OK, Bangkok. Thailand. This is how I see it.

Some years ago, back in California, my friend Grace Davis said "hey, you write well, you've got things to say, get your voice out there, start blogging!" At the time I responded that I had trouble with a form of writing which requires you to read back-to-front, in other words beginning with the most recent thoughts and having to move backwards, sometimes seemingly forever, to pick up background. I did post a blog (you'll see if you scroll way down) 2 years ago, only one, about the last part of my trip when I moved to Thailand, and it's sat there forgotten ever since.

But, bloggeroos, I guess the time has come to attempt this form, because . . . you know why! It's a mess here right now, I gotta talk to someone. Added to that, I haven't seen much intelligent discussion in the world press. There's some pretty important stuff going on in Bangkok, and in Thailand generally, and most people who don't live here are getting very shallow, and often skewed, news and analysis. I'd like to show where corrections need to be made to the misinformation gushing out of here. A lot of the mass media are trying to wrap this up in tidy little packages more designed to entertain than edify, and sorry 'bout that, AP and CNN and all the rest of you cute little worlwide cuties are not going very deep.

Actually, AP, New York Times, et al., you don't have to go all that deep, just talk to more people, don't look so much at the slogans that are being tossed around, or what other people are writing, or what some year-old poll said, or talk to the "sexiest" characters in the game, but find out what ordinary people on the ground think, people like me, people like one of the 60,000 Thais who have been thrown out of work for two months. Take a trip up to the Northeast, the supposed hotbed of redshirtism, and interview some ordinary people there, peasants, shopkeepers, teachers, government workers. Don't go out looking for something supporting the fashionable point of view, or whatever opinions you may already have, just find out what people really think.

I've been up to the Northeast, most recently in December, visiting some of my many Thai friends, talking about things with them. I used to live up there, now I live in Bangkok. I speak Thai, I more or less speak Lao. I read Thai. I have been following this situation since the 2006 coup. I've read Paul Handley's book, That-Which-Must-Not-Be-Spoken here. I'm rereading it now. For the last 6 weeks I walked through the redshirt-occupied zone every Monday through Friday, on the way to and from my studies at Chulalongkorn University. I have read their posters, bought their DVDs. I have listened to the non-stop blaming and shouting from the protest stage, I understand what they're saying. So I suppose I have a right to an opinion. I'm always open to something someone else tells me, but I'm telling you, while this is a complex situation, it does not fit the picture of the downtrodden masses righteously challenging the power elite. That ain't it.

The next paragraphs are a summary I sent out to my Peace Corps Thailand Group 11 friends, the folks who shared an adventure in Thailand from 1965 to 1967, when it was a different world. They may not want to read this again, but it will give you some background on the situation. That will end my first blog. Stay tuned for the second, which will include my own on-the-ground observations. (Note--in this I also am posting some pictures I picked up on the web, I did not take these pictures myself, and hope I'm not violating copyright here, but they did seem out there and available, and I'm not using them for any commercial purpose so . . . I guess it's OK.) Anyhoo, here goes with the summary:

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My take on the protests is pretty simple. Simple, but long if I start from more or less the beginning. Here it is.

Thailand has big problems which have not been addressed seriously enough: poverty, corruption, poor education, the overweening influence of the monarchy (especially through the lèse majesté laws, which have been used time and again to shut people up), and an uneven playing field in economic and social spheres.

Thaksin Chinawat (you won't often see the last name spelled like that, but it's more accurate), the former prime minister whose name has been central to the latest protests, was a populist demagogue who also turned out to be a greedy megalomaniac. He got illegitimately ousted in a 2006 coup, but had kind of set himself up for that with his arrogance towards the king and the other capitalist elites, had run a drug war where he’d had 2500 or so people summarily executed, had mismanaged the crisis with the southern separatists with massacring masses of them, plus the fact that he was about to demote current heads of the armed forces and put his cronies in place. He played on the discontent of the poor regarding the problems above, and had done some things for the poor in the Northeast at the outset, including direct cash payouts without oversight to people in villages, which didn’t do much for them in the long term, but made them feel he was their buddy. Anyhow he is still very, very rich (much of it from ill-gotten gains), in exile (after being convicted of a number of felonies), and fuming for revenge.

The present government came into power after a new constitution had been put in place and a couple of governments run by Thaksin allies had been put in power and then ousted through court procedures, it’s a long and funny story, but in the end it was a court decision on vote buying that brought them down. This was a year and a half ago, when the “yellow shirts,” calling themselves "People's Alliance for Democracy," were foolishly occupying the airports, and the government change ended their protest, although not before the “red shirts,” or “redshits,” as I like to call them, were born as a counterforce.

Aphisit Wechachiwa (I spell it more like it sounds), an Oxford-educated, intelligent, personable, and squeaky-clean guy was heading the Democrats, and when Thaksin’s party was disbanded Newin, one of Thaksin’s big allies, defected and threw his influence behind Aphisit, which ensured that he would become PM. Thaksin's party, under a new name, still has a large bloc, maybe the largest single bloc (forgive my ignorance, but anyhow the count is close) of members in Parliament.

