Starting Points: Red Shirt

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May 23, 2010

Bangkok Crackdown Is No Replay of Tiananmen

By ALEXA OLESEN / AP WRITER

Saturday, May 22, 2010

BEIJING — Before the military crackdown on Red Shirts in Bangkok this week, one Thai protester ominously claimed: "This will end as our Tiananmen Square."

It was a dire warning that did not come true. The clashes Tuesday between the Thai military and the so-called Red Shirt protesters left at least 15 people dead — compared with the hundreds or more believed killed when People's Liberation Army troops stormed into central Beijing in June 1989 to break up student-led pro-democracy demonstrations.

Thai army armored personnel carriers (APCs) guard along the Lumpini Park inside the Red shirt anti-government protesters' camp in Bangkok on May 19. (Photo: Getty Images)

For some, images of Thai armored personnel carriers breaking through makeshift barriers this week to end an anti-government protest brought back memories of China's crackdown in Tiananmen Square two decades ago.

Both were military missions to clear entrenched protestors who had paralyzed a key downtown area in the capital—but the political realities behind the two incidents have little in common, analysts say.

Thailand is a democracy, albeit one now in crisis and long prone to military coups, while China was and is staunchly authoritarian.

"Tiananmen in China in 1989 was really a black-and-white story, a black-and-white confrontation, the authoritarian government with the People's Liberation Army crushing the pro-democracy movement," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.

Thailand's protesters are angry because they see their democratic rights are being frustrated: the parties they voted for won the election but were then ordered dissolved and the politicians they voted for were banned from politics.

"In Tiananmen, they didn't have rights. In Thailand, the rights have been usurped, manipulated and disenfranchised," Thitinan said.

The Chinese military's bloody crackdown brought an end to weeks of largely peaceful demonstrations that at their height drew a million people to Tiananmen and saw students erecting a makeshift statue of liberty. In one famous moment of resistance, a lone man holding shopping bags defiantly stood in front of a column of tanks on a street near the square.

Tiananmen's resonance as a clear fight between good and evil was invoked this week by Sean Boonpracong, a spokesman for the Red Shirts.

"The people are defiant," the Guardian newspaper quoted him as saying. "They do not trust the government. They don't want violence, but they are prepared to fight with their bare hands. The government does not want to negotiate, so I think many more people will die. This will end as our Tiananmen Square."

Huang Shan, the international editor of one of China's most daring news publications, Caixin Weekly, said Chinese who grew up during the Tiananmen era would likely have the same associations.

He said he thought immediately of Tiananmen when he heard how the Thai military was clearing the Red Shirts out of downtown Bangkok.

"It's like how they cleared Tiananmen Square in the late 1980s," he said.

Beyond the superficial similarities however lies a world of difference. Tiananmen was a clear battle between dictatorship and democracy, but what's happening in Thailand today is more nuanced and less radical, said William Callahan, professor of international politics at the University of Manchester in England and an expert on Asian politics.

He said the Red Shirts are opposed to the top-down authority of Thailand's "network monarchy," a system which favors wealthy elites with links to the Thai king, but they are not asking for a new political system. Instead they demand new elections, which they hope will bring their people back into power.

"Their stated goals are within the system," he said. "So, they are working within the system but they don't see the system as working very well."

Perhaps the clearest sign of how little the struggles have in common is the free rein Chinese media have been given to report on Thailand's political turmoil. Though Beijing routinely censors news and ideas it considers potentially destabilizing, there seems to be little concern that the chaos in Bangkok will revive the ideals that drove Tiananmen.

Huang, the Caixin Weekly international editor, said so far there's been no gag order from Chinese authorities on covering the Thai crisis. Like other Chinese television and print media, Caixin has reported extensively on the situation and plans to continue doing so, he said.

Li Datong, a veteran Chinese journalist who was forced from a top editing job at a national state-run newspaper for publishing reports that were too probing, said the government is probably allowing plentiful and objective coverage of Thai crisis "because it poses no threat to China."

Thailand today and Tiananmen 20 years ago "were very different situations. In fact, they have nothing to do with each other," Li said. He said the Chinese student demonstrations were spontaneous and largely peaceful while the Red Shirt protests have been relatively organized and sometimes violent.

If anything, he said, the situation in Thailand offers Chinese authorities another negative example, like the occasional fist-fights in Taiwan's rambunctiously democratic legislature, to fend off those clamoring for faster political reforms on the mainland.

"The mouthpieces of the Chinese Central Propaganda Department can point to democracy in Taiwan and democracy in Thailand as cautionary tales," Li said. "They can say: 'You think democracy is good, well have a look at Thailand, see what kind of trouble they've got there?'"

