EnglishJohn

The rhetoric of incitement was directed from above towards ordinary protesters, many of whom responded eagerly in the belief that their leaders would protect them from legal consequences.

Yet, with dismal inevitability, those red-shirt chiefs and politicians were nowhere to be seen when their foot soldiers landed in court. Some of the accused complained of receiving no attention or assistance whatsoever from the protest leadership.

The most interesting thing about this article is that they don't name "the leaders". Everyone knows who they are, I could provide various video links, but they won't be named.....and we all know why. How, in any reasonable persons mind, could one be guilty of libel, when there are recordings, video and audio, of the person saying what he is alleged to have said. The monkeys are running the zoo and the law is an ass.

And don't forget that many of those red-shirts in prison would have been released under the first draft of the amnesty bill.

But the goblin threw them all under a bus at the last minute purely for his own benefit. Yet many doe-eyed simpletons still think he is the greatest thing since sliced bread. And they wonder why we laugh at them.

If any of the big names get slammed away, the rest of the red-machine will be sent into action to cause as much trouble as possible. Thailand doesn't need their terrorism at this juncture so we get these double standards.

Let me give you another slant on the death penalty. Forget the old innocent man argument. Although, for me that's cast iron.

Consider one Peter Sutcliffe, aka the Yorkshire Ripper.

A monster, sentenced to life. He has been savagely attacked several times, blinded in one eye by a dinner fork, and has chronic diabetes, and is reportedly terrified of losing sight in his remaining eye due to an future attack or diabetes. So, would you rather have hung him in the 80's a quick and I'm told, painless. Or relish his decline into hell over Decades? And the Kicker? After all this he's still going to die, probably in terror or in great pain. Now does the death penalty look so Good?

BTW it's also cheaper to jail someone for life, than to execute them, ask any rich appeals lawyer. Who pays for those Appeals? We taxpayers.

So three strong arguments why everyone but the perp. wins when life is handed down. The opposite argument has one position, revenge. Not much of an argument, more a goatherders simplistic biblical logic.

You were doing well up until the last sentence.

Some people need to be removed from this world. Some terrorists for example.

This will probably piss-of most of the red skirts and end the so called "reconciliation"

not sure there are too many left, only the hard hitters and those well up the Thaksin payroll remain it seems

And how do you "seem" that? Have I missed a recent election that could have cleared this issue up??

30% of the poll even with no opposition and 90% of polling booths open at the last count. If that doesn't teach you anything, I don't think you are able to be taught.

The reason we haven't seen this big uprising (nor will we) is that normal people got fed up with the lies and corruption - particularly when there was no money left for them. All we have now are the hard-core nutters who got collectively spanked for stealing from the tuck-shop and have gone into that insane rage of spite which is a very Thai quality shared by a section of society here. A bit like those boys murdering someone because they beat them at a video game.

Everyone else is hoping something better will come along. Thaksin threw his loyal supporters under a bus for his own personal amnesty. How many red-shirts could be out of prison now ?. Anyone who things he gives a damn about them at this point are either unbelievably gullible or are just hypocrites who actually want a more corruption-friendly government.

And red-shirts have precisely zero interest in any reconciliation with any other group. They never have. That has been clear for a long time. Remember Yinglucks big party with Blair and the others ?. Followed swiftly by the amnesty bill. Save your hypocrisy for your village meetings.

Well times change don't they. It is true though. She is a flight risk. But this should have been applied to dozens of people over the years

It's almost as if you want to suggest "reject is OK but why start with Ms. Yinlguck".

It's the tired old "Why pick on us : everybody does it" with the inference that it means they should be allowed to get away with it.

I don't care if it's persecution or not : if the person in the dock is guilty, they should be banged away for their crime whatever their shirt colour.

I would LOVE to see a complete risk of all the people who did a runner and what their political affiliation was. I'm assuming the majority are linked to Thaksin or one of his parties/businesses in some way as they seem to be the dirtiest lowlife of all - but I would be interested to know the numbers.

Suthep is the creature sent by God to battle the evil anti-Christ and his band of dirty cronies.

Now the goblin is never coming back, Suthep's purpose is fulfilled and his sort aren't needed anymore. Maybe he just doesn't realise it yet.

A very nice muslin action again.

Congratulation for these coward insects.

I guess the muslin nurses may cheer again as before ...

Nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with an insurgency by those who feel their country is occupied.

Doesn't make the actions of these scum any more justifiable, but let's keep the religious hate out of this.

Have you walked around the South ?. I have : around those village squares where the Muslim men sit around all day. And in a few villages as part of a charity group I was helping.

