An American View On The Red-Shirts' Protest May 2010

by www.antithaksin.com | May 14, 2010 at 09:17 pm

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A message from an American expat who worked and stayed in Thailand

An excerpt from a recent post I made on The Daily Beast: I'm an American and live and work in Bangkok for an international company. I have lived here for 6 years and have been in and out of Thailand since the early 90s.

The international press has not understood the situation here nor reported on it with any kind of real comprehension. The real situation is that the Red Shirts are a very small group of uneducated bumpkins with an obsequious desire to return the ousted PM Thaksin to power. Thaksin's money is paying each of them 2000 THB (60USD) a day to keep the protests up. What's so ridiculous is that most Thais are against this because bringing Thaksinocracy back is to bring back gross corruption to the politics here.

Thaksin was a self-serving megalomanic who bought his two previous elections and later stole an billions of THB from Thailand and the Thai people before being ousted. The Red Shirts scream for democracy - but they don't even know what it means. It's absurd and everyone here knows it.

The real problem now is that the police are 90% in support of Thaksin and the Reds, so they won't do anything to curb the protests and violence. The military, which is very powerful here, are on the fence because they are about 50/50 behind the Reds and the Kingdom. There has been sporadic violence but the biggest problem we face is the damage to commerce. With the two largest and most popular commercial areas being closed due to protests for 3 weeks now, retail business, hospitality and the tourism industries are losing about 1.5 billion THB per day. The Reds are doing nothing but hurting the Thai economy, the Thai people and themselves.

Current PM Abhisit is an intelligent, respected Oxford scholar trying to find a solution through the proper channels of negotiation while trying to uphold the law.

A bit more:

One part of the whole Red Shirt's argument is that the Red's are screaming for democracy - true democracy - and yet I doubt they even know the meaning of true democracy. I've heard rumors lately that they would actually like to see an end to the Monarchy here.

A true democracy does not require the ousting of its monarchy. England is a perfect example of a parlimentary democracy with a monarchy and it works just fine. If the Red's are against the venerable HM Bumiphol and would like the monarchy to go away, I would issue them fair warning. This would be a difficult battle for them that they could never win.

HM The King has never been a threat to democracy here and has never ruled Thailand or made any demands on the Thai people. His presence is reveared and appreciated by all. He has never told the Thai people to do anything - only asked graciously. He has done nothing his entire life except love his country and try to improve the well-being of all. HM Bumiphol is more like a father who holds the Thai citizens in his arms with true love and caring. HM The King wants nothing in Thailand but peace and serenity for all.

if this is their ultimate intention, the Red Shirt's can only fail at the notion of removing such a great, gentle, intelligent and kind man from the throne. I encourage all the Thai people to stand up against the Red's in every way by showing your support online, in rallies and with your words. Take the lesson from your King - Be true and honest, fair and good. Support our highly capable and intelligent PM, Khun Abhisit, protect your King and Queen and do not let these Red buffalo destroy the land, the name or the prosperity of this great and enduring country.

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Klaas (not verified)

at 03:24 on May 15th, 2010

Are you sure you're an american? If so, you must be from some of the southern states where some people believe slavery is a good thing.If you want to talk about democracy then why is it that the only president that fulfilled his term TWICE has been ousted by the military? Because: he was too good for the slaves of the elite. That pissed some people off. There is not 1 country in asia where the difference between rich and poor is so big.How would you thing Thaksin could finance everybody thb 2000 a day?? There are more than 20.000 protesters. That would be 20.000.000 baht a day? About half million dollars a day?? What a crap story!

www.antithaksin.com

at 06:47 on May 15th, 2010

Thank you for your comment. I consider the issue opposing the figure of 2,000 baht per head has a part of fact, as well as the writer's figure. It is just variance among the tens of thousands.

Certainly, such poors do have their headmen who effectively control their employee protesters while they also earn some commission. Some protesters may just come during the evening time or on holidays and may get less than that. Some may have to come quite far from the north or norhteast of Thailand on a pickup loaded with some others from his village and get paid higher. Some may just get on their motorcycles from suburbs of Bangkok. This March and April are very dry season in the heat of Thai summer when peasant farmers do not start harvesting. Therefore, extra income and a visit to Bangkok for free food, free music, free excitement may worth something.

