29 May 2010

Rough Edges

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There are still many rough edges to my blogging here. I am having difficulties with links and comments. To use a URL in my text, you may still have to highlight, copy and paste it. Sorry. I’ll get it right someday.
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-Zenwind.
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“An Open Letter to the Red Shirts” by Somtow

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If you are only going to read one Somtow article, read this one. It speaks of hope.
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This was written two days after the Army dispersed the Red Shirt rally and after the thug element of the Reds’ arson rampage. Somtow speaks to the best elements among the Red Shirt movement, and attitudes like his are badly needed if this country is ever going to heal.
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-Zenwind.
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“Don’t Blame Dan Rivers,” by Somtow

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Author S.P. Somtow (or his Thai name, Somtow Sucharitkul) is a Thai-American composer and writer. Educated at Eton and Cambridge he knows the West, and being Thai he knows Thailand. As he was raised in England, English was actually his first language before moving to Thailand at age 8.
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This article, “Don’t Blame Dan Rivers,” was posted on 18 May 2010, the day before the Royal Thai Army moved in to end the Red Shirt rally in the heart of Bangkok. It addresses the bad quality of Western media reporting on this Thai crisis. Dan Rivers is a CNN reporter, and most Thais think CNN got it way wrong on many things. Somtow blames problems with preconceptions and language for the media mistakes.
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Immediately after reading the above, read this following one, “A Few Small Clarifications,” which addresses a few questions many of us had about the above through its hasty writing.
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I have become a big fan of Somtow’s writing, as I agree with him about a lot of things.
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28 May 2010

Inside Report on “Men in Black” During Standoff

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Here is a good article from Asia Times Online: “Unmasked: Thailand’s men in black,” by Kenneth Todd Ruiz and Olivier Sarbil, 29 May 2010.
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Ruiz and Sarbil stayed with the Reds’ gunmen during key times of the conflict. The article speaks for itself, and I highly recommend it.
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Thoughts on Thai Violence, #7

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Timeline of Violence in Bangkok:
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2008: The “Yellow Shirts,” an ultra-conservative group, gives the nation an example of mob politics by taking over Government House and the nation's main airports. Not as much an armed group as a mob. They set the tone.
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April 2009: Red Shirt demonstrators take a lesson from the Yellows and end the ASEAN (Assoc. of South-East Asian Nations) summit by storming the venue, sending diplomats scrambling for helicopters for escape. Police did nothing.
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March 2010: Red Shirt protestors come into the city by the thousands. Their original primary headquarters is around the Phan Fah bridge, near the Democracy Monument area. Many decent rural folk are among the hotheads.
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3 April: Reds also start to occupy the central shopping district, Ratchaprasong.
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9 April: (After business at the US Embassy I try to get to Siam Square, but the streets are blocked by Reds. So I leave the taxi and walk through the Ratchaprasong intersection, which is soon to be the final Red central headquarters. Tough looking crowd.) PM Abhisit has been ordering the protestors to disperse from all their sites, as it is an illegal gathering, but the Army has dragged its feet.
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10 April: Army finally tries to move protestors out of the old part of town near the Phan Fah bridge area. Troops went in unarmed but for batons and shields, backed up if necessary by troops with rubber bullets and tear gas, and ultimately with armed troops only in backup to defend lives of troops if fired on, in accordance with international norms. Army is surprised by armed “men in black,” i.e., Red-allied snipers who fire on troops. Deputy Army chief of staff Gen. Dapong says later: “It was worse than we thought.” An Army colonel in charge at the scene – Col. Romklao, a former bodyguard to the Queen – was shot down by Red snipers, who had good inside info and targeted him at the start of the engagement. The soldiers take casualties and shoot back, and dozens are killed. Videos show men in black shooting from the shadows. It is suspected that many in the Army and police are Red allies. It is well known that suspended general Khattiya, known as “Seh Daeng” (Red Commander) is one of the more radical Reds and claims to be their military advisor, accountable only to Thaksin.
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22 April: M79 grenade attacks on Sala Daeng Skytrain station and area business district. Grenadiers were shooting from the Red stronghold of Lumpini Park.
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30 April: 200 Reds storm nearby hospital looking for suspected troops. None are found, and hospital evacuates. Red public credibility drops dramatically.
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3 May: PM Abhisit offers compromise reconciliation plan: Dissolve Parliament in late September; new elections on 14 November, address rural complaints; but Reds must stop protest now. Red leaders look like they will accept it at first, but hard-core elements – probably Khattiya and Thaksin (from abroad) – spoil its chances.
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7 May: Reds commit a fatal drive-by shooting of policeman and a later M79 attack. (I am about 400 yards from the shooting, but unaware of it, as I am listening to a live gig at Nomads Pub.)
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13 May: Red military advisor Khattiya (aka, Seh Daeng) is shot by sniper while bragging to NY Times reporter. He dies later.
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14-18 May: Army starts moving slowly against the Reds’ headquarters area by blocking streets, letting all who want to leave out but no one into the Reds’ area. Armed Reds start trouble elsewhere in capital.
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19 May: Army moves to clear the Reds out. Important embassies are within the Reds easy reach, e.g., US, UK, so Army must move. They take back Lumpini Park and move toward the Reds’ center, Ratchaprasong. It is pre-arranged that the unarmed peaceful Reds, including women and children, be sent to a nearby Buddhist temple as a safe zone. Several Red leaders surrender to police and tell the other Reds to stop the protest and go home, and they are booed by many Reds for this. Hard-core Red Guards try to persuade unarmed Red women and children – who have been staying for safety in the nearby temple – to rejoin main rally site, lying about the situation returning to normal. They want human shields and a massacre of innocents to make the Army look evil. Government provides free bus transport to Reds who want to return home in the provinces.
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19 May, evening: radical Reds start burning and looting. Over 35 buildings are torched, including the incredible Central World plaza and the old Siam theater (one of my favorites). Armed Reds fire on firefighters so that they cannot even approach the blazes for many hours. Reporters take off their green press armbands because instead of protecting them they are now making them a target of enraged Red snipers.
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We are still under curfew, but things have settled down for now. We expect more Red violence at any time in the future.
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Thoughts on Thai Violence, #6

