Thai communists, Cambodian government (?) behind Red Shirt protests

[Perilous Times]

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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Asia File: Thai army thwarts communist coup, launches final crackdown on “Red Shirt” protests in Bangkok; heavily armed militants counter-attack



- North American Media Oblivious to Communist Orchestration behind Thailand’s “Red Shirt” Anti-Government Protests

- Thaksin Shinawatra Urges Uprising from Exile; Former PM’s Inner Circle Dominated by “Ex”-Maoists Indoctrinated in Vietnam in 1970s

- Thaksin Close Friend of Cambodia's "Ex"-Khmer Rouge PM, Warns Red Shirt Uprising Could Develop into Guerrilla Warfare

- “Thousands” of Red Shirt Protesters Respond to Bangkok Crackdown by Attacking City Halls in Three Provincial Capitals

The people who are the real planners, not the people up on stage making protest speeches, these people probably keep a very low profile, but they must calculate that aggression is vital. Aggression paralyzes and divides opponents.

This is what we were taught [in Hanoi]. This is how a smaller force can defeat overwhelming power. The message was: divide and conquer.

The tactic is to keep saying that you are a peace-loving people.

The red shirt people have been told over and over that greedy people in authority have denied them justice and their fair share. They have been pumped full of toy-town leftism and told to hate every institution that has held this country together.

Many of them are now absolutely convinced that Thaksin was the best leader in Thai history, that he was a kind and generous man who holds the solution to all their problems. They don't need a program - they just need a new Thai state with Thaksin in charge. It has become very emotional - as it was designed to be.

Old communists know that when it comes to revolution, ignorance is much more powerful than knowledge.

- Chaidee Therdpoum, Red Shirt sympathizer, “former” cadre of "defunct" Communist Party of Thailand; quoted by Asia Times, May 13, 2010

On Wednesday the Royal Thai Army moved into central Bangkok to finally crush a two-month street protest carried out by the “Red Shirts,” a “populist” uprising orchestrated by supporters of exiled prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose political career is guided by “ex”-cadres of the Communist Party of Thailand. Five people, including an Italian news photographer, were killed and 52 injured in the final onslaught by government troops. Amazingly, the carnage from today’s street battles was not greater.

“A crackdown on antigovernment protesters launched by the Thai military on Wednesday,” reports the New York Times, “degenerated into riots, firebombing attacks, looting and street battles after militants allied with the protest movement resisted the army’s onslaught with grenades and assault weapons.” The newspaper continues: “As they retreated, protesters set fire to the country’s stock exchange and a number of buildings including a major shopping mall, two banks, a movie theater and a television station.” The shopping mall that the Red Shirts torched was Central World Plaza, one of the largest department stores in Southeast Asia (pictured above).

“We cannot resist against these savages anymore,” Jatuporn Prompan, one Red Shirt leader was quoted as saying, referring to the regular soldiers, before turning himself in. Another protest leader, Weng Tojirakarn, a medical doctor and “former” communist activist, was interviewed. “I have no gun,” he told a reporter, adding: “I can’t do anything.”

Infantry accompanied the armored vehicles rolled into the protest zone, taking control of major streets and occupying Bangkok’s Lumpini Park. Soldiers assaulting an upscale neighbourhood--home to many corporate headquarters, high-end shopping malls, luxury hotels, and high-rise apartment buildings--were repelled by black-clad gunmen armed with M-16 assault rifles and grenade launchers.

Panitan Wattanayagorn, a government spokesman, announced that the “first phase” of the counter-insurgency operation was “successful.” “We are going to focus on setting a perimeter,” Panitan explained in a televised speech on Wednesday morning, adding: “We would like to reassure the citizens, the residents of Bangkok, that the operations are designed to make sure we stabilize the area.”

Thai news outlets reported that one of the more militant protest leaders, Arisman Pongruengrong, who is also a popular singer, fled the protest zone in a disguise. At noon seven Red Shirt leaders surrendered to government forces. Just before turning himself in, one of the protest leaders, Nattawut Saikua, shouted to supporters: “If the prime minister wants to govern the country on the top of this wreckage, he should go ahead and kill us all. But if he wants to do the right thing, he should stop the shooting immediately.”

