Some Items of Interest

 

• Zachary Abuza had an opinion piece in the NYT a few days ago. In it he offers a way out of the political impasse that seems a bit improbable to me. Hoping that vote buying will be prosecuted for all parties that take part in the practice, for instance, seems about as probable as pigs flying.
• Good AP story on the insurgency in Southern Thailand. It is a good overview of the problem but, like most pieces written about southern Thailand, isn't too in depth. I'm working on a post now that I should get up tonight or tomorrow on the insurgency there and possible solutions.
• Newsweek reports on how U.S. troops are now being using iPod Touches and iPhones in Iraq and Afganistan. This shows how the old school Military Industrial Complex is becoming less and less relevant in modern warfare as open source warfare is becoming the new style of conflict.
• Extremist Tide Rises in Pakistan from the Washington Post. Good article on what is going on in the Swat Valley. If the Pakistani authorities actually think that their deal with the local Taliban will lead to peace then they are dumber than I could ever imagine.

Am I a Redshirt or a Yellowshirt?

Ok. I hadn't planned on talking about this for a while but I just read a blog post at Matter of Facts – parts of which were picked up in a blog at Foreign Policy – that seems to imply that I am a Yellowshirt supporter. In the post Peter Judd is talking about the conversation that was going on via twitter during the protests and he says:

“The accused “yellowshirts” did not hide, but staunchly defended their political affiliation - and so the live news coverage became a tit-for-tat Twitter slanging match in virtual reality while real people died on the streets of Bangkok. Also revealed - some of the live reports translating Thai TV bulletins emanated from Bali and another Tweeter, @BangkokBill, claimed on his blog to be ex-U.S. Army in the 4th PSYOP group! He says he is now a manager at an English school in Thailand and has spent 3 years in the country. He was in the thick of the action, uploading hundreds of pictures to flickr.”

Now maybe I am reading too much into this paragraph (please respond if I am Peter) but it seems that it is being implied that I am a Yellowshirt. If this is so I am a bit confused how being an ex-member of the 4th Psyop group and a manager at an English school makes one a Yellowshirt but I would love to hear the answer.

Now just to set the record straight. I don't believe I am a Redshirt or a Yellowshirt. I honestly find the whole Thai political mess to be incredibly hard to decipher to the level where I can pick a clear “good guy” and “bad guy” in the current situation. Based on my experiences and knowledge I would say that both sides have good and bad parts to them – as to which side is better than the other I have no idea.

There is, however, one Thai politician who I wholeheartedly support and that is this man.

Chuwit Kamolvisit (he is the man in the above picture, not the dog – I don't know the dog's name) as far as I am concerned is the only Thai politician who can with out a doubt be said to be a “good guy”- and that's because his political philosophy can be summed up in one word: totalfu*kingawesomeness. With all of the hard feelings and hot hearts that the current situation has led to I feel that Thailand needs a leader who can help Thais to relax and calm down and what better way than to open more “massage” parlors?

So for all future reference if Chuwit is a Yellowshirt then I am a Yellowshirt, if Chuwit is a Redshirt then I am a Redshirt, and if Chuwit switches sides I switch sides with him.

Sondhi survives assassination attempt

The Nation reports here that yesterday while driving to work Sondhi's truck was sprayed by assault rifle fire in an apparent assassination attempt. Sondhi is a leader of the Yellowshirt group that opposes Thaksin, the Redshirts, and is largely responsible for the current government coming to power.

There are a lot of different suspects in the attempt at this point including disgruntled civilians, professional assassins, military personnel, and the police. What I want to figure out though is WHY the perpetrators tried to assassinate him. What did they hope to get from this action? The way I see it there are a few different possibilities:

1) Simple revenge – With the Redshirt demonstrations having been dispersed there is the possibility that a Redshirt or Redshirt sympathizer could have simply wanted to strike out at their enemies as a way to get even. I doubt this motive, however, because if Sondhi was killed the act would probably strengthen and not weaken the Yellowshirts. Generally when a political figure is killed in this way he simply becomes a martyr and his supporters rally behind his ideology and become even more active. I would assume that at least some of the Redshirt leaders know this and would prevent an assassination attempt if the motive was simply revenge.

