Doubts On The Direction Of The Red-Shirts Movement

[Steve2UK]

<snip>

Already commented on them elsewhere on the forum, but will repeat them here: Gonzo at best.

Questionable statistics have been presented as fact without being attributed to any source. Gatherings of such proclaimed magnitude surely warrants some independent verification, rather than depending on propaganda-style reporting from the media arm of the movement, no?

You frame a question in a way that allows only one sensible answer. About sources: Nirmal Ghosh is the Thailand correspondent for The Straits Times and a past president of FCCT*. The current president of FCCT is Marwaan Macan-Markar who writes for Inter Press Service (IPS) Asia Pacific - part of a global news agency established in 1964. They are the writers of the two articles I linked to in Post #51. If their work represents "Gonzo at best" or "propaganda-style reporting from the media arm of the movement" for you, then IMO you a] have a curious view of what constitutes "Gonzo" etc and b] are very unlikely to benefit from any information input that isn't served up to you by the likes of The Nation.

You invited "pictures of the event", so I passed on links to DTV's video coverage that I came across. Short of aerial/satellite shots of the event (maybe infra-red because it was at night?), I find it hard to imagine that any pictures could confirm the 100,000 figure. Did you seriously think that I was offering the DTV coverage as proof of anything? For myself, I do find the content of those clips useful - but only to provide an "insight" into the nature of such events.

* http://www.fccthai.com/board.html

[hammered]

When I was active in demos back home we use dot work on double the police number and halve the organisers and if they matched which often they did then that was your number.

In Thailand the ratio may be soemwhat different. Polcie chiefs etc lose their jobs if demos are too big and organisers at every level are usually rewarded financially for numbers so the police quite likely underestimate big time and organisersd overestimate big time

Anyway the numbers dont really matter too much unless they hit the humongous amount of 500K up of which there certainly havent been any in Thiland's recent history.

The journos who knows if they are good journos or not or good at estimating numbers and it is usually interesting to know whether they side with or oppose they are reporting on. Bias happens.

Then you get unattributed sources or security sources say. Make of it what you will but what exaclty or who was the source and what was their interest

And there is staged events organise one for public consumption in one place and then say there were also ten others for example in other villages

All propaganda games and just beleive whatever you want to believe. Psyops teaches do not believe what you see or hear pretty early on and that would apply to all presented in the current power struggle

imho but I aint a believer of any of the todgers;)

[Steve2UK]

THAILAND:

Anti-gov’t Movement Opens Rural Minds through ‘Schools’

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BAAN MUANG, Thailand, Feb 10 (IPS) - Adult education of a novel kind is making its way through this remote town of rice farmers, who are drawn to it by a desire to learn about this kingdom’s deep political and social divisions.

On a recent Sunday, over 700 men and women filled the main hall of a private technical college in Baan Muang, in Thailand’s north-eastern province of Sakon Nakhon, to get their introductory lesson. Some of the students, whose ages ranged from the early 30s to the mid-70s, came from here; some from neighbouring villages.

The uniform they wore for this whole day of lectures and discussions revealed where their political loyalties lay in this South-east Asian nation’s colour-coded political schism. All sported the red shirts of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), a protest movement with strong links to the ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Songkan Chumpunsa was among them. The 39-year-old paddy farmer’s return to the halls of learning comes 25 years after she, like many others in this rural community, finished formal education in elementary school. She was 12 years old at that time.

Songkan’s quest for knowledge that drew her to the Sunday school is rooted in the events of April 2009, when mayhem broke out in Bangkok after UDD supporters clashed with the Thai military and were vanquished by a superior armed force.

"This is the first time I am joining this school," says Songkan, a mother of two children. "I want to learn about injustice and what is wrong in our country after I became an active supporter of the Red Shirts after the April crackdown last year."

Her views are echoed by Pathamawan Sriwongudonslip, who gave up her normal Sunday routine tending to the orchids in her garden to don a red shirt and to listen to lectures on political, social and economic injustice that voters in rural Thailand have been subjected to by Bangkok’s royalist-dominated political machine.

