Thai Protesters, Army Make Tentative Peace Overtures

[ChiangMaiFun]

I'm 90% with you but there has to be a 'truce' which includes pardoning all (except those 'blacks' who sniped - they are unforgivable and must be caught and punished). It would not be wise to keep pushing the 'Thaksin' button - better to just get to a 3 month election compromise and stop the carnage. However, a caveate, I do think there has to be some sort of 'outside' monitoring of elections.

And what if it can be proven that the grenade throwers are funded by PTP/PPP/TRT MPs or Thaksin, or were acting on orders from the red leaders? They too would then be tried on terrorism charges.

anybody... individuals (not parties) should be held fully accountable

Abhisit/Suthep ordered the army in, with live ammo, and people were killed with the live ammo on April 10th.

Therefore based on this the Democrats should be dissolved and should have terrorism charges against them.

Using live ammo against protestors is designed to "terrorize" them with fear, thats what terror is.

If of course you wish to go down these silly emotional "thoughts for the moment" kind of nonsense.

I am amazed at some of the nonsense spouted on here.

I have never wavered in my call for Abhisit to dissolve parliament and resign and hold elections - I am also anti-violence and believe that anyone, on either side, who engaged in vilolence which led to harm should be dealt with... an entirely reasonable position.

[Neurath]

......"logic and competence" are not part of life here and probably will never be.

May I add "personal responsibility." In farangland there's an old saying, 'a man is as good as his word' .....is there a similar concept here in Thailand?

I believe it was Mont Redmon who said the following:

Westerners are more committed to taking responsibility because it automatically brings with it the recognition and respect, regardless of consequent profit or loss, accorded to 'real persons'. Responsibility establishes a norm that the claimant to it may or may not live up to. But in Thailand, it is rank and its rewards that give a faint reading of responsibility into the bargain. The honor is not in the responsibility itself (let alone its fulfillment), but in the position that enables it to be born.

Nice.

[Neurath]

I'm 90% with you but there has to be a 'truce' which includes pardoning all (except those 'blacks' who sniped - they are unforgivable and must be caught and punished). It would not be wise to keep pushing the 'Thaksin' button - better to just get to a 3 month election compromise and stop the carnage. However, a caveate, I do think there has to be some sort of 'outside' monitoring of elections.

And what if it can be proven that the grenade throwers are funded by PTP/PPP/TRT MPs or Thaksin, or were acting on orders from the red leaders? They too would then be tried on terrorism charges.

anybody... individuals (not parties) should be held fully accountable

Yes, but this is Thailand. Accountability? Is there even a Thai word for that?

Every so often, there's a story of a person in high gov't or political power position who is about to get busted on some serious charge. That person simply quits the gov't or the political party (just in time) and voila! ...they're let off the hook.

Here's another one from Mont Redmon:

The flexibility that outsiders so admire in Thais is due to their ceaseless fine tuning of the this mechanism of perpetual guiltlessness. The feat of simultaneously achieving nothing and having no-one blamed for it is a balancing act of no mean skill - a testament ot the malleability of human nature.

A bit rough, but good enough.

[kenai]

I'm 90% with you but there has to be a 'truce' which includes pardoning all (except those 'blacks' who sniped - they are unforgivable and must be caught and punished). It would not be wise to keep pushing the 'Thaksin' button - better to just get to a 3 month election compromise and stop the carnage. However, a caveate, I do think there has to be some sort of 'outside' monitoring of elections.

And what if it can be proven that the grenade throwers are funded by PTP/PPP/TRT MPs or Thaksin, or were acting on orders from the red leaders? They too would then be tried on terrorism charges.

anybody... individuals (not parties) should be held fully accountable

Abhisit/Suthep ordered the army in, with live ammo, and people were killed with the live ammo on April 10th.

Therefore based on this the Democrats should be dissolved and should have terrorism charges against them.

Using live ammo against protestors is designed to "terrorize" them with fear, thats what terror is.

If of course you wish to go down these silly emotional "thoughts for the moment" kind of nonsense.

I am amazed at some of the nonsense spouted on here.

I too am amazed. The fact that so many take so much of what they hear or see through a censored and manipulated thai media shows how dangerous this situation is.

