Like going to the movies

OK, this is the new blockbuster, that’s Thaksin on the right. Seh Daeng (I think) on the left, the others Reddo leaders. The Thais are passing this poster around on the internet. A loose translation of some of the poster text is below.

GARBAGE
An Alliance of Offal

Evil by nature?
Or did they become sociopaths just because of the one man, Thaksin?

Good questions. These will be presumably be answered if we just stick around and watch the movie. I expect to do just that.

Things are finally getting cleared up in Bangkok, and we’ll be back much closer to normal soon, that seems likely. How long it will last is another issue, depends on 1) whether the Reddies cook up another opportunity to hold up the stage and 2) whether the government is savvy enough to head ‘em off at the pass.

I have to say I’m impressed with Aphisit. Cool under pressure.

Here’s an indication: Take the moniker CRES, it’s short for “Center for Resolution of the Emergency Situation.” In Thai it is shortened to ศอฉ, pronoucned “saw aw chaw,” short for ศูนญ์ – อำนวยการแก้ไขสถานการณ์ - ฉุกเฉิน. The Thais who were sick of Aphisit waiting so long to move against the Reddies changed the meaning of the initials to ศูนญ์ – อภิสิทธิเ - ฉย, or “Center For Aphisit Just Sitting There.” But he just hung in and took the body blows, knew how long it was going to take even if they didn't, and in the end, hey, it got done, and done right.

One of the editorials they had us read in Intensive Thai was about how Aphisit kept asking the people to have patience, while nothing happened. The title of the paper is really untranslateable, but would be something like “The Government Does SomeNothing!” Asking for patience and repeating “trust me” isn’t enough, they were saying. The Reddies had been calling for his head forever. Then the Yellers joined in. And people from some of the little parties jumped on the bandwagon with “resign, resign!”

I was as itchy as anyone else to get those squatters out of there. It was like having a bunch of hoodlums and con artists move into your living room and saying, “there’s a problem with the deed on this house, and we’ll stay till it’s cleared up and you’re gone.”

But Aphisit was thinking. He said repeatedly that while getting the Reddies out was necessary, the most important thing was the welfare of the whole country. So he waited until they themselves were getting quite uncomfortable from sitting outside every day in the heat, and then offered them a way out, which gave them more than he wanted to give, but would have allowed them to save face . . . see my earlier post. This was statesmanship. It would have solved the local problem and allowed the differences to get sorted out in an election, and everyone could have come away feeling they’d gotten something.

He knew also that if they didn’t take it, he’d have to move. But the game was clear: they’d try to get the government to kill people, then scream bloody murder. It had already happened on April 10. So he took no chances. He made a plan and made the military rehearse it again and again.

His “roadmap” plan was received well by everyone, and for a few minutes everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The beauty of it was that if the other side turned it down, they couldn’t claim to hold the high ground any more.

So what happened? In the end, the Reddies turned it down (by attaching conditions, see earlier posts), and because there was no fresh blood, they screamed murder about April 10 once more. It’s true that the world press was, by and large, fooled by this charade, but in the end, the Thai army behaved with great discipline, the only ones hurt as far as we know were Reddie thugs and people the Reddies themselves killed. The forensic scientist/medical examiner on the case is Maw Phonthip, a flamboyant personality well known as a whistle-blower, and in my mind above reproach. You can trust what she says about the deaths, just wait for the report. If the government says something untrue, you can bet she’ll jump all over it.

Meanwhile, Aphisit was on TV often, carefully explaining his case. And CRES was on every night, showing a very human face. I was glad I understood Thai, it made all the difference. It seemed pretty obvious that the journalists of the world press weren’t watching. As Somtow pointed out, that press doesn’t speak Thai, and the government doesn’t do much PR in English.

What impressed me is that these people (CRES) came across not with the face of officialdom going through the motions of providing dry facts, but as real people. Serious and earnest, they gave detailed information about what the rules of engagement were, what had happened recently, what they were encountering, and how the other side was reacting, but they were also emotionally moved by the situation, and tried hard to reassure the Thai people that they were being and would be careful. You could see it in the deep “wai” some of them would give before and after the address, or in a little jump in the throat when they talked about bringing harmony back to the country (“which is home to us all”), anyhow it all resonated with me. I just hope most people all over the country, of all political beliefs, were watching.