The 67-page manual distributed to students like Songkan and Pathamwan leave little doubt that these "political schools," as the UDD leaders describe them, have aims that are far from bridging this country’s deep and widening political and social fault lines. With its deceptive soft-pink cover, the manual hammers away at the pro-royalist political establishment, or the ‘Amart’, as it is known in Thai.

"(In the Amart’s point of view), the majority of Thai people are ignorant and easily bought and have low moral consciousness. It is inappropriate if we let the low-class people, including the low-class rich, use the power of the majority," declares one chapter of ‘Political Guidelines’, describing how the country’s majority voters, the rural poor, are perceived by the ‘Amart’.

"Thailand has to destroy this kind of fighting based on majority power no matter how (undemocratic) it is, no matter how many people are killed," the text continues, trying to drive home the point to the rural poor about the power of their vote and who seeks to emasculate that.

"I want to expose the contradictions in our society, the double standards, the political and economic injustice," reveals Dr Weng Tojirakarn, one of the UDD leaders spearheading this education programme for the anti-government protest movement’s increasingly politically awakened supporters. "We are trying to educate the people about the need to understand who the real enemies of Thai democracy are."

And it is his role as a political educator that brought the 58-year-old family physician to this province on a Sunday. On weekends, he launches into this career as a lecturer, criss-crossing the provincial hinterland. Weekdays find him in his Bangkok clinic, caring for his patients.

Dr Weng and his team of four lecturers expect busy times ahead, given the growing demand for these "political schools" in the north and north-east provinces. The Sunday school in Baan Muang became the 10th that has opened since the UDD embarked on this line of activity late last year. Similar sessions have been held in the provinces of Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen and the neighbouring province of Udon Thani.

"We’ll open four schools the next weekend (Feb. 13-14)," reveals Jaran Ditapichai, a former member of the national human rights commission and a UDD leader. "The concept behind these schools is to allow people who are Red Shirt supporters to learn more about the movement and the direction it is taking."

The day-long sessions usually end with discussions about how to organise at the community level so that "we can have better coordination," Jaran confirmed after delivering his lecture at the Baan Muang technical college. "Part of that includes the communities electing their own leader."

But these "political schools" are not the only feature of the UDD’s evolving strategy to cater to its rural support base.

In this province, for instance, UDD membership brings with it a telephone card with three mobile phone numbers to connect a central call centre. The latter serves as a clearinghouse of information, clarifying queries and supplying details about planned Red Shirt rallies.

In the coming weeks too, fortunate UDD supporters in this province who cannot afford a state-of-the-art satellite dish will have access to cheaper ways to view programmes on a pro-UDD television station. An estimated first set of 1,000 satellite dishes will be offered to them at a cheaper price of 1,200 baht (35 U.S. dollars) each.

These would give farmers like Songkan access to all the pro-UDD information outlets that, in addition to the "political schools" and television station, already include a stable of community radio stations, newspapers, magazines and websites.

A key beneficiary of this UDD information network is Thaksin, the political godfather of the Red Shirts. He is tapping into this expanding support base in rural Thailand to have the numbers on his side ahead of a Feb. 26 verdict by the Supreme Court. The pivotal ruling will determine the fate of Thaksin’s 2.2 billion U.S. dollars worth of assets, which were frozen by the junta that came to power in September 2006 by turfing out the elected Thaksin administration in this country’s 18th coup.

Rural support for Thaksin, who has been living in exile to avoid a two-year jail term for corruption, is strong. It stems from the wide support the billionaire telecommunications tycoon received from the country’s rural voters in the north and north-east as a result of many pro-poor policies he implemented while in power. But such election majorities – where his former party and one allied to him won four successive elections – did not translate into political stability for him.

In addition to the September 2006 putsch, UDD supporters have been seething at the role that the courts have taken to disenfranchise them. This happened in December 2008, when a pro-Thaksin party elected the year before was dissolved following a controversial court verdict. That paved the way for the current coalition government to fill the void after backroom deals were shaped by the country’s powerful military.

