Thaksin and the Red Shirts

Over a period of three weeks the Red Shirts, followers of Thaksin Shinawatra, the convicted former Prime Minister held rallies in Bangkok aimed at ousting the present incumbent of the post Mr Abhisit. They moved onto Pattaya and forced the cancellation of the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) summit by storming the venue holding it. Spurred on by this "victory" they returned to Bangkok and demonstrated threateningly around parts of the city. The military overpowered them on 13^th April and the next day, the leaders gave up. These people were stirred on by Thaksin a thief guilty of robbing the Thai economy for his own ends. He bribed the poor with a few Baht so they would vote for him. Many of these people have received little or no education and probably have no real understanding of politics. The educated middle class in the cities saw through Thaksin and the man fled with suitcases full of money. He flew to the UK in a Russian jet, where he bought himself Manchester City FC.

Here is a recent political timeline

2006:
Following an election in April which left Thaksin just short of an overall majority despite bribing the poor with cash to vote for him, a court later nullified the result, the following events occurred.
On 19^th September 2006, the Military staged a coup while Thaksin was away at the United Nations. He went into exile in London and used money he had made by suspicious means to buy Manchester City football club. 12 days later, a former army commander-in-chief Surayud Chulanont was sworn in as interim prime minister.

2007:

30^th May and Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party was dissolved for breaking election laws. He and 110 senior party members were banned from politics for five years.
20^th August , voters endorse a new, military-drafted constitution, the 18th in 75 years.
23^rd December the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP) failed to get an overall majority in a general election.

2008:

28^th January, the PPP leader Samak Sundaravej elected prime minister.
25^th May and the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) otherwise referred to as the "yellow shirts" staged street protests to overthrow the "Thaksin puppet government."
31^st July, Thaksin's wife Potjaman was given a three-year jail term for tax fraud.
11^th August saw Thaksin and his wife skippng bail and escaping to London.
26^th August, thousands of PAD protesters stormed Government House in an attempt to get rid of Samak.
Soon after on 2^nd September Samak declares a state of emergency in Bangkok when one person was killed and 45 injured in clashes. One week later he was found guilty of violating constitution by hosting TV cooking shows while in office and forced to quit.
17^th September, Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin's brother-in-law was elected prime minister by parliament.
21^st October sees the Supreme Court sentencing Thaksin to two years in jail in his abcence for breaking a conflict-of-interest law.
Bangkok's main airport was taken over by PAD protesters on 25^th November halting all flights and stranding 250,000 foreign visitors.
On the 2^nd December the Constitutional Court disbanded the PPP and banned Somchai from politics for five years. PAD protesters ended their blockade of Bangkok's two airports the following day.
15^th Dec - Opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, an Oxford-educated economist, became the third prime minister in as many months. About 200 red-shirted demonstrators block access to parliament, accusing him of being a stooge of the military.

2009:
The following is an article from the Bangkok Post on 14^th April 2009
How the red-shirt protest developed and ended

March 26: Thousands of Thaksin supporters in trademark red shirts begin rallying in Bangkok, calling on Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his government to resign and allow fresh elections.
They are spurred on by Thaksin Shinawatra, who starts a series of almost nightly addresses to the crowd by telephone and video link.
 
March 27: Thaksin accuses Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda, privy councillors Surayud Chulanond and Charnchai Likitjitta of being behind the 2006 military coup that toppled him.

March 28: General Surayud rejects Thaksin's claim, saying privy councillors are not involved in politics.

April 2: Red-shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan says a mass rally planned for April 8 is aimed at pressuring Mr Abhisit, General Prem and the privy councillors to resign.

April 3: Thaksin refuses an invitation by Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban to negotiate with the government, and calls on his supporters to come out in force for a mass rally on April 8.

April 7: Mr Abhisit's car is attacked by red-shirts in Pattaya as he heads back to Bangkok after a cabinet meeting. Thaksin's three children and ex-wife leave Thailand.
 
April 8: More than 30,000 red-shirts rally at Government House, their main protest site.

April 9: Taxi drivers block main roads and Victory Monument, bringing the city to a halt. Mr Abhisit vows tough action against red-shirts who break the law, but no action is taken.

April 10: Thaksin's supporters, already spread out across Bangkok, launch a separate protest in the beach resort of Pattaya, where 16 Asian leaders are to meet for a major Asean-sponsored summit, with Asean chairman Thailand as the host.