And you know what ?. Most of those people look and stare at you like you are a dog turd. Same when I've been in a fish restaurant in Bangkok.

It's all about religion. They don't want their country 'back' - they have all lived in Thailand since they were born. They want their own country which is Muslim which is a completely different thing to what you try to imply.

A very nice muslin action again.

Congratulation for these coward insects.

I guess the muslin nurses may cheer again as before ...

Nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with an insurgency by those who feel their country is occupied.

Doesn't make the actions of these scum any more justifiable, but let's keep the religious hate out of this.

Actually the so called insurgency in the south is based on religious hate.

The muslim kind.

Open your eyes, don't deny things that are quite obvious

Utter nonsense.

He said open your eyes, not come out with utter nonsense.

The loyalty of a Muslim is to the religion above all else. Everything else comes second. That's why families will kill their own children if they break the rules and believe they did the right thing.

People like you who are quick to defend and slow to condemn in case you offend them are the reason this world is in such a mess.

A very nice muslin action again.

Congratulation for these coward insects.

I guess the muslin nurses may cheer again as before ...

The deceased as well as the bombing victims were Muslim.

Ah - the old 'it's not about religion' line from the liberals who have turned this world into the mess it is today. This story will be forgotten quickly but if the Army kills one of them, we have hell to pay.

He was murdered because he betrayed his faith by helping the infidels.

100% about religion.

"...clean and effective political system which is deemed suitable for Thai society."

" Suitable for Thai society". So does that mean it's still OK for candidates and their cronies to hand out 300 baht to each voter as they enter the voting sites?

Just the opposite now that the Shins have effectively been purged from politics.

Blatant unaffordable and unwise populism to garner votes will be disallowed to prevent the Pheu Thai party from bribing the voters with lunatic schemes like the rice scam. You only have to look at all their populist policies that they deceived the people with such as the 1 tablet 1 child scheme, the first time car/house buyer schemes, of course the real monstrosity the 'great rice scam' and anything they used to dupe the people, to realise that they were designed for one purpose ie: to gain power (through cheating and then to ram through Thaksin's amnesty) - the fact that this failed and effectively brought the government down was 'beautiful irony'!!

No need to worry your biased little head pal because there aint gonna be elections for a long long time, and when there are, they won't be worth tuppence because any government will be just a puppet of a higher power.

Hey - look at that.

A list of arguments which are based on established facts then a whining reply which ignores them completely and comes out with some childish nonsense which would be more at home in a playground of 6 year olds.

How absolutely normal.

"Russel said the nations' excellent and long-standing bilateral ties had been affected by the coup as it resulted in the removal of a democratically elected government."

Someone should educate Russel so he has some clue what he was talking about. Thailand had no government and was spiraling downwards. Pheu-Thai tried to hold an election while mass protests were on the streets, emergency law was in force and protesters were being murdered by government terrorists and the main opposition was boycotting the poll because Pheu-Thai refused any sort of compromise for reform after that amnesty bill disgrace. Even with no opposition, Pheu-Thai only polled about 30% (and over 90% of the polling booths were open before you spin some more lies red-shirts). If that is not a clear mandate that the people wanted change, I don't know what is.

It was only AFTER all of this with Thailand under a caretaker government, the PM removed by the court for abuse of power (she was certainly guilty of what she was accused of) and the murder of protesters was continuing that the Army stepped in.

So Russel is quite wrong. I would have expected better.

What can you do....?

Hey, that's the spirit! Just roll over and give-up.

Right, isn't that how progress everywhere has always been achieved?

What on earth are you talking about ?.

Did the people 'roll over' and let the government pass the amnesty disgrace ?. No - they took to the streets in the face of terrorist attacks and forced change.

Oh - you mean those same terrorists don't like these new rules ?. Well hard luck. You made your bed now lie in it.

Don't worry : you will certainly get your elections back so you can vote for the local red-shirt who will share a tiny bit of his corruption with you. But maybe things will be a little more strict than before so he won;t be able to 'donate' quite so much.

Is that what you are afraid of ?.

Anyone clicking 'like' to doctored pictures of HM and joining in with the anti Junta face book propaganda at this time must so stupid, I'm surprised they made it this far in life. Doesn't surprise me in the slightest though.

None of this is rocket science and there are tons of models out there to take the best pieces from, but no, that's not the Thai way ... got to learn from their mistakes, rather than avoiding making them, except they're not learning ...

Copying something from a board into your notebook, without even knowing what it is, doesn't make you to a professional.

Copying something word for word from google and pretending you remember it from school does not make you an expert either.