Thais having strong opinions on both sides I can understand. But I have a harder time with how farangs whom I assume have a fair education, and fair understanding of how backwards things in Thailand can be. To get drawn into the anti red shirt frenzy and feed and spread it to others is scary. (in my opinion!)

Of course they will say the same about me as a red-sympathizer but It is a little spooky reading some of anti-red posts, I mean right or wrong these people are doing what they feel is necessary for their family and their country.

And please don't bother adding about all the cash they are getting. Give me something more creative than that.

[BNZ]

 

Abhisit/Suthep ordered the army in, with live ammo, and people were killed with the live ammo on April 10th.

Therefore based on this the Democrats should be dissolved and should have terrorism charges against them.

Using live ammo against protestors is designed to "terrorize" them with fear, thats what terror is.

If of course you wish to go down these silly emotional "thoughts for the moment" kind of nonsense.

I am amazed at some of the nonsense spouted on here.

So Am I  !

[way2muchcoffee]

I'm 90% with you but there has to be a 'truce' which includes pardoning all (except those 'blacks' who sniped - they are unforgivable and must be caught and punished). It would not be wise to keep pushing the 'Thaksin' button - better to just get to a 3 month election compromise and stop the carnage. However, a caveate, I do think there has to be some sort of 'outside' monitoring of elections.

And what if it can be proven that the grenade throwers are funded by PTP/PPP/TRT MPs or Thaksin, or were acting on orders from the red leaders? They too would then be tried on terrorism charges.

anybody... individuals (not parties) should be held fully accountable

Abhisit/Suthep ordered the army in, with live ammo, and people were killed with the live ammo on April 10th.

Therefore based on this the Democrats should be dissolved and should have terrorism charges against them.

Using live ammo against protestors is designed to "terrorize" them with fear, thats what terror is.

If of course you wish to go down these silly emotional "thoughts for the moment" kind of nonsense.

I am amazed at some of the nonsense spouted on here.

Ahh - and the red shirts firing ak47s, wielding sharpened bamboo sticks, throwing molotov cocktails, and throwing/launching grenades are innocent? Is this the position you are taking?

Please be clear, do you or don't you believe that red shirts and black shirts attacked the military with both war weapons and street weapons? If you agree they did, then do you believe they should be exonerated? If so, why or why not?

Do your conclusions include people who fund the demonstrations and the leaders?

[melbpete]

Abhisit/Suthep ordered the army in, with live ammo, and people were killed with the live ammo on April 10th.

Therefore based on this the Democrats should be dissolved and should have terrorism charges against them.

Using live ammo against protestors is designed to "terrorize" them with fear, thats what terror is.

If of course you wish to go down these silly emotional "thoughts for the moment" kind of nonsense.

I am amazed at some of the nonsense spouted on here.

Most of the nonsense seems to come from you.

You seem to believe that the red shirts have never done anything wrong.

[lannarebirth]

'Abhisit, who has been holed up in a military barracks for weeks because of the protests, added: "I have a duty to solve the problem. If I can't I should not be here."'

The above is a direct quote from the article at the head of this thrtead.

It seems that Abhisit has already commited himself to resign as he has not solved the problem and it appears that he is no nearer to solving it than he was when it started .. Time for him to go for the sake of Thailand, the Thai peoples' lives and the Thai economy. With the correct wording of a statement from him the present government could step down without any further lose of face.

Exactly - let's hope this happens swiftly and elections are organised with an outside agency ensuring fairness - and everyone must accept the result - surely Abhisit must declare an election agreement today.

These posts just show a misunderstanding of what "the problem" is. Abhisit stepping down solves nothing.

[brahmburgers]

Abhisit/Suthep ordered the army in, with live ammo, and people were killed with the live ammo on April 10th.......

If Abhisit and/or Suthep ordered the Army to have live ammo, then it was a smart move. However, I think Army top brass make such decisions after being given directive of achieving a goal from their political higher ups. The goal, on April 10th, was to repel protesters who were getting out of hand and causing a lot of peripheral damage.