Such anger is also prompting some Red Shirts in provinces like Khon Kaen to look beyond Thaksin in their struggle to take on the ‘Amart’ and to fight for their right to choose their own government. "Even if Thaksin gives up if he loses his case, it is okay," says Sunan Ankaew, who runs a second-hand car business. "We will continue to learn more of what is wrong with Thai politics and we will still fight." (END/2010)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50274

[Insight]

You frame a question in a way that allows only one sensible answer. About sources: Nirmal Ghosh is the Thailand correspondent for The Straits Times and a past president of FCCT*. The current president of FCCT is Marwaan Macan-Markar who writes for Inter Press Service (IPS) Asia Pacific - part of a global news agency established in 1964. They are the writers of the two articles I linked to in Post #51. If their work represents "Gonzo at best" or "propaganda-style reporting from the media arm of the movement" for you, then IMO you a] have a curious view of what constitutes "Gonzo" etc and b] are very unlikely to benefit from any information input that isn't served up to you by the likes of The Nation.

You invited "pictures of the event", so I passed on links to DTV's video coverage that I came across. Short of aerial/satellite shots of the event (maybe infra-red because it was at night?), I find it hard to imagine that any pictures could confirm the 100,000 figure. Did you seriously think that I was offering the DTV coverage as proof of anything? For myself, I do find the content of those clips useful - but only to provide an "insight" into the nature of such events.

* http://www.fccthai.com/board.html

It appears you've completely misread my two sentences, Steve2UK. Allow me to break it down for you:

"Questionable statistics have been presented as fact without being attributed to any source."

Have a re-read of the paragraph from the report the above is referring to and let me know if what I'm stating is inaccurate:

"Last weekend, the UDD held consecutive rallies, gathering 100,000 in Khon Kaen and 50,000 people in Ubon Ratchathani. The rallies were largely unreported by the Bangkok-based mainstream media."

Next sentence:

"Gatherings of such proclaimed magnitude surely warrants some independent verification, rather than depending on propaganda-style reporting from the media arm of the movement, no?"

I guess you've assumed I'm referring to the FCCT as the media arm of the movement. I'm referring to the DTV images provided (and nothing else - because, to date, there's been nothing else).

You can spend the remaining future of this thread whining about it, but I still find it strange there are no pictures of the event to date, other than what has been broadcast on DTV. Bottom line - if a few rolling clips from DTV are the only verification we have of these 100,000 people, then excuse me if I take it with a rather large bag of salt.

[hammered]

You frame a question in a way that allows only one sensible answer. About sources: Nirmal Ghosh is the Thailand correspondent for The Straits Times and a past president of FCCT*. The current president of FCCT is Marwaan Macan-Markar who writes for Inter Press Service (IPS) Asia Pacific - part of a global news agency established in 1964. They are the writers of the two articles I linked to in Post #51. If their work represents "Gonzo at best" or "propaganda-style reporting from the media arm of the movement" for you, then IMO you a] have a curious view of what constitutes "Gonzo" etc and b] are very unlikely to benefit from any information input that isn't served up to you by the likes of The Nation.

You invited "pictures of the event", so I passed on links to DTV's video coverage that I came across. Short of aerial/satellite shots of the event (maybe infra-red because it was at night?), I find it hard to imagine that any pictures could confirm the 100,000 figure. Did you seriously think that I was offering the DTV coverage as proof of anything? For myself, I do find the content of those clips useful - but only to provide an "insight" into the nature of such events.

* http://www.fccthai.com/board.html

It appears you've completely misread my two sentences, Steve2UK. Allow me to break it down for you:

"Questionable statistics have been presented as fact without being attributed to any source."

Have a re-read of the paragraph from the report the above is referring to and let me know if what I'm stating is inaccurate:

"Last weekend, the UDD held consecutive rallies, gathering 100,000 in Khon Kaen and 50,000 people in Ubon Ratchathani. The rallies were largely unreported by the Bangkok-based mainstream media."

Next sentence:

"Gatherings of such proclaimed magnitude surely warrants some independent verification, rather than depending on propaganda-style reporting from the media arm of the movement, no?"

