Abhisit Vejjajiva says that the Thai government has retaken control of the country, but for how long? Obviously the people of Thailand want a change in their government. Corruption is one of the main things that need to end. Thank you for posting this, people around the world have to hear about this.

Thailand has had seventeen coups. This one is only the latest. There is clearly something very wrong in the state of Thailand when the army and the monarchy think they can routinely remove the elected government whenever it suits them. The army fired tear gas at crowds of protesters which included children. They also shot a ten year old boy dead. They are now (predictably) calling the protesters ‘terrorists’ but the terrorists are the ones in uniforms who terrorized and killed unarmed civilians in the service of Thailand’s corrupt and ossified power elite.

MrJJ, May 22 at 11:57 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Prem Tinsulanonda has out-played everyone… Yellow vs
reds… mirrors and spin… hey but it plays well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Interesting links. The 2008 Reuters article was a
good read.
More interesting and notable by his absence; is
Prem’s present influence (or lack) and that of the
monarchy.
I have no idea how this is all going to play out; but
this crisis is far from over. The shirts (red) have
split into at least three factions and this could
spell the end of their unity.

ofersince72, May 23 at 11:02 am

As much as I admire Amy Goodman (never miss her
program) she did skimp on the coverage here.
Glad you read the link; it is an eye opener for those
who seek the facts of what’s really going on.

Tks for the feed Ouroborus

When the Red Shirt protests first started,
Democracy Now had a real short script in their
headline news that kinda gave the description
of what was happening then..

a week or so ago they had a debate between
two journalists that you couln’t really form
a conclusion from.
That article helped.

Night-Gaunt, May 22 at 6:23 pm

You are very welcome.
You’re probably the only one who read the link.
I wish the expats here would read it as well. A motley
bunch if ever there was one. Almost to a man they carry
the same disease of arrogance.

Actually the Thai situation is worse than America’s because of the past military coup. We haven’t had one of those yet.

“There is one final element that must be mentioned.  Most are not even aware of it.  But there is, in the western mindset, a deeply ingrained sense of the moral superiority of western culture which carries with it the idea that a third world country must by its very nature be ruled by despots, oppress peasants, and kill and torture people.  Most westerners become very insulted when this is pointed out to them because our deepest prejudices are always those of which we are least aware.  I believe that there is a streak of this crypto-racism in some of the reportage we are seeing in the west.  It is because of this that Baghdad, Yangon, and Bangkok are being treated as the same thing.  We all look alike.” Excerpt.

Thank you Ouroborus for this fine article, most enlightening, and all too true. Yes that imperial better-than-them bias subfuses our culture so that literally everybody has been exposed to the point of not even recognizing it. Too bad that the bulk of our press is controlled by 5 mega-corporations who extol such ideas of superiority and God given specialness. And they have been cutting back tremendously on the whole reporting apparatus in foreign venues. A bad & dangerous trend that will cause us to have even more mistakes in understanding what is going on there and anywhere else including Mexico.

The beatings will continue until morale improves!

Ahh, the mantra for the 21st century world governments. Corporations buy polititians and judges, control the military, and terrorize any and all opposition to the new corporate state.

The new world order has brought back Jim Crow.

I wonder how the U.S. government would react to the
take-over of the N.Y financial district?
Would the U.S. government allowed a demonstration to
go on for 9 weeks.
Would the U.S. government have allowed the
demonstrators to have M-16’s, M-79 grenades and
launchers, and hand grenades?
There’s a lot wrong with the government of Thailand;
but those living in the west and forming opinions
from western news sources are not getting even 1/2 of
accurate reportage.
The charge the sitting government is not legitimate
is false; the PM was appointed by a legally elected
coalition comparable to what’s going on with the
British government as I write this.
I live in Thailand and have for 8 years and the
amount of mis-information both here and in the
western press is astonishing. Armchair warriors
should stop wasting their time and get informed if
this issue is so important to them. And the
information is out there.
The following link is probably the best discourse
I’ve ever read regarding the reasons the western
media gets it so wrong;
http://tinyurl.com/2v9mega

The Thai language is daunting as Ms. Sucharitkul so
rightly states. I speak Thai but not at the level to
understand the “nuances” as she correctly says. My
highly educated and very intelligent wife is a
constant well of information in my ongoing education
of the Thai culture.
So, read the link or drowned in ignorance or continue
posting nonsense; your choice.

Order has not been restored.

1. Thaksin won with 60% of the vote. He was removed from power by the conservative power elite charging him with tax evasion and lese majeste and forcing him into exile.

2. The military staged a coup and took over the government in 2006.

3. The entire Thai political and legal system is corrupt and operates in the service of a small number of very rich people. Just like in America.

4. The army executed a general who had joined the red shirts by having a sniper shoot him in the head.

5. The red shirts who have surrendered are being held in army camps not jails and I think we can take it as read that they are not being read their Miranda rights.

The army created the disorder in the first place and now they expect to be praised for wandering around saying they have ‘restored order’. Their lies and duplicity make me sick to my stomach. This is Burma lite.

All it takes are troops shooting live ammo into the crowd to get them off the streets permanently. Just a tried and true method of shutting the people up. When will it be used here? They may not need too if enough people are too busy with trying to earn a living to bother with anything else. Plus they have LRAD and microwave weapons to keep protesters away, as tested in occupied Iraq.