Thai Coup Rumors Recur

[johncitizen]

Thai Coup Rumors Recur

Thaksin's supporters and enemies stir the tom yam again.

Thailand is again in frenzy over coup rumors, perpetuated mostly by anti-government Red Shirts who need a reason to protest and by a media machine that needs a story. The top generals have denied that anything is amiss, words that mean little since they said the same thing before ousting former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006.

Unfortunately for the men in green, the coup rumors and the billionaire CEO, who last year was named a "special economic advisor" just over the border in Cambodia by Prime Minister Hun Sen, have yet to disappear. Getting rid of Thaksin's influence completely would presumably be the rationale for another coup. The military would take over and obliterate him once and for all. While a coup can never be discounted completely in Thailand, staging one now carries much more risk and far less return than four years ago.

Read more:

URL: http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=c...&Itemid=185

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Excellent.. You don't see that kind of analysis in the mainstream press in Thailand..

[LaoPo]

Very interesting article indeed.

LaoPo

[givenall]

At this time the government fully in control and can put enough security personnel army or otherwise in the place and calling it an emergency to control everything the same as if it was a coup, without really calling it a coup. I have no doubt that Thaksin and his supporters have lost a lot of support and the only thing they can do is to buy violence, etc.

[quiksilva]

For some reason the link went dead...if it wont link for you, try googling the title its been reprinted in many other news outlets already which for the moment are still accessible

[animatic]

...coup rumors, perpetuated mostly by anti-government Red Shirts

who need a reason to protest and by a media machine that needs a story.

Sums it up right here.

[Wolfie]

I can get to the link now Quiksilva - try it again - maybe just some heavy traffic to the site or something?

[hammered]

The full article is worth a read imho. Its conclusions that the coup rumours really serve a poltical purpose of those spreading them ie PTP/red shirts is not really given by the short excerpt the OP posted. Other interesting points made include that the threats of violence by the red side are probably "bluster", Abhisit will probably "muddle through" 2010 before calling an election, Abhisit has more to fear from the no-confidence debate than the red shirts, the court case will just be the latest indicator of where things stand

An interesting read but not very different from the analysis heard frequently in Thailand

Anyway suggest a read of the full thing and the link is working for me.

[animatic]

It's slow but it works eventually.

Nothing ground breaking we haven't heard before.

[quiksilva]

hmm it is very slow, perhaps heavy traffic but on firefox the delay in the bottom left corner showed up as "waiting for w3.mict.go.th..." so other news outlets carrying the same story will open much quicker, prachathai for example amongst others

Good story, and yes worth a read but not exactly earth shattering.

In a nut shell lots of potential for trouble, but Dems seem in control unless the army decide to play their own game, a story that both the reds and the media seem to talk about more than anyone else.

[samtam]

I can read, although it's slow to download. When I try to go to the Asia Sentinel home page it produces the mict.go.th URL, and indeed when I have tried to open the asiasentiel dot com page it too produces the government's blocked page URL. Ironic that this article is through, but the site generally is not.

[thaihome]

Good analysis. At least they left out most of the usual “elite” versus “rural poor” drivel that so often clouds the foreign coverage.

Of course, again, the little old lady that runs the small restaurant and the middle age owner of the salon on my soi are always happy to called the “Bangkok Elite” as they were at the airport in their yellow shirts for most of that entire week.

TH

[geriatrickid]

Continued talk of a coup will bring about the same economic penalties as a coup: A withdrawal of foreign capital investments, and a restricted capital market. Thailand is hardly in a robust financial condition to deal with it.

[animatic]

Asiasentilnel site works fine for me no mict page.