WSJ on Seh Daeng

[Wallenda]

MAY 4, 2010, 6:34 P.M. ET

 

Bangkok Faces Risks in November Vote Offer

 

By JAMES HOOKWAY

 

BANGKOKâ€â€Thailand's army leaders made an enemy when they assigned Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol to lead aerobics-dance classes in Bangkok's public markets a couple of years ago.

 

Today, Maj. Gen. Khattiya is a renegade operating among the Red Shirt protesters in Bangkok's streets, and his increasingly militant followers illustrate the risks the government faces if it fails to secure a political deal to end the eight-week crisis.

 

Protest leaders Tuesday appeared close to agreeing to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's latest offer to hold elections on Nov. 14 in exchange for calling off the debilitating demonstrations, which have crippled Bangkok's main shopping district for weeks and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. Thaksin Shinawatra, the fugitive former prime minister ousted in a 2006 military coup who is a driving force behind Red Shirt protests, said in a phone call to supporters Tuesday that prospects for reconciliation were good.

 

Rally organizers, however, said they were waiting for proof of the government's sincerity, and questioned the proposed election date. "We want to see the government commit to a dissolution," said Nattawut Saikua, one of the main protest leaders. "It's in the government's hands now."

 

Thai stock-market prices soared on news that the Red Shirts were considering the election offer. The Stock Exchange of Thailand Index rose 4.4% to close at 796.86 points.

 

But if the offer is rejected amid disputes over the polling date, political analysts say tensions could deteriorate furtherâ€â€and open the way for hard-liners to determine what happens next.

 

One such hard-liner is Maj. Gen. Khattiya, better known as "Seh Daeng," or, roughly, "Commander Red." His followers represent a volatile splinter group in the protesters' push to replace a bureaucratic establishment with a populist, rural-dominated government. Some independent analysts say Maj. Gen. Khattiya's growing influence over such militant members of the broader Red Shirt movement could lead to bloodshed.

 

The major general on Tuesday scoffed at the prime minister's latest offer. "He's trying to trick the protest leaders into stepping down, but the protesters want to stay," he said. "It's just a plan to buy time and push up stock prices."

 

Maj. Gen. Khattiya, suspended from duty in 2008 for visiting Mr. Thaksin overseas without permission, was once a rising star in Thailand's armed forces, trained in fighting antigovernment forces. He earned his reputation as a maverick fighting Communist insurgents in near the border with Laos in the 1970s and Muslim rebels in the south. He scorns what he calls his superiors' fondness for golf, which he considers soft, and promotes himself as a Thai-style Rambo in a series of books he has written about his exploits in the field.

 

His assignment to lead aerobics classesâ€â€not unusual in Thai army disciplineâ€â€appeared to designed to cure Maj. Gen. Khattiya of his radical political views and to bring him in line with the chain of command. The reorientation didn't work.

 

On the streets of Bangkok, his followersâ€â€some of whom appear to be teenagersâ€â€are a fringe subset of the broader antigovernment movement. Though their number isn't known, some 5,000 people have joined his new populist and militaristic Khattiya Karma political party.

 

"Change is coming to Thailand, and the army won't be able to withstand us," Maj. Gen. Khattiya, 58 years old, says during an interview, while keeping a watchful eye on his shock-troops patrolling their base camp at the entrance to Bangkok's main business district.

 

He says he raised his ragtag militia for one last mission: to turn the marathon antigovernment protest on the streets of Bangkok into a full-blown civil war.

 

Maj. Gen. Khattiya's critics dismiss him as a showman full of bluster. Some mainstream Red Shirt leaders disown him and his methods, including barricading a hospital near the site where protesters have been camped out for more than a month.

 

But the rogue commander says he has his own authority stemming directly from Mr. Thaksin. He has the ear of the former prime minister, visiting him several times in Dubai and elsewhere since the military coup forced the leader from power in 2006, the major general and Army officers say.

 

"I won't leave until Mr. Thaksin tells me to," Maj. Gen. Khattiya adds. Mr. Thaksin couldn't be reached to comment.

 

It is unclear how heavily Maj. Gen. Khattiya or his followers are armed, or whether they rely solely on their supply of rocks and sharpened bamboo stakes.