To keep on and on, the rally would actually need some 2-5 thousands during the boring days and some tens of thousands during the busy schedule. The rest of the protesters may be the actual lovers of Thaksin's populism and very willingly come to help him laundered of his crimes. Such people may be considered crazy of him just like Hitler's or Peron's followers.

By the way, Thaksin has stolen and smuggled out quite a lot from Thailand. Don't you know he can afford Manchester Football club, a gold mine in Uganda or her neighbour, an island in Montenegro and lots of investments in Fiji, Nicaragua, Liberia, so much that he can afford their nationalities and pasports.

You may be still not convinced but would you be surprised that in Thailand a vote in a general election can be bought from 50 baht to 500 baht?

Pat Henry (not verified)

at 19:36 on August 9th, 2010

I was there too when the Red Shirts when they were protesting. No doubt the disgraced PM played a significant role in the Red Shirt movement as a figurehead in exile, a strategist and the financier. But to base any analysis on Thaksin is to completely miss the greater foundational/structural issues - the nature of the State and its distribution of power and wealth - from the kingdom to the hush-hush issued of republic and from a country where the BKK-based ruling class lives off the back of the rest of the population which it considers semi-serfs or 'the great unwashed' or even in your words "bumpkins." Yes, you are a bigot just like the elitist ilk in Thailand. Blame Thaksin for letting Thailand's genie out of the bottle. What is going on is a class war. Nothing less, nothing more. I heard speech after speech live where the Red Shirt leaders emphatically made it clear their struggle is NOT really about Mr Thaksin's return or pardon or being enthroned again. I'm sure the Thai govt doesn't want anyone to know that. If I was poor in Thailand I would want Thaksin back as well. He did more for them than any other PM. As citizens of Thailand they are well within their rights to expect the government to make their lives a bit better. They do this with their vote and they've won the last 4 elections, in 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007. All, except the first, were meddled with, subverted and overthrown by the nexus of elite/army. Do you think Thai people should just passively accept military/judicial coups? I'm only surprised the Thai population have taken so long to get this angry. And shame on you for supporting an exploitative, repressive and violent government.

ronayos (not verified)

at 22:07 on August 9th, 2010

Poverty is one of the basic problems of Thailand, just like in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Phillipines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Argentina, Chile etc. However, the class and social gaps are not as wide as the bottom of the list. The only problem remain Thaksin, who harvested through conglomerate network of corruption. Through poor democratic knowledge/culture, dishonest electoral frauds, vote-selling of poor people, and image making like what Peron and Hitler did, Thaksin, the corruptor could won the election and stayed in power for some years.I do not know how long Pat Henry was witnessing red-shirts movement. But they started first in 2006 as violent gangsters who protect Thaksin, the Fuhrer, by attacking yellow-shirts led by Sondhi Limthongkul, a standing up out-spoken media. After Thaksin was ousted, red-shirts applied mob rules against Gen.Prem, the President of the Privy Council. and so on with more and more violence. All along through the years their sole priority of either non-violent or violent movements is to force an amnesty for Thaksin. The collection of those activities have been already displayed in <a href="www.antithaksin.com">antithaksin.com</a> . Poor people who joined the red rallies at Raj Prasong, during March-May 2010, complain that, apart from calls for violent topple of (legitimate and democratic) PM Abhisit government on the stage, they did not hear anything else about poverty matters, social problems and wealth distribution measures. NGOs working for poor people were not allowed to discuss their views on the red-shirt stage. Actually, the rallies were just another covered terrorist-military operation to hi-jack those hired poor people and the city center as retaliation to the guilty verdict applied to seize Thaksin's worth of 1.5 billion USD in March 2010. Therefore, all of Thaksin mouth pieces were guided to talk about something else as the cause of the rise-up.Para-military training of men-in-black terrorist mixed among the poor red protesters and actual funding of the armed and violent rallies March-May 2010 is traceable to Thaksin and his cronies. Please see more in <a href="www.antithaksin.com">antithaksin.com</a>