I guess you've assumed I'm referring to the FCCT as the media arm of the movement. I'm referring to the DTV images provided (and nothing else - because, to date, there's been nothing else).

You can spend the remaining future of this thread whining about it, but I still find it strange there are no pictures of the event to date, other than what has been broadcast on DTV. Bottom line - if a few rolling clips from DTV are the only verification we have of these 100,000 people, then excuse me if I take it with a rather large bag of salt.

It was quite well reported on Thai TV (the journo got that very wrong which doesnt auger well fo rthe rest of the report). I wasnt paying much attention myself as watching Arisaman et al bores me senseless but Im sure someone who was paying more attention could comment on numbers. I note the bring a bottle of petrol stuff is being hardly mentioned which would seem of more import than soem arguement over numbers considering the red shirts claim to be peaceful and to only follow peaceful tacitcs while this utterance seems to indicate the varacity of government claims they are violent may be more accurate although I hasten to add that Arisaman is a lunatic and already well linked to violence and may not speak for ordinary decent wearers of red shirts with grievances. However, some criticism of his statemnets from within the movement would be nice.

[Old Man River]

You frame a question in a way that allows only one sensible answer. About sources: Nirmal Ghosh is the Thailand correspondent for The Straits Times and a past president of FCCT*. The current president of FCCT is Marwaan Macan-Markar who writes for Inter Press Service (IPS) Asia Pacific - part of a global news agency established in 1964. They are the writers of the two articles I linked to in Post #51. If their work represents "Gonzo at best" or "propaganda-style reporting from the media arm of the movement" for you, then IMO you a] have a curious view of what constitutes "Gonzo" etc and b] are very unlikely to benefit from any information input that isn't served up to you by the likes of The Nation.

You invited "pictures of the event", so I passed on links to DTV's video coverage that I came across. Short of aerial/satellite shots of the event (maybe infra-red because it was at night?), I find it hard to imagine that any pictures could confirm the 100,000 figure. Did you seriously think that I was offering the DTV coverage as proof of anything? For myself, I do find the content of those clips useful - but only to provide an "insight" into the nature of such events.

* http://www.fccthai.com/board.html

It appears you've completely misread my two sentences, Steve2UK. Allow me to break it down for you:

"Questionable statistics have been presented as fact without being attributed to any source."

Have a re-read of the paragraph from the report the above is referring to and let me know if what I'm stating is inaccurate:

"Last weekend, the UDD held consecutive rallies, gathering 100,000 in Khon Kaen and 50,000 people in Ubon Ratchathani. The rallies were largely unreported by the Bangkok-based mainstream media."

Next sentence:

"Gatherings of such proclaimed magnitude surely warrants some independent verification, rather than depending on propaganda-style reporting from the media arm of the movement, no?"

I guess you've assumed I'm referring to the FCCT as the media arm of the movement. I'm referring to the DTV images provided (and nothing else - because, to date, there's been nothing else).

You can spend the remaining future of this thread whining about it, but I still find it strange there are no pictures of the event to date, other than what has been broadcast on DTV. Bottom line - if a few rolling clips from DTV are the only verification we have of these 100,000 people, then excuse me if I take it with a rather large bag of salt.

It was quite well reported on Thai TV (the journo got that very wrong which doesnt auger well fo rthe rest of the report). I wasnt paying much attention myself as watching Arisaman et al bores me senseless but Im sure someone who was paying more attention could comment on numbers. I note the bring a bottle of petrol stuff is being hardly mentioned which would seem of more import than soem arguement over numbers considering the red shirts claim to be peaceful and to only follow peaceful tacitcs while this utterance seems to indicate the varacity of government claims they are violent may be more accurate although I hasten to add that Arisaman is a lunatic and already well linked to violence and may not speak for ordinary decent wearers of red shirts with grievances. However, some criticism of his statemnets from within the movement would be nice.