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Cast of Characters in Thai Crisis:
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(This post will give context to later ones.)
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Abhisit: Prime Minister and member of Democrat party. Educated at Eton and Oxford. Became PM by parliamentary coalition after Red-allied governments had been removed for corruption by courts. Reds do not accept his legitimacy as PM. He seems like a good guy who got mixed up in the dirt of Thai politics.
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Suthep: Deputy PM.
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Yellow Shirts: Ultra-conservative royalists and Bangkok elitists. To protest former governments they didn’t like, they used mob demonstrations in 2008 to take over Government House and the airports. They recently have thought PM Abhisit was too soft on Red Shirts.
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Red Shirts: A conglomeration of factions against Abhisit government, usually united by being supporters of former PM Thaksin. There are several Red factions:
1) There are many poor rural and urban folk who have never been included in political processes, and who see the democratic dream promised them by Thaksin as new hope. Thaksin became popular with them because of his government hand-out goodies and by his arrogance against the traditional corrupt Bangkok elites. So, many Reds are Thaksin fans who have been manipulated by the violent factions.
2) Many communists like Dr. Weng are leading the large leftist Red faction.
3) Many rogue military/ police. 4) “Men in black,” snipers and M79 grenadiers who used deadly fire against Army from the shadows. 5) Thugs, plain thugs who like to break things, burn things and hurt people.
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Thaksin: former PM and main leader of the Red Shirts. Ex-police officer and billionaire electronics tycoon. Did his post-grad police studies in the USA. Very popular among rural Thais and urban poor. Clever at demagoguery and winning support by giving out goodies. Elected PM in 2000 and 2004. Infamous for his blatant lying. A killer, who when PM presided over a “war on drugs” that resulted in 2,700 extra-judicial killings of alleged “drug lords”; he gave district police leaders quotas, numbers of suspects to get (very Stalin-like); no trials, no due process, just gunning them down; very few casualties in this “war” were cops. He made the southern separatist violence worse by his heavy-handed policies of killing Muslims there. Ousted in military coup in September 2006. Later convicted of abuse of power and corruption while a PM, and sentenced to 2 years in jail. On the run in exile ever since. Desperately wants to be back in power. Thaksin needed a bigger bloodbath to discredit Abhisit government, but the Army actually showed great restraint in the end. Now Thaksin is charged with being a “terrorist” under a law he designed earlier as PM against his enemies. Kind of a karma boomerang. There was nothing in Abhisit’s 3 May peace deal for him, so he is suspected of spoiling it from abroad.
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Gen. Khattiya: Known as “Seh Daeng” (Red Commander), he was a suspended Army general who always talked violence and said he took orders only from Thaksin. Claimed he was Reds’ military advisor. Probably trained and commanded the Reds’ “men in black” armed faction, who started the killings of April 2010. In this role, he probably planned the 10 April killing of the Army CO on the scene, Col. Romklao, when the Army tried to move protestors out with only batons and shields. This incident started the cycle of armed conflict as armed soldiers came in to back up the unarmed ones. It was probably a later Army plan, learned from him, that had a sniper take out Seh Daeng himself on 13 May – both as revenge and as eliminating a key violent player. Another karma boomerang. Seh Daeng is quoted as saying earlier: “Brother Thaksin doesn’t want the protests to end. If they do, he cannot return home.” He was probably a key spoiler of the attempted peace initiative by Abhisit.
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Other Red Shirt leaders:
Veera: the most peaceful Red leader, who left the stage when Reds turned violent.
Weng: hard-core Red, communist leader of the Reds’ leftist faction.
Arisman: hard-core Red, he called for burning Bangkok as well as mosques.
Natthawut: hard-core Red, he called for widespread arson.
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Thai police: They did very little to stop the Reds at any time, and they are considered “tomatoes,” i.e., red. Some police actually shot at the Army.
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Royal Thai Army: They were very slow to follow Abhisit’s orders to clear protestors. They did not want a massacre and only moved when ready. Some elements in the Army, including some generals, are “watermelons,” i.e., green outside but red inside, so it took a while to get into gear.
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26 May 2010