It was a smart move to have soldiers bring combat ammo, because they needed it to protect themselves. Remember, the soldiers started out firing rubber bullets in to the air. Then they shot rubber in to the crowd (most of the injuries to the Reds were from rubber). At some point v. early in the melee, disguised gunmen embedded within the Red crowd, wearing latex gloves, shot combat weapons at the soldiers (and lobbed at least on grenade). Those same shooters (ronin, terrorists, black shirts, whatever you want to call them) may have also shot their fellow Reds, because that would further their agenda of causing as much mayhem as possible. Indeed, at least one Red was killed by a bullet in the back from close range, which was unlikely shot by a gov't security person.

If I send soldiers in to harm's way, I sure as shootin' want them to have the right tools for the job and to be able to protect themselves from any eventuality.

[bendejo]

Well, the peace-loving reds have been ratted out by their celebrity member for distributing armaments, completely discredited and the leaders can now be convicted; more rats will emerge. Not like anyone didn't know this in the first place. I want to see Methee on television pointing his finger at the red leaders.

Show's over, no need to concede anything now, just get the hel_l out of here before we kick your arse.

First order of business once things get settled: firm up the charges against Taksin, have him declared a full-on criminal so he can't pull this kind of stuff again.

[Gippy]

Saw the Mrs signing up to a :No Dissolution of Parliment: web site anyone know how many Thais have signed up to that?

Would give some idea of Thai not Farang opinion although not all Thai outside the protest area care very much or have access to a computer.

Could have been the 'No Dissolution of Parliament' Facebook group, it has almost 420,000 members now.

[rreddin]

Well if the red shirts will accept a 90-day dissolution to end this chaos, then Abhisit should go for it.

Seems very reasonable

I agrree with you. All parties in this situation are looking for a dignified way out of this mess. This might just be it - and nobody loses face.

[pimay11]

I'm 90% with you but there has to be a 'truce' which includes pardoning all (except those 'blacks' who sniped - they are unforgivable and must be caught and punished). It would not be wise to keep pushing the 'Thaksin' button - better to just get to a 3 month election compromise and stop the carnage. However, a caveate, I do think there has to be some sort of 'outside' monitoring of elections.

And what if it can be proven that the grenade throwers are funded by PTP/PPP/TRT MPs or Thaksin, or were acting on orders from the red leaders? They too would then be tried on terrorism charges.

anybody... individuals (not parties) should be held fully accountable

Abhisit/Suthep ordered the army in, with live ammo, and people were killed with the live ammo on April 10th.

Therefore based on this the Democrats should be dissolved and should have terrorism charges against them.

Using live ammo against protestors is designed to "terrorize" them with fear, thats what terror is.

If of course you wish to go down these silly emotional "thoughts for the moment" kind of nonsense.

I am amazed at some of the nonsense spouted on here.

Well, well, well. Terrorism? I do believe it was the reds who said they would attack the BTS stations and the BTS stations closed down. Oh I just remembered the BTS station was attacked resulting in death of the innocent and many injured. But I'm sure the reds had absolutely nothing to do with this right? It was just someone who happened to have a few M79s and was angry.

[Neurath]

Well if the red shirts will accept a 90-day dissolution to end this chaos, then Abhisit should go for it.

Seems very reasonable

I agrree with you. All parties in this situation are looking for a dignified way out of this mess. This might just be it - and nobody loses face.

Seems it gone up now to an election in 180 days.

[hammered]

Well if the red shirts will accept a 90-day dissolution to end this chaos, then Abhisit should go for it.

Seems very reasonable

I agrree with you. All parties in this situation are looking for a dignified way out of this mess. This might just be it - and nobody loses face.

It likely wont be 90 days as that is what the reds said. It will be more like 6 months after face to face talks and sides agreeing. The reds have only to sell it to the reds, and that will be hard to do to the militants but Abhisit has to sell it to sevaral parties in the coalition and all oother members of society that the reds dont represent

Already rumours Veera and Korbsak (who are old friends) are talking about 6 months

Interestingly a survey was done of the Isaan (Khon Kaen Uni released Monday before the Silom stuff) re disolution and just over 50% agree with the red demand and just under 50% disagreed with it. Society is split on this and and there will be no way a demand of just one side is accepted. If it is that close in the Isaan it could easily be reversed in every other region.