April 11: Thousands of protesters storm the venue of the summit, forcing its cancellation. A state of emergency is declared as foreign leaders are evacuated - some by helicopter from the hotel roof.

April 12: A state of emergency is declared in Bangkok and surrounding areas as new anti-government demonstrations spring up. Pattaya protest leader Arisman Pongruangrong arrested in Bangkok. About 50 protesters force their way into the Interior Ministry grounds while Mr Abhisit is inside. He escapes. Thaksin says he will lead an uprising if there is a coup.

April 13: Army cracks down on protesters in Bangkok. Two people die and 123 treated for injuries in army assaults on groups of protesters and several ugly confrontations between red shirts and local people who formed neighbourhood militias.

April 14: Thousands of demonstrators who had retreated to their main camp outside Government House agree to disperse in the face of an overwhelming military operation to close down days of protests.

Government extends the three-day Songkran holiday for two more days.

___________________________________________________________

Recently, following the violent clashes in the streets of Bangkok, which left two innocent people dead, killed by the UDD, redshirts, the government cancelled Thaksin's passport and he left Dubai, where he had been staying, for an undisclosed destination in Africa. Nicaragua has stated that following an earlier meeting between Thaksin and the Nicaraguan president, it has issued the fugitive with a diplomatic passport.

The incumbent Prime Minister Mr Abhisit, seems a good man and we can only hope that he can bring the two sides together for discussions on the future of democracy in Thailand. The Thai people are wonderful and very resilient, this is the "Land of Smiles".

A meeting with friends

Things move fast, I had only known MayOm for just over 2 months, now it was 27th February and he came over with a bag of clothes and some clothes hangers, he put them in the second wardrobe. We'd agreed that he would stay at my apartment in Sathorn for 4 or 5 days a week, spending the rest of the time at home with his mother. On Saturday we took my small suitcase and took a taxi to his home where he filled his suitcase and mine, packed his laptop in its bag and together with a couple of carrier bags of papers and TOEFL course books returned to my apartment.

Now, MayOm was supposed to be improving his English and watching, in the main, English speaking TV channels and receiving lessons from me. Well the lessons lasted two weeks and the English TV somewhat less, now I'm subjected to Thai soaps on TV. The Thai's are crazy about their soaps, to the point that a crucial episode means dropping absolutely everything and I mean absolutely everything for the TV. Thai soaps remind me of the acting standards attained in that famous long departed British soap, Crossroads. One notices that many actors and presenters have a light skin tone and some have slightly European features. The Thais have as much of an obsession looking white as north Europeans do getting a tan, a dark-skin is deemed to be unfortunate as it is easily confused with peasant farmers working their paddy fields. However, back to MayOm's English and he can now understand me speaking normally; every so often I correct his pronunciation and insert prepositions into his language. It's now seven weeks since MayOm moved in and he never did go back to stay at his mother's home.

Friday 6th March, it was around 6pm and I went to the Pinnacle Hotel near the Suan Lum night bazaar to meet two friends from Torremolinos, Ed and Trevor. I was quite excited, having my first friends visiting here. They were actually spending four weeks in Pattaya and popped up to Bangkok for the weekend. I took them to Silom Soi 4 where we sat at The Balcony watching the passersby; after almost two hours, we managed to stroll across the soi, about eight steps, to the Telephone Pub and went upstairs for some food. After, we went back downstairs and parked ourselves on the terrace of the Telephone and later returned to The Balcony to enjoy a few drinks and the local views. Shortly before 11pm I decided to show Ed and Trevor something of the seedier side of Bangkok nightlife in Soi Twilight. We went into X-Men and sat directly in front of the stage. Well I like to keep my blogs clean so I won't go into detail about what we saw, though the three of us had to pop our eyes back in quite a few times. We had a couple of drinks there which I would call Spanish measures – I think the idea of them being so strong is to loosen up the punters in order that they take a piece of the merchandise away with them. It was closing in on 1am when we left, Ed and Trevor returned to the Pinnacle and me back home to MayOm.