Blog in Slow Motion

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My blogging has stalled out this week. My internet connection has been an off/on thing. Also, we are trying to figure out exactly when and how to get to the new Immigration Office (the one inconveniently built out in the boonies and known by few taxi drivers) for a final stamp of approval after last month’s ordeal of a new visa application, and it is complicated by a major holiday this Friday (Visaka). Plus, I’m still suffering from news-overload, media-exhaustion. The recent crisis has been in our faces so intensely for so long, and everyone seems tired of thinking about it.
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Things are almost back to normal. There is still a curfew, but it has been narrowed to midnight to 4am. The Skytrain and subway systems still have shortened hours also, so a late night in town is difficult. Nomads Pub had long been planning a special Bob Dylan music night in celebration of Dylan’s birthday on Monday 24 May, but they had to cancel it due to the restrictions. Bangkok is a city that likes its late, late hours.
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I may venture into the downtown tomorrow for my first visit to the former battle zone in almost 3 weeks. It will be an all-day adventure, getting on a boat for the first leg and then rail. If I’m physically up to it, I’d like to walk through the heart of the former Red Shirt area with the looming ruins of the burned-out Central World, once the second-largest shopping mall in Southeast Asia. My curiosity is nagging me. Hopefully, I will have a big day tomorrow.
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-Zenwind.
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22 May 2010

Thoughts on Thai Violence, #5

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Western News Coverage of Thai Crisis
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22 May 2010. Two days after the “Battle of Bangkok.” I have not written for a while because I’ve been a bit sick and had been hospitalized earlier in the week. (No serious illness – and not combat related – just some temporary complications in the usual ailments, i.e., acute bouts of dukkha and chronic samsara.) I’m still quite tired and weak. So my analysis of this whole crisis has not been formulated yet. We are all still sorting it out and learning a lot.
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I still plan to write of my own conclusions and feelings later, but for now I just want to mention the Western news media coverage of this whole long saga. It has been very poor. Forget CNN, whose misunderstandings of the situation have outraged Thais of all colors. Their presentations are a joke. BBC was always a bit better and now might be learning a few things after investigating things deeper. I have neglected to read much Al-Jazeera English online news lately, but the high quality and objectivity of their coverage has often surprised me. (Yes, Al-Jazeera. You might be surprised by their rather high standards. Don’t believe Dick Cheney’s lies and/or ignorant comments about them.)
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Caveats: 1) I cannot speak nor read Thai, so my info comes mainly from native Thais whose first language is Thai and who are also fluent writers in English. 2) Admittedly, Thai intellectuals writing in English are middle-class Thais, as opposed to the Red Shirts who are often poorer rural folks and lower-class Bangkokians. 3) Middle-class values and preconceptions will always color the news I read in English here. 4) I am bourgeois myself, growing up on a Jeffersonian small family farm, rural and lacking much money but thoroughly middle-class. Therefore I have to be extra critical and suspicious of my sources.
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At a later time, I will try to post links to some good English-language writing on this situation from great Thai analysts. What is remarkable about these writers – to me – is that, although they are middle-class and have a good grounding in Western ways, they still seem to be able to understand the heart of the Red Shirt masses’ grievances and dreams of the future. It might be the wisdom of thinkers like these – with their broad-based universal humanism – that holds out hope for reconciliation in the Kingdom of Thailand. The reason I cannot just simply link them now is because I may need to introduce some background info to provide context, and that will take more energy than I have right now.
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-Z.W.
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20 May 2010