Bangkok riots spark frenzy on net pages

Published: 23/05/2010 at 12:57 AM

Social media have become the new frontline of Thailand's political scene with Facebook and Twitter activity exploding over recent weeks in Bangkok.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's Facebook page has over 300,000 followers, while Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij's page has over 61,000. Many popular groups have emerged, such as ``STOP! Ruined [sic] Thailand'', which has over 22,000 members.

The political unrest has given rise to many other Facebook groups as people use the website to express their political views without fear of government censorship.

``Thailand Chaos Update'' (9,877 members) Thailand Chaos Update (9,877) posts updates about the current situation, missing people, danger zones and safety warnings for Bangkok residents.

``Watch Red Shirt'' (51,549) provides updates on the red shirt movement.

Many groups have also been created to counter a perceived pro-Thaksin bias in reporting by foreign news agencies. ``Real BBC_Bloody Bulls**t Corporation'' slams what the group calls the British broadcaster's ``biased, unethical and irresponsible approach to international journalism''.

Likewise, the group ``CNN Please Fire Dan Rivers'' targets what members regard as the biased reporting of the CNN journalist.

The ``I Support PM Abhisit'' (86,700) has had more posts than the prime minister's official page as people express support for him.

The ``Over one million Thai people miss CentralWorld'' page was created shortly after reports of the devastating arson attacks on the shopping centre and now has over 28,000 fans.

Meanwhile, Twitter has become the medium of choice of many for breaking news and analysis.

Traffic on the micro-blogging network reached a frenzy in the run-up to and immediately following the arson attacks throughout the capital.

Twitter users sent pictures and videos of everything from fires to protesters hit by sniper fire as well as live reports from the US embassy town hall meeting of American citizens in Bangkok.

Users of the service captured unforgettable images, perhaps none more so than those of a baby being held above a red shirt barricade sent by user @freakingcat.

Along with eyewitness accounts, came a sea of emotion as Twitter users expressed sorrow - and often outrage -at unfolding events.

The Thai ``Twittersphere'' has grown up. Gone are the days when it was primarily a conduit for the rumour mill.

Newspapers and TV channels have taken up the medium. At The Nation, both its former and current editors were tweeting breaking news, gossip and other stories, as well as polling Twitter followers for ideas.

The majority of reliable reports came from professional reporters in the field rather than citizen journalists.

Gossip or news from unreliable sources was routinely challenged for sources and clarification.

Twitter also had translators such as the Bangkok Post's Terry Fredrickson (@terryfrd), who provided English translations of what was being said on the red shirt stage as well as announcements from the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation.

The spectrum of views expressed on Twitter over the past week was wide, and included expatriates who expressed support for Thaksin as the democratically elected leader of Thailand and disdain for Mr Abhisit, as the head of a military-backed government. Views on the monarchy were expressed that are not fit for print.

Beyond Facebook and Twitter, Google Guru is quickly becoming another Pantip.com. Designed as a venue in which questions can be posed, Guru is quickly making a name for itself as a replacement for Pantip.com's Ratchadamnoen forum, which is now closed.

About the author

Writer: Sasiwimon Boonruang and Don Sambandaraksa

May 20, 2010

Normalcy on the Horizon in Smoldering Bangkok

by Jocelyn Gecker

Soldiers collecting identification cards of protestors who were cleared from their camps in downtown Bangkok on Thursday. (AP Photo)

Normalcy on the Horizon in Smoldering Bangkok

Bangkok. The Thai government declared on Thursday it had mostly quelled 10 weeks of violent protests in the capital as buildings still smoldered, troops rooted out small pockets of resistance and residents attempted to return to normal life.

But a curfew was extended in Bangkok and 23 other provinces for three more days. Troops and die-hard antigovernment protesters exchanged sporadic fire in parts of the city after the military operation the day before cleared most of a protest encampment in the center of the capital, leaving 15 dead and 96 wounded.

A special police unit on Thursday led more than 1,000 people — many of them women and children — away from a Buddhist temple in the heart of the former Red Shirt protest zone. Six bodies were found on its grounds.

The police had the approval of the temple’s abbot, but many of the women feared they would be jailed or abused by police and cried or clung to each other as they were led out. Others remained defiant.

“We won. We won. The Red Shirts will rise again,” one woman shouted.

Three more Red Shirt leaders surrendered to authorities on Thursday. Five leaders gave themselves up the day before and were flown to a military camp south of Bangkok for interrogation.