 

Already, 27 demonstrators have been killed and more than 100 injured during the conflict, most during violent clashes with troops on April 10. Maj. Gen. Khattiya denies being involved in any of the violence. But he adds that talking without the threat of arms to back it up is "useless"â€â€a stance that makes him a figure of fear in Bangkok's nervous business community.

 

At the same time, many protesters are devoted to Maj. Gen. Khattiya, snapping up his line of T-shirts and jackets. "I feel warm inside when I see him. He's a good soldier who takes care of the people here," says Toy Jitsuwan, a 56-year-old hairstylist, clasping her hands to her breast.

 

Political analysts here say the protest movement has several layers, each operating relatively independently from each other. That means Red Shirt leaders can claim to have nothing to do with Maj. Gen. Khattiya while benefiting from whatever havoc he might wreak. It also means his arguments for violent resistance lend credibility to the Thai government's claims that "terrorists" within the protesters' ranks are bent on overthrowing the country's venerated monarchy.

 

On the front lines of the active center of the protest, Maj. Gen. Khattiya's word is law. Suspected infiltrators are escorted out of the encampment with a nod of his head, and barricades are erected or moved at his say-so. He struts around his personal redoubt inside the larger Red Shirt camp, wearing military fatigues in open view of police and soldiers, even though he was recently freed on bail after being charged for illegally possessing firearms. He sometimes ventures further into public areas, especially when television crews are around, and makes a performance of inspecting the sharpened bamboo stakes and kerosene-soaked tires that fortify the protesters' camp.

 

In 2008, Maj. Gen. Khattiya began to turn against the army's top command, frustrated, he says, with its unwillingness to take action against the protesters who occupied Bangkok's main government complex to force a pro-Thaksin government to resign. He says he trained a squad of specialists to break up the rallies and drew up plans to drop venomous snakes from helicopters onto the protesters below.

 

Instead, the troops stood aside as the protesters took over Bangkok's international airport, and Army chief Gen. Anupong Paochinda brokered defections in Parliament to enable the Oxford-educated Mr. Abhisit to lead a new, pro-Army government. Gen. Anupong then assigned Maj. Gen. Khattiya to teach a series of aerobics classes to the public around Bangkok.

 

Gen. Anupong couldn't be reached to comment, but army spokeswoman Col. Sirichan Ngathong says it isn't unusual for senior officers to be given specific morale-building tasks, especially if the assignment draws on the officers' "perceived strengths." She declined to discuss further details of the major general.

 

"I called Gen. Anupong, and I said 'Are you crazy? I'm a warrior, not an aerobics instructor!' " Maj. Gen. Khattiya recalls.

 

Maj. Gen. Khattiya says he then began ignoring orders. After his suspension, he turned his attention to preparing his own guerrilla force.

 

â€â€Wilawan Watcharasakwet contributed to this article.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703866704575223772181634604.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

[KimDidMeGood]

He says he trained a squad of specialists to break up the rallies and drew up plans to drop venomous snakes from helicopters onto the protesters below.

WTF

That man is totally insane

[Old Hippie]

Those people eat venomous snakes for fuck's sake!

[Coss]

Take out?

[Old Hippie]

or delivery...? Point is, dropping snakes on them just gives them more food. Hey send me that lobster sauce recipe again, I lost it...

[Nervous God]

How you want that snake?

[Coss]

or delivery...? Point is, dropping snakes on them just gives them more food. Hey send me that lobster sauce recipe again, I lost it...

 

I've forgotten which one but here's a good 'un

 

Robster

 

[Old Hippie]

Still only $8.99 a pound here...

 

You used lime oil and garlic/chillies?

[Coss]

Cheeeeeap! $80 a kilo here for Spiny Crayfish.

 

Grilled with some nice olive oil, lime zest, chili, salt, pepper, garlic and perhaps butter.

 

[Flashermac]

<< He says he trained a squad of specialists to break up the rallies and drew up plans to drop venomous snakes from helicopters onto the protesters below. >>

 

The gummint wouldn't let him do what he wanted, so he pouted and went off to join the red shirts? Sounds like Colonel Kurtz.