From what I understand, Arisaman has backed off on his call for each Red Shirt to come into Bangkok with a bottle of gasoline. He has, apparently, figured out that if they do that they will all blow themselves up. He now wants them to buy the gasoline in Bangkok. This guy is a real piece of work.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Old Man River

[bkkjames]

Why do I have a feeling that on Feb 25 while all the Red Shirts are busy marching to Bangkok that the Court will delay it's decision until Songkran?

Thanks for coming, but we are not ready yet.

[Steve2UK]

When I was active in demos back home we use dot work on double the police number and halve the organisers and if they matched which often they did then that was your number.

In Thailand the ratio may be soemwhat different. Polcie chiefs etc lose their jobs if demos are too big and organisers at every level are usually rewarded financially for numbers so the police quite likely underestimate big time and organisersd overestimate big time

Anyway the numbers dont really matter too much unless they hit the humongous amount of 500K up of which there certainly havent been any in Thiland's recent history.

<snip>

Hammered, I agree - and have never regarded the "numbers game" played by any side as anything more than just that...... a really rather futile game (and your "halve one and double the other estimate" formula coincides with my own experience elsewhere). Below a given headline-grabbing threshold e.g. "million man march" or the 500k that you mention, I see them as largely irrelevant - bemusing as it is to see partial posters either pouncing on sizeable numbers as "victories" or gleefully dismissing them as "failures" and the entire event as irrelevant when the obviously exaggerated forecast predictably doesn't materialise. Fine for competitive pinball players, but rather less useful in this context.

What I do see more mention of is how more widespread and frequent district-level events (rallies, fund-raising concerts/"dinners" etc - and now the "schools") appear to be becoming...... as opposed to the earlier focus on concentrating a large number from around the country in so-called "mass rallies" in BKK as individual events - notwithstanding the one mooted for this month. Hence my earlier reference to Bangkok Pundit's commentary on the point - together with thoughts there about fund-raising and the potential significance for UDD's post-Thaksin future. As it happens, I've just noticed a reader's comment on exactly this change of emphasis on the new post that led me to the Marwan "schools" article I quoted above ( http://asiancorrespondent.com/bangkok-pund...school#comments ). By their nature, such relatively "minor" events are unlikely to be reported much if at all in the Thai MSM - and past evidence suggests that The Nation's (and Post's) staff are also unlikely to change their preference for reporting little (and investigating less) that happens too far from their respective offices.

[Steve2UK]

<snip>

You can spend the remaining future of this thread whining about it, but I still find it strange there are no pictures of the event to date, other than what has been broadcast on DTV. Bottom line - if a few rolling clips from DTV are the only verification we have of these 100,000 people, then excuse me if I take it with a rather large bag of salt.

I note your "whining" comment - I haven't been and have no intention of starting. I responded directly and clearly to your post #34 to provide links to two (AFAIK independent) reports of the event(s); you didn't respond about them at that time (or since) so who apart from you knows what your view of them may be? You had also asked for event pics and I later provided a link to a source of footage clips. I make it clear that viewing the clips is not about proving numbers. Your numbers wrangling with poleax is between the two of you - I've already said in my response to hammered what I think of such "numbers games". Include me out and enjoy the salt.

[Siripon]

Over the last year the reds have gone to most villages in Issan to'educate' the people, they have some success, but like their magazines it's way too simplistic and plain wrong at times.

[Insight]

I note your "whining" comment - I haven't been and have no intention of starting. I responded directly and clearly to your post #34 to provide links to two (AFAIK independent) reports of the event(s); you didn't respond about them at that time (or since) so who apart from you knows what your view of them may be? You had also asked for event pics and I later provided a link to a source of footage clips. I make it clear that viewing the clips is not about proving numbers. Your numbers wrangling with poleax is between the two of you - I've already said in my response to hammered what I think of such "numbers games". Include me out and enjoy the salt.

Yeah, I read your reply to hammered. I'm just asking for some sort of independent proof of turnout; a reasonable request considering the proclaimed (not predicted) numbers - otherwise I feel what is being reported is an exercise in deception.

The words "victory" or "failure" have not been posted by me on this issue.

Have a nice day.

p.s. I quoted one of the reports you linked to in post 64, explaining my view.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Insight