Starting Points: Thailand

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May 17, 2010

Terror Spreads in Bangkok

Manish Swarup/Associated Press

Thai policemen marched to remove a barricade put up by antigovernment protesters near the victory monument in Bangkok on Monday. More Photos »

By THOMAS FULLER and SETH MYDANS

BANGKOK — Chaotic gun battles in central Bangkok marked a new phase of the city’s spiraling violence Monday as residents hoarded food and the government warned die-hard protesters that they should leave their encampment or risk “harmful” consequences.

Protesters roaming the lawless streets of a strategically important neighborhood near the protest zone threatened to set fire to a gasoline truck as bonfires, some from piles of tires, sent large plumes of black, acrid smoke into the sky.

Security forces armed with assault rifles were deployed in greater numbers across the city after many firefights, including a nighttime grenade attack on the five-star Dusit Thani hotel, a landmark in the city.

The attack and a subsequent prolonged gun battle suggested that Thai security forces were up against more than just protesters with slingshots and bamboo staves. The mayhem of the crackdown, which follows two months of demonstrations by protesters who are seeking the resignation of the government, has made it difficult to understand who is battling whom.

A government official, Korbsak Sabhavasu, said late Monday that a protest leader had called him to discuss an end to the standoff, a development that offered a glimmer of hope that the violence might subside. The Associated Press reported that Mr. Korbsak said he had told the protest leader that the army would stop shooting if protesters returned to their base in the city.

But there have been many false starts in recent weeks, making a resolution to the crisis far from imminent.

The government suggested that Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister who was ousted in a 2006 coup, was behind the shadowy forces battling the army on Bangkok streets.

Satit Wongnongtoei, a minister in the prime minister’s office, spoke of a “commander who lives overseas” who is intent on “causing violence and loss of life as much as they can by using weapons of war.”

The government on Sunday issued a ban on certain banking transactions linked to companies and accounts held by Mr. Thaksin and his family.

The protest movement defiantly encamped in Bangkok began as a reaction to Mr. Thaksin’s ouster but has expanded to resemble a large social movement by less affluent segments of Thai society rebelling against what they say is an elite that tries to control Thailand’s democratic institutions.

On Sunday, Mr. Thaksin issued a statement through his lawyer that called on “all sides to step back from this terrible abyss and seek to begin a new, genuine and sincere dialogue between the parties.”

It seems plausible that some of the attacks in recent days have been carried out by disaffected elements of the military or police. The attack on the Dusit Thani hotel in the early hours of Monday may have been a retaliatory move by a faction loyal to Khattiya Sawatdiphol, a renegade major general allied with the protesters who was shot on Thursday. Security experts speculate that General Khattiya, who died on Monday, was shot by a sniper stationed at the Dusit Thani hotel, which has served as a base for hundreds of security personnel members in recent weeks.

The government has insisted that soldiers fire only in self-defense, but the death toll has been lopsidedly among civilians since violence intensified last Thursday. Government statistics said that 34 civilians and two soldiers — including General Khattiya — had been killed since Thursday, and 256 people been wounded, almost all of them civilians.

Protesters have attributed some of the deaths to snipers who are stationed in several places around the city on top of tall buildings.

The Foreign Ministry explained in a memo distributed on Monday that the sharpshooters had been deployed to “look out for danger and protect others.”

The memo summarized in chilling detail a video taken of a military sniper shooting someone suspected of carrying a “bomb,” the memo said, without more detail.

“The shot was made in a controlled manner,” the memo said. One of the soldiers in the video is then quoted saying, “Man is down! I see it!”

Most of the violence has occurred in the streets that surround the protesters barricaded encampment, where protest leaders appear increasingly anxious.

Nattawut Saikua, a hard-line protest leader, said he was prepared to negotiate without preconditions if the government would accept a cease-fire. He dropped the demand he had made Sunday for mediation by the United Nations.

The government responded that there would be no talks while the violence continued.

With the apparent involvement of various armed groups, the fighting may have moved beyond the point where any protest leader can declare an effective cease-fire.

The protest site, in the heart of Bangkok’s main commercial district, which at its peak was filled with tens of thousands of demonstrators, had thinned to perhaps 2,000 on Monday afternoon. Where entire families had camped in a festive atmosphere, mostly men remained. Garbage was strewn everywhere.

Army aircraft circled above the site dropping leaflets urging people to leave. Guards in black with red scarves escorted people who chose to leave. A man circulated among the guards handing out small packets of sticky rice along with 100 baht bills, worth about $3.

Protesters filled small Red Bull energy drink bottles with gasoline and then demonstrated their plan to propel them by swinging a golf club. Small groups of people occasionally looked up and pointed at surrounding department stores where they said they believed snipers were hidden.

Outside the site of the sit-in, on Rama IV road where much of the worst fighting has taken place, trucks loaded with tires raced in, unloaded them as if at a racetrack pit stop, and sped away. Crowds watching from a safe distance applauded. The tires were stacked by the road to replenish a continually burning barricade.