News of the crackdown in Bangkok provoked Red Shirts to action in at least three northeastern provinces, the populous rice-growing region that gave birth to the movement. Thai media reported that thousands of protesters attacked the city halls in three provincial capitals.

Speaking to the Reuters news agency by telephone from an undisclosed location outside Thailand, exiled PM Thaksin, in a rather self-serving manner, predicted the violence could spread. “There is a theory saying a military crackdown can spread resentment and these resentful people will become guerrillas,” he rumbled. Last November Thaksin flew to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, where he met with Prime Minister Hun Sen, a close friend and political ally who began his own political career with the genocidal Khmer Rouge. Cambodia's "ex"-communist government has retained Thaksin as an economic advisor.

Red Strategy and Tactics for Thailand’s Red Shirts

Writing for Asia Times on May 13, journalist William Barnes contends that “Maoist revolutionary thought and guerrilla tactics” inform the objectives and actions of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), otherwise known as the “Red Shirt” movement. The UDD, explains Barnes, has deceptively portrayed itself as a non-violent, pro-democracy movement, “a line many international media outlets have perpetuated.” Furthermore, the Red Shirts have “occupied a large swathe of Bangkok’s luxury shopping and hotel district for more than six weeks, paralyzing the symbolic heart of the country's capitalist economy.” To substantiate his thesis, Barnes quotes Therdpoum Chaidee, a “former” communist, Red Shirt ideologist, and former member of parliament for Thaksin’s original party, Thai Rak Thai, now banned.

Therdpoum asserts that UDD strategy “necessarily requires violence, or at least the threat of violence, to divide and immobilize” the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. The governing coalition, Therdpoum complains, represents the Thai establishment, consisting of monarchists, businessmen, and military brass. “The revolution walks on two legs. One political leg and one army leg. Violence is the essential ingredient in the mix. That is what we were taught,” pontificates Therdpoum, alluding to his three months in Communist Vietnam more than 30 years ago.

Therdpoum was a hotel union organizer who fled to the communist underground in 1975 to oppose the monarchist government of the day. “Many hundreds of the country's most energetic students and intellectuals did the same,” relates Barnes and then describes Therdpoum’s political career as follows:

His five-year odyssey with the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) included a three-month period in Hanoi in the heady period following the unification of Vietnam under communist rule. There, Therdpoum and a handful of hand-picked Thai activists, like prominent student leader Seksan Prasertkun, as well as current UDD leaders Weng Tochirakan and Jaran Dittapichai, were drilled in Maoist revolutionary theory.

The five tactics they learned for unseating a government included: divide your enemies; form a united front; use provocative violence; secure the loyalty of people inside the ruling regime; and, finally, win over the army.

“That is what we have seen. The government people have been quarrelling about what to do. Some senior figures have a divided loyalty. The army and the police cannot move. Provocative violence has been very successful,” gushed Therdpoum, referring to the UDD’s campaign to topple the Abhisit government.

Some of the former communists who took up arms and fled into the jungle in the 1970s and 1980s eventually entered Thaksin’s inner circle between 2001 and 2006, when the billionaire was prime minister. These include Prommin Lertsuridej, Phumtham Wechayachai, Sutham Saengprathum, Phinit Jarusombat, Adisorn Piangket, and Kriangkamon Laohapairot. Since then, the UDD has rallied around its “patron,” who was ousted in a 2006 military coup and later fled Thailand to avoid a two-year jail sentence related to a corruption conviction. “Thaksin,” reports Barnes, “has since cajoled UDD supporters to rise up and topple the government through various video-linked phone-in addresses.”

UDD organizer Jaran Dittapichai told Barnes that Red Shirt leaders have adopted “Mao Zedong's method of thinking” and some of his techniques, including the establishment of a united front. In the same breath, Dittapichai insists that he has abandoned communism even though he espouses its objectives, tactics, and rhetoric: “I was a communist and several UDD leaders were former communists . . . but the red shirt people don't like communism or socialism. We use his principles to build up our front and to work with people who are not red shirts, but who are fighting for democracy like us.”