[BKjohn]

Just came back from carefour - had a coffee downstairs where some 10+ Thais (normal, middle class Thais, not what some here call Elitists)they were talking about the situation and by what they said were equally surprised by the military not acting and clearing the mob. In my Thai family the sentiment is about the same and I think the majority of the 61 Million Thai's will think the same.

A relatively small, mostly uneducated, violent group with terrorists among them screaming "democracy", forcing their will upon a country and the military and police lets them do it ....hmmmmm amazing Thailand

[hammered]

The multicoloureds are saying a 5 or 6 month election is unacceptable. Sure gets complicated

[jcbangkok]

Thai Police Training Video ... why talking may be the only option.

[BKjohn]

Thai Police Training Video ... why talking may be the only option.

[animatic]

Abhisit/Suthep ordered the army in, with live ammo, and people were killed with the live ammo on April 10th.......

If Abhisit and/or Suthep ordered the Army to have live ammo, then it was a smart move. However, I think Army top brass make such decisions after being given directive of achieving a goal from their political higher ups. The goal, on April 10th, was to repel protesters who were getting out of hand and causing a lot of peripheral damage.

It was a smart move to have soldiers bring combat ammo, because they needed it to protect themselves. Remember, the soldiers started out firing rubber bullets in to the air. Then they shot rubber in to the crowd (most of the injuries to the Reds were from rubber). At some point v. early in the melee, disguised gunmen embedded within the Red crowd, wearing latex gloves, shot combat weapons at the soldiers (and lobbed at least on grenade). Those same shooters (ronin, terrorists, black shirts, whatever you want to call them) may have also shot their fellow Reds, because that would further their agenda of causing as much mayhem as possible. Indeed, at least one Red was killed by a bullet in the back from close range, which was unlikely shot by a gov't security person.

If I send soldiers in to harm's way, I sure as shootin' want them to have the right tools for the job and to be able to protect themselves from any eventuality.

More correctly Abhisit and Suthep didn't try and PREVENT the army from ALSO providing live ammo.

Because no army gives it's soldiers weapons they can not use as they are built to use. Just not done.

Knowing that when an enemy sees a rifle, he EXPECTS it to shoot live rounds, that's what it was built for,

and so If he goes against live rounds he USES live rounds. Armies EXPECT to have live rounds used on them,

if they are fired on.

They MAY be loaded with blanks for crowd control, but no army assumes all opposing will understand that,

and so sending a soldier out with a weapon that doesn't work is a suicide mission.

They just do NOT do that.

So whining on about the gov. purposely sending out live ammo is ridiculous in the big picture.

[BKjohn]

Thai Police Training Video ... why talking may be the only option.

There is another though ... the one where they learn how to stop you in your car and try to tell you that your front number plate is too small and the fine ia Baht 1,000.00 .. until you tell them in Thai to f.. off, that your number plate is the original one when you bought the car .. or how to extort money from bars ...

actual police work seems to be secondary :-)

by the way, does the forum have a problem?

[jcbangkok]

a number of reports/rumors on websites say Thaksin is in hospital ICU

[BKjohn]

GREAT turn off the power quickly

[hammered]

Abhisit has replaced Korbsak with someone else as negotiator with the reds. Interesting to see who it is. Korbsak and Veera are old mates by the way. It could be someone form a coalition ally to make things easier or it could be someone not so friendly with any red leader signalling a harder approach

[rabo]

I'm 90% with you but there has to be a 'truce' which includes pardoning all (except those 'blacks' who sniped - they are unforgivable and must be caught and punished). It would not be wise to keep pushing the 'Thaksin' button - better to just get to a 3 month election compromise and stop the carnage. However, a caveate, I do think there has to be some sort of 'outside' monitoring of elections.

And what if it can be proven that the grenade throwers are funded by PTP/PPP/TRT MPs or Thaksin, or were acting on orders from the red leaders? They too would then be tried on terrorism charges.

anybody... individuals (not parties) should be held fully accountable

Abhisit/Suthep ordered the army in, with live ammo, and people were killed with the live ammo on April 10th.

Therefore based on this the Democrats should be dissolved and should have terrorism charges against them.

Using live ammo against protestors is designed to "terrorize" them with fear, thats what terror is.