In the 15 years of constantly living here, I'm still struggling to come to a decision if Thailand is a democratic, or a democrazy country?

Or is it just a by the Junta ruled place that would like to "show the rest of the world" that it would be good to have democracy? I remember what I've learned at school:

"A democracy is usually a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives."

Did anybody really "select" the "good general" and all the other generals who've got the most powerful positions?

"Capitalism and democracy are ascendant in the third world"

You have a good memory - I found exactly the same text with a search of google just 5 minutes ago.

It's clear you don't really follow Thai politics otherwise you would not be asking those questions.

1) People don't select Generals in the Army. This is a miltary Junta, not a democracy. Nobody has said anything else.

2) You may have missed that Thailand recently had a coup. It was because the government passed an amnesty bill to forgive them all corruption crimes since 2004. Even worse, it was really just for Thaksin and yet they passed it 310 votes to 0. When the people they are supposed to represent went on the streets in mass protest, they started to kill them using terrorism.

3) Thaksin refused to compromise or back down in any way. His only chance for amnesty is to have a government in power under his control. The amnesty bill could be passed in 6 months with no opposition or checks from the Senate possible so he just had to cling on for that long and he could come back a free man.

4) In increasing desparation, the murders continued and threatened to spread into some Thai-style civil war. That's when the coup happened.

5) The intentions of the Junta are to change the rules so such an abuse of power is not possible in the future. They will hold the most free and fair election Thailand has managed yet in 2016 or 17.

So Thailand does not have democracy and it didn't have it before either. The best you can say is they had an elected government - but getting power through bankrupting the country with things like the rice scam and attempting massive off-budget loans to fund the vote-buying policies does not make them democratic.

So now the people will get to have another go and see how bad they can mess it up this time. Maybe the new rules will allow different politicians to run who can campaign in the North without getting shot or intimidated away. Or maybe it will have the same dirty faces who will just do their best to carry on as before and set about changing the rules back again.

My current thinking is 30/70 in favour of the latter.

Court showing its bias by going after red shirt/PTP citizens only....oh wait

Where are these "The Undemocrats", "Bangkok Elites" posters hiding today? When there is a proofed corrupt PTP than we hear from double standards and the Democrats are much more corrupt. When it is against a Democrat than silence.......

The word you are searching for is 'hypocrites'. A handful of posters here also deserve the prefix 'massive'.

I never really needed it much in life until I got to Thailand.

Why don't we have a list of what evidence they have presented ?.

Given their attempts to make this as public as possible, I would have expected it to be all over the internet.

Links please red-shirts. I'm interested to know what they have which was worth all this effort.

Or is it so insignificant, they don't want us to know ?.

Recently gained de facto power over AV. Must be an erroneous reporting as he promised no more politics and never to go back to the Dem Party when he storm trooped and terrorized Bangkok and set up the situation for the coup. Dem Party will be doomed if he take over the helm from AV. Not that AV is doing remarkably well too.

Are you saying he secretly got Pheu-Thai to pass the amnesty disgrace in order to get the peopl eon the streets ?.

Or are you trying to say that he was responsible for the ongoing grenade attacks and murder of THIRTY innocent and peaceful protesters (including children) ?.

Or are you saying he had influence over the Thai Police to tell them to protect those same terrorists and allow the attacks to continue unabated ?. Not a single arrest despite the attacks being in broad daylight in busy areas and even full face CCTV footage.

Because that is what set up the situation for the coup.

I have some news for you - prepare yourself for a shock. Red-shirts have already been found guilty of doing that. It takes a real low-life scumbag to point an M79 indiscriminately at a crowd including women and children then pull the trigger.

Kind of makes you look gullible and have no clue what you are talking about. Either that or it's just plain vanilla red-shirt hypocrisy. Which one is it ?.

Won't that just peeve the men with guns goverment off

In the land of face saving, you bet. Imagine overthrowing the people's elected prime minister, grabbing power illegitimately and telling the Thai voters that other world officials support the junta, only to have the elected prime minister invited by those world officials to come to Europe on behalf of Thailand and Asean. Ooops!

Tell me any civilised country whose notoriously corrupt government could get away with passing a blanket amnesty bill in that disgraceful manner to absolve themselves of all charges of corruption back to 2004 and survive in office.

Why do you people keeping putting out the lie that the Junta overthrew the elected government and PM ?. Yingluck had already been removed by the court for abuse of power (putting Paradorn in charge of the NSC ready for an amnesty bill attempt) and the country was operating under a caretaker government because that farce of an election they tried to hold during mass street protests and emergency law failed. And even then, they only got about 30% of the vote.