The leaders had told the three thousand or so remaing “peaceful protesters” (the ones whose duty it was to sit in front of the stage and clap all day every day) that when the soldiers came they would be killed, so to take refuge in a temple (wat) near the protest site. When the soldiers finally came they had to take several hours to get in because the peaceful ones that had guns started a firefight with them. And when the troops finally made it in they found 6 corpses. Rumors flew that the Reddie guards had shot them when they’d tried to leave the compound, but let’s let Maw Phonthip do her work, we should have an idea soon. The troops sent unarmed women soldiers into the wat to reassure the people that nothing would happen to them, then escorted them out to the waiting fleet of air-conditioned busses that would take them back to their home towns.

It was especially sad to see an old lady crying, between defiant assertions, “We haven’t lost. We can’t lose. We’ll rise again.” Again, I had thoughts of cults and true believers. Well, these folks had been getting forced indoctrination, the same lies drummed in day after day after day.

So, were there heroes here? I think so. What do you think? And villains?

Oh, BTW, here’s the sequel to “Garbage.” That’s Thaksin in front, with the gun. The official title on the poster translates something like “The Brutal Lizard Face.”
It's actually worse than that, as calling a Thai guy "lizard face" is just about the worst thing you can say to him.

So since Thaksin thinks he’s such a great nonviolent, spiritual leader of the people I think I’ll offer an idea for another title/subtitle: “Gandhi II: He’s Back! And This Time, He’s MAD!” Weird Al never made the movie, right? So why not?

But seriously, folks, this has been a good five-day rant. I may take a break tomorrow, or . . . who knows? If the air is fresh, and the spirit sings . . . we shall see! I still have to tell you about the Communist Conspiracy! Required reading is what pops up when you click on the link. But for now, class dismissed. Next post, What really happened?

End of phase one . . . and a look behind the lines

Slept well last night. Pretty much bound to, as I’d worked with my quartet late the night before, gotten to bed late and up with the sun, no rest that day. Today, again up early.

Of course, these days, the TV goes on first thing. I saw that the government was finally getting serious about taking the city back. I admire Aphisit’s efforts and his seemingly endless patience with all the factions, most of them calling for his head on a platter. He didn’t want to take this last step, but in the end, it had to be done. I’ve got to hand it to him, I don’t think anyone could have done better leading this fractured government.

Then the channel ran a pastiche of scenes from the battle-scarred streets, and over it, John Lennon’s “Imagine.” I thought about what John was saying in that song, and was suddenly overcome by some deep feeling, couldn’t keep the tears back. This beautiful country, beautiful culture and people, that I’ve known and loved for 45 years now . . . fires and smoke everywhere, soldiers running through the streets, tanks and armored personnel carriers, trash strewn about, and on and on . . . .

Anyhow, it was a bizarre feeling of relief to see the APC’s demolishing those ugly, ugly barricades, the stinking tires soaked in kerosene, the punji stick pikes, the razor wire strung all through. Finally, they’re gone. some kind of finish to this, although I’m sure things will continue in one form or another. I’ll give my thoughts on that after a few others . . . .

First, the best evidence that the redshits were never serious about negotiation is the fact that this confrontation happened at all. They'd had victory in their grasp, Aphisit’s peace offer gave them all they had asked for, just deferred by a few months. All they had to do to get it was disband the protest, let Bangkok go back to normal life, and themselves go home to campaign for Thaksin’s proxy party.
This they at first accepted, saying they might pack up in a few days, but actually that’s when they started to add demands. Demands that the government admit to “murdering the people” on April 10, that Aphisit and Suthep turn themselves in to the police. “Justice must be seen through,” was their call, or the Thai equivalent.
They must have known that this was unacceptable, and making this demand doing this would result in more deaths. Name one government in the world that would let this go on indefinitely, or even nearly this long.
In fact, when the government turned them down, they said it outright: “we will fight you to the death,” a threat which rings rather hollow in the light of today’s events, when some meekly surrendered and a few ran off into hiding, but rings out loud and clear saying they knew where this was all going.

