Redshirts in Pattaya Today

[PigDogg]

The redshirts are in Pattaya today.

There's reports of about 40 cars and trucks full of red shirt protesters are on their way up Pratamnak Hill towards the Royal Cliff Hotel where the Cabinet meeting is taking place.

[manarak]

I hope they run out of money soon.

[koykaeng]

Hi PigDogg,

I heard the same thing from my Thai inlaws.

I was greeted by a large gathering of Red Shirts when I arrived at Chiang Mai airport a few days ago.

They were holding on of their demonstrations just outside the airport perimeter.

Cheers
Koykaeng

[Snick]

Hundreds of protesters trapped Thai premier Abhisit Vejjajiva inside a beach hotel for several hours, raising tensions ahead of a key Asian summit being held here later this week.

About 400 red-clad supporters of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra surrounded the hotel in the resort town of Pattaya where Abhisit was holding a cabinet meeting amid tight security, an AFP reporter said.

British-born Abhisit had moved Tuesday€™s cabinet meeting to Pattaya because Thaksin loyalists have blockaded the main government offices in Bangkok for nearly two weeks to press for fresh elections.

The protesters dispersed and allowed Abhisit to leave after about three hours, but the incident further upped the ante in a long-running feud between Thaksin€™s loyalists and Abhisit€™s nearly four-month-old government.

Thai Defence Minister General Prawit Wongsuwon had earlier managed to evade the protesters by escaping from a side entrance used by suppliers to the luxury hotel. (AFP)

[jimslim]

Got to give the Thai's their dues they are very colourful when they riot or protest .

The colour coding also makes it easy for us to workout what side they are on .

In Ireland people usually adopt black or combat gear and "woolie face " making the whole thing a little more complicated for onlookers .

Gotta love Thailand

[manarak]

I heard there is a bounty on Thaksin's head now.

One million baht...

I wonder why it is so low?
Wouldn't ten million do the trick?

[SukhumvitRoad]

(manarak @ Apr. 07 2009,15:07) I hope they run out of money soon.

In the spirt of keeping things balanced....

I hope they don't.

[Ivor Biggun]

Pattaya Police Chief has been sacked over the incident with the PM's car getting slightly trashed.

[katoeylover]

some ministers were staying at the Amari. loads of security around but no redshirts!!

[PigDogg]

(Ivor Biggun @ Apr. 08 2009,07:31) Pattaya Police Chief has been sacked over the incident with the PM's car getting slightly trashed.

Red-faced police let red shirt go
Published: 8/04/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

Police have been ordered to pursue the red-shirt protesters who attacked the motorcade of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva in Pattaya.

"It was not a peaceful rally but, clearly, a legal violation," Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said of yesterday's protest. "The government has warned them but the red shirts continue to violate the law. They must face charges."
Mr Suthep said he had given police one day to capture the offenders.

In a farcical twist, protester Wanchalerm Kulsen, 22, who allegedly smashed the back window of the SUV carrying Mr Abhisit, escaped from Pattaya City police station shortly after being arrested.
A police source said Mr Wanchalerm escaped after he asked to go outside for a cigarette. He did not return.

Chon Buri police chief Bundit Khunjak said police would seek an arrest warrant for Mr Wanchalerm and two police teams would be assigned to track him down.

Mr Abhisit's motorcade was surrounded and attacked by 20 protesters while leaving a cabinet meeting venue at the Royal Cliff Beach Resort Pattaya Hotel. The group also damaged other vehicles in the motorcade.

The cabinet yesterday held a meeting at the hotel as protesters continued to occupy the grounds outside Government House.

After the meeting, as the motorcade was attempting to leave the hotel compound, a crowd of protesters surrounded the prime minister's official vehicle, a bullet-proof sedan.

They rocked the vehicle, prompting the prime minister's bodyguards to take Mr Abhisit from the car and put him in the back seat of the Land Cruiser in front of the sedan.

The protesters tried to pull the SUV driver out of the vehicle, smashed the back window with a motorcycle helmet and shouted obscenities at Mr Abhisit. Police and hotel security guards then engaged in a brawl with protesters.

The SUV driver managed to get away.

Other vehicles in the entourage followed moments later after police and hotel guards dispersed the protesters.Once the SUV reached the Bangkok-bound motorway, Mr Abhisit switched back to his official sedan.

