KireB

Phiphidon, just a simple question - were you actually in Bangkok during the time if the riots?

I only ask because you talk like somebody who has sourced all of his facts from the western media. I remember watching the BBC world report about it and they presented it in a way that the Red Shirts were revolutionaries standing up to an oppressive government. They revelled in those signs saying "we are not terrorists, we are peaceful protestors". And yet, that very day Bangkok was being engulfed in the fumes of hundreds of tyres burning at heavily armed check points and there were grenades regularly being shot at civilians who had nothing to do with any of this. The western media reported a very twisted version of what I experienced at the time, and to what I saw the video footage of in the Thai news everyday.

There seems to be a very different viewpoint from people who were actually here and saw some of the riots first hand and had their life affected for one month, compared to the red shirt sympathisers on this forum who spout quotes from the UK Guardian of all sources.

jayboy, on 2012-05-20 18:01:32, said:

I suggest the court's seizure of 1.4 billion dollars of Thaksin's money in February 2010 gave Thaksin ample incentive to support the red shirt riots to retrieve his money just 2 months later
Do you think the renegade soldiers, which you say are generally assumed to have been working with Thaksin, could have shot the red shirts to discredit the army?
What is a bar fly and why would they be a funding source along with Thaksin?
Apisit and Suthep have stated several times they are willing to go to court regarding Rachaprasong, so why is Thaksin so unwilling to let the truth come out?

KireB, on 2012-05-20 19:29:11, said:

I believe at the moment Thaksin is convicted of financial irregularity.......nothing more.....a 2 year jail sentence which he chooses to avoid......

Now if you are to call all leaders who have forces who have caused casualties, in what they see as the best interests of their country........then you have a long list of criminals.....and by far all are not politicians either......

In fact the constant resetting of the country in the last 80 years is exactly what has brought us to where we are today, now if Thailand is allowed to go through the process of elections, and yes perhaps even a few terms of poor government, to finally abandon the coup method, they might just catch up in the global village, so in that concept the red shirts may not have protested and died in vain.....

tlansford, on 2012-05-20 16:32:28, said:

His post was in response to this:

90+ civilians were killed during the turmoil...if they were not killed by the army ( opposite side ) then who killed them...
the Reds did...or better still committed suicides themselves....

The suggestion was obviously that all 90+ people were reds and were killed by the army. The post mocks people who might dispute these two lies by asking whether they committed suicide.

Your trollometer is on the blink.

SomTumTiger, on 2012-05-20 12:18:31, said:

You are asking for a response from certain people, well, to get it, perhaps you need to be a bit more specific as to who these people are.

I know of only one TV yellow. Of course there are those that accuse anyone who posts anything anti-red of being yellow (i'm sure you too have had that one thrown in your face), but the truth is that most of the anti red posters here, started with a degree of support for the PAD in the early days, but ceased it altogether when things like the airport nonsense started happening. Being able to change and review one's opinion in this way, doesn't speak to me of the indoctrinated belief structure you speak of.

rixalex, on 2012-05-20 12:00:54, said:

Not delusional, just typical of any expat who supports the Red Shirts. They only pick and choose the same 3 defenses for the last two years but when presented with solid evidence that proves the Red Shirts were in the wrong, such as video of Red Shirts and Black Security firing at the army and civvies first, then they stop answering altogether and move onto another thread to recycle the 3 arguments all over again.

How any expat with a brain can defend the Red Shirts after living here during the riots and subsequent events is delusional though.

phiphidon, on 2012-05-20 11:20:51, said:

As you pointed out, the grenades were mostly fired from M79 launchers, not from genuine RPGs.  I am not familiar with weaponry and used the wrong terminology.

Were you in Thailand when this all happened?  If so, you will remember the explosions (whatever their exact cause) that hit various branches of Bangkok Bank (where most of Thaksin's seized assets were being held), the Saladang Skytrain Station (the BTS is run by companies associated with the Democrats, the Thonburi and BangNa extensions were initiated by Democrat Gov. Aphirak in defiance of Thaksin's express wishes), the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (the Chakri Dynasty is supposed to fall when the Buddha is destroyed), the Poseidon Massage Parlour(which is owned by a pro-Democrat), the home of the chief of the Election Commission (which referred complaints to the Constitutional Court which, in turn, disqualified PMs Samak and Somchai), the grenade attacks against the PAD protesters on Nov. 15, 2009 (and other times) and, last but not least, the propane tanker owned by Siam Gas PCL (Chaiyasit Shinawatra, president) that was parked with the gas valve open outside the Dindang Flats(some of the residents of which were referred to by Nick Nostitz as "PAD thugs" in his article about "Crushing the Redshirts").

Now, I will admit that the Redshirts have denied involvement with most of these explosions, however, it is curious that a quick google will find so many explosions over the past few years that target entities that are seen as being hostile to the Redshirts or who compete finiancial with the Shinatras.  Perhaps, as some forum Reds have suggested, the Army/Amayat/Elite was behind all of these attacks and they targeted their own supporters just to make the peaceloving Redshirts look bad.   I, for one, suspect that the simplest explanation is probably true: Thaksin funded both peaceful protesters and an armed movement.  Such a double pronged approach is typical of him.

tlansford, on 2012-05-19 17:50:33, said:

Actually we do see its real face - as clueless as ever about what they are doing. This image should be mandatory for any picture gallery regarding red shirts.


