I won’t be posting anything here until Monday, April 20. Songkran — the Thai new year — fast approaches.
As ever, for updates on events here in Thailand, you can consult Google News, the Nation newspaper, or the Bangkok Post.
See you soon.
Here’s a short video and some images I snapped at Bangkok’s Government House yesterday, where tens of thousands of anti-government protesters gathered to demand the resignation of Thailand’s prime minister. (More details on my observations from yesterday are here.)
I took this 32-second video clip (embedded below) near the main stage:
And below are the pics. You can find five more images on Flickr here. Click the images for bigger versions.
Protesters with a banner near the main stage
Listening to a speech
Cheering
One of many banners
The latest from Bangkok: red-shirt protesters have shut down the Victory Monument area, one of the city’s busiest intersections, with parked taxis.
Here’s more from The Straits Times, The Nation, and the Bangkok Post.
Tens of thousands of red-shirt (anti-government) protesters descended on Government House here in Bangkok today to demand that Prime Minister Abhisit step down. I spent a few hours there speaking with demonstrators and taking in the scene.
Some observations, a few of which I mentioned in various tweets earlier today:
One man, a 34-year-old taxi driver from Bangkok, told me that he didn’t like Thaksin, in fact, but that he wanted a change in government. “I want democracy but I didn’t come for Thaksin,” he said. “I want democracy…I don’t like Abhisit. He came to power not through democracy.”
For ongoing updates the protests, you can search Google News or consult the Bangkok Post or Nation newspapers.
Many people here in Bangkok are talking about the large UDD (anti-government) protest planned for tomorrow (Wed. the 8th).
Today’s Bangkok Post has this story: “PM ready to quell uprising”
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva insists the government will not allow “a civil war or a people’s uprising” as fears of a possible bloodbath were raised ahead of Wednesday’s major red-shirt protest at Government House.
In a special televised address to the nation Monday night, Mr Abhisit said there were concerns Wednesday’s rally would escalate into civil war or a people’s revolution but he wanted to assure that the government would take steps under the law to stop this happening.
The prime minister also urged the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship protesters to refrain from any actions deemed to affect the country’s key institutions and national security.
He assured people that security forces were well-prepared and would work in unison to ensure the red-shirt protest proceeded under the rule of law.
For background information, here’s a recent CSM story: “In Thailand, populist protesters turn the tables on the government.”
Today’s Bangkok Post has a story about a UDD (anti-government) rally planned for Wednesday, April 8 and the possible return of the PAD: “PAD plans revolt against red shirts” Sub-hed: “Fears of bloodshed spark comeback plans”
The People’s Alliance for Democracy is pledging to stage a comeback and mount a counter-rally if the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship’s political gathering on Wednesday escalates into violence.
The PAD, which has kept a low profile since the Democrat-led coalition government came to power in December, fears the red-shirt rally could deteriorate into violence and lead to military intervention.
Supporters of Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda will also hold a rally on Wednesday, raising fears they could be on a collision course with the red shirts.
The PAD, you’ll recall, is the group that shut down Bangkok’s international airport for a week in late November.
Today’s WSJ has this story: “Thaksin Ups Ante In Thai Struggle”
BANGKOK — Thailand’s fugitive former leader, Thaksin Shinawatra, has picked a fight from which he may find it hard to back down — and which economists say could hinder this Southeast Asian economy’s efforts to recover from the global slump.
Mr. Thaksin on Friday rejected the Thai government’s offer of talks to resolve political conflicts. He told his supporters — who are barricading the main government complex in Bangkok — to prepare for a “people’s revolution” in defense of democracy.
“Negotiation is out of the question. We are talking about the nation’s future now,” Mr. Thaksin told cheering supporters in a live video link from an undisclosed location overseas. He urged people to turn out for a mass show of support in Bangkok on April 8.
BBC (with image): “Thai ‘Spider-Man’ to the rescue”
An unusual disguise has helped a Bangkok fireman rescue an eight-year-old boy who had climbed on to a third-floor window ledge, Thai police say.
The firefighter dressed up as the comic book superhero Spider-Man in order to coax the boy, who is autistic, from his dangerous perch.
AFP: “Thai fireman in ‘spider-man’ rescue of autistic boy”
A Thai fireman turned superhero when he dressed up as comic-book character Spider-Man to coax a frightened eight-year-old from a balcony, police said Tuesday.
