Japan Times on the Red Shirts

The Japan Times has a piece highly critical of the red shirts and Thaksin, written by Kevin Rafferty. Key excerpt:

Much of the international press and media has romanticized the events in Bangkok as some kind of grassroots democracy at work, in which the poor rural masses have come to Bangkok to confront the cruel ruling classes. This is utter nonsense. Thailand is being torn apart by gangs of hoodlums masquerading as democrats and pretending they are embarked on the pure quest for fresh elections. Mobs of “red shirts,” proclaiming allegiance to exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, are in command of a glitzy hotel and shopping district close to Bangkok’s main financial area.

[...]

There is big money backing the red shirts, with large numbers of demonstrators being paid 1,000 baht a day, five times the agricultural wage, and their leaders having recourse to the comforts of five-star hotels. The red shirts have also shown good planning and organization and the support of modern weaponry. Some Red leaders have said they are going to wage “war” against the government.

[...]

If it is war against the government, this is not democracy. It means that the only democracy the demonstrators will accept is theirs. A BBC correspondent in Bangkok claimed that Thaksin had “empowered the poor.” Other Western commentators have painted Thaksin as some democratic hero turfed out of office by military thugs acting on behalf of Thailand’s elite vested interests.

[...]

Any civilized government would find it impossible to accept what the red shirts are doing. The mobs move in convoys, randomly blocking all traffic, and storm Parliament, threatening to lynch the prime minister, then go to his house and throw excrement and threaten to kill him. When authorities move in to disperse them, they fire rocket grenades and snipers use laser guidance to pick off officers.

There is a tendency for some international observers to overromanticise the red shirts, as Rafferty points out in the article. We need to have a realistic assessment of the reds, just like how we look at the government and other groups.

Yet, there is also a danger that the government will exploit the negative press surrounding the reds and instigate another round of crackdown. As the latest negotiation between the reds and the government has failed (see here and here), another violent clash looks more likely day by day. And who knows what will happen this time…

By the way, if the red shirts have been paid to join the rally, why does the government not pay them to go home? Mob dispersal would never have been so simple.

Note: Please look for the Japan Times article yourself. As it touches on certain sensitive subjects I cannot provide the link.

Related posts (automatically generated):

1. Giles: What Have the Red Shirts Achieved?
2. Dr Prawes: Five Types of Red Shirts
3. The Economist: Collapse of Talks Was ‘Tragic’
4. Somsak Jeamteerasakul on Red Shirts and Thaksin
5. Thailand’s Continued Unrest: Implications on the Region