Thoughts on Thai Violence, #4

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(Start reading first from “Thoughts on Thai Violence, #1” below this.)
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It is midday on 20 May 2010. Our neighborhood is quiet, but TV and internet news shows several arson sites in Bangkok still smoking. Things seemed to have settled down a bit after the curfew, which is extended 3 more days. The Royal Thai Army troops who were outside the corner of our house have gone, but police and security people are still there.
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For the last few posts, I have been recording recent news of Bangkok’s Troubles. Now comes the hard part, i.e., analyzing the whole mess. And, frankly, I am too tired to do so right now. Maybe it’s always best to sleep on it when coming to conclusions. I have strong feelings – both good and bad – about all parties in this conflict, and it will take a while to sort out. I’m also a farang, a Westerner, who will probably never really understand this place.
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One weird thing did happen as I just returned from my midday grocery run for ice, beer and other fluids. The police and security guys are located just over the wall that separates our courtyard and entrance alleyway from the sidewalk and street where they are. To be in the shade, many of them were relaxing with their backs to their side of the wall, talking and laughing. I turned off from their position on the corner and entered the little parallel alleyway to our gate on our side of the wall.
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Both my hands were loaded with heavy bags, and I struggled to open the sliding bolt in the gate’s lock. To my horror, when the bolt finally slid open it made the very loud sound of a metallic “ka-cthunk!” – just like a bolt in a heavy machinegun. All conversation on the other side of the wall immediately stopped, and I was expecting to hear the sounds of the workings of small-arms actions as panicked cops locked and loaded. As quickly as I could, I swung the gate open wide, knowing that the hinges would squeak loudly and hopefully reassure those on the other side, which it did.
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We are all a little jumpy these days.
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19 May 2010

Thoughts on Thai Violence, #3

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(Start reading first from “Thoughts on Thai Violence, #1” below this.)
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It is after sundown, and there are several rifle squads of Royal Thai Army outside on the main street. They are guarding a sidestreet entrance to a utilities office complex, and they seem to have the situation in hand at the moment. Our neighborhood is quiet.
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I have to say with amazement that the Army is learning very fast after a slow start last month, when the Reds took them by surprise on 10 April by being better armed than expected and better informed – i.e., the Reds “men in black” snipers took out the Army commander on the scene at the very start of the engagement. Now the Army is using squads of soldiers on motorcycles as quick-response teams, copying the Reds’ efficient use of cycles.
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You might not believe me on this at first, but the Army is also showing exceptional fire-discipline in their operations. The huge number of fatalities since 10 April – i.e., over 65 – may be astronomically high, but remember that the Army has been facing many armed Reds mixed amongst the peaceful Reds, and they have had to fight it out in a densely-packed city. Also, many of those civilians killed were killed by the Reds.
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Don’t get me wrong, I am not totally unsympathetic to some of the more peaceful complaints of many in the Red Shirt movement. I will address those issues in a later entry.
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Here at home, Tuk and I share a small walled outdoor courtyard-kitchen with her parents next door, as well as a shared locked gate. Today Tuk’s mother put up some sharp-edged corrugated steel to top a weak spot on the top of our wall. Tuk has several bags packed in case of sudden flight. I asked her where she would go, and her planning had not yet gone that far.
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The ladies of the family are nervous. Somehow I suspect that this is their first perimeter defense.
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Thoughts on Thai Violence, #2

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(Start reading first from “Thoughts on Thai Violence, #1” below this.)
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19 May 2010: Tuk is now home, her office sending everyone home early. The staff of English language news sources The Bangkok Post and The Nation have also sent staff home. The city is shutting down for the day.
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Confirmed: the Reds torched one of the three old theaters in Siam Square, the Siam Theater, and it has collapsed. I am pissed off.
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A few Red snipers had been targeting rescue workers a few days ago. Now all reporters are advised to take off their green reporter armbands, which once made them safe but now a possible target. A few firefighters have been shot this afternoon while trying to extinguish fires.
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The fire lit by retreating Reds at Ratchaprasong’s elegant Central World shopping complex has been extinguished. Reds had broke through glass and threw fire bombs inside, causing flames on first floor.
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Thoughts on Thai Violence, #1

