Bangkok Protesters Aim to ‘Re-educate’ Rural Thais

[Robbien]

Source: Bloomberg

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- As the world waits for Thailand to end a week-long occupation of Bangkok’s airports, the anti- government protesters who seized them say their efforts to transform the country are only just beginning.

If they win what they have dubbed their “final battle,” Bangkok-based People’s Alliance for Democracy members say they will start a campaign to tell “the truth” to the country’s rural majority, which has elected parties linked to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra four times since 2001.

“Rural people have good hearts but they don’t know the truth like we do in Bangkok,” said Noppakoon Lagum, 37, a surgeon helping to occupy the main international airport. “It is our duty to re-educate them.”

. . .

A year ago, the People Power Party won the first election since Thaksin was ousted, taking 75 percent of seats in the northeast, the country’s poorest region. Thaksin, a billionaire- turned-politician, won rural votes by slashing health-care costs, handing out low-cost loans and propping up crop prices.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=ayeQGtxKcc7o&refer=asia

---

The well-to-do urban people want to re-educate the dumb ignorant rural farmers by instructing them to not vote for leaders who help the rural areas. Leaders should help the rich and the riches would then trickle down. An earlier article reported these well-off urban PAD protesters felt that the poor and lower middle classes shouldn't even have the right to vote.

Sounds like a bunch of thuggish freepers to me.

[Coventina]

1. You've got it spot on!

The PAD is not really about democracy at all.

They're a small, noisy band of troublemakers.

[Robbien]

3. They are very well funded though, the rich elite is pouring money into this

PAD said they will give back the airports if the democratically elected government disbands.

If that happens, PAD leader then plans a propaganda program. "We will speak about it when things go that far. But If we were to stay on, we must be able to provide a justified explanation to the public...We don't want to be branded terrorists."

They ARE terrorists hiding behind a well funded local propaganda media.

[Coventina]

4. Yes, what comes to my mind is the "Brooks Brothers Riot" of 2000

here in the United States, which "toppled" our democratically elected President-Elect Al Gore.

on edit: I realize that it wasn't just the "rioters" who were responsible for the theft of our democracy. (And I fixed a typo)

[izquierdista]

2. Voting for your own interests?

Contrast that with the dumb ignorant rural folk in the US who vote for leaders who slash health care, hand out low-cost loans to bankers, and prop up gas prices. :eyes:

[msongs]

6. they need a sociopthic serial killer like che to help them. yeah right nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Your link goes to a completely unconnected place

"Battered British Hedge Fund Sues Wall Street Journal" in "Hedge Fund and Private Equity News". You have about 20 minutes left to edit the OP.

[Robbien]

7. Thanks. Fixed.

This news junkie just has too many tabs open during my usual morning roundup of news articles.

That article about the British Hedge Fund suing the WSJ was pretty interesting also don't you think? A company suing a newspaper for reporting bad news. :shakeshead:

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Well, the fund claimed the information was 'confidential'

I think it is possible for some information to be confidential to a business, so without knowing what it really was, and how it was obtained, I can't say whether they'd have any leg to stand on or not.

(The link for others: http://www.finalternatives.com/node/6222 )

For the Thailand story: I can't find either side to be particularly admirable. Thaksin and his allied parties are accused of electoral fraud, and rights abuses, so it's not all sweetness and light from them:

Then along came a communications multimillionaire named Thaksin Shinawatra, who jumped into politics with what he thought was a bullet-proof formula for staying in power. Holding out the lure of instant largesse (buying votes is a Thai tradition, but not on this scale), he built a solid populist base in the neglected Thai northeast and other impoverished agrarian areas. Some call it "rural fascism." This challenged, and to some extent panicked, the urban middle class, which had come to believe it owned the right to democratic political leadership.

Thaksin, at the head of a political movement he cleverly if clumsily named Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais), became prime minister in 2001. Clouds of corruption and the abuse of power hovered around him from the start. Human rights groups documented what appeared to be politically sanctioned killings of thousands of narcotics suspects in northern Thailand and alleged Muslim militants in the Thai south. Nonetheless his rural base held, and he was reelected by a landslide in 2005.

Thaksin, unpopular in Bangkok, was overthrown in the most recent military coup, in 2006. His party was banned and, yet again, a new constitution was written. But in an election this year, Thaksin's old party under a new name, the People Power Party, returned with a parliamentary majority. Both Thaksin and his wife were ordered to stand trial on corruption charges. She did; he fled into exile in Britain and has since meandered in exile, having lost his British visa.