Can you not get this into your head ?. Or do you know it already, but prefer to pretend the lie is what happened ?.

Another drafter, who is also a veteran political scientist, Chartchai Na Chiangmai, explained the charter court was now being designed to prevent the kind of conflicts that have happened in the past.

"If a conflict is between a good number of people and the powers that be, there should be a channel for the Constitutional Court to step in and steer everything back to normal." He added that the situation should not be left until it reached the point where the military has to intervene.

With all these processes, the court would have the authority to initiate peacekeeping process. It would not have to wait until chaos broke out to step in. However, someone has to request the court to do so, he explained.

Take the Amnesty Bill in 2013 that led to national upheaval, as an example. Chartchai said if this model were to be imposed in that context, the Constitutional Court would have helped rule whether the bill was constitutional. This could have prevented people taking to the street, he claimed.

This is disingenuous to say the least. As a veteran political scientist, Chartchai does not appear to have learnt anything. The Constitutional Court ruled on July 13th 2012 that amending the constitution was constitutional (they subsequently changed their mind on certain amendments such as actually electing Senators instead of appointing them but hey..........). To become law the Senate had to approve the amendment. The Senate did not give approval, therefore the amendment was quashed. This did not stop the people taking to the street nor would it have done as the planning for such events had been put in motion way before the amendments to the Constitution were enacted. The latest constitution is being rewritten in such a way as to facilitate this "arrangement" in the future.

The bill was not quashed. It was put into a state where the government could force it through in 6 months regardless of the Senate. Did it ever cross your mind why it happened like that ?.

Given they approved it 310:0 in the most disgraceful show of corrupt politicians I have ever seen, do you think would have hesitated ?.

You really should get to know what you are talking about before posting rhetoric.

Any government who attempts to pass amnesty for themselves for all corruption charges is not fit to govern. They completely deserved to be kicked out. It was the most disgraceful display of dirty politicians I have ever seen. Thank heavens Thailand had enough decent people to take to the streets even knowing they risked being murdered by government terrorists.

That amnesty bill situation must never be allowed to happen again. Those people and those who still support them are old style corrupt 3rd world Asian dinosaurs who have no place in the modern world. I almost laugh out loud whenever one of you thinks you represent 'democracy' in any way shape or form.

Has the UDD ever presented evidence in the past about corruption?

What difference would it make if they have or haven't? If they have evidence of corruption with regard to the militarys involvement in the Rajabhakti Park scandal it should be examined by the NACC (for what they're worth) and acted upon.

A shallow attempt at trying to denigrate the alleged evidence because you don't like the people presenting it.

It's called being biased. If they never went after corruption when they were in power, with all the control they needed to deal with this stuff, why do it now? It's purely political. They don't care about corruption. Just want to make the military look bad. Luckily, they're doing a pretty good job of this themselves! LOL

No, it's called being massive hypocrites. Just like every other one of these people who were silent during Pheu-Thais ridiculous corruption scams.

If they didn't speak out during the lead up to the protests, their opinions are worthless.

"...fragile political peace..."

Political peace bought at the expense of many personal freedoms we take for granted in the West. Peace obtained by threats, intimidation and harassment.

Which freedoms are those exactly ?. As you say 'many', please list 10. I'm from the West and have not seen a single thing which the average decent Thai has been deprived of. In fact, they only change is that they are not having all their money stolen by the rice scheme and they are not being blown up for standing outside a shopping center.

The only ones held down by the new rules are the red-shirts who want to cause trouble. They want their power back and the spoils that go with it. We had enough of their 'trouble-causing' when they railroaded through the disgraceful amnesty bill then murdered 30 innocent, peaceful protesters trying to cling on to power after mass protests and demands for reform.

Thailand is a better place with these medieval throwbacks on a leash.

Maybe Donald Trump has a point saying ban all foreign muslim's from U.S.A. it could be a good idea for Thailand etc as the RTP know these madmen & women have entered Thailand in Oct.

I would love to see the result of a poll of all non-muslims in the UK and USA if asked that question.

They would never, ever dare to hold such a vote.

So is the government and military going to stop the train bring the farmers to Bangkok. Or maybe block their trackers from entering the city.

I don't expect so because these are real protesters with a real reason to go out.

Not gullible children sent out by some coward hiding back at home who are saying they are protesting against corruption when in fact the sole purpose is political activism.

Red shirts can't even tell the truth about why they are protesting. Is there a shred of honesty in any of them ?.