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(I will add short updates and thoughts here about Thailand’s present troubles. Instead of trying to write one document, I will just post bits and pieces. The whole situation is hard to integrate or to fathom.)
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19 May 2010: We are ok here – so far – but the day isn’t over yet, and info is coming in faster than I can read. Tuk even went to work today, although she was concerned enough to call me several times asking me if anything was happening on the streets nearby.
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The original core leaders of the Red Shirt protestors have either quit earlier, surrendered to police just now, or fled. The surrendering leaders told the protestors at the main rally site of Ratchaprasong, the heart of Bangkok’s shopping district, to end the protests and take the government-provided buses to go home. Many protestors booed this message, indicating that many will not heed it. The Army has now occupied the main inner city Red enclaves of Sala Daeng and Ratchaprasong.
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The problem now is rioting and arson in other areas of the city, and even in other provinces. Red Radio has just told the Reds to: “Light the fire if you’re near a bank. Everyone is your own leader.” That appeal to violence and mayhem speaks for itself. A curfew for Bangkok has just been announced, and I do believe that full Martial Law will be next. Bangkok, to our south, has a haze of smoke rising from massive tire-burnings.
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Fires were started at or near the two finest malls in the kingdom before the Ratchaprasong Reds dispersal. There is also a rumor that my favorite old movie theaters might be torched. If this is confirmed, I will be too angry to write. I have just checked the keenness of the edge on my Cold Steel.
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Rampaging Reds are now assaulting reporters. Now isn’t that the stupidest “tactic” you ever heard?
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I’ll post this and write more at another time.
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16 May 2010

Thai News in English

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The two main English language newspapers in Bangkok also have online news services. They are essential reading for keeping up with developments here.
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The Nation.
This website is kept more up to date. Three good sections of this are: 1) “Today’s Big Stories”; 2) “Breaking News”; and especially, 3) “Tweets from The Nation” which is often very fast reporting but should be taken with a grain of salt since it is very raw info. Also occasionally interesting sections are “Nation’s Bloggers” and “Today’s Editors.”
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The Bangkok Post.
There are usually four featured articles. To the right of them is section for “Breaking News.” But a quick way to see all relevant stories is to click on “Local news” on the far left and just above the main headline.
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Bangkok Dangerous, for real

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We are still staying home, sitting out the madness that has gripped much of Bangkok. Even on our western side of the river – where no bad incidents have happened yet – the traffic is impossible due to the entire center of Bangkok being a battle zone and major roads there are blocked.
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It is raining hard and cooling things off a bit. I may go out for an ice and grocery run to a local store, but no further today.
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Tomorrow was to be the first day of the new school year, but schools in the Bangkok area will postpone it until the 24th. Kids should be happy to hear that.
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13 May 2010

Violence in Bangkok Again, and Again

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We are safe at home while watching the Bangkok news unfold minute by minute via TV, radio and internet. It’s a sad insane tragedy unfolding, and there will probably be many dead and wounded before morning or in the days to come.
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The renegade Red-supporting Thai Army Maj. Gen. Khattiya, known as “Seh Daeng” (Commander Red) and infamous for his violent rhetoric, was shot this evening and is in critical condition with a head wound. Apparently a sniper took him out as he was hamming it up to newsmen. He just couldn't stay out of the limelight.
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08 May 2010

