Thailand: Revolution in Bangkok?

[TonyGosling]

Thai authorities reject protestors call for UN mediation
Sunday, 16, May 2010 04:51 - By Sarah Garrod.
Thai authorities are said to have rejected pleas from protestors in Bangkok for UN-mediated peace talks to settle the dispute.
The government told protestors they must surrender, following four days of increasingly violent clashes between anti-government red shirt protestors and security forces.
The talks were proposed by a protest leader, but authorities said they would not negotiate, telling protestors to leave the streets of the Thai capital Bangkok.
At least 29 people have died since Thursday, when soldiers moved in to remove the demonstrators from their encampment in the city's shopping district. The red shirts are calling for prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to resign, and have been demonstrating in the Thai capital for nearly two months now............
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/world/asia-pacific/thai-authorities-re ject-protestors-call-for-un-mediation-$21377615.htm

[paul wright]

I haven't understood this at all. I just see repeated colour-coded rebellion. We had orange, green and now red. Is this real or all contrived

[TonyGosling]

They want a free press and electons - plus four more demands - not too much to ask for surely so why isn't the Foreign Office supporting them?
These people are us.
They are on Facebook and have their own websites

http://uddtoday.ning.com/

http://thailand.media140.org/bangkok/%3fp=1192

http://www.thailandvoice.com/

http://www.uddthailand.com/

http://www.uddtoday.ning.com/

[TonyGosling]

Protests raged in the Thai capital on Sunday, but the government offered safe passage to protesters willing to go home.
We will die rather than give in, say Red Shirts

Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SP1HO30WT0

http://www.youtube.com/uddtoday

[TonyGosling]

There's something archetypal about what's been going on in Thailand.
The people can always be pushed and pushed, taxed and taxed while they watch the rich and powerful simply using that tax money to fulfil their own dour dreams. At some point it will always snap and the people will get off their bums to demand representation of their governors.
The media can delay this or accellerate it to a large extent.
The Thai protesters were well organised but realy need to convene themselves into a replacement government and show they are up to the job, then IMO the Thai monarchy and tyranny might just wither.

The only way to justify increasing poverty - recessions etc - is when there is an external threat. Hence the War Of Terror and our increasingly biased press. First Thailand, then Greece, then us.

[TonyGosling]

An excellent history of the inside track on Thailand's Hstry from the Morning Star