“I’d like to ask all sides to calm down and talk with each other in a peaceful manner,” said Veera Musikapong after being taken into custody Thursday. “We cannot create democracy with anger.”

Army spokesman Col. Sansern Kawekamnerd said the situation in the capital was mostly under control.

But a branch of Siam City Bank was set afire, the first reported arson attack after 39 buildings were torched the day before. According to state-run television, a firefighter was shot and wounded on Thursday while trying to put out the flames at a shopping center.

The situation was also volatile outside Bangkok.

Nation Television reported one person was killed and 14 wounded in the northeastern province of Khon Kaen, one of several provinces where protests erupted Wednesday.

Among the torched buildings in Bangkok were Thailand’s stock exchange, main power company, banks, a movie theater and one of Asia’s largest shopping malls.

Troops in the central business district exchanged fire on Thursday morning with holdouts as locals looted a vast tent city the activists had cobbled together.

Since the Red Shirts began their protest in mid March, at least 83 people — mostly civilians — have been killed and nearly 1,800 wounded. Of those, 51 people died in clashes that started on May 13 after the army tried to blockade their three-square-kilometer camp.

City workers on Thursday removed debris and collected piles of garbage left in the streets. With military checkpoints coming down, residents in protest areas were able to leave home to shop.

Sansern said the arson and looting were “systematically planned” by Red Shirt leaders before they surrendered.

He said the military showed restraint.

“If we had the intention to attack civilians, the death toll would have been much higher,” he said.

It was unclear what the next move would be for the protesters who had demanded the ouster of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s government and new elections. The protesters, many of them poor farmers or members of the urban underclass, say Abhisit came to power illegitimately and is oblivious to their plight.

The crackdown should silence the large number of government supporters who were urging a harder line, and the rioting that followed may extinguish some of the widespread sympathy for the protesters’ cause.

But that same violence also showed a serious intelligence lapse by the military, and the failure to secure areas of the capital raised doubt over the government’s ability to still unrest in the protesters’ heartland of the north and northeast.

Apr 7, 2010

Thai Protesters Storm Parliament - NYTimes.com

Image by matt.hintsa via Flickr

By SETH MYDANS and THOMAS FULLER

BANGKOK — Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thailand declared a state of emergency in the Bangkok area on Wednesday after antigovernment demonstrators broke into the Parliament building, forcing government ministers to flee by helicopter.

The televised announcement came after nearly a month of street demonstrations by the red-shirted protesters, who have paralyzed the city’s commercial district and paraded through the city in defiance of government restrictions. They are demanding that Mr. Abhisit dissolve Parliament and call new elections.

The declaration of a state of emergency gives the military the power to suspend certain civil liberties and ban public gatherings of more than five people. It creates a Crisis Solution Center under joint civilian and military control.

“We need to plan and implement everything to the last detail and with thorough care,” Mr. Abhisit said. “The last thing we want is for the situation to spiral out of control.”

He added, “We do this not with the intention of cracking down on innocent people but to sanctify the law.”

The brief invasion of Parliament earlier Wednesday, the failure of security forces to stop it and the hasty retreat by government officials had added to a growing sense in Bangkok that the government is not in control of the situation.

At a rally shortly the invasion a protest leader, Jatuporn Prompan, was defiant. “If you want to kill us, come on in,” he said. “But if you consider us your brothers and sisters, put your weapons down.”

The ministers, in their dark, tailored suits, could be seen on television clambering over a back wall of the Parliament building and then boarding a Black Hawk helicopter under armed guard.

At the front of the building, red-shirted protesters and their black-uniformed enforcers shoved and wrestled with Parliamentary guards, pushing back security officers with riot shields.

“The Red Shirts were very crazy and yelling,” said Sgt. Paisan Chumanee of the police. “We didn’t know whether they would use violence. To avoid provoking more anger, we used the helicopter.”

The move on the Parliament building came shortly after the conclusion of a cabinet meeting at which ministers extended the Internal Security Act, said Panitan Wattanayagorn, the government spokesman, who was one of those evacuated from the Parliament building.

Mr. Panitan defended the ministers’ hasty retreat, saying they would not have been able to leave on their own “without confrontation.”

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thangsuban, who is in charge of security for the government, was one of those evacuated to a military headquarters after the protesters wrestled with his security guard, seized the guard’s weapon and emptied out the ammunition.

“This is the Parliament! Why are you carrying a gun?” an opposition lawmaker shouted at the guard.

Mr. Abhisit, a target of the protesters, had departed a few minutes earlier to the military headquarters, where he has been based during the protests. He later announced that he had canceled a planned trip to the United States for a nuclear security summit meeting next week because of the continuing unrest.