The return of a barely disguised Thaksin front brought opponents to the streets almost immediately, and a crisis has built quickly this fall. The current prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat (Thaksin's brother-in-law), has become a pathetic cipher, announcing on television that he is in control, though he can no longer govern in Bangkok and has to run from place to place with his office staff.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081215/crossette

[Robbien]

10. Handing a WSJ reporter a financial report on your company

does not lend credence to the idea that the financial report is supposed to be confidential. Why would anyone hand a report over to an individual whose business it is to publish financial report stories, if they didn't want the news published?

----

On the Thailand situation. Not too sure, but I wonder if the treatment Thaksin is being given is similar to that being given to Siegelman here in the States. The media and the courts over in Thailand are owned by the same people funding the PAD protesters.

Sure, Thaksin got his wife a deal on some land. I wouldn't doubt that every single person of power in Thailand has dirty hands. Money was flowing freely and corruption was rampant throughout the power structure. Not too dis-similar to our situation.

So Thaksin is not pure, but it is likely the entire population of Thailand benefits from someone not entirely controlled by the Chamber of Commerce types.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. "the confidential performance data was given to a Journal reporter in London"

which doesn't specify whether someone in the firm officially gave it to the WSJ reporter, but said "please don't publish it", or if it was leaked by someone in the firm who wasn't authorised to. As I said, not enough information for us.

For Thailand:

Amnesty International: New fear of illegal killings coincides with Thaksin's return

PM Surayud issues apologies for Tak Bai Massacre ("nearly 80 Thai Muslims protesters died of suffocation while travelling in military trucks" - note that PM was the one appointed in the coup that overthrew Thaksin. Thaksin never apologised, nor brought any prosecutions: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2007/10/23/thailand-three-years-no-justice-massacre )

[Robbien]

13. Amnesty International

The same Amnesty International which immediately came out and blamed Russia (and only Russia) for war crimes in the Russia/Georgia conflict. Not until after 37 independent reporters went in to South Ossetia and discovered that Georgia was the one doing all the damage did AI change its tune. But only slightly. While Georgia war crimes were being revealed in all the papers, AI slightly adjusted its original claim of Russian war crimes. Russia and Georgia are BOTH to blame claimed AI.

AI plays politics.

So it is hard to know what the truth is anymore.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Meh - their first report on Georgia looks OK to me

Georgia and Russia must protect civilians in South Ossetia

10 August 2008

In fighting in the disputed region of South Ossetia over the past few days, heavy civilian casualties have been reported. Although reports of civilian dead and wounded vary, with numbers and circumstances difficult to independently verify, media reports and footage indicates damage to civilian objects as a result of the military attacks from both sides.

For example, in Tskhinvali, capital of South Ossetia, dozens of civilian buildings are said to have been destroyed as a result of attacks by Georgian forces, including residential homes, administrative buildings, a toy shop, university and the republican hospital. On 9 August, Russian bombs hit a residential area in Gori, a town in central Georgia.

Amnesty International has urged all parties to the conflict to abstain from direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects. Their military operations must also avoid attacks that do not attempt to distinguish between military targets and civilians or civilian objects and attacks that have a disproportionate impact on civilians or civilian objects.

Amnesty International has said that it is concerned that some of the attacks mounted could amount to war crimes. Moreover, Georgia and Russia must provide protection and safe passage to people fleeing from the conflict and allow unimpeded access to humanitarian relief to areas affected by the conflict.
...
The ceasefire agreement included the establishment of a tripartite peacekeeping force, with Russian, Ossetian and Georgian peacekeeping battalions. Georgian troops launched what appears to have been a coordinated military offensive against the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, in order to “restore constitutional order”.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev responded by sending further troops backed by tanks to reinforce those already stationed in South Ossetia as part of the ceasefire with the stated aim to re-establish the status quo.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/georgia-and-russia-must-protect-civilians-south-ossetia-2008081

If you're determined to ignore anything bad about Thaksin, I can't stop you. Are you saying those 37 independent reporters made their reports before 10th August, and I've missed an earlier AI statement?

[Robbien]

15. I am not ignoring anything bad about Thaksin

What point I am trying to make is that I don't believe any of the other pols in Thailand are any less corrupt. So, if there is a choice between two corrupt pols, choose the one who at least acknowledges the rights of the poor and lower middle classes.

[hedgehog]

8. I don't know enough about the situation to back one side or the other.

For example, one could say that Boss Tweed used to win votes by helping people out. From here, I can't say if we're talking about reform or bribery. Thailand is hard to compare to other countries. I don't think an outsider can really understand the reverence for the king. The government is VERY serious about enforcing reverence for Buddhism as well, to the point that foreigners can not purchase an image of the Buddha.

[Coventina]

11. Er, I bought a Buddha in Thailand last year.

They were plentiful and readily available.

:shrug: