Hundreds in Bangkok mark anniversary of army crackdown

[bannork]

1 hour ago, Eric Loh said:

I guess it is like that Jeff Savage guy who was caught on tape saying lots of things about burning because he was stressed and really all bravado and never had the intention to be involved. Strange no red shirts were convicted for burning. Some theorized it was staged. I am sure you disagree. In any case, how you equate burning and the killing of 80 unarmed citizens. 

Red shirts cheering to burn Bangkok to the ground

 

[JAG]

2 minutes ago, The Deerhunter said:

Your Avatar says it all.  And I am no lover of juntas, Military coups or other such.   My Thai family here thought the coup was great and i told them it was not the way to resolve these things.  I think most would agree with me now.   So where do we find the impossible, an honest politician,  Thailand's real Lee Kuan Yew or Mahatma Ghandi if you wish to lead this sorry country out of this repetitive bad habit of bad governments punctuated by coups?

You allow the bad government, if elected, to rule. You grit your teeth and move heaven and earth to persuade the electorate not to return them to power. Hard work, frustrating, and likely to take several electoral cycles.

 

As someone recently pointed out, if Thaksin had been allowed to win the election in 2006, he would probably now (four electoral cycles later) have been voted out, Abhisit could have been elected to power. Instead what have we got? A junta clinging to power, a castrated political system, a viscously divided country and simmering discontent. A classic recipe for civil war. All it needs is a catalyst.

[The Deerhunter]

1 minute ago, JAG said:

I have been a soldier, and faced hostile crowds in an urban environment. What they did was blatantly criminal, open murder, in clear breach of the Hague Conventions (Geneva Convention), and the international laws of armed conflict. I can categorically state that in my army, if I had done that, I would have gone to prison. For a long time.

Good,   I have obviously not seen the information you claim to have seen.  I hope it is all truthful for your sake and not fabricated. 

But anyway you would probably have been quite safe.    In most western countries it would have taken about thirty years for them to get all P.C. and charge you with any thing.  The British govt is now chasing old age pensioners for things 30 years ago in Yemen, Libya  and Egypt etc.  Anyway, I am out of this post now.  I have had enough of it.   I have wasted a total of whole days here over the last so many years.   I am only encouraged that some of the red sympathisers have wasted whole months here and some of them have been taking time off earning an income, to do it.

[The Deerhunter]

7 minutes ago, bannork said:

Red shirts cheering to burn Bangkok to the ground

 

No Eric, I don't.  I do abhor both however, but not equally.  Could you not find the one of Jatuporn to show us all?

[jenny2017]

8 hours ago, Krataiboy said:

Only hundreds? It deserved many thousands.

Hundreds of thousands, to be honest. But the fear was too big. 

[jenny2017]

8 minutes ago, The Deerhunter said:

No Eric, I don't.  I do abhor both however, but not equally.  Could you not find the one of Jatuporn to show us all?

If you've got some time, please watch this one:

 

   

 

[bannork]

21 minutes ago, JAG said:

You allow the bad government, if elected, to rule. You grit your teeth and move heaven and earth to persuade the electorate not to return them to power. Hard work, frustrating, and likely to take several electoral cycles.

 

As someone recently pointed out, if Thaksin had been allowed to win the election in 2006, he would probably now (four electoral cycles later) have been voted out, Abhisit could have been elected to power. Instead what have we got? A junta clinging to power, a castrated political system, a viscously divided country and simmering discontent. A classic recipe for civil war. All it needs is a catalyst.

JAG, you are clearly a man with a good heart but I think you are being naive here. Thaksin has always been into domination, eliminating any competition. He did that in the mobile phone market and applied the same principles to politics, buying up any rivals- NAP,, 79 MPs for example.

He applied the same principles to the media - any newspaper, TV station that did not support him were deprived of state advertising.

As regards checks and balances, he stacked his men in every independent agency that he could.

He would never have given up power. He has never apologised for anything he has done- the killing of innocents in the drug war, the deaths in Tak Bai, the economic stupidity of the 15,000 baht rice programme. Not a word of contrition, 

a sign of a egomaniac.

Thaksin would prefer Thailand destroyed itself by infighting rather than give up the Shinawats' claim to political power.

If he really loved Thailand he would withdraw the Shinawat family entirely from politics whilst setting up an ongoing fund to develop and prosper grassroots democracy in Thailand. 

Edited May 20, 2018 by bannork

[JAG]

15 minutes ago, bannork said:

JAG, you are clearly a man with a good heart but I think you are being naive here. Thaksin has always been into domination, eliminating any competition. He did that in the mobile phone market and applied the same principles to politics, buying up any rivals- NAP,, 79 MPs for example.

