daboyz1

Most people here are looking at this from the wrong perspective.

Consider who is the audience for this. Firstly you have the Cambodian populace. When not ranting about the "Yuan pigs" (The Vietnamese) they are raving about Thai land grabs of their precious Cambodian soil. Any anti-Vietnamese or anti-Thai comments go down well with ordinary Cambodians and detract from internal problems and conflicts.

Secondly, the Cambodian government may want to use the issue to remind the Thais who won the 1962 ruling.

I guess if you look at from outside Thailand looking in. I will guarantee you inside Thailand this is a "hot button" issue that either side will try to use to their advantage. Hun Sen has made it very clear he will do everything he can to put a stick in Abhishit's eye.

For the sake of argument. What if Thaksin comes back and is PM again? He would be in a spot. Does he relinquish any rights to the land around the temple? I think he has painted himself in a corner on this. I don't see how he can win on this issue.

Thailand and Cambodia like bloody children. Why dont they raze the temple to the ground and be done with it!!

Exactly. Drop some bombs and let them fight over something else. The place isn't even accessible from Cambodia anyway. Hopefully Thaksin will be there when the 500 pounders fall.

Two years ago, Cambodia turned a hikers-only and dirt-bikers-only steep track into a dirt-and-gravel road accessible by 4x4's, most motorbikes, and other vehicles with high clearance--opening up the area considerably better to Cambodians and tourists from "the other side." This is what Thailand is so upset about. Formerly 95% of Khao Phra Vihan's tourists were Thai. The improvement of access from the Cambodian side started to change the ratio of visitors to favor Cambodians and western/Asian tourists from the other side. This visibly upset the Thai who feel they have a historical right to feel like they own the place, and to profit from it. For the locals and provincial government, it's mostly about money. For the Thai national government, it's mostly about deflecting the public's focus off of Thailand's real problems.

Wasn't aware of that. I haven't been around since 2006. Thanks for the update.

The timing seems suspect. If it took them since 1962 to improve this place granted they had some issues in the 70s. I just can't help but think Mr. T is somehow behind this conflict. Just seems like something he would do.

90% of the people I work with are from India, and they wonder why two Buddhist countries are fighting over a Hindu temple. I want to say money, and I suspect you are right. I just shake my head and say I don't know.

Thailand and Cambodia like bloody children. Why dont they raze the temple to the ground and be done with it!!

Exactly. Drop some bombs and let them fight over something else. The place isn't even accessible from Cambodia anyway. Hopefully Thaksin will be there when the 500 pounders fall.

No one ever voted Thaksin out of office... that's the problem

No one ever voted Nixon out of office. At least he did the right thing and resigned. If he didn't resign, he would have been impeached for sure, and more than likely brought up on charges. I'm not saying the U.S. military would have attempted a coup.

As I said before it is blatantly obvious that Thaksin cares only about Thaksin. He has made that very obvious through his phone ins, his Cambodia thing etc. etc. If I was him, I'd just hang out in Dubai or wherever and keep his mouth shut. I don't understand why he has to keep mixing up trouble in Thailand. I guess I don't understand Thai politics.

Lose of face having lost the pwoer and thus control...

he is a very controling person the CEO of the Nation as he liked to believe.

An over weaning a lust for power is part of it.

Power = Face, and money = power, here too. He's losing both.

So his personal honor is impinged upon.

No matter who you earned it power is power.

People don't bow and scrape the knee like they used to.

No doubt that galls him big time.

And that's his biggest problem. He cares nothing for Thailand, only his own image and getting his Baht back. He is using the red shirt folks to accomplish this, and that in my eyes makes him a very sad and selfish man.

Correct he removed himself from office by dissolving the parliament in Jan 2006.

He didn't get relected because TRT was caught cheating,

and the Election commission when to jail and had to be replaced,

Finally when PPP was elected, he came back with free run of the country,

but HE hadn't run for office, so he was unelected.

He was on the run from his conviction when Somchai came to power similarly to Abhisit several months later.

He removed himself from the Prime Ministers chair.

And then his party screwed up.

Not to keep beating a dead horse, but could you imagine after Nixon resigned, that his brother in law took over the presidency. That move by TRT/PPP was laughable.

Many Republican / Conservative voters feel disenfranchised in the USA now.

Any party out of power feels it is not getting a fair shake,

and many of it's harder core partisans feel it was stolen from them,

because they can't come to terms with others having different ideas about the country.

CNN and liberal press stole the lection has been stated irrationally by some.

Or in Thailand terms The biased anti-Thaksin press is subverting the minds of farnags.

yada yada

Well I have had non-americans get in my faces because

I 'voted G.W. Bush into office with my other low life American friends....'

I have literally had to shout down a couple and then explain only 1/3 or less of AMERICANS

voted for Bush and we can't all be held responsible for his actions, even as much of the world wanted to.

I always thought it was irresponsible to vote for him. And considering the dodgy supreme court verdict

and later blatant abuses in Ohio, I have always thought he should not have been in office.

But I never once sanctioned violene protest to get rid of him, as much as I wish a legal impeachment

had stopped him at year one.

Feeling disenfranchised is NORMAL for part of the electorate in ANY COUNTRY.

Why make it seem like this is special here.

Secondly much of parliamentary politics works in the same fashion world wide,

and ALWAYS there are some verbally and violently opposed to who is at the controls.

Israel a perfect example of a brokered or bartered coalition at the controls.