Beginning in mid-March, Red Shirt leaders moved their rent-a-mob into the streets of Bangkok. There they demanded the dissolution of parliament and new elections that they hoped would be won by the newest political vehicle for Thaksin’s restoration, the Puea Thai Party.

“Tensions spiked violently on April 10,” relates Barnes, “when a routine crowd clearance operation turned into a nightmare of bloodshed.” He continues: “Mysterious commandos, clad in black and circulating freely through the red shirt protesters, used M79 grenades to attack tactical army commanders, killing a highly respected colonel and maiming others.” In the melee that followed, 25 protesters and solders were killed and over 800 people injured. Coincident with the UDD’s protest has been a series of anonymous grenade attacks, with over 50 incidents in Bangkok and at least 30 more across the country since mid-March.

According to Therdpoum, the Red Shirt movement consists of “many passive supporters, many active ones and, now, a hand-picked core of ‘professional revolutionaries’ chosen for their loyalty and street smarts.” He then partly lifts the veil from the movement’s revolutionary strategy: “Behind them are many ‘deep secrets and hidden messages’ that are revealed to only a privileged few in the movement, while an even smaller number know the entire strategy. “Old communists know that when it comes to revolution, ignorance is much more powerful than knowledge,” Therdpoum gloated.

Therdpoum admits to Barnes that the black-clad commandos constitute the UDD’s “shadowy armed wing” but feigns ignorance with respect to their true identity: “Whether the UDD's shadowy armed wing consists of mafia thugs, unemployed irregulars or disaffected regular soldiers, they must be capable of ruthless and focused violence.”

Therdpoum, Barnes writes, believes that the UDD’s left wing is using Thaksin in a marriage of political convenience and intends to “dump his personal agenda in favor of the establishment of a more socialist society.” Indeed, as past revolutionary seizures attest, like the fall of Czechoslovakia to communism in 1948, communists will not hesitate to establish political alliances with non-communists, according to the united front principle, to springboard into total power.

Since the 1970s Thailand has been surrounded by Communist Bloc states, including Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, not to mention Burma/Myanmar. Now the pro-Western regime in Bangkok faces a powerful internal enemy consisting of “ex”-cadres of the Communist Party of Thailand financed by billionaire businessman-turned-socialist Shinwatra Thaksin.

posted by Perilous Times at 11:35 AM 0 comments links to this post

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Thai protesters burn tyre barricades, as troops amass

19 May 2010 00:59:27 GMT
Source: Reuters

BANGKOK, May 19 (Reuters) - Thick black smoke billowed from the main protest site in central Bangkok on Wednesday as protesters started burning tyre barricades, after troops fired warning shots and tear gas ahead of a possible eviction operation.

The smoke was seen billowing from the front of Chulalongkorn University after the red shirts ignited parts of their barricades made of tyres and bamboo sticks.

The hospital has largely been evacuated but inner buildings still have patients.

(Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Alan Raybould )

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Protesters Set Fire to Thai Stock Exchange

Leaders Surrender But Some Protesters Flee, Set Fires Around City

MAY 19, 2010, 7:24 A.M. ET
WALL ST JOURNAL
By JAMES HOOKWAY

BANGKOK—Hard-line Thai protesters set fire Wednesday to the country's stock exchange, shopping malls and a television station, while Thai authorities called an 8 p.m. curfew, casting doubt on the prospects for a resolution to the country's weeks-long political crisis despite the surrender of protest leaders earlier in the day.

Thai Red Shirt protest leaders called off their marathon rally and surrendered to police Wednesday after an early morning army assault on their heavily fortified camp in the center of Bangkok.

But in the midafternoon, smoke could be seen billowing from the Stock Exchange of Thailand's headquarters as helicopters buzzed in the sky above. Though trading has been taking place at a different, undisclosed location in recent days, stock-exchange officials said markets would be closed Thursday. Earlier in the day, Thailand's benchmark index finished up 0.7% on hopes for a quick resolution. Authorities also said commercial banks around the country would be closed Thursday and Friday.

Thick plumes of smoke rose across other locations in the city as militant protesters targeted some of Bangkok's main commercial centers. In other parts of Thailand, local television broadcast pictures of antigovernment demonstrators setting alight a provincial government building in northeastern Khon Kaen.