Thailand's class divide
Morning Star - Tuesday 18 May 2010

Thailand is a deeply divided society. Its level of social inequality is stark even in comparison with some of its regional neighbours.
A recent survey by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) showed that the richest 20 per cent of the Thai population own 56 per cent of the country's wealth, while the bottom 60 per cent has less than 25 per cent.
This inequality is at the heart of the conflict engulfing Thailand at the moment.
Around five million Thais live below the official poverty line, which is equivalent to £23.60 per month. While the bulk of poverty-stricken Thais in the rural areas of the north and north-east, around 1.3 million of the total are the urban poor.
The past 20 years have seen an acceleration of urbanisation as rural inhabitants have migrated to the cities, such as Bangkok and Chiang Mai, as well as to the international tourist resorts of Phuket and Koh Samui, in search of jobs.
In 1980, around 70 per cent of the country's workforce was rural. Today the figure is just over 40 per cent.
However this urbanisation has not resulted in the creation of a stable working class and in turn accounts for the weak presence of an organised labour movement in the current struggles.
Figures show that out of 11 million workers in the private sector, less than 3 per cent were unionised. The labour movement is divided into as many as 10 different trade union congresses.
The private-sector unions are often only organised at a single factory level, therefore their average membership is just a couple of hundred per union, a figure well below the critical mass for effective struggle.
During 2008 and 2009, the Thai Labour Ministry registered only 133 labour disputes and six strikes across the whole country.
Around one-quarter of the entire urban Thai labour force is engaged in the so-called informal sector - in other words they have no stable employment, no contracts, no regular salaries and no social insurance protection.
The figure is even higher among the rural workforce.
Even in key sectors such as manufacturing and construction, informal workers make up 22.1 and 47.8 per cent of those engaged in these industries. In the transport and hotel industries (critically important to Thailand's tourism industry), the figures rise to 51 and 73 per cent respectively.
In total, around 65 per cent of the Thai workforce have no social insurance.
Despite Thailand itself being a low-wage economy, large numbers of migrant workers from neighbouring countries are also employed at rates substantially lower than the Thais. There are an estimated 1.6 million registered migrant workers and perhaps a million more unregistered. This depresses wage levels, makes union organisation among these vulnerable workers immensely difficult and provides convenient scapegoats for economic and social problems.
In the countryside, things are no better. Although a highly productive agricultural economy, Thailand's farmers face huge difficulties in making ends meet.
In 2003, there were 5.8 million families with agricultural land, but 1.4 million owned less than 0.8 hectares. As a result, rural families are often reliant on loans and remittances from relatives who have gone to the cities.
The rural areas have also suffered from deprivation in terms of poor infrastructure and communications, as well as unreliable access to education and health services.
This last point is crucial. Ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra built his support on providing cheap health care to the majority of Thais. If there is one single issue that secured his electoral base it was this.
Until recently, accessible health care was available to the wealthy and to those living in cities. According to the World Health Organisation, in 2000-6 there were four physicians for every 10,000 people in Thailand, compared with 12 in the Philippines and 15 in Singapore. Even socialist Vietnam, a country with a substantially smaller GDP than Thailand, has six doctors per 10,000 people.
The doctors who do exist are also concentrated disproportionately in wealthier regions. In Bangkok there is one doctor to every 850 people, but in the mountainous Loei province there is only one for every 14,159 people.
Thaksin's first government introduced the Universal Health Care (UHC) system in 2001 to provide affordable medical treatment for all Thais.
By 2007, 63.2 million people out of the total population of 66 million had some form of health insurance coverage. Around eight million were covered as employees contributing to the social security fund, six million as government staff, state enterprise employees or retirees or family members, 1.4 million were covered by company schemes and 0.6 million under other schemes.
However, it was opening up access to health care for the remaining 48.4 million of the Thai population that transformed the landscape.
This hitherto unprotected and neglected section of Thai people were issued with cards entitling them to health care for a fee of 30 baht (around 65p) per doctor or hospital visit. This fee was then eliminated in 2007.
According to researchers, this one scheme alone enabled one million Thais to rise above the official poverty line. It ensured Thaksin's political base.
This yawning social divide is at the heart of the current crisis. It is no longer hidden but has now become an undeniable part of the conflict that has moved well beyond a campaign to reinstate Thaksin. Thailand's democratic and class struggles are now effectively intertwined.