Imagine it appearing in the latest BBC report along with links to the earlier stories from 2010.

Would also be nice if they translated the names of all the reincarnations of TRT -  Thai Love Thais, People Power, For Thailand or some variations thereof, next to this image, of course.


And yet someone in this thread argued that reds have a better understanding of democracy...


Also the number of grenade attacks and various explosions in Bangkok around the time of red protests is about a hundred. In several cases perpetrators were found and arrested, it was always red shirts.


Iranians are pussies by comparison - when reds blew themselves up once they took out an entire apartment building.


Re. the donations announced on red stage - once a Thai academic, from those who want to reform lese majeste, not the govt camp, did the calculations - the numbers didn't add up, reds had to have massive funding from other sources, the whole "revoluion" cost billions. One billion, just as a quick reference, is umm.... 30 years of daily donations of a hundred thousand baht per day.

KireB, on 2012-05-12 08:32:36, said:

  You must be joking!......i've been attending all the festivals since 1999 and things went just fine before and  after her patati patata interference (we all know to what that led.....) when i actually prefered to go only to - not to be missed- very special screenings  ;  real filmfans of the genuine  (world) filmfestival(s) had no need for the posh & glamour and fake VIP clownery when she was in charge ; but i guess that was part of the "hub mania" of those days...i'm sure most of us are glad that things are back to the sympathetic slightly "amateuristic" ways from before.....

bigbamboo, on 2012-05-09 14:59:24, said:

Actually, being in debt is being in debt, and I'm sure that's the meaning used in this survey. Traditionally, savvy Asians try to avoid any debt at all, and many traditional Germanic people are taught the same thing, it's a source of shame.

What you're talking about is net worth. In the US, the percentage of households with a negative net worth has gone from below 2% to currently nearly a quarter.

Scott, on 2012-05-07 10:24:35, said:

Yes I've seen it all the time - I'm the crazy farang in the village who actually does house work, cuts the brass and trims the trees. There seems to be a face issue - these menial tasks are done by the lower educated in this society; it's hard for many Thais to grasp we actually enjoy making our house look nice. It's what we value. Thai's will know the price of cutting the grass but not the value of it.

In terms of education this has a significant impact - I think washing dishes isn't such a pleasant task but we still do it. Thai kids from wealthy families rarely would wash dishes - it's unpleasant and their parents wouldn't let them do it. Go play on your play station son! So when they get to school and faced with unpleasant tasks - they whine and complain they they don't want to do it. Obviously there is an argument that we should make teaching more fun - especially for younger students, but we can only take that so far as we still have to cover the curriculum.

Many of my students skipped their summer classes at school (fairly relaxed and not too much pressure), just to go to cram schools. It's a sad state of affairs as the students are only studying to get into university, then to get a piece of paper, rather than to learn and see the value of knowledge itself.

Yingluck's 65 per cent looks impressive, not many national leaders could manage that. However, then you see that Oddjob gets a 57 per cent, which makes you wonder who is doing the voting.

Am I getting this straight, If I have a puncture, I have to ditch the beer.

craigt3365, on 2012-05-05 08:19:49, said:

craigt3365, on 2012-05-05 08:19:49, said:

Not really strange:
• She is on an expense account.
• Her shopping is done for her.
• She never fills up herself at the gas pump.
• House husband pays the bills, she's too busy.
• And she is handed a script to stay on message.  

Of course she is out of touch with the day to day lot common Thai,
she is a multi-billionariess.

They whined about Abhisit sounding 'too HiSo because of his educated accent',
but regardless of how she talks, she is so far removed economically from
the average Kuhn Somchai, that she only knows their life from pictures,
and PTP staged photo ops.

Why would she know about prices, except as a line item on her speech list?

EyesWideOpen, on 2012-05-01 19:10:42, said:

Just to clarify, I did find the thread and it wasn't the wife.

It was a sister that was embroiled in the bribery at the airport scandal.

It was the lesser known and less public Yaowaret Shinawatra:



Thaksin's Sister Accused Of Kickbacks

http://www.thaivisa....ks/#entry411444

Nittinun Keskosin, managing director of Rush Fur Thai Co Ltd, who talks about how his company was promised the contract if he paid 25 million baht to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's sister Yaowaret.

"Mrs Yaowaret and a politician demanded 300 million baht in `commission' to secure a 25-year parking service contract for the new Suvarnabhumi airport.

"They promised future assistance for the company to win a furniture contract worth more than one billion baht,"' Mr Nittinun says.

Mr Nittinun said he had paid 25 million baht to the pair in two installments; five million in August 2003 and 20 million in September of the same year; and had promised to pay the remaining 275, once his business won the contract.

.================

This parking lot at the airport issue has its beginnings an astounding nine years back.

.