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First the ASEAN summit disrupted in Pattaya, with the Japanese, Chinese, SIngapore and New Zealand heads of state barricaded in their luxury hotels. The Australian Prime Minister turned his flight around mid way and went home. Abhisit, the current Thai Prime Minister had his car assaulted and the rear window smashed.
As I predicted back in December 2008, civil unrest has surfaced.
Now Army Tanks and fully armed soldiers are in the streets of Bangkok trying to quell the civil unrest. About 100,000 protestors have blocked traffic for days and the Bangkok Municipal Council has cancelled Thai New Year festivities that were due to start today...
Watching the news in a local eatery after going to the gym I saw burning tires, soldiers, tanks and the Thai PM came on TV and in a speech translated and broadcast only in English he assured all foreigners that everything was ok and the situation would soon be under control. lol... no chance.
And if us foreigners were feeling stressed then we could contact the local Police station - what for?
Reports are of understandably large numbers of tourists changing their flights to ASAP, I think when the news spreads that the Red Shirt Protestors (supporters of the Taksin, the Thai PM ousted in the 2006 Bangkok military coup) have 'captured' several armed personnel carriers and reports of several tanks being 'taken' that there will be a mass exodus of tourists and an even bigger decline in tourism for the rest of the year.
Thai Political Unrest Background
The current red shirt protestors are in direct opposition to the yellow shirt protestors who brought the Airport to a standstill late last year.
The yellow shirts "supported" the current Government which from a basic stand point seems to be the old money families. The yellow shirt protestors were paid 1000 baht a day to sit in at the protests (1000 baht = 4 days pay at minimum wage), basically a middle management salary in a large company.
The red shirts support ousted and democratically voted in ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra. After the militaryinstalled Governement made some fabulous blunders which saw the Thai stock market fall 30% in one morning and several other well thought out plans like no foreign control (ie foreigners had to have less than 50% ownership and less than 50% controling stock) over companies operating in Thailand, which saw foreign investors just ship like rats off a sinking boat, not to mention their great plan that all foreign investors would have to deposit a large % of their investment money with the Thai government at 0% interest until they pulled their money out of Thailand.... uhmmm I think I'll stop there with this list....
Anyway after the Military Government had decided things had settled down general elections were held, and Samak leading a new political party formed from the remains of Thaksins now illegal political party was declared the winner. Unfortunately right or wrong, many saw Samak as Thaksins puppet, this was not helped when Samak was removed from his post because he was hosting a cooking show on TV, against the law for the PM in Thailand. To replace Samak, Thaksins Brother-In-Law (yes, really) was appointed the new PM by the party.
This led to outright and somewhat convincing arguments that Thaksins Brother-In-Law, was a puppet for Thaksin. This lead to the yellow shirt demonstrations.
Now the red shirts (Thaksin supporters) are demonstrating and want to return Thaksin to his popularly appointed position as PM. Well he was voted in by a majority and those allied with him were voted in a second time so I can see their point.
Bangkok Political Situation Now (13th April)
Soldiers have succeeded in removing protestors from 2 major intersections in Bangkok that they have blocked with Taxis and commandeered buses, the protestors only control another 45 intersections now (yes really).
The latest news is that the call has gone out for the Red Shirt protestors to rally around Government House as deterrent to the Army crack down.
Several hundred injuries have been reported at this stage, mostly tear gas, though some gunshot wounds too. Protestors have armed themselves with molotov cocktails and and M-79 grenade launcher was used earlier today with little effect (2 out of 3 shells failed to detonate).
The Problem With Quelling A Popular Political Movement
The problem the current PM faces is that many of his police and army officers and men are Thanksin supporters.
The man arrested for smashing the PM's car rear window the other day in Pattaya 'escaped' custody when he went outside to have a cigarette (illegal to smoke in Govt buildings now) and did not return.
Unarmed protestors have taken possession of several armoured personnel carriers and possibly several tanks, how would this be possible if the soldiers resisted.
Police seem to have been reluctant to get involved in the first place which is why the Army was brought in.
A Member Of Parliament 'loyal' to the current PM leaked some secret and damaging information the other day.
Whereas the yellow shirts had to pay their protestors I saw on Thai TV the other night people calling in (like a fund raiser) and pledging money to support the Red Shirt movement.
The Red Shirt protests have spread to the countryside and major rural towns and cities have come to a stand still with road and rail blockages.
Where Will The 2009 Political Unrest End?
Not until one side is annihilated, with the prevalent win/lose philosophy dominating most interactions in Thailand reconcilliation or trying for a win/win seems a doomed prospect.
IF the present Govt with Abhisit as the Prime Minister (PM) then there will be problems of a much bigger scale coming. In recent news headlines there was a prediction that unemployment in Thailand would hit 2 million due to the tourism downturn, the same day the Minister For Labour said that they were going to bring in 400,000 immigrant workers to do the jobs that Thais did not want to do.
Now let me set this straight - Thailand has NO social security, if you are unemployed you do not eat, you starve and if no family or kind strangers feed you then you die, as I previously stated the Jungles that previously supplied foods have now mostly been turned into cash crops (rubber, palm oil). So 2 million unemployed who used to support their families with their (megre) income, who are now starving, your child is starving to death, and the government wants to bring in 400,000 immigrants? If that is not a good enough reason to pick up a machete and march into the capital I don't know what is.
Let's see how they go... but the movie industry here is now ruined, I just hope that they manage to sort this out well enough to get it off TV before next month when our movie, Bangkok Adrenaline, hits cinemas...
This week I passed up 2 opportunities for good exposure on TV with some free publicity stunts, my answer was if they pay me I'll go but making a name for myself in Thailand... why? There is no future here.
In fact there is a small possibility that I might be required to go to Eastern Europe for some work soon, it is a small possibility that I am hoping comes off for me. The Thai movie industry and Internation films shooting here are dead in the water for the next year at least, and quite possibly longer, time for me to move on at the first opportunity...
* UPDATE 17th April 2009: 4 men armed with automatic rifles (some or all were M-16's) riding in the back of an open pick up truck opened fire on the car of the leader of the Yellow Shirt movement General Sondhi. The Gerneral is in an undisclosed hospital reportedly just with arm wounds, about 100 rounds were fired from close range into the car. The gunmen escaped. This happened on a busy (read packed full) Bangkok road.
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