2) They wanted this to be the opening shot in a new underground phase of this conflict – Some of the Redshirt leaders have said that they will initiate a new phase in the conflict with the Redshirts going underground. Assassinating Sondhi could have been seen as a good way to open this stage in the conflict as it would show that the Redshirts still have power and it would give them a ton of press. This doesn't sound too plausible either though. If this was meant as a way to open this new phase of the conflict it would, in effect, be advertising how much power the Redshirts have lost over the last few days. A few days ago they were calling for all of the people to rise up in open rebellion and now they are simply hiding in the shadows assassinating people. Not quite the message you want to send to the public if you want to gain supporters.

3) Instigate the Yellowshirts to become active again – This seems to me to be the most plausible explanation for the attack. The Redshirts lost a lot of support with all of the chaos and damage their protests caused. Now that they are down (but definitely not out) getting the Yellowshirts to stage some large scale protests would be a great way to make the Yellowshirts the bad guys again in the international media and amongst the great majority of Thais who are simply tired of all this protesting.

4) Prevent Abhisit from offering amnesty towards Redshirt leaders – It could be that this was carried out by a personal enemy within the Yellowshirt coalition. It is plausible that one of the more extreme members of the Yellowshirts hatched this plot simply as a way of getting rid of a rival within the Yellowshirt organization and at the same time ensuring that Abhisit's options in dealing with protest leaders are more limited. The Bangkok Post has already reported that Abhisit is open to amnesty. Assassinating Sondhi would be a good way of ensuring that this did not happen and could well force the PM to take a harder line against the Redshirt leaders.

Anyone out there have any other possible motives?

Around Bangkok 10:45am – 1:20 pm April 14th

After waking up I read in the Bangkok Post that the military was getting ready to disperse the Redshirts along Phitsanulook road so I decided to try to head there to see what was happening. Unfortunately I found all roads into the area blocked by Thai soldiers and they were only letting in people with press passes. I took a motorcycle taxi around to see if we could find a way in but it seemed that they had all roads into the area blocked. Eventually I stopped at Wang Deng intersection along Phitsanulook road where a group of Redshirt sympathizers had gathered at one of the road blocks set up by the government.

While there a truck passed through the intersection with some soldiers in the back. The crowd started to throw water bottles at the soldiers and one soldier responded by firing a few shots into the air. While I didn't manage to get any pics of this (it happened very fast) it was incredibly clear that the soldier was firing into the air and not into the crowd. This is important because about 10 min after the truck passed a couple of the Redshirt sympathizers came up to me wanting to show me something. They first asked if I had just gotten there to which I replied that I had (I'd been there about 20 or so minutes). They then told me that a some soldiers had just driven through the intersection and shot at them and that they had proof. They then took me to a guy who was holding some casings from the soldier who had quite clearly fired into the air.

Now while I believe the rumors I heard about 100 people being killed at Din Daeng and people being killed at Victory Monument and Uruphong the day before to wild rumors that some Redshirts simply too easily believed this I can only consider to be an outright lie. There was absolutely NO WAY that anyone with 1/2 a brain cell could interpret that soldier's actions as being anything but firing into the air. The soldier was in the back of a pick up – and thus already situated higher than the protesters and he quite clearly had his rifle pointed at the sky when he let off the shots. If he had wanted to fire at the protesters he would have had to aim down in order to target them AND he would also have been quite likely to hit some of the police and soldiers manning the road block as the protesters were located between the truck and the police manning the road block. Someone was clearly lying about what had happened.

Besides the incident with the soldier firing into the air and constantly having people come up to me to tell me how the government was killing people in cold blood the only other incident at this location occurred when a truck with women tried to get past the road block. The truck had two women in the back and it was loaded with water and food. At first the truck half heartedly made like it was going to ram the police. It then backed up and slowly approached the road block with the women in the back crying and waiing at the soldiers. Eventually the policy performed a cursory check on the truck (I assume to make sure it wasn't carrying any weapons) and then let it through to go down the road towards the other Redshirts.

Believing that there wasn't going to be any conflict here I wandered around a bit trying to find a way past all of the police. Eventually I found a way past one of the road blocks. I managed to get to Ratchadamnoen Nok where I could see that there were no Redshirts around and the burned buses from the previous night had been pulled off the main road onto the side sois. I managed to get to just ouside the UN HQ at Makhawan where I was stopped from going any further by another road block of soldiers. At this point I could already see a group of soldiers further down the road walking through what was Redshirt HQ and reports were coming in that the protest leaders had decided to surrender so I headed back home.