At one point in mid-afternoon, the crowd, at a new makeshift stage near the Khlong Toey slum, faced the burning wall of tires and sang the national anthem.

Tension radiated from battle zone, and at one point unknown gunmen carried out an attack on a hospital.

Hundreds of businesses and bank branches were closed after the violence caused the government to declare a national holiday and postpone the opening of schools.

The American Embassy in Bangkok canceled a “town hall” meeting about the security situation scheduled for Tuesday because of the risk that those attending would be put in “harm’s way,” a statement from the embassy said Monday. Embassy officials will instead address concerns of Americans living in Bangkok on the Internet.

One American photographer, Paula Bronstein of Getty Images, described being trapped in the Dusit Thani when the attacks occurred.

“If you’ve ever heard the sound of a grenade, it’s really loud if it goes off really close,” she said. “It didn’t take long before we realized the hotel was under attack. The gunfire was just indescribable. It was just nonstop. And it was coming from both directions.”

After the attack guests were told to go into the basement of the hotel, where they remained until morning.

“There was a woman who had fainted, and they were trying to make her come to and it was really just more confusion and everyone was yelling,” Ms. Bronstein said.

The hotel closed its doors to guests Monday afternoon.

Mariko Takayasu contributed reporting.

May 16, 2010

In Bangkok, Gunfire Outside a Reporter’s Window - NYTimes.com

I’M lying as flat as I can on the 15th-floor sun deck of my fancy apartment building wearing a set of ill-fitting body armor and a ballistic helmet. Below me, over the ledge, is Bangkok, a twinkling city that I’ve always thought looked better in the dark.

But not tonight. The darkness on this Friday is terrifying. Explosions boom across Lumpini Park and bursts of gunfire carry through the small alleys across the street. There is some unexplained shouting and the tinny, amplified voice of a woman who seems to be warning people to stay indoors. Bangkok is a battlefield.

Athit Perawongmetha/Getty Images

Thai security forces confronting antigovernment protesters in Bangkok. More Photos »

By THOMAS FULLER

Published: May 14, 2010

Bangkok

My first impression of Bangkok, when I lived here for a stint in the 1990s, was that it looked poor but did not act poor, a colossal failure in urban planning yet a place that managed to remain seductive, remarkably friendly — and safe.

Much has happened since then to bring Bangkok to a totally different state, one of political chaos and spiraling violence. The country has been in a long, slow burn. In recent years, there has been a military coup, anxiety over the declining health of the country’s king and the rise of protest movements that push their agendas in the streets rather than in Parliament. But if any one idea can sum up the troubles, it is that Thailand’s politics have failed to develop as fast as its rising wealth.

Over the past two months, as a debilitating protest in Bangkok took hold and shadowy groups have operated with impunity, I have crouched behind furniture in hotels when grenades exploded on the street outside. I stood on a wide avenue as dozens of dead and wounded protesters were carried from the carnage of a failed military crackdown. I hid behind a telephone pole during an hourlong crackling barrage of gunfire. And on Thursday, a man I was interviewing was struck in the head by an assassin’s bullet and collapsed at my feet.

Bangkok today has many more high-rise condominiums and much more luxury than the city I knew 15 years ago, but is plagued by its dysfunctional politics. Is there any other city in the world today that has so many cloth-napkin restaurants, spas — and periodic grenade attacks? How many other world capitals have streets filled with fleets of luxury cars and armies of protesters apparently willing to die for their convictions? On Friday alone, 16 civilians were killed in clashes with the military that took place a few hundred yards from my apartment. Patrons were stuck in restaurants for hours because they were terrified to walk into the streets.

When I sat down to write this article in my apartment, I slipped on my ballistic helmet, a piece of equipment left over from a spell covering the Iraq war that is probably more useful to me in the streets of Bangkok.

I donned the helmet because my desk faces floor-to-ceiling windows with no curtains or shutters and outside is the neighborhood where protesters are battling with troops. (Gunfire erupted when I typed the word “protesters.”) I have come to view my windows as an emblem of the turmoil. The architects of this city’s gleaming apartment blocks and office towers did not anticipate gunfire. They thought about prestige and the liberating feeling of floating above a sprawling metropolis, separated only by glass.

A city with floor-to-ceiling windows is a confident city. Sheets of glass, unlike the thick walls and tiny windows of centuries past, send a message: We are not worried about what lurks outside.

But from my desk, it seems as if Bangkok’s architecture has outpaced its political maturity. Who in Bangkok today would feel confident behind a wall of glass when explosions rip through the night?

The protesters battling security forces this week are known as red shirts and draw their strength from the urban and rural poor. Their arch-rivals are the yellow shirts, a group whose core support comes from the elite and middle class. The Reds and Yellows are hardly the only factions in Thailand’s highly fissured society. But they share a legacy of radicalizing Thailand’s democracy by bringing politics into the streets.

