Published in The Nation on December 10, 2010 Based on her recent interview (“DAAD struggling under constitution: New chief”, The Nation, December 7, 2010) the new red-shirt leader, Thida Tawornsate Tojirakarn, offers more of the same as far as the direction of the red shirt movement is concerned. True, she’s not espousing bombastic and murderous [...]
Archive for ‘2010’
Not All the “Fallen” were “Friends”: A Note to Bangkok Post
Posted: 23rd November 2010 by bangkokdave in 2010Notably, not published by the Bangkok Post Journalists need to be careful about repeating partisan myths and passing them on as facts: the caption on Bangkok Post’s front page photo of the recent demonstration at Rajprasong matter-of-factly states, “Reds rally in memorial of fallen friends” (Bangkok Post, Saturday, November 20, 2010). This caption is, to [...]
Published in The Nation on November 18, 2010 As the red shirts take another opportunity to mark another bloody anniversary, it is worth remembering that around this time last April, far from being the victims, they inflicted a particularly outrageous act of violence on the peaceful population of Bangkok. I’m referring to the deadly RPG [...]
Published in The Nation on October 27, 2010 Nick Ferriman’s response to my letter (‘Propaganda is murky, video is crystal clear’, October 22, 2010) is, like its title, filled with murky propaganda and unproven allegations. Bizarrely, Nick calls me a ‘three-card monte dealer’ for stating facts: that the military was not responsible for all deaths [...]
Published in The Nation on October 21, 2010 During his recent interview with Col. Teeranan Nandhakwang (‘Army man calls it as he sees it’, The Nation, October 17, 2010), Pravit Rojanaphruk asks the army colonel, ‘Do you think the military should be responsible for the 91 deaths which occurred between April and May this year?’ [...]
Published in The Nation on October 12, 2010 It’s truly jarring that just days after a red shirt bomb-maker accidentally blew himself up in his Nonthaburi apartment, destroying half the building and taking several innocent lives in the process, the red shirts held another boisterous and fun-filled street rally. The red shirts and their sympathizers [...]
Red Shirts at Rajprasong Mark the Coup Anniversary
Posted: 20th September 2010 by bangkokdave in 2010Posted on September 20, 2010 The End of the Rally Yesterday I decided to drop by on the red-shirt rally in Rajprasong; the first major protest there since the crackdown in May. I got to the site around 6.45pm, when the crowds already began to disperse and left around 8.30pm, half an hour after the rally was officially [...]
Published in The Nation on September 20, 2010 On the fourth anniversary of the coup that overthrew Thaksin, red shirts are holding a number of ‘symbolic’ events that includes commemorations of those killed during the red shirts rallies of April-May. But there’s something unseemly about these groups claiming to mourn the victims of violence when [...]
Published in The Nation on September 18, 2010 Current interim red-shirt leader and attention-seeker du jour, Sombat Boon-ngam-anong, proclaimed at one of his recent Rajprasong gatherings that democracy had “disappeared” from the country since the 2006 coup. Does that mean the free election that ratified the 2007 Constitution with a majority popular vote (including a [...]
Published in The Nation on September 3, 2010 The result from Sunday’s Bangkok city and district council elections should please those who believe in Thailand’s democracy. In the city council race, Democrats won about 75% of the vote; in the district council, they took over 80%. Despite the low voter turnout, this is a strong [...]