The protesters, known as the Red Shirts, are the latest front in a social and political struggle between the rural and urban poor and the ruling elite that saw its pre-eminence challenged by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a coup in 2006.

Mr. Thaksin is abroad now, fleeing a corruption conviction, but he is believed to be financing and coordinating much of the protests.

The protesters are demanding the dissolution of the government, which came to power in December 2008 through a parliamentary vote, and new elections. Mr. Thaksin’s supporters form an electoral majority, and it is widely believed that they would win a nationwide vote.

Mr. Abhisit’s term in office runs until the end of 2011. In recent unsuccessful negotiations, protesters demanded that he step down within 15 days, and he offered the possibility of a new election within nine months. The talks broke down in an impasse but could be revived.

In defiance of government orders, thousands kept up a blockade of the main commercial district, where they have forced shopping malls, hotels and banks to stay closed since Saturday. In a show of impunity on Tuesday, convoys of red-shirted protesters roamed the city freely, pushing through military and police blockades with little resistance.

One commentator, Tulsathit Taptim of the daily newspaper Nation, called it “arguably the best day so far for the red shirts and definitely the worst for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.”

He added: “Bangkokians’ frustration was palpable — and so was the red shirts’ renewed confidence. Also, for the first time, the prime minister must have started questioning the loyalty of some in the military.”

In a telephone interview, Mr. Panitan, the government spokesman, denied reports in the Thai news media that military commanders were refusing orders to use force against the protesters.

“We gave the military clear guidelines,” he said. “They cannot use force or weapons against the people.”

He added: “We are required to solve the situation positively. That’s the job of the prime minister.”

Apr 4, 2010

Protesters Block Heart of Bangkok’s Shopping Zone - NYTimes.com

Image by Honou via Flickr

By THOMAS FULLER

BANGKOK — Antigovernment protesters who have camped out on the streets of Bangkok for the past three weeks raised the stakes in their mass demonstrations on Saturday, converging on the heart of Bangkok’s shopping district and vowing to remain until new elections are called.

Tens of thousands of protesters, including many families with small children, took over a main intersection, blocking roads leading to upscale shopping malls and five-star hotels and demanding that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thailand take action soon.

“We will remain here until the government declares that Parliament is dissolved,” said Veera Musikapong, one of the leaders of the protesters, who are known as the Red Shirts.

The government, which until Saturday had tried to take a conciliatory tone, ordered the demonstrators out of the area.

The Thai Foreign Ministry said the government would follow a “multistep approach, from light to heavier measures,” in what appeared to be a turning point in its handling of the crisis, the latest chapter of four years of political turmoil.

On Tuesday the Thai cabinet extended the use of a law that allows the military to clear out protesters and make arrests. Mr. Abhisit said Saturday that protesters had exceeded the limits of their constitutional right to demonstrate and that the government would negotiate or use legal means to oust them.

Mr. Abhisit has offered to call new elections within nine months — about a year before his term ends — but protest leaders, who claim the government is illegitimate, rejected the concession. The Red Shirts, who have wide support in the populous north and northeast, would probably win elections if they were held now, analysts believe.

Protesters, many of whom support Thaksin Shinawatra, who was removed as prime minister in a 2006 military coup, say they are angry at what they perceive as the undue influence of the country’s bureaucracy, military and elite.

Mr. Thaksin, who is overseas and wanted by the Thai authorities for a corruption conviction, addressed the crowd by video link on Saturday. He urged the crowd to fight for equality.

The Red Shirt demonstrations had until Saturday mostly affected a neighborhood of government ministries and offices. By blockading the main commercial district, however, protest leaders have considerably ratcheted up the pressure on Mr. Abhisit’s government.

Despite the threats to remove them, protesters appeared to be in a jovial mood late Saturday. As they listened to speeches, many camped out on the sidewalk in front of display windows advertising luxury brands like Dior, Ferragamo and Tag Heuer.

Tourists who pushed through the throngs of red-shirted protesters said they were polite and helpful.

“I don’t feel threatened,” said Elizabeth York, a visitor from London whose 1-year-old was in a stroller. “They make way for the babies,” she said.

Others were less forgiving of the demonstrators. An 18-year-old Thai, the scion of a wealthy family, drove his Porsche into protesters’ motorcycles and was besieged by the crowd before the riot police intervened, The Associated Press reported.

A woman who said she had to walk several miles to work because of the demonstration gave this assessment of the protesters: “They are very poor and very stupid.”