The red shirts, who have demanded new elections, have built barricades around one of Bangkok’s glitziest neighborhoods and have forced the closure of shopping malls with combined floor space several times the size of the Mall of America in Minneapolis. This is not quite the Paris Commune, but it is the closest Bangkok has come to a lawless zone patrolled and managed exclusively by protesters.

The Thai government is trying to take back this area — the commercial heart of Bangkok — in an ongoing military operation, block by block.

Over the past two months, about 50 people have been killed and more than a thousand injured in acts of violence like the failed crackdown and a grenade attack on an elevated train station.

And then there was the attempted assassination on Thursday of Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawatdiphol, a radical red-shirt leader and renegade officer in Thailand’s fractured military.

The shooting was a measure of the depth of the country’s divisions and the treacherous effect they have on Bangkok as a city, the hub of mainland Southeast Asia.

I spotted General Khattiya as he was greeting supporters on Thursday inside the encampment that protesters have built in central Bangkok.

He lingered for at least half an hour at a spot near a makeshift barricade of tires and bamboo spikes, answering questions from a group of reporters.

By 6:50 p.m., the other reporters had drifted away, allowing me and my interpreter to fire away with questions. What turned out to be my last was about the likely outcome of a military crackdown. Would the army be able to penetrate the protesters’ fortifications?

“The military cannot get in here,” answered General Khattiya.

Then there was a loud bang and he fell backward to the ground. There was no scream, no sign of agony, just his crumpled body on a slab of sidewalk with his eyes wide open.

From what I could see, the bullet struck General Khattiya somewhere on the top of his head, near the intersection of the temple and the forehead. The general was facing me, so my best guess is that the shot came from behind me, possibly from a sniper located somewhere in the business district across a busy road.

When calm returns to Bangkok’s streets, ballistic experts will presumably lead a more precise investigation.

But the thought occurs to me: How many more bullets will fly through the Bangkok sky before Thailand’s democracy reaches a level of maturity equal to the modernity and grandeur of its capital city?

May 15, 2010

Thai Monarchy Influence Fading, as Class Polarization Gets Very Politicized

News Analysis - Thailand’s King Sees Influence Fade as Crisis Intensifies - NYTimes.com

By SETH MYDANS and THOMAS FULLER

BANGKOK — A battle over Thailand’s future is raging, but the one man who has been able to resolve such intractable conflicts in the past has been notably silent: King Bhumibol Adulyadej, long a unifying father figure for his nation.

Thailand is convulsed by a bitter struggle between the nation’s elite and its disenfranchised poor, played out in protests that have paralyzed Bangkok for weeks and now threaten to expand. The ailing 82-year-old king finds his power to sway events ebbing as the fight continues over the shape of a post-Bhumibol Thailand.

“It’s much bigger than the issue of succession,” said Charles Keyes, an expert on Thailand at the University of Washington in Seattle. “It’s a collapse of the political consensus that the monarchy has helped maintain.”

Andrees Latif/Reuters

King Bhumibol Adulyadej returned to a hospital after marking the anniversary of his coronation in Bangkok on May 5. More Photos »

As his country suffers through its worst political crisis in decades, the king has disappointed many Thais by saying nothing that might calm the turmoil, as he did in 1973 and 1992 when with a few quiet words he halted eruptions of political bloodletting.

For more than two months now, demonstrators known as the red shirts, who represent in part the aspirations of the rural and urban poor, have occupied parts of Bangkok, forcing major malls and hotels to close as they demand that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve Parliament and hold a new election. Soldiers and protesters continued battling Saturday, and the Thai military declared a Bangkok neighborhood a “live-fire zone.”

After taking the throne nearly 64 years ago, King Bhumibol expanded his role as a constitutional monarch without political power into an enormous moral force, earned through his civic work and political astuteness. He has also presided over an expansion of the royal family’s now vast business holdings. With the monarchy at its heart, an elite royalist class grew up including the bureaucracy, the military and entrenched business interests. A palace Privy Council has exerted power during the current crisis.

It is this elite class that the protesters are now challenging.

Those who seek to maintain the status quo have proclaimed themselves loyal to the king and have accused the red shirts of trying to destroy the monarchy as they seek changes in Thai society. For their part, most red shirts say they respect the king but want changes in the system he helped create.

The politicization of the king’s name “has ensured that the monarchy cannot play a central conciliatory role any more,” said Chris Baker, a British historian of Thailand.

More broadly, the divisions in society may have become too deep and the anger too hot to reconcile for years to come. Many analysts say a lasting class conflict has been ignited between the country’s awakening rural masses and its elite hierarchy. With the king confined to a hospital since September with lung inflammation and other ailments, concern about the future has sharpened. The heir apparent to the throne, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, has not inherited his father’s popularity.

But discussion about the succession and about the future role of the monarchy are constricted to whispers and forbidden Internet sites by a severe lèse-majesté law. A 15-year penalty for anyone who “defames, insults or threatens the king, queen, the heir apparent or the regent” has been broadly interpreted in cases brought against writers, academics, activists, and both foreign and local journalists.

