So . . . what do they want?

I’m losing sleep over this, it’s not good.

This morning I got up and watched the Thai news, more about that in a minute, and then switched to CNN to see how the world press is viewing things. What I saw just made my blood boil.

OK, two women. A WASPish-looking middle-aged anchor in the studio, and a Eurasian looking young lady on the ground in Bangkok. Let’s call them Fran and Lucy.

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Lucy is standing on a street with black smoke rising from burning tires behind her.

Fran (with an expression of grave concern on her face): “Lucy, this unrest has been going on for MONTHS! Could you just tell us what it is these protesters want?”

Lucy:”Well, Fran, it’s interesting you asked that. Actually . . . “
(Video cut to the protest stage, which has a banner above it with no Thai lettering, just the English words “PEACEFUL PROTESTERS. NOT TERRORISTS!” in front of the stage are thousands of quiet, seated people, many old, many women, and you’d guess from their dress they’re peasant-types)
“ . . . there are two groups of protesters. One is sitting peacefully in the center of the protest area listening to speakers on the stage. This group just wants the government to come back to the table and negotiate with them. But the other group . . .”
(Video cut to black-shirted young men taking cover behind tire barricades, jumping up now and then to shoot rockets or throw molotov cocktails, or use slingshots to someplace in front of them we can’t see)
“ . . . the other group thinks the time for negotiations is past, that this government is evil and can’t be negotiated with.”

Fran: “Thanks, Lucy, now we’ll go to our experts to see if they feel Thailand is on the verge of becoming a ‘failed state,’ or exactly what . . .”

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Now think about that. What information were we given? Did Lucy actually answer Fran’s question? (Cue: NO.) Wouldn’t you like an answer? (Cue: I hope so.) I sure don’t know why Lucy thought it was interesting that Fran had asked that.

Assuming you previously had known nothing about this conflict, you’d probably start thinking “failed state! Somalia!” and you wouldn’t have the slightest idea why any of these people were here.

We saw pictures of burning tires, smoke rising from buildings, soldiers marching along the street. It seemed the whole country must be in flames.

We were given entertainment, but absolutely no verbal information. We saw soldiers, smoke, fire, then people sitting peacefully, then young men throwing things. We saw a sign in English. And the next second we’re hearing “failed state.”

In a minute I’ll talk about what I personally saw inside the protest site on the first day of fighting. But first, another example of bad journalism. Yesterday, opening Yahoo, I saw the news headline: “Thai gov't rejects talks, defends deadly crackdown,” and went straight to it. The story was written by an AP reporter named Chris Blake. Actually his story doesn’t have any distortions in it that I can see, and does have some facts. but the headline, and the first two paragraphs, in other words, the “hook,” give a skewed view of what’s going on:

Anti-government unrest boiling over in downtown Bangkok spread to other areas of the capital and Thailand Sunday as the military defended its use of force in a crackdown that has left 30 civilians dead in four days. Thai leaders flatly rejected protesters' demands that the United Nations intercede to end the chaos.

Towering plumes of black smoke hung over city streets where protesters set fire to tires, fired homemade rockets and threw gasoline bombs at soldiers who used rubber bullets and live ammunition to pick off rioters who approached their lines. Army sharpshooters crouched behind sandbags carefully taking aim and firing to keep attackers at bay.

This is almost the same picture as the CNN report, just minus the people at the stage area.

It doesn’t give false information, but its innuendos and sins of omission are maddening. “Crackdown” is a loaded word. “Deadly” is worse. It gives the impression that the government is the agressor here. “flatly rejected” makes the government look harsh and unreasoning. The 30 “civilians” dead appear here to be the government’s fault, although Blake hasn’t actually said that.

So how do you find out what’s actually going on, who’s doing what to whom?

The first blog told you my opinion: the whole redshirt operation is a staged event, bought and paid for by former PM Thaksin Chinawat (how it sounds). It has some true believers, but the people doing the planning and running are doing it for money and power.

The set of the stage is a mile-square district in the richest commercial section of Bangkok. In the center of it is the redshirt stage, where speech, song, and chants start early in the morning and run till late at night. Radiating out from that are encampments along the streets that have been blocked to traffic, the streets that used to be fairly permanent traffic jams in place. The encampments are mostly under the SkyTrain public transport system: this provides shelter from sun, and somewhat from rain. The SkyTrain was, until a few days ago, running normally, so it was possible to get off at a couple of stations and descend directly into the camp. This is what I did every weekday, because I was taking an intensive Thai course at Chulalongkorn University, which is right down the block from one of the stations. Sometimes in the afternoon I’d just wander around inside, look at things, sometimes talk to people. They were generally friendly to me because they feel the rest of the world offers hope to them, they don’t generally feel threatened by Westerners. But they had set up fierce looking barriers to deter attempts to dislodge them.