A turbulent history...
Few countries have suffered as much from the big screen as Thailand. Patronised in Hollywood's King and I, eroticised in the soft-porn Emanuelle and portrayed as a hedonistic playground in The Beach, this beautiful and complex country has been reduced to a series of Western-imposed cliches that fit the stereotypes of submissive, duplicitous and sensuous Orientals.
Official histories in Thailand are little better, portraying virtuous, noble monarchs leading a proud and united Thai people resisting foreign domination for century after century.
This is no academic exercise in historical debate. Conservative and semi-fascist forces in Thailand today attempt to portray the Red Shirt opposition as opponents of this idealised Thai nation. Rightwingers imply that the pro-democracy demonstrators are not really Thai, not simply that their loyalties are suspect but that somehow they have betrayed their bloodline.
Dr Tul Sitthisomwong, a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Medicine, was quoted in the Thai media as saying that "speaking as a doctor, love for the country and the king was embedded only in Thais' DNA, not that of other peoples. It was a pity that many Thais had mutated and did not have the love for the king in their DNA and should not be called Thai."
Naturally the truth is a little more complex.
The modern kingdom of Thailand was internationally known as Siam until 1932. The word Thai is in derived from the term Tai, used to describe a broader ethnic group, who originated in south-western China and migrated southwards over 1,000 years ago.
Over several centuries, these Tai peoples gradually established their own principalities and statelets and fought long-running wars with neighbouring peoples, such as the Burmese, Khmer, Vietnamese and Malays, each seeking to stake a claim to contested territory.
Much of the land they settled in had once been part of a network of mixed Hindu and Buddhist states. This was a reflection of Indian cultural influence that stretched from the subcontinent through south-east Asia, reaching as far as the Indonesian island of Bali, which is still Hindu today.
These states were highly advanced, as shown by the famous Angkor Wat complex in Cambodia, originally built to honour the Hindu god Vishnu but adapted to later Buddhist influences.
Even today, the US-born Thai king Bhumibol includes among his titles Rama Maharaja - a reference to the country's Hindu influences. The Thai monarchy still uses many Sanskrit-derived terms in its honorific titles.
By the late 1700s, the ethnically Tai state of Siam had become a powerful regional force. It eventually settled its capital at Bangkok after Burmese invaders sacked its previous one at Ayutthaya.
As in feudal Europe, Siam was created as a result of the absorption and unification of a number of minor states through diplomacy, invasion or alliance. Its influence extended to a number of surrounding regions, some also ethnically Tai such as the Shan States in modern Myanmar, what is today Laos, parts of south-west China, as well as to weaker non-Tai neighbours such as the Malay sultanates and Cambodia.
However, with the arrival of European powers seeking colonies in Asia, a second set of factors began to shape the emergence of modern Thailand.
Despite Thai pride that the country was never colonised, the truth is that a helpless Thai ruling class bargained away large swathes of territory in ransom to British and French imperialism.
Following Britain's consolidation of colonial rule in India and in the Malayan peninsula, Britain looked to incorporate the patchwork of small principalities and sultanates that were under the Thai throne. By the late 1890s, the British empire had annexed the Shan States to British Burma and several sultanates to British Malaya. The French were no less active, adding Cambodia, a Thai vassal state, and the Tai-speaking territories of Laos, to French Indochina.
These steps effectively put Thailand in a vice, squeezed by the British from the west and south and the French from the east.
However, neither the British nor French were keen on directly sharing borders of their possessions. Thailand's independence was guaranteed, therefore, only as a buffer state.
An avalanche of treaties, invariably broken and then renegotiated to their benefit by the colonial powers, saw 25,000 square miles of Thai-controlled territory lost to the European colonialists in the 19th century.
In 1896, an Anglo-French convention defined spheres of influence in south-east Asia, which formalised Thailand's status.
As elsewhere, the arbitrary partition of territories to satisfy the desires of outside powers meant many unresolved territorial disputes and ethnic anomalies.
In recent years, three provinces in southern Thailand, Pattani Yala and Narathiwat, the remnants of the Malay sultanate of Pattani, have been the scene of a bloody insurgency by its ethnically Malay and Muslim inhabitants against the Thai state.
Border tensions between Thailand, Laos and Cambodia likewise have their roots not in a mutually agreed negotiation of frontiers but on those imposed on both countries over a century ago.
This country's fascinating history has again become a battleground as political forces on both sides seek to mobilise the ghosts of the past as allies in the struggles of the present.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/90 499