The redshits, calling themselves “National Alliance for Democracy Against Dictatorship," claiming the government was illegitimate, staged a violent demonstration a year ago last April during Songkhran, burning buses, I think even a fuel tanker, etc., but after the riot the rest of their demonstrations last year were peaceful. Thaksin, though, started pouring money and organizational talent into them, and they planned the demonstrations for this year very well. It is unbelievable how well. There are many millions of baht spent every day. They paid thousands of people many thousands of baht, and are continuing to do so. They are feeding them all. They have huge electric generators at the protest sites.
They have industrial-strength printing presses running for them, putting out everything from protest signs to pictures of the PM branding him murderer and traitor. They took over a couple of sections of the city, and when the government tried to push them out on April 10, they pushed back, throwing molotov cocktails, and with their own paramilitary using assault rifles and grenade lans, then screamed foul when people died, though it’s still not clear who was firing first and at whom, and many of the dead were soldiers.

After that they consolidated in one place, and took over a huge area in central Bangkok, putting about 60,000 people out of work (including me, as my Friday night gig has not been able to happen for 6 weeks). Every day from early morning to late at night there are loudspeakers booming out what is mostly hate propaganda from the redshirt stage. Their sound system is HUGE, FREAKING LOUD, and extends for a mile square, so that every hundred meters or so there is a speaker system, often with a digital projector showing what’s going on on stage.

The thousands that came from all over the country—there are maybe 6,000 left of what was for a day or two a hundred thousand—to join the protest are mostly well-intentioned true believers, and the constant bombarding of one-sided rhetoric from the stage is designed to keep them so. They have plenty of legitimate complaints, but they are all convinced that Thaksin and their leaders are pure and all that needs to happen for everything to be right with the world is for the current gov. to step down and put Thaksin back in. Great idea, huh? If the guy ever got back in he’d start settling scores, probably take cues from General Pinochet about how to use the National Stadium. Plus, if there’s corruption in government now, it’s small stuff compared to what Thaksin is capable of.

And increasingly prominent was this renegade Thai Army commander, known popularly as "Seh Daeng," who had been demoted—comedy again—to aerobics instructor because of insubordination. and there’s a lot more about him on the web. Anyhow he is DEFINITELY—why so definite? hard to say, but I am—on Thaksin’s payroll and has a force of Army Rangers, or former Rangers (commando-types) that have been serving as the military wing of the redshits. He spent the last couple of weeks strutting around and talking big, telling everyone that Thaksin is really the one in charge (as if it weren’t evident), and that the government should just give up. He constructed barricades of truck tires, razor wire, and bamboo spears, and has gasoline ready for setting fire to them if things get violent. These are very scary-looking things, I have been passing them every weekday for the last 5 weeks on my way to study at Chula. He refused to remove the one by Chula Hospital even though the redshit leaders told him to.

Anyhow, this is getting long, so cut to the chase. Seh Dang is the guy who was shot last week, made headlines around the world. And from my point of view he was asking for it, and the government had every right to nail him. His mistake was he didn’t think they had the balls to do it. Interesting thing is, no one is really sure just who did it. Government says they didn't. I haven't heard anyone calling them liars, strangely enough. I've heard rumors of all sorts, some too sensitive to post here. But he was definitely a nut case, and certainly had a lot of enemies, some even from within the redshit faction.

The government has had patience for two months, in spite of the fact that this has half-paralyzed the city. They had a peace plan which gave a ray of hope for a couple of weeks, but after the redshits at first seemed to accept it, there was even a press release from Thaksin saying the time appeared to be right, they then started laying out unacceptable conditions for ending the rally, conditions having nothing to do with elections or dissolving Parliament: apparently having an election in 6 months wasn’t good enough for them. More likely, Thaksin wasn’t getting enough of what he wanted, and wanted the chaos to continue. I believe the leaders want civilian deaths, people they can call martyrs, to whip up anger against the government, and that's why they haven't called the protest off.

Anyhow it has continued, and the government has no choice now but to sweep the streets. I just hope they can pull it off. Those barricades are still up, and they look pretty scary. And there are a lot of true believers out there. Plus those loyal to Seh Daeng who will be out for revenge. Plus any number of factions in this fractured society. And the government has not looked very competent in its previous efforts to take the city back. So who knows what will happen? Most of us just want peace and a beginning of the healing process, including the government addressing the problems more seriously than before. Please check out this article: Thailand, a Class Struggle?, which I think says rather well how Aphisit’s government has been trying to do just that, without getting much credit for it.

OK, above summary was written last week. Since then, a lot has happened. The next blog entry will give some of my first-hand impressions from visiting the protest zone, and also give some examples of where I think the mainstream press has gone wrong. Till later, Ciao ciao bambinos and bambinas. Gotta get out of here and play some jazz.
Till later, I remain your obedient servant,
Turk Montana