The burning followed the surrender earlier in the day of top protest leaders following a push by the Thai military Wednesday morning into their downtown encampment. At least two protesters and an Italian news photographer were killed in Wednesday's crackdown, the Associated Press said, while three other foreign journalists and 15 Thais were wounded in the fighting.

Speaking on the protesters' main stage, one of their leaders, Jatuporn Prompan, explained that the demonstrators had to call off their rally to prevent any more people dying. At least 66 people have killed since the demonstrators launched their campaign for new elections in mid-March, with more than half of those coming the past four days as militant protesters and local street thugs clashed with army troops.

"We know this decision will pain you," said Mr. Jatuporn, wearing a white T-shirt bearing the image of Indian protest leader Mahatma Gandhi. "But we have to stop the death, even though our fight will carry on."

As he was speaking, explosions could be heard and militant Red Shirts in the area began setting fires and other debris alight, reviving the prospect of further bloodshed and filling the afternoon air with choking black smoke. People at the demonstrators' main stage, meanwhile, wept and pleaded for Mr. Jatuporn and another leader, Nattawut Saikua, to change their minds. Instead, the two men went with other Red Shirts to surrender at Bangkok's police headquarters a short walk away.

Some protesters, meanwhile set fires in buildings around Bangkok, including the upscale CentralWorld mall. Local TV reports said the first floor of the mall was on fire.

Speaking at police headquarters, Mr. Nattawut urged the remaining few thousand demonstrators to disperse. "Go home, the police have already prepared vehicles for you," he said. "And if you trust me to be your leader again, I'm ready to fight again for real democracy in this country."

The mainstream protesters surrendered more quickly than many analysts expected after hundreds of soldiers began tearing down their fortifications. Gen. Lertrat Rattanavanich, a senator involved in trying to rescue negotiations between protesters and the government, warned that if the protest leaders don't surrender, "the losses could be huge."

Troops occupied a highway overpass overlooking early Wednesday morning the camp and were seen firing sporadic shots into the camp. Others fired from the tracks of an elevated-rail network they used as a vantage point. At the entrance to Silom Road, Thailand's equivalent of Wall Street, troops turned water cannons on protesters in an effort to disperse them and began tearing down a barricade constructed from tires and sharpened bamboo staves. An armored tank repeatedly rammed the barrier, breaching what the Red Shirts call their "liberated zone."

Thailand's armed forces moved in to choke off the protest after Red Shirt leaders failed to agree on a way to end the demonstrations, which have pitted the mostly rural demonstrators against an army-backed government they say has manipulated Thailand's democratic process to hold onto power. Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said the army was taking action to "restore rule of law" after months of chaos in central Bangkok.

People familiar with the negotiations between the two sides said the biggest problem was the main Red Shirt leaders' inability to control hard-core demonstrators on the edges of the rally site, and the prospect of further violent guerrilla-type clashes remains.

The mood in Red Shirts' main camp was verging on panic at times as explosions—apparently from fireworks—reverberated around the area. Some demonstrators attempted to seek refuge on a large stage erected in the area, and opposition activist Mr. Nattawut pleaded with people not to break ranks. "Please stay calm. We will be here with you," he said before launching into a song to help soothe demonstrators' frayed nerves.

More than three dozen people have been killed and more than 300 injured since Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's government on Thursday ordered army troops to end the monthslong antigovernment protest. The Red Shirts, many of them followers of ousted populist leader Thaksin Shinawatra, are demanding immediate elections to recalibrate a political system that they say has been manipulated by powerful military officers and bureaucrats.

Their protest began peacefully on March 12, when tens of thousands of people flowed into Bangkok after Thai courts confiscated $1.4 billion of Mr. Thaksin's family fortune. The court ruled that much of the wealth had been amassed through corruption—a ruling Mr. Thaksin decried as evidence of a political conspiracy against him following the 2006 coup that removed him as prime minister.

In recent weeks, as the demonstrators set up camp in Bangkok's main shopping district, shutting down dozens of hotels and shopping malls, the protests have taken on a more violent tone. Around the periphery of the main camp, some demonstrators began throwing Molotov cocktails and other improvised explosive devices at security forces sent in to seal off the protest.