[TonyGosling]

Tony Cartalucci - Just a Lousy Journalist?
18th April 2011

Tony Cartalucci has written prolifically on the political turmoil in Thailand. His writing focuses on the International dimension; the foreign interference in Thailand. While there is no doubt that no nation is an island and foreign groups with their own agendas interfere in all nations for their own personal ends, Tony has been very selective in which foreign groups he writes on, what their intentions are and who they work with in Thailand. I write now to expose some of the glaring omissions he has purposefully made and encourage you to ask; What groups does this foreigner in Thailand belong to and what is his agenda?

I have been aware of his work for a year now. It started with the tragic events in Bangkok. Protesters were gunned down, soldiers died too, and foreign journalists, nurses and emergency workers were killed too, even delivery boys going about their business were gunned down. Tony, in his article 'Thailand's Thaksin Shinwatra, Marxists, and the NWO', immediately highlighted the incontestable facts that the ousted Prime Minister Thaksin had worked with the Carlyle Group.

He writes of the protesters as 'ignorant', 'programmed' and 'conditioned with Maoist/Marxist techniques', a 'mob' of 'communists' and 'terrorists' who will turn Thailand into a 'corporate fascist bloc' and have it rolled into ASEAN. 'Dupes' and 'stooges' led by Thaksin who is in turn led by Western Imperialists. It's important to point out at this juncture that the red in the Thai Flag represents the Thai people. This is why they have chosen to be a Red Movement, it is not a left wing movement, it encompasses all of the common people of Thailand.

Over the period of a year he continued along the same vein and added further incontestable facts to his writing. Thaksin was in the Council on Foreign Relations. The International Crisis Group has worked in Thailand, as has Freedom House and The National Endowment for Democracy. He has also continued with his nationalist ideological writing, praising the currently unelected government and Thai nationalists, while condemning all that they condemn with a fierce and violent passion; Highlighting some realities in Thailand such as the lax approach to enforcing Intellectual Property rights to essential drugs, which can not honestly be attributed to any political faction, and attributing them to the nationalists.

What follows is not so much a defence of the Red Movement, it's purpose is to provide a clearer and truer picture of the situation in Thailand. A response to the nationalist demagoguery of Tony Cartalucci's contrived and deceptive polemic.

Perhaps, we should start with some glaring omissions.



Anand Panyarachun

Anand Panyarachun is a former Thai Prime Minister, a regular speaker at anti-Thaksin and anti-Red rallies. He was also a member of the Carlyle Asia Advisory Board. He, however, remained on the board for three years more than Thaksin, who left in 2001. Anand only left when the board was disbanded in 2004. He supported the military coup which ousted Thaksin and was surprised that the international community condemned it. He has sat with George W. Bush at the Global Leadership Foundation. Advised GE and AIG. Is a member of the CFR, UNICEF. The list goes on and on.

And so, the first questions arises; Who is more intimately linked with Western interests? Who is 'handled by Globalist Masters'? Why was Anand surprised by international condemnation of the coup?



Surin Pitsuwan

Surin Pitsuwan is another opponent of Thaksin and a 2006 coup supporter. “This, in a nutshell, is former Thai foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan's analysis of recent political upheavals that plagued his country. Speaking at an 'Asian Voices' seminar in Brussels, Belgium, the director of Thailand's Democratic Party believed that democracy did not die in the coup led by army general Sonthi Boonyaratklin, but was, in fact, saved just in time.�

“He is currently on the Advisory Board of the International Crisis Group (ICG); a member of the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York; He was nominated by the Royal Thai Government and endorsed by ASEAN Leaders to be ASEAN Secretary-General for year 2008- 2012.�



Mechai Viravaidya

Yet another high ranking opponent of Thaksin who supported the 2006 coup. The BBC quoted Senator Mechai Viravaidya as saying, "I'm delighted he's gone,"

He received money and an award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for his work on family planning which saw one of the most rapid declines in fertility in modern history. He also received the UN population award and was appointed UNAIDS Ambassador. As head of Thailand's largest NGO, he is not alone in coming out in support of nationalists as the vast majority of Thai NGOs are funded by the Thai government and support their funders in their opposition of the Red Movement.



General Prem Tinsulanonda

“General Prem Tinsulanonda now serves as the Head of the Privy Council of the King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej.�

“Prem found himself named as a leading player in the Thailand political crisis of 2005-2006. Before and during the mass protest of Thaksin's supporters, the UDD, Thaksin started mentioning the name of Prem publicly. The UDD leaders harshly blasted Prem for meddling in politics, calling him by using a term of 'ammatya' or 'aristocrat', as a threat to democracy since he has never been democratically elected.�

General Prem Tinsulanonda was Chief Advisor to the CP Group., the largest business conglomerate in Thailand who have a business relationship with the Bush family, until he left after investigations started into financial irregularities. The Carlyle Group announced an acquisition of interests in CP Group for US$175 Million, and General Prem remains embroiled in accusations of financial irregularities as businesses including the Carlyle Group's CP Group continued to make donations to his foundations.