If of course you wish to go down these silly emotional "thoughts for the moment" kind of nonsense.

I am amazed at some of the nonsense spouted on here.

Well lets see what we can do with facts.

Red leaders have repeatedly called for violence

Red leaders called for the destruction of BTS stations

Red leaders called for burning down the Counter Corruption Commission Building

There have been roughly 50 unexplained bombings in Thailand since the start

Someone tried to destroy the 230KV power lines feeding Bangkok (big disaster)

Someone tried to blow up the jet fuel depot at the international airport (big disaster)

Someone targeted and killed the commanding officers before things started on April 10

Someone shot m79 grenades at the BTS station April 22

Abhisit has from the beginning renounced the use of force.

Anupong has renounced the use of force.

The reds still occupy the city

Silly me, I must be having silly emotional "thoughts for the moment.

[animatic]

GREAT turn off the power quickly

Post Ego-ectamy?

[BKjohn]

GREAT turn off the power quickly

Post Ego-ectamy?

I remember when he offered the worlds governments his assistance to solve the financial crisis

yea ... sure ....

[jcbangkok]

Abhisit/Suthep ordered the army in, with live ammo, and people were killed with the live ammo on April 10th.......

If Abhisit and/or Suthep ordered the Army to have live ammo, then it was a smart move. However, I think Army top brass make such decisions after being given directive of achieving a goal from their political higher ups. The goal, on April 10th, was to repel protesters who were getting out of hand and causing a lot of peripheral damage.

It was a smart move to have soldiers bring combat ammo, because they needed it to protect themselves. Remember, the soldiers started out firing rubber bullets in to the air. Then they shot rubber in to the crowd (most of the injuries to the Reds were from rubber). At some point v. early in the melee, disguised gunmen embedded within the Red crowd, wearing latex gloves, shot combat weapons at the soldiers (and lobbed at least on grenade). Those same shooters (ronin, terrorists, black shirts, whatever you want to call them) may have also shot their fellow Reds, because that would further their agenda of causing as much mayhem as possible. Indeed, at least one Red was killed by a bullet in the back from close range, which was unlikely shot by a gov't security person.

If I send soldiers in to harm's way, I sure as shootin' want them to have the right tools for the job and to be able to protect themselves from any eventuality.

More correctly Abhisit and Suthep didn't try and PREVENT the army from ALSO providing live ammo.

Because no army gives it's soldiers weapons they can not use as they are built to use. Just not done.

Knowing that when an enemy sees a rifle, he EXPECTS it to shoot live rounds, that's what it was built for,

and so If he goes against live rounds he USES live rounds. Armies EXPECT to have live rounds used on them,

if they are fired on.

They MAY be loaded with blanks for crowd control, but no army assumes all opposing will understand that,

and so sending a soldier out with a weapon that doesn't work is a suicide mission.

They just do NOT do that.

So whining on about the gov. purposely sending out live ammo is ridiculous in the big picture.

I personally think having soldiers fire into the air and using blanks as policy is idiotic for so many reasons. One, it leaves open the possibility of videos showing troops firing on crowds when the weren't. Two, when firing in the air the bullets come down somewhere. Three, when guns come out, people should be scared but since it is policy to use blanks and fire in the air, people are not as scared as they should be when people are being shot. Four, there are SO MANY MORE effective ways and tools of intimidating the crowd to disperse ... the first being not to have police run away.

[jdinasia]

The multicoloureds are saying a 5 or 6 month election is unacceptable. Sure gets complicated

It seems likely that Abhisit's initial offer of holding elections 1 year early is about as soon as any elections will be workable.

[BKjohn]

Sorry a bit off topic, but what really scares me are not the red shirts or yellow or purple nor the army or police - I read somewhere that the are getting a nuclear power plant in Thailand ??????

Considering what is going on here right now I can see a group of whatever colored shirts move on this one and take it over and the army saying .. no force will be used ....

Should this event not give, whichever country is supplying them this power plant, a certain daubed ?

Besides the fact that I would feel very uncomfortable having Khun Poi controlling the thing .... eh poi what is the flashing red light there .... awww nothing ... been on for the last hour and nothing happened .....