Teachers at a special needs school in Bangkok alerted authorities on Monday when an autistic pupil, scared of attending his first day at school, sat out on the third-floor ledge and refused to come inside, a police sergeant told AFP.
Despite teachers’ efforts to beckon the boy inside, he refused to budge until his mother mentioned her son’s love of superheroes, prompting fireman Sonchai Yoosabai to take a novel approach to the problem.
Chulalongkorn University political science professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak has a column in today’s Bangkok Post on the current state of Thai politics: “Censure may serve to strengthen govt”
Some snips:
After three months in office, the Democrat party-led coalition government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has defied expectations by holding ground and beginning to consolidate its rule.
Mr Abhisit has shown a steady temperament and sound grasp of policy issues, having reassured many foreign audiences near and far about Thailand’s readiness to move on. The favourable international reception he has earned has fed into his legitimacy and standing at home.
In the face of the global economic turmoil, his government’s various stimulus packages have been rolled out in succession, and more are in store. His Establishment backing remains intact, despite cracks in the Democrat party’s alliance with the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) whose street protests indirectly facilitated the party’s path to power.
As intra-coalition squabbling and corruption scandals along with the adverse effects from the economic downturn are likely to be the Abhisit government’s chief challenges, the no-confidence motion in Parliament, which has been moved up by a week as an apparent tactic to throw the opposition off balance, is unlikely to sap government stability.
And there’s this, about the current squabbling over whether to close Bangkok’s Don Mueang airport:
The no-confidence vote will likely go down along party lines. As long as the Newin Chidchob faction, a breakaway coterie of old-style politicians from Puea Thai, supports the government, Mr Abhisit’s coalition is likely to sail through comfortably. Cracks within the coalition based on the Newin faction’s vested interests may cast doubt on the final vote. The Newin backers, who have insisted on centralising all commercial flights at the main Suvarnabhumi Airport to the benefit of a duty-free monopoly and construction firms with interests to expand the near-capacity airport, will try to exercise leverage on the no-confidence vote.
This is why Mr Abhisit, who disagrees with abandoning the older Don Meuang International Airport, is being flexible on the one-airport policy.
And on Thaksin:
Thaksin himself, exiled and under a criminal conviction, is fully rallying his UDD troops through video-conferences from unspecified places overseas. Conspicuously on the offensive, Thaksin is desperate with few attractive places to reside. He appears to want to make a deal, and somehow navigate a way back to the country in view of his lost power and his more than $2 billion in assets frozen by the authorities after the September 2006 military coup.
But distance and time have been unkind to Thaksin. His phenomenon is still potent enough to agitate and stir up trouble for the government, but not enough to depose it in the way the PAD and Establishment forces overthrew his proxy governments under Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsawat last year.
Mr Abhisit now has the upper hand. Unless Puea Thai comes up with damning evidence on corruption and misrule, the Abhisit government is likely not only to survive but to build on its nascent momentum for a lasting term, whose longevity may be more determined by intra-coalition management and the adverse impact of the economic slump.
Some snips from an interesting Global Post story: “McDreaming in Thailand”
The girls bunked three-deep in a run-down Best Value Inn room, each of them far from home and earning minimum wage at the McDonald’s franchise inside Pittsburgh International Airport.
Jiratchaya Intarakhumwong and her friends — law, English and business students at some of Thailand’s most elite universities — had adopted an immigrant’s life.
Jiratchaya would wake before the first light, don her McDonald’s uniform in cramped quarters and catch a shuttle bus to the airport. The morning shift began at 6 a.m.
The days were long, the work was repetitive and customers sometimes grew impatient with her sparse English. But after her tour was over, she arrived back in Bangkok with a highly sought after bullet point on her resume: foreign work experience.
This summer, thousands of young Thais will replicate Jiratchaya’s experience in America, piling into cheap hotels and apartments to work jobs often left to poor Americans and immigrants with few options.
The Thai students, however, will actually pay for the privilege of frying burgers and bagging fries.
This phenomenon is known as “work trah-VUHL” in Thai. It’s fueled by Bangkok’s upper-middle class families, who pay work travel agencies upwards of $3,000 — a small fortune in Thai currency — to arrange fast food jobs in America. And it’s a testament to Thai employers’ high regard for American work experience, even if that experience consists of ringing up Big Macs.
And:
In the highly competitive post-college job circuit, a stint abroad shows initiative. Even former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra once worked at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in the U.S.