I wonder if you can actually see the difference or not. My guess is yes, but you are made of the same stuff as they are and are pretending something else because it suits you.

ps. It's tractors, not trackers. Just sayin' to help you look a bit more literate next time.

lock them all up !! they are only out to make trouble same as red shirts.

Considering Prayuth got into power by yellow shirt rallies organized by Suthep, who has escaped any legal action, even after organizing public gatherings and setting up commitees, that's a pretty hypocritical statement to make.

What a joke - even allowing for your semi-literate English.

You were obviously somewhere else during the protests and got your information from the village red-shirts. I watched it all unfold step by step.

No amnesty bill = no coup.

No murder of THIRTY protesters by Pheu-Thais UDD terrorists in over 90 grenade attacks and not a single arrest = no coup

And where were all these 'righteous protesters' when all this and the rampant corruption was going on under Pheu-Thai ?. Nowhere to be seen.

Hypocrite is a very good word. Now learn to use it correctly. I have grown to prefer it with the word 'massive' at the front these days.

Even the reason for their protest is based on a lie. They don't care one jot about the corruption. It's a political stunt which they have already admitted is organised by someone else they refuse to name.

Ethics = zero.

Why not take a closer look at Uncle Too and his brother (as well as the rest of the junta) while they're at it? I mean, it's not like they're granted an amnesty or anything like that cheeky YL government tried to implement, right?

Oh, wait............

So you seriously think the standard amnesty put into place to cover the military for the coup is just the same as the amnesty Pheu-Thai forced through in the most disgraceful manner to forgive themselves (and of course Thaksin, a convicted criminal on the run) of thousands of corruption charges since 2004 ?.

Goodness me. You people continue to fall short of the very, very low standards I have grown to expect.

Cheeky isn't the word I would use. 'Lowlife dirty cronies' is much more accurate.

Corruption in the bureaucracy continues much as before.There have been a few very high profile crackdowns but they for a variety of reasons these may not reflect very much about the war on corruption.

The acid test as was pointed out I think by Catterwell recently will be whether the Junta tackles the small but notorious group of senior army and police mafia types - so far untouched.

We know that Thaksin was corrupt in the sense of fixing the game, but I am sceptical whether politicians in general represent the most venal section of Thailand's corruption problem though it suits the purpose of some to suggest exactly this - along with the electoral democracy politicians represent.

It's very unlikely that foreigners without some real background of doing business over many years in Thailand would have much to offer on this topic.Their experience is largely limited to traffic cops and the immigration clerks who deal with their visas.

I'm perfectly willing to give this government a chance but in truth the much vaunted war on corruption is very far down its priorities list.

"We know that Thaksin was corrupt in the sense of fixing the game,......."

In which "sense" wasn't he corrupt?

In the sense of accepting bribes.In the sense of amassing a large fortune on the basis of a very small salary.He played by the standards of the Sino Thai tycoon class and in truth his behaviour differs little from theirs.

Where his behaviour was uniquely bad was - having been given great responsibility - he changed the rules to benefit his personal financial interests.There was no sense of fair competition.

But notwithstanding his poor record Thaksin's vast wealth is comprehensible and it is possible to work out how it has been accumulated.The wealth of many of his persecutors cannot.The great wealth of many generals cannot.

It suits the purpose of some to suggest that Thaksin was uniquely corrupt.He wasn't - just more effective than most of his Sino Thai business equivalents.He is hated not for his corruption - though that is the pretext - but because he challenged a power base and had a majority on his side.

Dream on in your red-shirt fantasy world.

Thaksin is so hated because he is an ego-driven, conscienceless megalomaniac. He craves power to compensate for his lowly golum-like appearance.

He is not satisfied with money. He wants cronies and worshippers at his feet telling him how great he is. He will play any trick imaginable to get rid of his opponents and will send his gullible followers to their deaths for his own benefit without any conscience. It takes a real scumbag to mix hard-core thugs and mercenaries in with innocent civilians and start shooting. Or to send UDD lowlife to fire grenades (a terrible weapon to use in a crowd) at protesters who are endangering his grip on power.

I had to laugh when he said it was easy to win the hearts of red-shirts. Talk about treating people like dogs. You just promise them you will make them rich. Yet all I have seen is him make his loyal lackeys rich to keep them at his feet. The farmers aren't any better off (and plenty killed themselves when the rice scheme collapsed leaving them with big debts) and he threw all his loyal red-shirts under a bus when he changed the amnesty bill for his own benefit at the last minute.

But you can pretend to yourself it is just because he was so successful if it makes you feel better.

Aren't you embarrassed at being so shallow ?.