The next evening we arranged to have dinner, Ed and Trevor, MayOm and me. MayOm chose the Pandanus Restaurant in Sathorn Soi 1 which has Thai, European and Fusion food we enjoyed over some good conversation. Afterwards we went, minus MayOm, to The Balcony in Soi 4 for some more sightseeing before finishing at 9, the name of a new disco showbar, for the show. I left Trevor and Ed there having arranged to meet them the next day for a visit to Wat Pho. Now the reason MayOm went home instead of coming with us is that he does not like Soi 4. In his opinion there are too many money boys there. I agree to a point, yes there's a lot of that type although there's also a number of decent Thais who go or work there but I respect his opinion on it.

The following morning I got up quite late, as one often does on a Sunday, of course this meant I had to hurry to get ready to visit the temple with Ed and Trevor. I met them at the Pinnacle Hotel, where they were waiting by their taxi which was to get us to Wat Pho before taking them back to Pattaya. We got through the traffic to the Wat about 1:30pm. The day was hot with sun beating down fiercely and we were all respectfully dressed in jeans rather than shorts for the visit and it didn't take very long before we were feeling the effects of the sun. Wat Pho is famous as the birthplace of Thai massage; it is one of the largest wats, covering 50 rai (20 acres). We wandered around, visiting the shrines of Buddha and walking the 46 metre length of the Reclining Buddha We passed statues Singha lions and of stone giants guarding gateways, amongst them was Marco Polo. Trevor and I got adventurous and climbed one of the Chedi to see a lovely view of the temple from a height of about 10 metres. Eventually the need to sit down and quench our thirsts became overwhelming; I'd already consumed a bottle of water I'd been carrying. We then continued around a little longer, spending almost two hours there before leaving, Ed and Trevor by taxi to Pattaya and I by ferry along the Chao Phra Ya River to home.

Monday 9th March came and I was off to the Text and Talk Academy, where I had decided to take a further course specifically aimed at Thai students including young learners. I want to teach children and the CELTA course I did in Chiang Mai never prepared me for that, also I just didn't feel confident after the course, which I was about teaching adults anyway, to go straight into paid teaching. My plan to go volunteer teaching at a primary school for six weeks from late January had been wrecked by the incompetence over the handling of my accounts by the Abbey bank which was impossible to sort out over the phone as the call centre staff both in the UK and India either lacked authority (even the managers!) or were completely ignorant and even rude. The critical problem of being able to access my funds were resolved in a matter of minutes when I called into the Beckenham branch. Now as it was mid January, I had no return ticket organised yet to Thailand and the schools would be closed from the beginning of March until late May, volunteer teaching was no longer feasible and Text and Talk guaranteed me work to follow. You might ask at this point why I did a course aimed at teaching adults then? Well my reply is simple, in that I took the CELTA course understanding it to be the Rolls Royce of TEFL/TESOL training, I also thought I that in all likelihood I would be teaching in Spain and at a language school where most students would be adult.

The course commenced with seven teachers on it, the only thing it has in common with the CELTA is the 6 hours of Teaching Practice, although even those are different more varied and probably more real world. In the final days we were down to five, two had dropped out.

On the morning of Sunday 22nd March, I took a bus down to Pattaya to meet with Ed and Trevor. On arrival at Pattaya bus station, I jumped on a motorcycle taxi to Le Cafe Royal, where they were staying, I found Ed on the patio sipping on something alcohol-free, I took a coke. Shortly after Trevor arrived with his friend Tom and took a coffee. I spent the day with them, having lunch then settling down to a beer or two at the Panorama pub. It was there that I met Oum aka James who I knew previously as a waiter at The Balcony. His head had been shaved and the hair was only just growing back, it turned out that he had been a novice monk for a short while and was now looking after a house in Pattaya owned by a Farang, keeping it secure whilst it was undergoing renovation by builders. He told me he would be returning to Bangkok in April and asked me if I could help him by giving English lessons when he got back. I told him, I don't mind meeting him for a conversation but I would have to charge for a lesson – I have decided, soft as I am, I won't give lessons for free but will charge a fee somewhat dependent upon what the student can afford. A good few beers later it was 8:30pm and time to head back to Bangkok, saying my farewells to Ed and Trevor, his friend Tom and to Oum I jumped back onto a motorcycle and commenced the return journey.

I got back home about 11pm, beating MayOm back; he had been attending a fashion show at Siam Paragon and also had done some shopping, for he returned with a selection of face care products including a whitening lotion.