OK, I know I left you hanging last night. And I’m doing this late tonight, it might be the early hours before it’s done. I’ve had to answer over 30 e-mails, some of them pretty exhaustively. But back to my adventure inside the reddie camp last Friday.

Remember, I was on my way to deliver a take-home test at Chula U, the SkyTrain was down, I had to walk about a mile to the border of the mile-square protest zone, which—according to government proclamation—was supposed to have been closed. They were going to let people out, but no one in. I was just going to give it the old college try, literally, and get through to Chula, which was inside there, on the other side.

I’d actually heard on the TV that Chula itself was closed. That seemed logical. But I think the real reason I went anyway was that I was curious. I wanted to see if the government, after so much hesitation and so many false starts, was actually going to get serious about closing these guys down. Honestly, I thought there would be a bunch of stern-looking commandos lined up for miles, telling me to back off.

Interestingly, when I finally, in the sweltering heat, had finally tramped up to the barricade at Wireless Road and Phloenchit, not a soldier was in sight. Oh, forgot, back about a block there were some laid-back guys in helmets and camo playing cards and smoking. Maybe about 6 or 7. But none around here.

Looking at the barricade, I saw it was pretty solid, and festooned in razor wire. But on the right side there were some Thai people trickling in and out. They were ducking through a place on the very right side where the razor wire was looped wide enough to let a small person, or a big person scrunched over, pass. I saw a Farang (Westerner) walk by, take a snapshot, and move on. Another tall farang, sandy-haired, about 45, was looking at it the same way I was, wondering if it was a good idea to try to go in. There were no guards there, it seemed that if you wanted to go in you could.

I struck up a conversation with the guy. He spoke English well, but with an accent I couldn’t place. “South Africa,” he explained. Ahh!

“I was thinking about going in,” I said, “but wasn’t sure whether I wanted to or not. What were you thinking?”

“That’s the only reason I came down.”

“OK, let’s give it a go.” And I walked over to a young Thai woman who was going in, and asked “ขอโทษนะครับ เข้าได้ไหม?” She gave a big grin and said, sure, come in, we were welcome. The redshirts don’t have anything against foreigners particularly. They see us as a window to the outside world, which they want badly to impress. So we scrunched over and—though my pack caught briefly on the razor wire—passed into the forbidden zone. It was good to have a buddy along, especially as this guy looked like he could take care of himself.

What struck me first was how empty it was. Where before there had been people camped out, even cars, and food stalls and booths selling things, in this block there was absolutely nothing. No . . . the awning/tents, the kind used to shelter vendors and such from the rain, were still there, and in the middle of the block were two giant blue generators, humming away. And there were a couple of their loudspeaker trucks, parked and idle. There was no sound coming from the fixed speakers, either, the ones that normally would be pumping out political talk. I guess they figured that with no one there, they could save energy.

Dripping with sweat, we walked down to the next intersection, Soi Langsuan, where my old Cal buddy Sher Singh had lived and worked for awhile. Here was another barricade, more massive than the last, this one manned by several reddie guards. They looked like street toughs, but also had no problem letting us in. Inside here was more the way it had been the weeks before, people in tents, sprawled around on mats, some with electric fans turned on them. And the speakers were working! Once again we were treated to the ardent political speech of the leaders. We walked on down to the end of the block (Rajadamri/Rajaprasong), where the center of the protest was, the famous Rajaprasong stage. You remember, the one with the sign above that had no Thai lettering, only writ large in English, PEACEFUL PROTESTERS! NOT TERRORISTS! In the middle of what had been a bustling street, now with ghost monster buildings on either side.

Arriving at the stage area, we were eyed suspiciously by the guards at the rear, but when we made for the front, where the bulk of the people were watching the speakers, people seemed welcoming again. Looking around, I saw a big gathering, perhaps two or three thousand, of people, mostly middle-aged to old, a lot of them women, a lot seeming to be peasant-types. Many were smiling. Generally they appearing to be paying attention to the guy who was speaking on the stage.

Knowing Thai, I started translating for Lionel, my new friend from South Africa. The speech was like many I’d heard booming out on all the days I’d been there before. This was the day after the government had said the negotiations were over, so they were not making nice in the least.