The army has used snipers to peg back the protesters in recent days. Witnesses have reported and have filmed marksmen using rifles with telescopic sights firing on unarmed demonstrators, in some cases shooting them in the head.

After the government announced its plans to crack down on the protesters on Saturday, the demonstrators initially expanded their territory, bringing them into regular conflict with security forces assigned to stop the protests spreading.

Many hard-liners were also angered by the death on Monday of a rogue soldier who had defected to the Red Shirts' cause. Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol was shot in the head last Thursday by unknown assailants, in an apparent assassination attempt.

Maj. Gen. Khattiya and many of his followers have been operating independently of the main protest leaders. Maj. Gen. Khattiya, in particular, had his own lines of communication to Mr. Thaksin, who now lives in Dubai in self-imposed exile to avoid imprisonment on a 2008 corruption conviction. Before he died, Maj. Gen. Khattiya said in an interview that his goal was to turn the Red Shirt protests into a full-blown revolt against the Thai state.

People involved in negotiations to end the protests say Mr. Thaksin has encouraged more militant Red Shirt leaders to continually add fresh demands, effectively delaying talks and a final agreement after Prime Minister Abhisit offered to hold a new election on Nov. 14. Mr. Thaksin denies deliberately sabotaging peace talks.

Last week, with scant sign of any progress, the Oxford-educated Mr. Abhisit withdrew his election offer and ordered troops to cordon off the demonstrations.

—Wilawan Watcharasaket and Phisanu Phromchanya contributed to this article.

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S.EAST ASIA'S 2ND BIGGEST DEPT STORE -- DESTROYED BY FIRE, SAYS REUTERS WITNESS

19 May 2010 10:36:53 GMT
Source: Reuters

BANGKOK, May 19 (Reuters) - Bangkok's Central World , Southeast Asia's second-biggest department store, was destroyed by fire during riots following a crackdown on anti-government protesters, a Reuters witness said. The department store is operated by Central Pattana PCL .

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Red shirt rioters take battle to the provinces

Govt offices set alight in North and Northeast

• Published: 20/05/2010 at 03:29 AM
• Newspaper section: News

Chaos broke out in several provincial strongholds of the red shirt protesters after the government moved to disperse the main rally at Ratchaprasong, forcing red shirt leaders to turn themselves in to police.

City hall offices in several provinces in the North and Northeast were burned by United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship supporters after the Centre for Resolution of the Emergency Situation launched its operation to break the red shirt barricades at Sala Daeng and Sam Yan. The move forced UDD leaders to disperse the rally and surrender to save protesters’ lives.

More than 600 demonstrators in Udon Thani gathered at Thung Sri Muang grounds and lashed out against the government’s actions, after violence between the sides led to several deaths.

Authorities tried to calm protesters before they moved to the city hall office and broke the gates and glass doors before flocking inside.

Angry protesters broke and damaged assets including vehicles and set alight the city hall’s old building. Fire trucks could not access the areas because they were blocked by protesters.

In Khon Kaen, red shirt protesters set fire to the old wooden city hall building and burned it to the ground while the new building was burned at the west site.

About 2,000 enraged protesters broke the gates and damaged anything in their path.

They also set fire to a pile of old tyres in the city hall compound.

The situation was the same in Chiang Mai, the hometown of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Protesters burned the house of a senior provincial officer located in the compound of the provincial governor’s residence.

A number of old tyres were also burned at the compound.

Upset protesters also flocked to Bangkok Bank’s Tha Phae branch.

Meanwhile, pro-Thaksin supporters in Mukdahan broke into the city hall compound and burned the building. Fire trucks that responded were attacked by protesters, though some red shirts disagreed with such actions.

In Ubon Ratchathani, about 1,000 protesters clashed with security officers at the city hall compound before they set fire to the Provincial Culture Office located in the compound. Some protesters then moved to the second floor of city hall and set fire to the provincial governor’s room, damaging it severely.

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Pictures are worth a thousand words:

[Ryan Ruck]

Thanks for the heads up and lots of great info PT!

This is definitely flying under a lot of peoples' radar screens.

[American Patriot]

I've been wondering why they chose "red" shirts.