Up until the end of last week, it was a bustling place, it seemed a third of them had set up shops to sell things to the other two thirds. Felt a bit like a street fair all the way from the center out to the barricades. The government had been stung by its loss in the street battle of April 10, and the loss of life that happened then. They had laid off any threatening moves, although when the redshirts had tried to move in and take over yet another commercial district, the Army had blocked them—to which the speakers on the stage shouted out, “the government is threatening you, the government is threatening you!”
PM Aphisit had come under fire from all sides. This two-month incursion had disrupted daily life, taken away an important part of the city from its people, and put 60,000 people out of work, without so much as a “beg your pardon” from the redshirt stage. There were rallies just as big as the ones the redshirts could muster, of “multicolored shirts,” people supporting government action to force them out, and, the “yellowshirts,” who hadn’t been seen for over a year, came out and called for Aphisit to resign because he wasn’t solving the problem.

But Aphisit had come out with a peace plan. If they would clear out of Bangkok, he’d give them what they wanted—dissolution of Parliament and new elections—but with a cooling-off period of four months before the dissolution. This would allow everyone to save face, the government would not have to cave in to force (though some would still claim it was doing just that), and the redshirts could declare victory and go home. They at first said tentatively yes, but they’d have to discuss it for a bit and then come back with a final answer. When they did, it was “yes, we’ll probably leave next Monday (a week and a half ago) but . . .” and the “but” was that for that to happen, the PM and deputy PM would have to turn themselves in on charges of murder for the April 10 deaths. Murder!

I thought that had to be a deal-breaker. First off, that was “moving the goalposts.” Secondly, it was like asking the government to grovel in the mud, negating any of the face-saving possibilities in Aphisit’s original plan. But lo! Suthep (Deputy PM) actually went down to CRES (Center for Resolution of the Emergency Situation) and faced the complaints they’d filed. Aphisit said he’d do the same when the Parliament session ended at the end of the week. Another chance to let the reddies claim victory. But do they take it? No, they moved the goalposts again: now they would only leave if he turned himself in to the POLICE, not CRES. This is when Aphisit said, OK, no deal. Now we’ll have to force you out.

Now would it have been too hard for Lucy, or whatever her name was, to have said that this was what the protesters were asking for, and that it had changed from what they’d originally been asking for? Maybe they don’t respect their viewers, thought that might be a little complex for them to understand. Or maybe just not as romantic as the “class struggle” theory, would have made them look petty instead of heroic.

OK, fast forward to last Friday. The government had the day before said their policy was going to essentially besiege the site, let people out, but no new people or supplies in. Starve them out, make it uncomfortable. The newspapers all showed this area on maps, saying they’d be closed as of Thursday night. The Skytrain would no longer stop at stations in that area.

I had just taken my final exam at Chula on Wednesday, but had a take-home that was due Friday morning. The news Thurs. night said Chula would be closed Friday, and I didn’t have much hope of getting through the troop lines, but I thought I’d try anyhow. At least I could get up closer and see what was going on. I—and just about everyone I knew—had been dying for the government to just get in there and run the bums out.

Hey, I feel terrible saying that, I’m an old-time Berkeley protester, I was a monitor on the People’s Park march in ’68! And I haven’t gone right-wing nutcase, I still believe in all the good stuff, social equality, equal opportunity, the government is there to serve the people, etc. etc. But this protest just smelled rotten from the beginning. It’s a fake. It’s using real issues to mask the actual intent. And the people on the stage are telling lies and taking responsibility for nothing. That’s why they deserve to be run out.

Hey, this is getting really long. Courage, reader, we near the end (quote from Will Durant). Or do we? OK, I can’t write as much tonight as I was planning, didn’t get enough sleep last night. So, let me leave you with the teaser:

So last Friday morning I went down to see if I could get through the cordon into the “sealed-off” area and turn in my take-home test. I got on the SkyTrain, knowing it wouldn’t stop where I was going, but figuring I’d go to the next stop and walk back.

But the Skytrain took me only within four stations of that area, and everyone had to get out. So I had a long walk. And I'd still be on the opposite side, a mile away from Chula.

Tomorrow: what I saw on Friday.