Abhisit Vejjajiva

The current Prime Minister of Thailand, Abhisit Vejjajiva, was named 'one of 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in 1992. In 1998 he became Knight Grand Cordon of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand and in 1999, Knight Grand Cordon (Special Class) of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant. He became unelected Prime Minister of Thailand in 2008.

Above are a just a few influential Thai people with links to the same organisations as Thaksin, and more. Tony Cartalucci accuses these organisations of being foreign bodies interfering in Thailand's domestic politics via Thaksin and the Red Movement.

Again the questions arise; Who is more influenced by these foreign interests? Why does Tony only highlight Thaksin's links and not the links of the enormously powerful and influential opponents of Thaksin?



Omission of the IMF

Tony Cartalucci has stated that “Thailand's answer to the IMF, and globalization in general was profound in both implications as well as in its understanding of globalization's end game.� He credits anti-IMF policies to Thaksin's opposition and fails to mention that;


“Thailand was a severely compromised democracy by the time Thaksin won the 2001 election on an anti-IMF platform. In his first year in office, he inaugurated three heavy spending programmes that directly contradicted the IMF edicts: a moratorium on farmers' existing debt, along with facilitating new credit for them; medical treatment for all at only 30 baht (less than a dollar) per illness; and a one million baht fund for every district to invest as it saw fit.


These policies did not bring on the inflationary crisis that the IMF and conservative local economists expected. Instead they buoyed the economy and cemented Thaksin's massive support among the rural and urban poor.This was the 'good' side of Thaksin.�

Thailand now has IMF debt increasing under Abhisit. Paying off this debt will inevitably result in less public spending and higher taxes. New taxes are also being introduced such as the Land Tax which is currently going through parliament.

The IMF has recently praised Thailand under Thaksin's opposition for giving public money to private companies.

Asia Times noted before the 2006 coup that “Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was elected in 2001 on a strongly populist economic platform now widely referred to as Thaksinomics. Since that time, Thaksin's populist policies have succeeded in producing rapid economic growth. The only factor that could derail Thailand's economy is the remote risk of social instability.�

The question has to asked; Were the IMF instrumental in creating this social instability that came about with the advent of the Yellow Shirts who preceded the Red Movement?



American Involvement?

It's interesting to note the events that led up to the final massacre at Ratchaprasong. RSO Randall Bennet from the US Embassy at an on-line meeting wrote,

"If anything, the Army has been extremely patient and while being attacked by Red-Shirts with lethal weapons, has responded with rubber bullets to minimize casualties. The Army has not been the aggressor in this case."

On the Sunday morning US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt M. Campbell met Thai government officials and Red Movement leaders. He said that he strongly supported the government and urged the Reds to follow the government's recommendations.

By the afternoon the Thai government stated that it had a secretive new plan to disperse the Reds.

On the Monday morning Thai and US governments were distanced by a report published in Thai newspapers.
On the Thursday evening The New York Times interviewed Seh Deang where he was shot by a sniper after which a barrage of bullets entered the protest site killing and wounding many unarmed protesters and culminating in the end of the two month protest calling for fresh elections to replace an unelected government.


It's also interesting to note the presence of Americans, such as Michael Yon, at the protest telling the protesters to give up and go home.

“After some shooting started, this guy with weapons T-shirt and a firework stopped me and asked me to email him his photo. Interesting that part of his email address was "M203," which is a 40mm grenade launcher similar to M79. I emailed him a photo and asked him to go home.�



Who is Tony Cartalucci?

Tony Cartalucci doesn't reveal much about himself beyond being a Bangkok based writer. Further information on him can only be deduced from his writing or gleaned from the comments sections of his articles.

According to various comments, if they are to be believed, he has been a US Marine and conscientious objector;

“while I was in the Marine Corps - I never killed children, nor anyone not armed. Eventually, when I woke up, I refused orders and spent a month in solitary confinement in defense of my convictions. I am not proud of what I did as a Marine and I have dedicated my life to make reconciliation for what I've done.�

By looking at his writings and the reader's comments we can deduce that he is an American living in Thailand, supporting the Thai Nationalists.