A Night of Death, Part 2

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Still oblivious to the fatal Red attacks in the Sala Daeng area that I had just left, I was cruising north toward home in a taxi at 1:15am Saturday morning when another type of death confronted me.
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As the taxi driver sped north up almost-empty main expressways on the Bangkok side of the river, we suddenly noticed brake lights and traffic disruption ahead. There were a lot of motorcycles and cars ahead slowing down and parting for some kind of obstacle in the four-lane road.
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Then the driver braked hard and we saw it. A motorcycle was on its side in the middle of the road, and a young person, possibly female, was lying still astride it, apparently unconscious and possibly dead. My Boy Scout instincts demanded that I stop to offer whatever first aid I could, but the traffic pressure behind and around us prohibited any possibility of stopping.
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Next, further down the road and also in its middle, was a severely damaged motorcycle still smoking. A bit further beyond it was another young person lying in a pool of blood around his/her head. I can confidently say that – even on such brief examination from the taxi – this person was dead. To lose so much blood so quickly from your head is fatal.
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My taxi driver called it in, but someone else already had because two ambulances were approaching fast from the opposite lane.
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As we continued north, we maneuvered our way through hundreds of motorcyclists, who were moving more slowly now and apparently freaked out by the accident behind us. None of them were wearing helmets – odd because helmets are mandatory in Thailand and are usually seen on main roads.
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They were late-night teenage motorcycle racers. It is a culture that has been around for a while. Hundreds of teenagers assemble late at night, usually on weekends, and race in mass rallies on the nearly empty streets. What surprised me was the percentage of them who were female, either as passengers or drivers.
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This did not make the main news, however, since it is commonplace here.
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-Zenwind.
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A Night of Death, Part 1

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This time, I was in the general area of some of the protest-related killing as it happened.
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Friday night, 7 May 2010, 10:45pm – a drive-by shooting from a motorcycle into a crowd of anti-Reds and policemen. One cop died from wounds. At that time I was 400 meters away enjoying the music of Peter Driscoll at Nomad’s Pub. We never heard it or knew about the shooting at the time, and I only heard about it the next morning.
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After seeing an afternoon movie in another part of town, I took the Skytrain to the Sala Daeng station – the station that was blasted by 5 M79 grenades on 22 April with one fatality. This is the financial district as well as a famous/infamous entertainment area, and the police and Army have stood their ground preventing the Reds from taking it over. The Reds are massed and encamped on the other side of the major Rama IV Road at Lumpini Park, just within M79 range of the Skytrain station. It is the flashpoint of the Troubles now.
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I got off the Skytrain at Sala Daeng about 8:15pm and immediately noticed the armed camp atmosphere. A fully-armed and fully-geared soldier stood there facing me as I disembarked. On the street-level of Silom Road, there was a heavy presence of police and soldiers. As I walked to Soi 4 and Nomad’s, pimps were still in business offering me either boys or girls as I passed. (Some industries never close for hell or high water.) Turning down Soi 4, it is a noisy party atmosphere spilling out from the bars into the narrow sidestreet as I headed to Nomad’s at the dead-end of the soi.
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The music from 8:30pm to 1am was excellent, and we were completely unaware of trouble 400 meters away.
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I left Nomad’s about 1am Saturday morning. The police and Army presence on Silom Road was even thicker, but I still didn’t realize what had happened earlier. The Skytrain was of course closed, but I tried to go up the stairs to a pedestrian cross-over so as to get on the other side of the street to get a good taxi connection, but soldiers stopped me and made me turn around. They were holding the high ground. I crossed the street elsewhere through stalled traffic and got a taxi to take me home in a direction away from the Reds’ stronghold.
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At about 1:30am, while I was en route home, some grenade explosions occurred a bit farther north from Sala Daeng and across the Rama IV Road at police checkpoints around Lumpini Park. One cop died there and many were wounded.
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Just when we thought there would be a peace deal completed. Well, TIT (This Is Thailand).
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-Zenwind.
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Old-Time Rock n Roll with Peter Driscoll

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I had been to Nomad’s Pub – down at the end of Silom Soi 4 – in the past to hear Peter Driscoll and the Cruisers play early Rock n Roll – usually pure ‘50s stuff – and I’m hooked. Peter played alone last night with just his acoustic guitar from 10pm to 1am. I normally leave before midnight to catch the last Skytrain north, but last night I stayed to hear the last note. (Little did we know that violence was taking place on the streets outside less than half a klick away: see next entry.)
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Peter is a walking encyclopedia of early American and British Rock, a real historian. He usually prefaces the next song with info about who wrote it or covered it, and adds interesting details about what they are doing these days. Born in 1942, Peter is 8 years older than me and thus has more first-hand knowledge of early Rock, knowing many Rock legends personally. He is also a fine gentleman and great off-stage conversationalist.
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Yesterday, Friday 7 May 2010, I made my first foray into downtown Bangkok in a month just to hear Peter’s gig at Nomad’s. I didn’t want to miss it. It was a blazing hot day, and I only got to see one movie in the afternoon because the Red Shirt protestors have turned the downtown into a slum and are keeping my favorite theaters closed. Waiting for gig time at Nomad’s, I searched for an air conditioned place and ended up at the Bangkok Hard Rock Café for an hour and a half – where the drinks are much too expensive, although the Rock videos are entertaining. I clutched cold beer bottles to cool off.
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I got to Nomad’s before the introductory gig by a young American and I got to talk with Peter and with Paul, Nomad’s musical director. Sadly, not many people frequent the farang bars since the Troubles started in Bangkok. These musicians deserve a much wider audience.
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A great evening of music.
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-Zenwind.
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05 May 2010