Though it is the protesters who are pressing for change, including some who may see a republican form of government in the future, it is a leading member of the establishment party that now rules Thailand who put the issue into its plainest terms.

“We should be brave enough to go through all of this and even talk about the taboo subject of monarchy,” said Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, in a speech last month that he gave, significantly, outside Thailand at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “I think we have to talk about the institution of the monarchy, how would it have to reform itself to the modern globalized world.”

He spoke of Britain and the Netherlands as models, with constitutional monarchs who play a largely symbolic role.

On paper at least, those models are not so very different from the system now in place in Thailand. What sets King Bhumibol apart is the aura that surrounds him and the faith among many people that when things are really bad, he will step forward to save them from themselves.

In a way, what some Thais are saying now is simply that it is time for the king’s “children” to grow up and solve their problems themselves.

“There might still be people in Thai society that want to see the king play a role in resolving the crisis,” said Jon Ungpakorn, a former senator and one of the nation’s most vocal advocates for democracy.

“But on the other side, a large section of society realizes that we should not depend on the monarchy for resolving crises,” he said. “If we are to be a democratic system, we must learn to deal with our problems ourselves.”

During weeks of street demonstrations, protesters have assiduously asserted their patriotism. But unlike other protests in the city, there has been a conspicuous absence of portraits of the king. Among both residents of the northeast, the country’s rural heartland, and the red-shirt protesters in Bangkok — many of whom have traveled back and forth in shifts — a new, less reverent tone has quietly crept into conversations.

Krasae Chanawongse, a medical doctor and former government minister in the northeast who is a strong monarchist, laments that “many people are talking about destroying the monarchy.”

But protest leaders insist that they are not challenging the king but the system that is built around him.

“Real democracy would have the king at the top, with no elite class to interfere,” said a protest leader, Nattawut Saikua, in an interview.

Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had built an electoral base among the country’s poor majority, who also form the base of the red-shirt protesters, threatening the traditional supremacy of the old guard. A coup in 2006 that ousted Mr. Thaksin is believed to have had at least the tacit approval of the Privy Council and other elites who saw the prime minister and his base as a challenge to their power. The red shirts have demanded a new election that could bring back Mr. Thaksin, now abroad fleeing a prison sentence for corruption.

Whoever succeeds King Bhumibol, the veneration and the place the king holds at the heart of Thai society are unlikely to survive him.

“In private discussions people say to each other, ‘What will we do without him?’ ” said a prominent poet who, like many people speaking about the monarchy, insisted on anonymity. “They get disappointed and upset and even scared about the change in the future.”

As he has grown older, concerns have risen about divisions and disputes in society that might erupt once he is gone. It appears now, with the king no longer playing the role he has in the past, that those conflicts are already under way.

May 14, 2010

Thailand Edging toward Civil War?

Thai General Linked to Protests Is Shot in Head During Interview - NYTimes.com

By THOMAS FULLER and SETH MYDANS

BANGKOK — A renegade major general who allied himself with the protesters who have paralyzed Bangkok for weeks was shot in the head and critically wounded here on Thursday as the military began sealing off a barricaded encampment of antigovernment protesters.

The general, Khattiya Sawatdiphol, 58, had become a symbol of the lawlessness and impunity that have torn Thailand apart as the protests have pitted the nation’s poor against its establishment.

He was shot during an interview with a reporter for The New York Times about 7 p.m., one hour after the military announced the start of a blockade and cut off electricity and water to a tent city of thousands of protesters.

Photographs

Rogue General Shot During Thai Protests

The reporter, who was two feet away and facing the general, heard a loud bang similar to that of a firecracker.

The general fell to the ground, his eyes wide open, and protesters took his apparently lifeless body to a hospital, screaming his nickname: “Seh Daeng has been shot! Seh Daeng has been shot!”

He was later reported to be on life support. Within hours, protesters were clashing with security forces in Lumpini Park in Bangkok.

The general rankled both the government, by joining the so-called red-shirt movement, and many protest leaders, for his refusal to back down. The government accused him of a role in the violence that has taken more than two dozen lives since the protests began in mid-March. In the interview on Thursday, he described other leaders of the protesters as cowardly “idiots.”

Nonetheless, the general had assumed control of security for the protesters, placing his own black-shirted paramilitary fighters at entrances in the makeshift barriers around their encampment, and he claimed the loyalty of a small but intense group of protesters.

Although the government called him the main impediment to peace and suspended him without pay, he was allowed to move freely, exposing the impotence of the authorities here.

“I deny!” he cried in English, with a laugh, when asked in an interview on Sunday about the dozens of bombings that have set Bangkok on edge and about the mysterious black-shirted killers who escalated the violence on April 10 that killed 26 soldiers and civilians. “No one ever saw me.”

The military, which has held back from clearing out the protesters for fear of bloodshed, now appeared ready to crack down. The general’s last words before being shot were, “The military cannot get in here.”