“This government . . . thinks it can do anything! Brothers and sisters, they are telling you to follow the law . . .but they themselves follow no law! They think they can frighten you. But these people are lawless killers,they are not to be trusted! We will never give in to them! Never! Never!” and with each “never,” most of them clapped and shouted, almost as if on cue.

“All we are asking for is democracy. Is that too much to ask? I ask you, brothers and sisters, have we not waited long enough?” Cheers, applause. Fan waving. Noisemakers. And it went on. I was thinking, how do they do this? They have been sitting here morning to late night with this same stuff, and worse, every day for two months! And clapping hands like trained monkeys, that was it. A friend of mine had told me he’d watched a telecast of an English speaker talking on this stage, and that even though there was no way many of them could have been educated enough to understand much of what he said, every time he’d raised his voice and paused, they’d clapped and shouted.

Wanta know the image that popped into my mind? Guyana. Jim Jones. This felt like a cult revival meeting.

Quickly tiring of this, we moved on. I was translating signs for Lionel. “Here, they have signs for the different places these people come from. Here’s Kumpawapi. Here’s Baan Huai Sai. Here’s Pattaya.”

“What’s this one say?” it was not one of the professionally printed ones, it was scrawled out.

“Massage. Hundred and fifty baht an hour.” And the old woman there stood up and beckoned us in. It didn’t seem the right time and place, though.

We weren’t that far from Brown Sugar, the funky old jazz club I’d been playing at until six weeks ago. I suggested we stop by and see what shape it was in. We followed the party (for here, it seemed to be one, though a little sparse in attendance) past a tent of chattering saffron-robed monks, down to the next corner, where Lumpini Park started.

Here the atmosphere changed. We weren’t surrounded by smiling oldsters any more. Suddenly it was all young guys. Greasy hair, dirty clothes, mostly black. Some looked pretty stoned. “Yaa baa,” which means “crazy medicine,” or meth, is a big problem in Thailand, though I hadn’t ever been close to it. Anyhow, they were leaving us alone, that was good.

We turned the corner and walked the few doors down to Brown Sugar. Sad. Door chained, tables stacked up in front of the windows. Talked to one of the guys sitting around there, he was reasonably friendly. Then—I’d given up on my Chula mission—we decided to head back.

Lionel said the atmosphere reminded him of South Africa when he’d been in the army there during a border war with Namibia in ‘85 and ’86. “Makes me feel right at home,” he said.

We walked down Sarasin towards Wireless Road. In front of us was a gang of about 8 or 10 black-shirted toughs, the wild greasy hair again, walking the same direction, holding fat bamboo cudgels, which some of them pounded against their legs as they walked. A couple of them, one of them pretty big, turned around and gave us a baleful glance. They looked to be looking for a fight, but pretty sure we weren’t the ones they were after.

Turning left on Langsuan, we were heading back to where we’d come in at the second barricade. The rest of the walk out was uneventful, but I was surprised to see how empty everything was. Absolutely no one on the street but us. Trash all over. All these great restaurants just closed, closed. The silence of towering luxury condos. Back to Phloenchit, through the scrunchy razor wire, and out. A couple of blocks later, we’re in a world that looks the same as it did before, no sign of unrest or discontent.

Folks, I must have too much to say. I want to keep writing, but this is enough, if you aren’t worn out, you soon will be. So we’ll save further observations for tomorrow. The latest update from here is that our “peaceful protesters” weren’t so peaceful after all, surprise! After their leaders surrendered, they went on a looting, bombing, and burning spree for miles around. The supermarket three minutes walk from my place was bombed this afternoon and had to close early.

So you see, Rajaprasong may be cleared, even though Central World, the biggest department store in Thailand, has burned down, but the story hasn’t ended. Our dear multibillionaire friend, Mr. Thaksin, said from his luxury hotel in Paris today that “a military crackdown can spread resentment and these resentful people will become guerrillas.” Hmmm. I wonder how he knew that.

I have a lot more to say. Stay tuned, if you are interested. Tomorrow.

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.

************* ***************** **************
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 . . .”

************* ***************** **************

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.

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