Insight

Very brave to come out with such frank comments while her hired thugs are blatantly on the intimidation march again.

There was for non interference if conditions were met, like redshirts are disbanded and Les Majeste is left alone. How else do you explain Yinglucks meetings with the father of the Thaksin coup, Prem and the undemocratic clause in the amnesty clause that excludes those charged with les majeste? Or Privy Council president and statesman Prem Tinsulanonda has calling on the armed forces to support Prime Minister and Defence Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, post amnesty passing its third reading?

When exactly did this happen? The "amnesty" package has only just been modified very recently to completely whitewash Thaksin, hence all the uproar we're seeing now.

And if a "deal" has been done, why are both Pryuth and Abhisit - supposedly "poster boys" of the "amart" - still both very vocally very against amnesty for themselves?

Thaksin and the Army/Prem struck a deal. No one else matters. Its all over, fat lady is warming up...

That may be, but never underestimate Thaksin's ability to screw things up. That's what got him into trouble in the first place.

If so, any "deal" would of been royally appointed. There's absolutely no evidence of this (if there is, please share if poss).

The bill has only just left the house and is meeting massive resistance. Things seem like they are heading very 2006 pre-coup.

Nation Multimedia Group reporter Apichart Hongsakul said the young men who attacked police do not appear to be farmers and they were well equipped with home-made weapons including metal pipes and home-made explosives.

Has redshirts written all over it ! Bet they were on 500 a day.

Haha. Much more likely a politician with the initial "S".

Insinuations made using initials. Where have we seen this before?

I blame the coup too.

The coup, which happened in 2006.

Which had a general election about a year after in which a Thaksin-backed party won.

Which has seen numerous Thaksin-funded parties take the helm of Thailand in the 7 YEARS SINCE. Any one of which could have taken significant steps in removing such arcane laws permitting freedom of expression, but didn't. Instead they've typically maximised use of these arcane laws to their own advantage.

But I still blame the coup, because it's there to be blamed.

And who knows? Maybe I've been told to...

The format of the video looks genuine enough, albeit to my armchair eyes. If it is a hatched job, it certainly looks a billion times better than this one:

The big question posted by a number of others on here is - why now? Is it because PT a desperately attempting to engineer another farcical ceasefire?

And who would of thought Al Qeada would be responsible for peace in Thailand?

If this is being considered as genuine by the Thaksin squad, and given our man-of-the-hour's reputation for fleeing when things get even slightly warm, this announcement would of surely would of rattled a few cages.

I'm loving those Alzheimers adverts here on TV, uh, hmm, but I digress

In case of mass memory loss it could be real, but, strange the timing of it all. Sadly though for all the yellow pom pom waivers, there is a documented track record of just these kinds of elaborate stunts. Shall we take a trip down memory lane ...

The Royal Robe changing ceremony (conspiracy)

The Erawan Shrine image defacing and, yes (conspiracy)

The Finland Plot (conspiracy)

The origins of the Preah Vihar Temple dispute (conspiracy)

NASAs spy mission cloaked as a weather study (conspiracy)

Looks like we have a regular CV here.

I gather Amsertdam Inc are still getting their strategy together on this one then?

It seems that any sites that have this recording hosted on them have been blocked. I don't know if anyone else can independently verify that.

Authenticity confirmed then.

I have a little question.

Not important I guess, but...all of you, who claim that the Red Shirts burned down Central World, have really good prove for that, I guess?!

Otherwise, you would clearly not spout stuff like that.

... he unashamedly asks.

Good turnout. Less than 100!

Retards!

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

Doesn't really make sense because the protestors haven't been ignored, far from it.They have been certainly mocked because the Guy Fawkes masks they wear indicate an agenda opposite to what they profess.Still never mind, it's harmless enough.The much more absurd feature is their use of the term "Thai Spring" indicating they have no idea what was behind the Arab Spring - ie a popular revolt against the old entrenched establishment.It's important to understand there's nothing new about this movement - just another incarnation of PAD, Pitak Siam, the multicoloureds etc - just fronts populated by useful idiots (admittedly somtimes well meaning) for the old order.

The red shirts should go into gardening. They'll make a killing (pardon the pun) selling glass houses.