He applied the same principles to the media - any newspaper, TV station that did not support him were deprived of state advertising.

As regards checks and balances, he stacked his men in every independent agency that he could.

He would never have given up power. He has never apologised for anything he has done- the killing of innocents in the drug war, the deaths in Tak Bai, the economic stupidity of the 15,000 baht rice programme. Not a word of contrition, 

a sign of a egomaniac.

Thaksin would prefer Thailand destroyed itself by infighting rather than give up the Shinawats' claim to political power.

If he really loved Thailand he would withdraw the Shinawat family entirely from politics whilst setting up an ongoing fund to develop and prosper grassroots democracy in Thailand. 

All the faults which you list, can be absolutely applied also to his political rivals, and probably more so, to the junta. That is why democracy, the people deciding who should government, not a military junta or a cabal of the immensely wealthy is the only  way to break this impasse, without bloodshed.

[bannork]

1 minute ago, JAG said:

All the faults which you list, can be absolutely applied also to his political rivals, and probably more so, to the junta. That is why democracy, the people deciding who should government, not a military junta or a cabal of the immensely wealthy is the only  way to break this impasse, without bloodshed.

The junta is not the answer, but neither is Thaksin, a man who proclaimed democracy is not his goal.

Pheua Thai and the red shirts need to divorce themselves from their leader and funder. 

But can they do that? 

[Eric Loh]

41 minutes ago, The Deerhunter said:

No Eric, I don't.  I do abhor both however, but not equally.  Could you not find the one of Jatuporn to show us all?

Did he burn those buildings? 

[jenny2017]

38 minutes ago, bannork said:

JAG, you are clearly a man with a good heart but I think you are being naive here. Thaksin has always been into domination, eliminating any competition. He did that in the mobile phone market and applied the same principles to politics, buying up any rivals- NAP,, 79 MPs for example.

He applied the same principles to the media - any newspaper, TV station that did not support him were deprived of state advertising.

As regards checks and balances, he stacked his men in every independent agency that he could.

He would never have given up power. He has never apologised for anything he has done- the killing of innocents in the drug war, the deaths in Tak Bai, the economic stupidity of the 15,000 baht rice programme. Not a word of contrition, 

a sign of a egomaniac.

Thaksin would prefer Thailand destroyed itself by infighting rather than give up the Shinawats' claim to political power.

If he really loved Thailand he would withdraw the Shinawat family entirely from politics whilst setting up an ongoing fund to develop and prosper grassroots democracy in Thailand. 

Not even Ed Karabao was allowed to play. And that means a lot. 

[FritsSikkink]

12 hours ago, Cadbury said:

I remember walking through the protest area underneath the BTS around the stalls and seeing the photos of the faces and bodies of those shot. A photo of the protest rally. 

here some pics why the army had to do a coup:

[The Deerhunter]

45 minutes ago, jenny2017 said:

If you've got some time, please watch this one:

 

   

 

Did that.  All 22 minutes.   No great surprises.  Interesting to hear the deputy leaders of Dems & PTP.    The big problem is to get past all the money paid by Thaksin to local leaders and not have them control the votes of the relatively unsophisticated but honest urban & rural poor, nor allow the influence of the elites to continue it's self interest as it has for most of the time since 1932.   How to do that?  I don't know.   

Good name "East 101"   Roi et again.  M

[jakethepeg]

1 hour ago, bannork said:

JAG, you are clearly a man with a good heart but I think you are being naive here. Thaksin has always been into domination, eliminating any competition. He did that in the mobile phone market and applied the same principles to politics, buying up any rivals- NAP,, 79 MPs for example.

He applied the same principles to the media - any newspaper, TV station that did not support him were deprived of state advertising.

As regards checks and balances, he stacked his men in every independent agency that he could.

He would never have given up power. He has never apologised for anything he has done- the killing of innocents in the drug war, the deaths in Tak Bai, the economic stupidity of the 15,000 baht rice programme. Not a word of contrition, 

a sign of a egomaniac.

Thaksin would prefer Thailand destroyed itself by infighting rather than give up the Shinawats' claim to political power.

If he really loved Thailand he would withdraw the Shinawat family entirely from politics whilst setting up an ongoing fund to develop and prosper grassroots democracy in Thailand. 

Nailed it !!

[tukkytuktuk]

1 hour ago, bannork said:

The junta is not the answer, but neither is Thaksin, a man who proclaimed democracy is not his goal.

Pheua Thai and the red shirts need to divorce themselves from their leader and funder. 

But can they do that? 

Now this has to be the best post so far! Well said bannork. They are both as bad as each other and many Thais want an end to this war between them. So someone else running the show would be the best solution. These protests pro or anti-Thaksin will only stop when a government forms without allegiance to Thaksin or the Junta. Just my opinion. I'm not Thai but presently things are getting interesting politically in Thailand.