High-level officials and politicians in Mr Abhisit's entourage yesterday included Deputy Prime Minister Korbsak Sabhavasu and Panithan Wattanayakorn, deputy secretary-general to the prime minister

[Stogie]

Here's a piece I found today which may clear up things for the politically confused!

One side is led by Thaksin Shinawatra. The former telecoms billionaire and deposed prime minister is a dubious champion of democracy. During his six years in power Mr Thaksin launched a "war on drugs" in which up to 2,000 alleged dealers were summarily executed by the police.

In government he was dogged by corruption allegations, apparently unable to distinguish his own business interests from those of the country. He was no friend of the free media, although censorship is worse now than it was in Thaksin's day.

On the other side is... who? Mr Thaksin has many vehement enemies among the middle and upper classes. It is difficult to tell how many because in Thailand opinion pollsters never ask the only question that really counts €“ who would you vote for?

They particularly object to Thaksin's alleged corruption and his government's challenge to Thailand's rigid social hierarchy. Qualms over the deadly "war on drugs", on the other hand, are mostly limited to hand-wringing foreign liberals.

These well-healed opponents control most major institutions. They also claim they are acting to "protect the king", and this is where it gets difficult.

Strict laws make any criticism of the monarchy punishable with up to 12 years in jail €“ in practice almost any discussion of the monarchy is prohibited. Last week a man, the breadwinner for his family, was jailed for 10 years for posting "insulting" pictures of the royal family online.

King Bhumibol, 81, is "above politics" and he is widely and sincerely loved. Many Thais credit him with steering their country's modern development and intervening to solve periodic crises. The country's official doctrine of "sufficiency economics" is the king's own invention.

When politicians claim to act in the king's name they often accuse their opponents of disloyalty, potentially punishable by 12 years in jail. That can make politics very hard to talk about. Bhumibol, for his part, has been mostly silent.

In 2006 Mr Thaksin was accused of disloyalty to the king and overthrown by a military coup. Nevertheless, with Thaksin in exile, voters returned his supporters to power in elections at the end of 2007.

Mr Thaksin's one great virtue as a democrat is that he and his supporters have won each of three elections so far this decade. He is popular because for the first time in Thai history he campaigned on policies aimed at the rural majority €“ and then delivered. He earned massive admiration for schemes such as affordable health care.

The pro-Thaksin government elected after the coup lasted less than a year. Protesters, some of them armed with golf clubs, bombs and guns, overran first Government House and then both Bangkok's airports, costing the economy untold millions. They wore the royal colour, yellow, and claimed they were acting to protect the king from Thaksin's alleged republicanism. The movement received the public endorsement of the queen.

The People's Alliance for Democracy, as the movement is misleadingly called, argued that democracy does not work in Thailand because the peasantry are too simple to vote. They want a "new politics" in which 70 per cent of parliament is appointed.

Last year's protests found widespread support among the conservative media which, in its rush to finish the Thaksinites for ever, abandoned factual reporting.

Thaksin denies that he is a republican, although some of his supporters undoubtedly are €“ or they are now.

At the end of last year a court dissolved the elected government and the army brass summoned political bosses to hoist a new prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, to power. The leaders of the airport protests were never punished €“ one even became foreign minister.

Now Thaksin has dropped his bomb. In live video addresses to rallies around the country he identified two retired generals who are close advisers to the king and a small group of top judges as the conspirators who plotted his 2006 ousting and have allegedly been invisibly pulling Thailand's strings ever since.

The government is in a funk, panicking about how to block the transmissions. The army is said to be furious: Thaksin has broken the omerta and the government could not stop him. Commentators say he has gone too far and newspapers are openly demanding censorship to stop the revelations being heard.

Yet although the people Thaksin named have offered desultory denials, no one is seriously disputing the truth of his revelations. Apparently that it is not the point €“ in Thai politics the truth is not meant for public consumption.

Thailand aspires to be a serious country, a Western ally and a destination for tourists and investment, yet in the past few years the "land of smiles" has been more like the land of lies. A light cast on what takes place in the comfortable sitting rooms of power is long overdue.

NOW do you get it?

[manarak]

Spot on for the above, but I'm not sure I'd subscribe to that:

A light cast on what takes place in the comfortable sitting rooms of power is long overdue.

I'd rather that everything goes on like now, or better, like ten years ago. err, make that 15. shit. I'm old.

[katoeylover]

the land of lies

They got that right!!

[BlueBallz]

Protests?? Whats good for the goose........