Thailand Braces for Political Rallies in Capital

[Mentors]

BANGKOK  Thailand’s seemingly unending political crisis is likely to reach another moment of tension this weekend with huge opposition rallies that organizers say they hope will paralyze the city and bring down the government.

 

While pledging nonviolence, protest leaders say they will gather hundreds of thousands of mostly rural supporters for mass rallies and blockades of government offices, starting on Friday and building over the following days.

 

Thousands of buses, trucks and farm vehicles are expected to converge from neighboring provinces in what one organizer called Maoist tactics of “the forest surrounding the town.â€Â

 

The government, warning of violence, has invoked the Internal Security Act, which effectively hands control over to the military, with the right to impose curfews, set up checkpoints and restrict the movements of demonstrators.

 

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva warned last week of unspecified acts of “sabotage.†This week he canceled a planned visit to Australia because of the urgency of the situation.

 

The weekend plans are the latest pressure points that have wearied many Thais over the past four years. Thailand has become “a nation cursed to live in a constant state of anxiety,†said the daily newspaper The Nation.

The image of a rural invasion of the capital emphasizes the complex and deepening divisions in the country, which in their simplest terms pit the rural poor against an urban establishment whose primacy is under threat.

 

Thailand’s rural underclass found an electoral voice under former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and has rallied to his defense since he was ousted in a coup in 2006. He now lives abroad, evading a two-year prison term on a conviction for corruption.

“Our aim is to topple the government, force them to make a choice between suppressing us and stepping down,†a protest leader, Jaran Ditsatapichai, said last week.

 

It is not the first time that one side or another in alternating street campaigns  known by their clothing as the red shirts and the yellow shirts  has announced that goal as governing power changes hands. This time it is the turn of the red shirts.

“We’ve heard that many times before,†said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an expert on Thailand at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. “Every time, they say it’s going to be the final showdown. Do they really believe that a final showdown will put Abhisit out of power?â€Â

 

More unsettling, he said, is the possibility that other groups with other agendas might instigate violence.

“If it turns nasty it might not be because of the reds,†he said. “Right now there are so many factions all over the place. Even within the reds and the yellows, so many factions. We don’t know who is allied to who. The whole situation creates a context in which a third, fourth, fifth hand can take advantage.â€Â

 

The red shirts have been violent in the past, but some analysts say violence at this point would discredit them and strengthen the position of the government.

The planned demonstration is a continuation of tensions since early 2006 that have included blockades of government buildings, the occupation of Bangkok’s two airports, the disruption of a meeting of regional heads of state, two particularly violent rallies and a military coup.

 

 

full article

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/world/asia/12thai.html

[Flashermac]

I haven't seen anybody bracing.

 

 

 

[doxx]

Yeah, business as usual so far. What's a red shirt?

 

 

[cavanami]

...maybe a lot of people will be having a "red azz"!