Thailand

[Pictured: Thai army troops confront Red Shirt protesters in Bangkok on April 10. Photo: Lee Yu Kyung.]
By Lee Yu Kyung -- On July 6, the Thai government approved the extension of an emergency decree in 19 provinces, which includes many in the heartland of the pro-democracy Red Shirts in the country’s north-east.
The extension came a day after the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) recommended the government immediately lift the decree and hold fresh elections.

Introduction by Danielle Sabai and Pierre Rousset
June 20, 2010 -- The crackdown on the opposition in Thailand and the abuses of the regime have not been met with the solidarity response and the international condemnation that the situation requires. The regime can thus freely operate and stifle the democratic movement.
News from Thailand is alarming: hundreds of people detained for violations of the emergency decree, including children; injured people chained to their hospital beds; several assassinations of local leaders of the Red Shirts have taken place. The country is moving deeper into an authoritarian and military regime. The elite are even considering postponing the elections for six years, thus giving Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva the possibility of leading the country for ten years against the will of the majority of Thai citizens.

June 11, 2010 -- Associate Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn (pictured) is a political commentator and dissident from Thailand. In February 2009 he had to leave Thailand for exile in Britain because he was charged with lèse majesté for writing a book criticising the 2006 military coup. His latest book will be of interest to activists, academics and journalists who have an interest in Thai politics, democratisation and NGOs.
Thailand’s Crisis and the Fight for Democracy is Giles Ji Ungpakorn’s latest work concerning the on-going political crisis that has engulfed Thailand since the coup of 2006. The book analyses the nature of the deep political divisions between the pro-democracy “Red Shirts” and the royalist Peoples Alliance for Democracy “Yellow Shirts”, starting from the creation of the PAD, through the 2006 coup and up to the end of 2009. It argues against the idea that former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was somehow anti-monarchy and that this was the root cause of the 2006 coup. In trying to understand the political crisis, it must be seen in its entirety, including elite divisions and disputes, but also the roles of civil society activists and the constantly developing social movements which are made up of ordinary people.

[After the military assault, hundreds of Red Shirt protesters were taken into custody. Photo: Lee Yu Kyung.]
By Tony Iltis, Green Left Weekly
Hundreds of Thais and an Australian remain in jail, as the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva continues to repress the grassroots pro-democracy Red Shirt movement. Some Red Shirt protesters are still in hiding.
This follows the full-scale military assault on May 19 that ended a six-week protest by thousands of Red Shirts in the commercial centre of Bangkok. Australian Colin Purcell, of Perth, has been caught up in the repression and is still detained by police.

By Justin Alick, Bangkok
May 27, 2010 -- On March 3, 2010, the red-shirted leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) held a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand to outline the details of the coming mass rally to be held in Bangkok. The purpose of the rally, they said, was to force an army-backed government to make a choice: to embrace democracy and hold general elections, or to embrace authoritarianism and kill its own citizens. When asked by one journalist how the UDD would respond in the case of the government choosing the latter, the answer from Red Shirt leader Jaran Ditthapichai sent a palpable chill across the room: “We may see Thailand descend into civil war.”

Pictured: Bangkok, May 21, 2010. Photo by Chaiwat Subprasom.
By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
May 26, 2010 -- Make no mistake. We have a full military junta in Thailand with Abhisit Vejjajiva acting as a “democratic” mask. The repression and censorship is worse than even after the October 6, 1976 coup. More people have been killed by the army than in any previous repression. It is worse than during the Sarit dictatorship era in the 1960s and the reason is that the regime is trying desperately to suppress the biggest mass movement for democracy in Thai history. Hundreds are being rounded up. There is widespread censorship. The regime is increasingly looking like China, Burma or North Korea.

By Walden Bello
May 25, 2010 -- Nearly a week after the event, Thailand is still stunned by the military assault on the Red Shirt encampment in the tourist centre of the capital city of Bangkok on May 19. The Thai government is treating captured Red Shirt leaders and militants like they're from an occupied country. No doubt about it: A state of civil war exists in this country, and civil wars are never pretty.

[Thai soldiers used live rounds and snipers deliberately gunned down unarmed civilians in the government-declared “free fire zone”. Photo: LightOnDude/Flickr.]
By Ash Pemberton & Tony Iltis, Green Left Weekly
Sunday, May 23, 2010 -- The 74-day long mobilisation for democracy that shut down the centre of Bangkok ended when the leaders of the Red Shirts movement surrendered on May 20. The surrender came after the Thai army launched an armoured assault on the capital.

Danielle Sabaï, Asia Left Observer
On Wednesday May 19th, the government of Abhisit Vejjajiva finally launched an assault on the Red Shirt camp in the neighbourhood of Rachaprasong. Television stations from around the world broadcast brutal images of assault tanks destroying the bamboo and tyre barricades and soldiers armed with rifles firing live ammunition at demonstrators. The disproportion between the images of war and the faces of the demonstrators, mostly peasants and urban works, is striking.

[Photo by Lee Yu Kyung, Bangkok.]
Statements by the New Anti-Capitalist Party of France, Socialist Alliance of Australia, the Socialist Party of Malaysia, the Fourth International, Focus on Global South, Australia Asia Worker Links. See also Asia-Pacific left statement -- `Resolve crisis through democracy, not crackdown!', by Asian left and progressive organisations. Statements reprinted from Links.