Thailand Drops Democracy

[Liberaltarian]

this is actually a month old...but i was in total news blackout at the time- so i missed it.
it's over a month old- so it doesn't qualify as LBN.

had anyone else been aware of this?

Thailand Drops Democracy
Ellen Bork
New York Sun
November 4, 2004

Compared to its neighbor next door, the Burmese junta, Thailand's government usually looks pretty good. However, the suffocation deaths of 78 Muslim men taken into custody after a demonstration in southern Thailand last week has focused attention on the increasingly authoritarian rule of the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Deadly abuses of civil liberties are not confined to Thailand's predominantly Muslim south. As part of a crackdown on narcotics traffickers in 2003, police shot and killed over 2,200 suspected drug dealers, earning international condemnation for extrajudicial killings. Mr. Thaksin's interior minister at the time expressed a total disdain for the victims, who should be jailed "or even vanish without a trace. Who cares?" Last month, Mr. Thaksin resumed the drug crackdown, which is part of a broader campaign against "dark influences," a vague phrase capable of manipulation by Thai officials. Mr. Thaksin was equally indifferent when he suggested "family problems" explained the March 11 disappearance of Somchai Neelapajit, a respected human rights lawyer who defended suspects in the southern Muslim insurgency. According to Thailand's Nation newspaper, Mr. Somchai is one of 16 human rights and environmental activists to disappear or be killed during the three years of Mr. Thaksin's rule.

Nor has Mr. Thaksin shown regard for defenseless and vulnerable Burmese refugees. At a time when Burma's repression is as harsh as ever, he wants to curtail Thailand's role as a haven. Mr. Thaksin appears to harbor plans to deport many refugees, and relocate others to vulnerable camps. "He wants good relations with Burma, says, Brad Adams, executive director of human rights watch's Asia division, "and will give up a few hundred thousand people to get it." Close ties and financial dealings with Burma would be good for Thai businesses, including Mr. Thaksin's own mobile phone company, which stands to gain from Burma's market. The effect of Mr. Thaksin's tilt toward Rangoon is that the country most able to isolate a brutal regime is instead its collaborator...

http://www.newamericancentury.org/thailand-20041104.htm

about the link-
I've been wanting to do a parody website, and i found that "newchinesecentury.org" was available- so i went to the darkside to determine the feasibility, and this headline caught my eye.

[crispini]

1. Thailand has been seesawing back and forth between

democracy and dictatorship ever since they became a democracy. They elect a government, the government gets more and more corrupt, the army overthrows the government, the army's in control for a while, then they have elections and the whole thing starts all over again. They've had a coup, on average, every two years since like 1950. They had one while I was living there and I asked the Thais what to do and they shrugged and said, "Go out to eat."

That stuff in the South's some bad shit, though. That worries me a bit.

[Vidar]

2. Following America's lead.

[parkia00]

3. He's very authoritarian

Just south of the border, in Malaysia they call him South East Asia's little wanna be Stalin. I have very little respect for that man. He's also very arragont!