Redshirt Central (around Government House) 9pm-12am April 13th

After getting some food I decided to head to Redshirt HQ to see what was going on there seeing as there were no reports of current clashes coming in. I was at the same location in the morning and the night before (sorry no pics of my time there on the 12th – I forgot to put a memory card in my camera)and while there were still a good number of people at the location there were a LOT less than there were the night before or in the morning. Areas that were packed 24 hours before now just had a few small stalls selling various items and a smattering of people.

On my way in I noticed a number of burned out buses blocking the roads.

Once I got closer to the stage I passed a minor Redshirt roadblock. Behind this roadblock is where I found the Redshirts who were still there. I stayed there a few hours talking to the people (and getting a kick ass foot massage).

I must admit the people there were REALLY scared. Upon seeing a white dude with a camera a lot of them would beg me to stay the night because they were convinced that the government was going to come in that night with guns blazing and massacre them. There were rumors everywhere about government soldiers killing Redshirts with one man even claiming that about 100 Redshirts were killed earlier at Din Daeng.

While I can't say for sure what happened at Din Daeng based on what I saw earlier throughout the day I doubt these reports were true. All of the Thai soldiers I saw were VERY professional and I doubt many western police departments (LAPD for example) could have ended protests of this type in such a restrained and professional manner. Furthermore I had heard claims of Redshirt deaths before at Victory Monument and Uruphong – both of which I know are not true. I believe that the hard core protestors simply were getting all of their information from other Redshirts (ALL government claims were taken as total lies) and this was creating an atmosphere where wild rumors quickly became accepted as undeniable fact as they spread.

Besides the rumors and conversations the only other thing of interest was sounds of gunfire and some small explosions around 9:45 pm. One of the Redshirts told me that it was coming from around Orothai (sp?) bridge. The sounds died down pretty quickly and I decided not to head in that direction as I figured whatever was going on would be over by the time I got there.

I left the area around midnight convinced that the area was quiet and not much would be happening there anytime soon.

Some more pics of the people and area:

Yommarat 5:20-7:15pm April 13th

Just after the Thai police secured Uruphong I noticed smoke coming from the direction the Redshirts retreated and I could see some Redshirts maneuvering a bus at the top of the ramp on the road they left on (Phetchaburi – I think).

I walked over to where the smoke was coming from and once I got there I realized that the Redshirts had just set a bunch of tires and a bus on fire.

There were two Redshirts still throwing mini Molotov cocktails at the bus to keep the fire going. The most common type of Molotov cocktail I saw over the day was made from small bottles for Redbull and other energy drinks. An example of one of these can be seen in the second pic below (It's the bottle with the rag coming out of it). These Molotovs tended to not be too effective. I would see many of them thrown soon and it seemed that most of them didn't catch fire.

I also saw a Fire truck that the Redshirts had gotten a hold of. For some reason they started to unload one of the fire hoses (I never did find out what they intended to do).

While the Redshirts were unloading the Fire truck I noticed that some of the Redshirts were throwing rocks at something behind the corner on my right. It would turn out that this was a group of locals who were pissed at the Redshirts and decided to take matters into their own hands. The locals came at the Redshirts from the train tracks on both sides of the intersection. The Redshirts were throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails (they set one little shop on fire) at the locals and the locals were throwing rocks back. In addition there were two occasions where one of the locals fired a gun wildly at the Redshirts from the other side of the intersection I was in (I didn't get a picture of the shooter but he was located near the truck in the second picture).

Around 5:50pm the locals gained control of the intersection and the Redshirts retreated down Phitsanulook road. Thai Army soldiers entered the intersection once the locals had control of it – eventually setting up at the entrance to Phitsanulook road.

The locals chased the Redshirts down the road but eventually the Redshirts regrouped and pushed the locals back. Both sides eventually settled down with the locals and Thai soldiers at Yommarat and the Redshirts maybe 2-300 meters down the road. This was the situation when I left around 7:15 because it was quiet (the Thai soldiers were sitting down eating while their PSYOP truck blasted messages) and I was hungry.