Thai Army Wins: by doing nothing

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Hopefully, this ongoing Thai political crisis of 2010 may now be seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and the Royal Thai Army has been the power behind the scenes, stubbornly holding out for a peaceful solution. Today is Coronation Day, a national holiday commemorating the crowning of the King and Queen over six decades ago, and it is an excellent time for political compromises and saving face for all concerned. A most auspicious time for peacemaking.
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This week, PM Abhisit compromised by announcing that new elections will be held on 14 November 2010, with the House dissolving around the last half of September. The Red Shirt leaders compromised by giving up their call for immediate House dissolution. After a few more details are hammered out, perhaps the Reds will go home and end the mobocracy of recent weeks. The government’s position has been hurt by the Army’s refusal to use more force, and the Reds’ position has been hurt by some of them invading a major hospital last week.
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The Army chief, Gen. Anupong, as well as many Army officers at all levels, have been against any forceful removal of the Red Shirts from their barricaded camp in the middle of Bangkok’s premier shopping district. It would be a terrible fight because of the lay of the land, and many Thais would be killed. Right after the 10 April fatal fight elsewhere between the Army and the Reds, Gen. Anupong declared that the situation demanded a peaceful political solution rather than a military one.
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Times have changed. In the 1970s, the Army would simply lock, load and gun them down. Over the last several weeks, the PM and Deputy PM have repeatedly ordered the Army to forcefully evict the Reds. But the Army has hardly budged since the 10 April surprise of well-armed Reds and 25 fatalities. The Army’s recent actions have been only defensive, i.e., holding the Reds back from invading the financial district. By not moving, the Army underlines its key role in Thai politics – you can do nothing without them.
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Gen. Anupong is due to retire in September or so. He does not want a bloodbath as his final legacy as Army chief. He may be eyeing a future role in politics. He may be refusing to take more lives, finding himself in the uneasy position of being both a soldier and a Buddhist. Whatever his motivations, he has helped to keep the peace and to keep the Army’s reputation untarnished. The Royal Thai Army has staged a “coup” that is not really a coup but has shown where the true power lies.
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-Zenwind.

03 May 2010

Cat and Mouse Game with Cop

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The other day I went for a long walk on the local streets in order to get some long-needed exercise. During the Hot Season here, one tends to spend too much time indoors. I walked as far as I could before my feet got too hot – threatening blisters – then turned back. (I’m a tenderfoot.) Before going to the house, I headed to the local store to get ice and cold drinks.
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I must have looked a sight: drenched with sweat after my march, red-faced and wearing a bandana sweatband. But most around here are used to seeing the local neighborhood “farang” and his eccentric ways. “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.”
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As I was cruising the aisles of the store, I noticed a policeman in the store, one I’d never seen before. (Since Thailand’s recent Troubles escalated, there have been extra reinforcement cops stationed at our corner police station.) It hit me immediately: he was stalking me in order to bust me.
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Explanation: the laws on alcohol purchases in Thailand are byzantine. You can buy beer, wine and spirits only from 11am to 2pm (the time bracketing lunch hour) and then again from 5pm to midnight. Two legal windows in time.
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I knew that I had arrived at the store about 2:15pm and thus could not buy beer, but I wasn’t looking for beer because I already had some at home. I was at the cooler loading up on ice tea and soda. The cop was hiding behind an aisle watching me and hoping that I would try to buy some beer so he could bust me.
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He would try to settle it just between us, i.e., he would demand a bribe and had no intention of taking me in. Just like a farang being caught littering or for a traffic violation, he would ask for about 2000 Baht (US$62). He probably thought I was just a visiting farang unaware of the rules. He stood behind me, watching, as I unloaded my basket at checkout, and he disappeared when no alcohol was found. Sorry to disappoint him, as he most likely thought it was easy cash.
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-Zenwind.
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