But even as the military moves to seal off the area, it remains stymied by the likelihood of resistance that could expand outside Bangkok into rural areas that are the heartland of the opposition.

And the protests themselves are only the latest and most dangerous manifestation of what seem to be irreconcilable differences in the country. Thailand’s social contract has frayed, posing a challenge to an entrenched hierarchical system with a constitutional monarch at its core.

There are several levels to the protesters’ demands, including the return of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a coup in 2006 and is now abroad evading a corruption conviction, and a desire for a more equitable democratic system in which their voices would carry greater weight.

The protesters first accepted and then refused a government offer to hold an election in November in return for an end to their sit-in. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva withdrew that offer. He previously called General Khattiya a terrorist.

The reversal of the agreement with the government was a sign of growing factionalization of the protest movement — the Thai news media reported that a number of the leaders stepped down on Thursday — and raised fears that even if some of them agreed to break camp, others would hold their ground.

General Khattiya’s involvement with the protest movement underlines fractures in the military, and more broadly in Thai society, after four years of political turmoil.

“The people won’t go home,” the general said on Sunday night, as admirers crowded around him at a McDonald’s restaurant in the heart of the protest area. “Just stop? Compromise? All these people, the hard core, they want to stay longer.”

When the bullet struck him on Thursday, General Khattiya was facing a road, an overpass and a business district with several tall buildings.

In the minutes afterward, more gunshots were heard, and there were later reports that 20 people had been injured, though the cause of their injuries was unclear.

The protesters clustered around a high fence surrounding the park, throwing stones and firing slingshots and possibly shooting firearms at soldiers inside. One protester was shot in the head and was taken away by an ambulance, even as gunfire from within the park continued. He was later reported to have died.

Still later in the night, gunshots and explosions could be heard.

General Khattiya reveled in the attention he was receiving, from the prime minister, the press and the protesters, who he said “believe that because Seh Daeng is here they won’t die.”

“That’s why everywhere I go people cheer me and ask for my autograph,” he said. Along with a knife and a canteen, he carried a blue marker pen and wrote his name on shirts and caps as he posed for pictures with his admirers.

Before he was shot, the government had announced that armored personnel carriers would be used to cordon off the area in what appeared to be the beginning of an operation to disperse the thousands of protesters who were camped out outside shopping malls and luxury hotels.

A half-hour before he was shot, General Khattiya was addressing a scrum of reporters at sundown at the barricades. Most peeled away, leaving the general in a conversation with the reporter.

The general commented on his uniform, saying it was the one he had worn when fighting communists three decades ago. He spoke about working with the protesters and about how it was different from his previous military missions.

He described himself as leading a “people’s army” that was bracing for a crackdown by the military.

This clash would be “free form,” he said, adding, “There are no rules.”

Seth Mydans contributed reporting.

May 2, 2010

Message Battle Heats Up in Thai Crisis - NYTimes.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By THOMAS FULLER

BANGKOK — Viewers of Thai soap operas now have a choice: they can follow the over-dramatized acting and weepy plot lines of shows like “The Glass Around the Diamond” or they can read pro-government political messages scrolling on the bottom of the screen.

“The Thai people love peace but when we go to war, we are not fearful,” reads one of the dozens of messages broadcast on two government channels exhorting people to oppose the protest movement that has paralyzed parts of Bangkok for more than seven weeks.

“Sometimes the Thai people have to fight bad Thai people,” says another.

Thailand’s political crisis is playing out on the streets here, where antigovernment protesters, who are demanding new elections, are defending their fortified encampment in the commercial heart of the city. But political battles are also being waged through television, Facebook, community radio stations and Internet chat rooms.

After a failed crackdown on the so-called red-shirt protesters last month, the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is leading a two-pronged campaign it hopes will strangle support for the protest movement. The government is sharpening its public relations message while trying to shut down the opposition’s media, a plan that in some parts of the country appears to be backfiring.

A constant crawl at the bottom of television screens, which started running in March on two government-owned stations, makes the case that “malevolent” protesters are hurting the country and should go home. And an advertisement implores: “Thais should love each other because we all live in the same country.”

Image via Wikipedia

At the same time the government has shut down an opposition television station and at least 420 Web sites affiliated with the red shirt movement.

Officials are also accusing red shirts of trying to overthrow the monarchy, an incendiary charge that protest leaders reject.

In an interview with foreign correspondents on Sunday, Mr. Abhisit suggested that the government would try to shut down community radio stations, which have multiplied throughout the country in recent months, especially in the populous red-shirt stronghold of the northeast.

He accused the radio stations of being “command centers” for the red shirts and playing a “coordinating role” in the unrest.

“We are trying to restore order,” he said. “I’m not going to say that no media is allowed to attack or comment on the other side. But certainly no media should be allowed to play the role of inciting violence.”

The prime minister also said he had not ruled out using force to end the standoff in Bangkok. “We are now in the process of cutting off support and sealing the area off before we actually move in,” he said.

But a crackdown does not appear imminent, especially after 25 people died and 800 were injured in the botched attempt to clear protesters on April 10.

