Red protests turn ugly

 

 

A famous joke about Thailand that has been repeated ad infinitum in the diplomatic circles world over, is that this country is the world’s long lasting fledgling democracy. Funny as it might be, one could not have agreed more. The Army, the Palace, the judiciary—every institution in this country is a power centre except its people. This has shaped much of Thailand’s political discourse over the years. This week, it reached its pinnacle.

The brutal conflict between troops and anti-government protesters has accelerated in the Thai capital after the administration cast off a call by the so-called Red-Shirts for UN-mediated talks. The regime, on its part, said that since Thailand is a sovereign nation, it won’t accept outside mediation. On the other hand, in a significant departure from their earlier stance, the Red-Shirts, have agreed to accept the proposal by the Senate Speaker who wants to mediate the talks.

Earlier this week, the administration provided buses to allow women, children and the elderly among the Reds to abandon the large encampment they have been using for many weeks. The new round of negotiation will reconsider the proposal made by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who had offered to call snap polls in November—a full one year prior to the expiry of his term. However, what followed was the typical battle of nerves where both the regime as well as the Reds refused to cede further grounds.

After weeks of fooling around, both the sides now mean business. The regime insisted that it will carry on with its crackdown aimed at choking off the Reds, who have captured, and held, about 3 sq. km of protest zone blockaded by fuel-soaked tyres, bamboo spikes and reinforced by Molotov Cocktail carrying youths in Bangkok’s posh commercial and tourism hub. A special order that empowers the Army with sweeping power to “restore order” was expanded to 22 of Thailand’s 75 administrative divisions, up from 17 last week. Under the circumstances, all eyes are fixed on the Palace that still holds enormous and overpowering sway over every institution. Just to put it on record, in the bloody unrest of 1992, it was the timely intervention by King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had rebuked both the military and the uprising leaders, which brought the hostility to an end. Under such circumstances, the silence of the Palace this time is quite baffling.

Also, the role of ousted Prime Minister Takshin Shinawatra is going to be very crucial. After all, his supporters constitute the majority of the Reds. Till now, the only sensible move he has made is of askining the international community to intervene. By doing so, he intends to send out a loud message that he is politically alive and can call shots as per his whim. “The villages and the subalterns are all for Shinawatra. His universal healthcare scheme and waiver of agro-debt did magic for him. He was considered by the destitute and poor as their man—hundreds of corruption charges notwithstanding,” says Andrew Walker, a South-east Asia expert based in Canberra, while talking to TSI.

However, the same cannot be said about the Reds. Its ranks and files are deeply fragmented. While the core of the movement is in close coordination with Shinawatra, a relatively small but exponentially more zealous section has different ideas about the outlook for Thai politics. And this section is all willing to look through Shinawatra. Also, on scratching the surface a bit, one can tell that this is as much a class conflict as it is a diazotisation movement. The regime, the army, the burgeoning trading community, the bureaucrats and the judiciary are all drawn from Thailand’s elite. For several decades, they have evoked extra-constitutional methods to subvert democracy. They have shot down pro-democracy demonstrators in 1973, 1976, 1992 and 2009 prior to this. The regime dismisses the Reds as rural bumpkins. But it appears, this time around, they have bitten more than they can chew.