[monkfish]

They could have just called an election the protest would have been over and none would have been killed.

Edited May 20, 2018 by monkfish

[candide]

11 hours ago, The Deerhunter said:

Equally sad it remains to be that it was necessary to issue live rounds in the face of people threatening to burn Bangkok.   Quote:  "If a million of you bring one litre of petrol each we will have a million litres of petrol."   (Is that nice peace-loving man in jail or out at the moment? I keep losing track.)  As prime minister or head of the emergency committee mist people including me and many of the nay-sayers would have in all truth done the same thing (if we were not talking, eight years later  about a red shirt protest.  (Yes, we all know they were gentle peace-loving folk of pure heart who meant no harm to anyone or any shopping malls)

It was not necessary a all. What was necessary (and long before this event) was to do exactly what Yingluck did when her legitimacy was contested: dissolve the assembly asap and organize election asap.

I answer in advance your next objection: Abhisit did not want to dissolve the assembly asap because he wanted to make sure to appoint Prayuth as army chief in September. For reasons that everybody understood very well, includingvthe red shirts.

[Eric Loh]

Until this day I am still curious why Prayut who was the Chief of the Royal Thai Army didn't stage a coup when the situ

10 hours ago, monkfish said:

They could have just called an election the protest would have been over and none would have been killed.

Until today, I am still curious as to why General Prayut as Army Chief didn't stage a coup before things went out of control. Many lives would have been saved. The Bangkok Shutdown seem tame compare to 2010. 

[The Deerhunter]

2 hours ago, candide said:

It was not necessary a all. What was necessary (and long before this event) was to do exactly what Yingluck did when her legitimacy was contested: dissolve the assembly asap and organize election asap.

I answer in advance your next objection: Abhisit did not want to dissolve the assembly asap because he wanted to make sure to appoint Prayuth as army chief in September. For reasons that everybody understood very well, includingvthe red shirts.

Possibly you are right but the reason was simple.   Thaksin was at that stage still much more than a ghost receding rapidly into the past. He or a proxy would have aced any election then, based on (1) the poor peoples' memories of his few, well publicised good deeds, done to get him to the big job and (2) His infrastructure of loyal paid local politicians was still alive and well, hoping for a continued or resurrected payday of public money.  Read  "The Jungle Book."  No, not the one by Rudyard Kipling.  Must still be available.  I bought mine in Asia Books in Sukhumvit Rd years ago.   

 

And that was NOT REALLY what she did:  Well, not for those reasons anyway or she would have had budget and funds, earmarked in the correct account to pay the poor people's rice pledges.  But she didn't, did she!  So her motives were quite different from what you suggest.  Partly , she was out of her depth and had had enough.  Partly she was scared of her future knowing what was waiting to be found.

 

That's it for me on this thread.  (Second time I have said this.)   Too much on this week, personally, not business.  

Edited May 21, 2018 by The Deerhunter

[Eric Loh]

11 minutes ago, The Deerhunter said:

A hard core few never went away.  However most of the few remaining are probably like Trump fans; just too embarrassed to admit they were conned.  Still rationalising and repeating lies.   A few of the best probably still on the pay roll.  He won't ever give up till he dies.  Thailand's hope for a  Lee Kuan Yew turned more than halfway into a Marcos and in some cases, more than just hints of a Mugabe.

It probably be a Hun Sen if he gets into power as an outsider. Future elections will be rigged, oppositions threatened and media heavily censored just like in Cambodia to facilitate Hun Sen win in the election. The full appointed senators will be able to enact laws that will further erode democracy. He may even be the PM for life. If anything fail, he still has the guns. 

[The Deerhunter]

2 minutes ago, Eric Loh said:

It probably be a Hun Sen if he gets into power as an outsider. Future elections will be rigged, oppositions threatened and media heavily censored just like in Cambodia to facilitate Hun Sen win in the election. The full appointed senators will be able to enact laws that will further erode democracy. He may even be the PM for life. If anything fail, he still has the guns. 

Oh, you mean, just like the wonderful Mr Thaksin?    You need to get back to your work Eric.  

[Eric Loh]

1 minute ago, The Deerhunter said:

Oh, you mean, just like the wonderful Mr Thaksin?    You need to get back to your work Eric.  

Nothing wonderful about Thaksin but he was elected. In between work but still have time to correct your post. 

[metisdead]

Removed a post and the replies that claimed others were paid to post/troll. If you have any actual evidence please forward it to support. Continue to post in this nature with  references like that may find your posting rights suspended. 

[greenchair]

They could have let them walk. 

It was such a simple request to give a letter to the government and finish by 12 o'clock. 

They had approval too.