Mr. Abhisit said Sunday that he remained patient and that the “best solution is one that does not involve violence or confrontation or conflicts.” An aide said the prime minister would soon release a “political roadmap” that could bring reconciliation to the country after four years of turmoil.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The overarching strategy for the government appears to be demonizing the protesters and hoping that public opinion swings against them, a process that could take months. Mr. Abhisit and his advisers warn of “terrorists” among the protesters.

So far, the public relations campaign has had mixed results. In Bangkok there is growing anger at the red shirts over the barricaded streets and their incursion last week into a hospital, which caused panic in the wards. But there is also deepening frustration over the government’s inability to drive out the protesters.

“The government is good at building up their image from these messages on television, but no one is taking any action to solve the problem,” said Yont Klomkleaw, a manager for a market research company in Bangkok.

On Sunday, the prime minister’s Facebook page had about 600 comments, many of them supportive; “fight! fight!” was a common refrain. But there were also critical postings. “Sometimes, words alone may not be enough,” wrote one commenter, Anyarporn Tansirikongkol.

In the provinces, especially the red shirts’ base in the north and northeast, the government’s efforts may be backfiring, with many villagers rejecting the messages as spin and propaganda, a view encouraged by the movement’s leaders.

“The government is just lying to the people,” said Jarungkiat Chatchawat, who runs a food stall in the northeastern city of Khon Kaen. “It doesn’t have any influence on me.”

One military intelligence officer described the red shirt movement as spreading “like a virus” in the northeast.

The red shirts broadcast their message using community radio stations and, until recently, the satellite television station PTV, which was shut down by the government last month.

Their public-relations campaign has focused on a few key words, notably the “double standards” in Thai society applied to the poor compared with the rich and well-connected. They also call the Abhisit government illegitimate because it came after court decisions that barred two prime ministers from the opposition camp.

The red shirts say they want to bring genuine democracy to Thailand, a message that sells well in the north and northeast, where many farmers and villagers feel their voice was muted by the 2006 military coup.

In Bangkok there is more skepticism about the protesters’ motives.

“This is not about democracy, it’s about thuggery,” Voranai Vanijaka, a columnist for The Bangkok Post, wrote in the Sunday edition of the newspaper. “It’s about nothing less than forcing the government to bend to their every whim and every will.”

Mr. Voranai suggested the red shirt movement was a vendetta by Thaksin Shinawatra, the billionaire who was removed as prime minister in the 2006 coup, after a court in February ordered a large share of his assets seized by the state.

Although the references are often oblique, Mr. Thaksin and his allies appear to be the target of many of the government’s messages. One message running on the bottom of television screens warns:

“Don’t become a tool, don’t be naive and don’t hurt the country for the sake of only one person.”

Poypiti Amatatham contributed reporting.

Apr 13, 2010

I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor - Thai Expectations - NYTimes.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By PHILIP BOWRING

BANGKOK — The chaos and bloodshed that erupted on Bangkok streets is a brutal reminder of the law of unintended consequences. The 2006 military coup that deposed the elected prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, and subsequent use of the courts to keep his allies out of power, have raised a specter more dangerous to entrenched interests than Thaksin ever was.

The longer this confrontation between red shirts and the military-backed government continues, the less important will be Thaksin’s own role as opposition leader-in-exile and the more powerful genuinely radical forces will become. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s departure is now likely, which should calm the situation in the short term, but some of the conditions for the rise of leftist demagoguery or Peronist-style rightist populism clearly exist. Thailand is in uncharted territory and analysis of the many past coups and confrontations provide little guide to the future.

Thaksin was an astute billionaire who abused the power that his party’s dominance in Parliament gave him. But his pro-poor spending won him popular support without being fiscally irresponsible or undermining Thailand’s tradition of open markets and private capital. Many of today’s class-warrior red shirts have scant regard for Thaksin but are riding on his supporters’ backs toward what they hope is more radical change than he espouses.

Once the red shirts were viewed by their opponents as a Thaksin-financed rabble of rural poor. But the evidence in recent days is that they enjoy the sympathy of large numbers of Bangkok’s own lower-income groups — taxi-drivers, street vendors, security guards and construction workers. Even those most inconvenienced by the demonstrations, the tens of thousands dependent on tourism and other disrupted businesses, are not all on the side of law and order.

The legacy of the demonstrations will be lasting. Even the military top brass is not sure of where it now stands, with some urging compromise on all sides to avoid more bloodshed, which would test the loyalty of the rank and file, many of whom are considered sympathetic to the red shirts. Other state institutions, notably the courts, have also come to be widely seen as politically motivated.

Enough Thais have been shocked by the score of recent deaths that compromise will most likely win out in a society where politics is more opportunistic than ideological. The Thai economy is built more on small farms and businesses rather than great estates or industrial combines. But compromise will have to recognize the rising expectations of low-income groups, not only for more equitable income distribution, but also for greater political representation.