Thailand's Nationalists

Thai Nationalists have completely dismissed Wikileaks as a whole. This may be due to the fact that leaks purported to reveal that some nationalists planned on killing dozens of their own followers in order to gain sympathetic support and demonise the Red Movement. Other leaks placed the spotlight on the nationalist leadership committing Lese Majeste.

The Thai Patriots Network have ex-communists within their ranks and have called for an uprising against elected governments as a whole along with an invasion of Cambodia to seize Angkor Wat.

“Elected politicians create more economic and social problems, and more threats to people’s freedom, … ‘We must stand up and be united. On the dday that we mobilize our people, we have to come out in full force. Soldiers, police, and government officials should stand up for the good of the country. When the day comes, everyone must come out to make changes ourselves. We have to cooperate and help ourselves first, and angels and gods will help us.'

The current government is now paying communist rebels 500 million THB, fulfilling a promise given by General Prem Tinsulanonda.

Despite communists morphing into nationalists, government supporters morphing into government opposers and all of the constant change in Thai loyalties they still seem to remain loyal to American money. Tony Cartalucci states that;

Abhisit's “government … has been steadily distancing itseelf from free-trade with the US, ignoring US calls to enforce “intellectual property,â€� and pursuing a more protectionist policy in regards to the West and its unraveling economy.â€�

The hyperlink he provides is four years old and Thailand has always been lax on intellectual property rights regardless of whether leaders were elected, unelected, military juntas or even Thaksin himself. I wonder if Tony noticed that the article he linked to told of how Thaksin's unelected predecessors were working directly with the Clinton Foundation. Perhaps not. Be assured though, if Thaksin was in anyway involved with the foundation, it would have been labelled an untrustworthy New World Order foundation.

Regardless of whether or not the Clinton Foundation is good or evil, the fact remains that Tony's point is contrary to this more recent article highlighting closer free-trade links with the US;

“The recent road show to the US held by Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) showed the country received confirmation from giant American investors of their investment expansion projects, according to Minister of Industry Chaiwuti Bannawat who led the road show."



Article 112

Thai Nationalists naturally claim to love their royal family and illustrate their love by accusing people of Lese Majeste, and even sedition. Article 112 of the Thai Constitution protects royalty from criticism and insult. The Lese Majeste law could see those whose body language is deemed to be insulting to Thai Royalty imprisoned for decades. Cases of Lese Majeste have increased by 13,000% since the 2006 coup, and internet censorship and monitoring has also increased enormously most probably due to the movement against Article 112, which is currently growing exponentially.



Just a Lousy Journalist?

This article has only skimmed the surface of the situation in Thailand. It could continue indefinitely, but this writer presumes that enough evidence has been presented to readers. It concludes that Tony Cartalucci's writing on Thailand can not be trusted as objective descriptions of western interference in Thailand. They are, in fact, polemics against Thaksin and the Red Movement within which he presents carefully selected facts to suit a partisan argument against a section of the Thai people who have genuine grievances against their establishment. Those readers who believe in a New World Order hell bent on global corporate rule and depopulation may wish to continue research into such things as live Polio vaccines being administered by the current regime in a country that hasn't had a case of Polio for over 50 years. Or, perhaps the lax approach the regime has towards drinking water, including bottled water, being unfit for consumption due to the high levels of fluoride and other pollutants.

And remember what Roosevelt alluded to, human history has always seen the rich and powerful taking advantage of the poor and the weak and they killed whole swaths of people before the word eugenics was ever dreamt up.

In regards to Tony Cartalucci, who seems only to parrot what Thai members of the ICG, CFR and other globalist organisations say, it is suggested that if he is so concerned with foreign interference in Thailand, maybe he should consider stopping his own interference and stop his association fallacies.








http://www.g-l-f.org/index.cfm?pagePath=Members/Biography_Bin/Biograph y_Anand_Panyarachun&id=23591

http://www.ipsnewsasia.net/bridgesfromasia/node/88

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