The current leaders did NOT win a majority, nor did the win more than another party,

but they DID put together a coalition that held. And regularly election violations and

graft and courts change the demographic of the parliamentary ratios.

So again there is NOTHING UNUSUAL with the Thailand situation,

if viewed e in comparison world wide.

What we have here

is the side not getting itself together wining on and on and

what IS unusual,

one fallen leader, Thaksin, attempting to cause chaos in the hopes of getting back to power.

Remove Thaksin from the general equation and it becomes just another

rough and tumble political food fight, like many others.

No one ever voted Thaksin out of office... that's the problem

No one ever voted Nixon out of office. At least he did the right thing and resigned. If he didn't resign, he would have been impeached for sure, and more than likely brought up on charges. I'm not saying the U.S. military would have attempted a coup.

As I said before it is blatantly obvious that Thaksin cares only about Thaksin. He has made that very obvious through his phone ins, his Cambodia thing etc. etc. If I was him, I'd just hang out in Dubai or wherever and keep his mouth shut. I don't understand why he has to keep mixing up trouble in Thailand. I guess I don't understand Thai politics.

Someones been watching a TV and movies a little too much.

I would agree until I woke up in Sept. 2006 and CNN and BBC were turned off on UBC and they had tanks deployed.

Even if that mad man may have only 10 followers... its a dangerous development and should be taken serious.

There's maybe more to come

Agreed

A good thing. Bring em on. Another one that only cares about himself more than Thailand. I hope him and Thaksin share either a cell together or the same firing squad. Traitors both of them.

Anupong is no fool.

CNN is singing the praises. Wonder how much research they did.

http://www.cnngo.com/bangkok/none/insiders...r-phuket-752463

Dont forget that Pol Pot died of natural causes in his retirement home in Thailand, they are as bad as each other,.

Correct in so much as it is totally wrong. Pol Pot died in April 1998 whilst being held under house arrest, by a faction of Khmer Rouge, in Cambodia and was cremated in Anlong Veng shortly afterwards.

At the time of Pol Pot's death and ever since, there have been persistent rumors that his death was faked. As the body was cremated almost immediately after the death, the truth of those rumors will probably never be unearthed.

The story goes that a prominent Thai general/politician with close ties to PP and other Cambodian leaders helped him fake his death and whisked him away to Thailand, where he died of natural causes a couple of years later in his Bang Saen villa.

Someone told me they saw Jim Morrison at Bourbon Street the other day. Might be a rumour.

Did Hun Sen say he didn't trust the Thai justice system? What a clod.

At least Thailand has a justice system. Cambodia, for its part, isn't even following the simple and basic procedure for officially following up on the filing of extradition papers (handing them to its judiciary).

While an International commission tried to instate some sort of court system to deal with the remaining heads of the Khmer Rouge, Hun Sen did all he could to stall the process (because he might also have been implicated). His stated reason? He said the Cambodian people would riot if the proceedings took place. Cop-out flaccid excuse that no one believed. A tiny bit of court proceedings has started, only because gargantuan salaries (by Cambodian standards) were paid to Cambodian judges. Wouldn't surprise if Hun Sen gets a cut of that.

Hun Sen is a blatant hypocrite when he disses the Thai judicial system, while simultaneously dictating what Cambodia's hollow judiciary can and cannot do.

Quite frankly, the courts letting him flee was the smartest thing they could do. If Thaksin was imprisoned the Red riots would make Songkran look like a tea party. Thaksin twittering and flying about may drive them crazy, but they should remember that his impulsive and compulsive scheming is always his downfall. For example, he went to great lengths to avoid paying taxes on the Shin Corp/Temmasak deal (changing the laws, secret offshore accounts, shell companies, etc.), and he was pretty much successful. But look at what that extremely devious deal lead to: the Coup!

I suspect that this Cambodian deal is going to turn out the same way. He may get some promises from Hun Sen (casino and oil concession, for instance), but the backlash may very well cost TRT/PTT/PPP/Whatever dearly in the next election. The govt. should just remember that Thaksin is ultimately his own worst enemy & let him go his own way.

Agree. Everything those two thugs do is primarily about amassing money, and secondarily attempts to grab more power & headlines. I'm surprised Abhisit and his people don't just let T stew in his own juices. T will be more of a thorn in the side of Thailand if he's under detention here in Thailand. T is already his own worst enemy. Just let him keep shooting his mouth off, and his popularity will continue to wane. Even his former supporters will see him as the bleating self-pitying meglamaniac he's always been.

Great post. I think that sums it up. Thaksin doesn't care one bit about Thailand or Cambodia. Thaksin cares about Thaksin.

Wonder why they picked that day?

Would Bangkok police try this on an individual basis? The workload would be huge. Better just rely on landlords and the existing system and if a farang turns up complaining about anything and they aren't 'registered' - out comes the tea-caddy

The boonies obviously don't have enough to do

Laugh. I just said the same thing to my wife. What if they did this in Bangkok. The Queue would be huge.

The Red Shirts are not for democracy. They are for Thaksin's money - always have been, always will be.

100% agree with that. They are too ignorant to realize they are taking food away from their own family's mouth. They are destroying what was left of Thailand's reputation in the international community.

Hi,

Any experience with getting a visa for a Thai wife to Japan? Hypothetical scenario: Intending to go for a year. Also, that would include a young baby as well, about 6 months old.

Anyone know if the process is easy?

Any comments welcome.

Thanks

My hooker ex girlfriend got a visa to Japan, so it cant be that hard.