This video shows the red shirts having a bit of a jolly around their new camp fire:

This video shows the red shirts at Din Daeng receiving orders to burn everything:



I've heard there's an effort being made to remove such videos from YouTube. Perhaps now would be a good time to somehow archive your favourite red-shirt-burning-of-CTW-and-elsewhere videos to hard disk.

/edit p.s. I find it utterly amazing that a mysterious non-red-shirt force - being blamed for killing all these red shirts - could get into camp red and set fire to the whole Zen section of CTW, closest to the red stage, clearly at the pleasure of the red shirts, without coming under attack themselves.

Anyway, here's our friend Jeff again (coz it is relevant ):

Utterly tragic. RIP.

Have any of them apologized to business owners whose businesses they burned and destroyed?

The official Red Shirt position on this is:

"It wasn't me."

Seriously...

I'm not presupposing anything. Just wish some other 'career' posters here were the same.

Bless.

They only act when people start breaking the rules.

At ~2.50 you hear about the red guard stopping the protesters "surging forward" getting too close to the army.

At 3.36 you hear the first boom. The first M79...?

In the aftermath, the protesters were free to attack the army, in whatever injured state they were in.

I can understand why protester would pay attention to what the guards preach.

So the last 'announcement' by the red shirt guards - according to you on that day - was to stop the protesters surging forward. Doesn't seem overly offensive to me, but anyway I'm trying to get a handle on what happened today. Specifically, I'm looking for evidence of the 'tight control' that red shirt guards had over today's demonstrators in ensuring that no violent conduct took place. You have explicitly said they have tight control over the demonstrators so I hoped to have some evidence of that occurring today. Cheers.

10 days ago:

Around noon, a woman in her 30s dressed in black lambasted the media near the rally stage opposite Parliament.

One of the red shirts shouted out that she was not a red shirt, causing others to flock to her.

Red-shirt guards rushed to remove her from the scene as others tried to assault her physically. The woman fled in one of the buses that carried the red shirts to Parliament, before she was pulled out and hit in the head.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Yellows-stay-as-reds-head-to-Parliament-30205735.html

The protest the article refers to was relatively minor compared to today's 20,000+ (?) turnout.

You really believe this same guard, operating under the same modus operandi, was not present today?

That's more like it. Maybe so, maybe not, depending on what proof you have of such tight control. Thanks anyway.

The "red shirt guard" do have such control. News articles, YouTube videos and other eyewitness accounts confirming such are really not hard to find...

So you should be able to source announcements where the 'red shirt guard' has told everyone to be peaceful on this occasion, right?

They only act when people start breaking the rules.

At ~2.50 you hear about the red guard stopping the protesters "surging forward" getting too close to the army.

At 3.36 you hear the first boom. The first M79...?

In the aftermath, the protesters were free to attack the army, in whatever injured state they were in.

I can understand why protester would pay attention to what the guards preach.

I thought the red shirts were supposed to be violent. Why didn't it kick off?

Yep, this peaceful (6 hour?) gathering has completely eradicated the memories which occurred during that 2 month siege. What have I completely forgot about? Let's see...

The blood pouring... can't remember a thing about it.

The M79 attacks on the soldiers...

The armed "black shirts" firing at the soldiers...

The lynching of injured soldiers shortly afterwards...

The (first!) raiding of the hospitals to collect and display the bodies of the protesters...

The stockpiling of weapons... can't remember nada...

The M79 firing of the opposing protest at Silom.

The hospital raids which followed at Chula.

The burning of Central World. Which might as well be forgotten as the red shirts didn't do it anyway. Honest.

The burning and ransacking of the 7-11's along Sukhumvit during the night after the clampdown...

The various bombings around the city, which stopped after they blew themselves up in Bang Bua Tong... really difficult to forget, but I think this gathering helped managed it...

Yep, the pictures of the red shirts with those "toy" weapons today helped eradicate all these memories. Yay peaceful reds.

My question was why it didn't kick off, which your insightful reminiscences have failed to answer. Maybe try again?

Because they are lovely and peaceful and nice. When they are told to be.

Thaksin should really give up trying to push people into a corner on very dubious charges in order to accept his blanket amnesty deal. It's clearly not getting the reaction anticipated.

Maybe Thaksin should try following this advice instead:

.. even just for once.

Well, lets see. I'm not a Red Shirt, or particularly in favor of PTP, ....

..... NEXT