Expectations have been fed by Thaksin’s rhetoric and by Thailand’s lively media. Economic fundamentals too now favor the poor. After three decades of low birth rates, Thailand has little growth in its workforce, so the bargaining power of lower-income groups is increasing. Bangkok’s middle class now has to rely on maids from Myanmar to cook and clean. Income distribution is actually no worse than the average in developing Asia — and better than in neighboring countries like Malaysia and China. Moreover, the Thai economy has been growing steadily. But in Thailand’s open and homogenous society expectations have been growing faster. They must now be satisfied.

In Asia » Do Thais Lack Spirit for Democracy?

By John J. Brandon

As Thais begin to celebrate Buddhist New Year (known as “songkran”) next week, they will be doing so under the specter that forces inside the country will not have reached an acceptable agreement in resolving the nation’s four-year political impasse.

Since mid-March, thousands of anti-government demonstrators, known as “red shirts,” from the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) have tied-up traffic in major intersections of Bangkok, including the city’s commercial center where shopping malls and banks were closed for three days earlier this week. Today, after protesters pushed through the main gate of the parliament compound, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared a state of emergency in Bangkok to help restore order, the red shirts are demanding that Mr. Abhisit dissolve Parliament and call for new elections.

Red shirts protest this week in Bangkok's commercial center. Photo by Flickr user Pittaya, used under a Creative Commons license.

They vow to stay put until Mr. Abhisit steps down. The red shirts believe Mr. Abhisit lacks legitimacy because neither he nor the political party he leads, the Democrat Party, has won a popular mandate in an election.

In many respects, the red shirts have borrowed a page from their political opponents’ playbook. The supporters of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) (also known as the “yellow shirts”) were successful when they took to the streets to help bring down former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in September 2006. Subsequent governments were surrogates for Mr. Thaksin. In response, the yellow shirts staged high-profile protests, including taking over the Government House for three months in 2008, followed shortly thereafter by shutting down Bangkok’s two major airports for a week.

Many of Thaksin’s supporters are furious over what they call “a silent coup,” led by members of Thailand’s established elite, including the military, which allowed Mr. Abhisit to form a government. In reality, since neither the Democrat Party nor the Puea Thai Party (to which the red shirts belong) received a majority of seats, Mr. Abhisit was able to cobble together a coalition of smaller parties to create a majority in the parliament. Members of this coalition had been previously aligned with Mr. Thaksin and then switched their allegiance to Mr. Abhisit and the Democrats. The optics may look lousy, but there is nothing illegal about this. As prime minister, Mr. Abhisit has the backing of the military and the palace, the likelihood of him being removed is remote. Mr. Abhisit will continue to rule, but how effectively remains in deep question.

Even if Mr. Abhisit were to capitulate to the red shirts’ demands to resign, a new election is unlikely to resolve Thailand’s political tensions. Neither the Puea Thai nor the Democrat Party would win an outright majority of seats in the Parliament. Therefore, smaller parties would play a critical role in how a new government would be formed. As political ideology has never played a factor in Thai politics, this would all be about who can cut the best deal by promising power and influence.

So when will things come to a head? Will there be violence? Last Buddhist New Year, the red shirts engaged in aggressive and violent acts causing loss of life, injuries, and damage to property. A car thought to be carrying Mr. Abhisit was viciously attacked and according to reports, had the prime minister been in the car, he very likely would have been killed. In the days before state of emergency declared today, the red shirts clashed with riot police and forced MPs to use ladders to scale the walls of parliament compound to escape. There appears to be a misconception in Thailand over the past few years that democracy equals intimidation — whether that means blockading major city intersections in Bangkok and forcing the country’s commercial center to close, tossing grenades at government buildings, shutting down a major international summit attended by Asian leaders, occupying the Government House, or closing a major international airport. It is these types of instances that behooved a retired Thai army general to comment to me recently: “Thailand’s political system is complicated, but lacks sophistication. The people understand the mechanics of what is involved in a democracy, but regrettably the public lacks the spirit.”

To his credit, Mr. Abhisit has never denied the red shirts the right to air their grievances, but has appealed to his opponents to work within the system rather than conducting mass protests on the street. But Mr. Abhisit’s appeal has not gained any resonance because many of these protesters have little or no faith in the political system. Conditions inside Thailand have been exacerbated by the failure of the country’s democratic institutions to bridge the divide between a new capitalist class that has won the backing of the rural poor with populist policies and an established elite that is seeking to maintain its traditional grip on power.

As Thais begin to celebrate their New Year among friends and family with the spiritual aspects of water and renewal, perhaps they will reflect upon the need for citizens to develop or rediscover that same public spirit to promote democracy, that rather ironically a former senior military officer said is missing. In all likelihood, it will take years before a political resolution is reached. Where ever one stands in the Thai body politic, this impasse is not something to feel celebratory about.

John J. Brandon, who briefly lived in Bangkok, Thailand, and continues to travel there regularly, is The Asia Foundation’s Director of International Relations Programs in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at jbrandon@asiafound-dc.org.

