I know are taking the self-serving neo-conservative track and supporting the idea!
I'm pleased to see that this is no longer getting play in the western press as a people's uprising. Every article includes the fact that they want to not have elections and be appointed to take over the government. This is the reality. The thing that concerns me is that so many people I know are taking the self-serving neo-conservative track and supporting the idea!
Foolmewunz
Grammar Resistance Leader, TLA Dictator
Well, they're shooting each other in Bangkok.
There have been scattered shots fired and even deaths over the past few weeks, fire emanating from both sides. It's much like the US here in that you can get your hands on a gun if you want one. Both sides have pulled guerrilla invasions of the others meet-ups and demonstration sites.
But today, in the second day of the police effort to retake the protest sites, it broke out into open gunfire. Initial reports are completely one-sided in the Thai media and blogosphere... one-sided for whichever side the media outlet or blogger supports. What seems to be universally agreed is that the police fired teargas into the protestors and the protestors fired guns back at them. The police then returned fire with, purportedly, rubber bullets and live ammo. Why they would mention rubber bullets I don't know. The important stuff was the "live ammo". That's like saying they used a sound truck and fired guns.
Several reports - and the police version - also include a grenade thrown by the protesters into the police ranks, seriously injuring several of them.
I was in Bangkok Thursday. There's not much sight of the demonstrations other than in the few acres they hold in various areas. It's now down to the "hard cases". The red shirts have similarly shown they're also willing to shoot. They've killed their share of protesters, so this isn't just the "bad guys" on the side I'm against. The hard core are willing to take up arms and since the two sides won't cooperate in any area, getting them to cooperate in agreeing to dissociate themselves from the violent members is NOT going to happen.
On the political front, the Anti-Corruption Commission has called Yingluck (the PM) to a hearing on the 27th on charges that she didn't heed warnings that the rice subsidy scheme was going to be rife with corruption. Normally you'd say this was a slap-on-the-wrist sort of thing, but this is the same commission that ousted the entire sitting government because of vote buying in the prior election. This is one of those Casablanca moments (I'm shocked. Shocked, I say, to learn there's vote buying going on in Thailand!) But they did turn out every sitting member of the red shirts and made the party illegal. They are quite capable of turning out Yingluck. If they do, expect serious riots up north.
There have been scattered shots fired and even deaths over the past few weeks, fire emanating from both sides. It's much like the US here in that you can get your hands on a gun if you want one. Both sides have pulled guerrilla invasions of the others meet-ups and demonstration sites.
But today, in the second day of the police effort to retake the protest sites, it broke out into open gunfire. Initial reports are completely one-sided in the Thai media and blogosphere... one-sided for whichever side the media outlet or blogger supports. What seems to be universally agreed is that the police fired teargas into the protestors and the protestors fired guns back at them. The police then returned fire with, purportedly, rubber bullets and live ammo. Why they would mention rubber bullets I don't know. The important stuff was the "live ammo". That's like saying they used a sound truck and fired guns.
Several reports - and the police version - also include a grenade thrown by the protesters into the police ranks, seriously injuring several of them.
I was in Bangkok Thursday. There's not much sight of the demonstrations other than in the few acres they hold in various areas. It's now down to the "hard cases". The red shirts have similarly shown they're also willing to shoot. They've killed their share of protesters, so this isn't just the "bad guys" on the side I'm against. The hard core are willing to take up arms and since the two sides won't cooperate in any area, getting them to cooperate in agreeing to dissociate themselves from the violent members is NOT going to happen.
On the political front, the Anti-Corruption Commission has called Yingluck (the PM) to a hearing on the 27th on charges that she didn't heed warnings that the rice subsidy scheme was going to be rife with corruption. Normally you'd say this was a slap-on-the-wrist sort of thing, but this is the same commission that ousted the entire sitting government because of vote buying in the prior election. This is one of those Casablanca moments (I'm shocked. Shocked, I say, to learn there's vote buying going on in Thailand!) But they did turn out every sitting member of the red shirts and made the party illegal. They are quite capable of turning out Yingluck. If they do, expect serious riots up north.
)IDB87
Illuminator
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2008
- Messages
- 4,022
Last edited:
Foolmewunz
Grammar Resistance Leader, TLA Dictator
There's video out there of this happening
Stay safe!
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's legit. I try to keep my comments "iffy" because I've learned that fog of war issues make any form of front line reporting dubious.
I am generally pro-demonstration of any sort and anti-authority. In this case, although I'm 180 degrees to the other side of the debate with these "demonstrators", I'm also not prone to believing the reports out of the police from years of experience. So in the interests of fairness, I don't get on my soapbox.
(And no one really seems to have much interest in the topic, so I'm not going to do a running blog just to hear my own thoughts.)
Hercules Rockefeller
Woof!
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2011
- Messages
- 4,508
I left Bangkok yesterday and it has been relatively quiet. There are a lot people assembling at train stations etc. but it has mostly felt like big market places.