Apr 12, 2010

Panel Calls for Thai Premier’s Party to Be Dissolved - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

By THOMAS FULLER

BANGKOK — The battle of wills between the Thai government and tens of thousands of protesters barricaded in the streets of Bangkok appeared to turn in favor of the protesters Monday when the country’s army chief shunned a military solution to the crisis and the prime minister’s party suddenly and unexpectedly faced the prospect of dissolution.

Two days after repelling a blood-soaked military crackdown, the protesters cheered jubilantly at the announcement that Thailand’s election commission had recommended that the party of the prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva be disbanded on charges of receiving an illegal donation.

“This government’s time in power is nearly over,” said Veera Musikapong, a protest leader to throngs of protesters in the commercial heart of the city. Mr. Veera and other opposition figures said they would maintain their demonstrations to pressure Mr. Abhisit to resign.

The announcement by the election commission came hours after the head of the army, Gen. Anupong Paochinda, appeared to rule out further military action to remove protesters, saying “the situation requires that the problem be solved by politics.

Mr. Anupong also described the dissolution of parliament, the main goal of the protesters, as “a reasonable step.” The general’s comments were a stinging blow to Mr. Abhisit, who is portrayed by protesters as a puppet of Thailand’s elite and who came to power 16 months ago as part of a coalition brokered in part by the military.

For the past month, Mr. Abhisit’s besieged government has operated from a military base on the outskirts of the capital as protesters, many of them farmers from the provinces, expanded their debilitating street protests.

Mr. Abhisit has appeared increasingly isolated following thefailure of the military to dislodge protesters on Saturday after running battles that killed 21 people and made parts of Bangkok resemble a war zone. Erstwhile government supporters accused Mr. Abhisit of being powerless while the opposition decried the deaths.

Protesters have put important portions of Thailand’s capital city beyond the government’s control. Armed with sticks and poles, red shirted protesters have erected checkpoints at major intersections, blocking police and the military. Although not quite anarchy, the protests have created a vacuum of law and order.

Even outside the two large protest sites, some police say they have stopped issuing traffic tickets, despite an increase in the number of motorists running red lights, driving down the wrong side of the road and parking where they wish.

“If I can stop them I will. But if it puts us in danger, we will let them be,” said Police Lt. Col. Dejapiwat Dejsiri, a senior police official at a precinct in the tony Sukhumvit area of Bangkok. “It’s like there is no law anymore,” he said.

The Election Commission’s decision on Monday may tip the scales toward the opposition movement but it is unlikely to resolve the country’s underlying political crisis.

The commission’s recommendation will be forwarded to the attorney general and ultimately the country’s Constitutional Court. If found guilty, Mr. Abhisit’s Democrat Party, the country’s oldest, could be dissolved and it leaders, including Mr. Abhisit, barred from politics for 5 years.

The Democrat Party would be the third political party in three years to be dissolved.

“The system of political parties is on very shaky ground,” Gothom Arya, a former election commissioner. “There is no stability.” Mr. Gothom, among others, has called for revision of the law that holds the entire party accountable for electoral offenses.

The two parties disbanded earlier were affiliated with Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister removed in the 2006 military coup. Mr. Thaksin is a hero and inspiration for many in the current anti-government protest movement but is despised by some members of the elite who see him as corrupt.

The stalemate between protesters and the government is a reflection of deep divisions in Thai society that revolve around issues of income inequality and the power of unelected institutions such as the powerful bureaucracy, military and royal entourage.

These tensions have existed for years but one major stabilizing force in Thailand, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, has often been able to bridge divisions in the country. Many Thais are hoping that Mr. Bhumibol, who is 82 and ailing, will intervene to resolve the stalemate.

Thai television Monday carried remarks by the secretary-general of a charitable foundation, Sumet Tantivejkul, who has worked with the king on many projects.

“His Majesty the King has always warned ‘don’t demolish the house,’” Mr. Sumet said. “The house is now close to collapse. We have to protect the country.”

Image by Images History via Flickr

Signs of the protesters’ continued impunity were amply evident Monday. The Thai media reported that one group of red shirts abducted the head of the CAT Telecom, the state-owned telecommunications company. Several hundred protesters “guarded” a government satellite station, Thai media also said. Both actions were meant to prevent the army from carrying out orders to take an opposition-run television station off the air.

On the eve of the traditional Thai new year, large convoys of red shirts paraded coffins through Bangkok symbolizing the protesters killed on Saturday to illustrate what they said was the brutality of the government.

Law enforcement in Thailand has always been patchy and the freewheeling nature of Thai society has often been counted as an attribute for the country’s economic dynamism.

But the lawlessness of protests during the past four years of political turmoil, including the seizure of Bangkok’s two international airports 17 months ago, has frightened foreign investors and raised questions about the stability of the country.

The protests are driving away tourists and draining the resources of the state. Many police stations in Bangkok have threadbare staffs because officers have been mobilized to serve as riot police.

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.”