News from Thailand – April 6, 2014
The half million red shirts predicted by UDD chairman Jatuporn Prompan did not show up at the first of the three-day mass rally in Thai Watthana in western Bangkok yesterday.
Army officers responsible for security put the number of supporters at 35.000, a number where former UDD chairman Tida Tawornseth made 300.000, but then again she has a big thumb.
Although Bangkok Post spends more than half of the front page on the rally, there is little startling to report about it. Most we already know: the rally is a protest against the anti-government movement and a warning to the Constitutional Court and the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), which the red shirts say are out to bring down the government .
Unlike previous red shirt meetings, former Prime Minister Thaksin will not address the crowd via a telephone connection. However, Robert Amsterdam, the UDD's legal adviser, would call to explain how independent bodies, such as the Court and the NACC, exercise power.
Those bodies would be out for a military coup, Jatuporn speculated in his speech. 'But the red shirts don't accept that anymore. We are not interested in the decisions of independent organizations. If we lose the game, we will beat the elite in the people's game," said the ever-combatant Jatuporn. He called the three-day rally a 'rehearsal'. "The real fight starts after Songkran."
– The next mass rally of the anti-government protest movement will last 15 days. It takes place after the Constitutional Court or the National Anti-Corruption have sealed the fate of Prime Minister Yingluck and, in her wake, the cabinet. The rally, says action leader Suthep Thaugsuban, will be the 'final war'.
Suthep announced this on Saturday after a meeting in Lumpini Park of PDRC representatives from the country. The newspaper describes it as: … representatives from all 77 provinces and residents of seven foreign countries. Where the mass rally will take place will be announced later by Suthep.
“The last fight will be the hardest fight. It's going to produce a clear winner or loser. We're not going home if we don't win," said Suthep. After the government has had to step down, he will submit the names of an interim prime minister and cabinet members to the king for approval.
This so-called 'people's government' will engage in reforms. All of the Shinawatra family's assets will be confiscated and 1 billion baht of her money will go to the farmers who still have to be paid for the rice they surrendered. Elections will follow when the new government has completed its reform mission.
The PDRC continues to visit government offices to ask the officials who work there to join it. Sieges or occupations are no longer an issue. Only the Government House is blocked by the Network of Students and People for the Reform of Thailand and the Ministry of Home Affairs is besieged by the State Enterprise Workers' Relations Confederation.
[I am missing information about the protest location at the government complex on Chaeng Wattanaweg. And what about the farmers at the Ministry of Commerce in Nonthaburi: are they still there?]
– He is not yet a suspect, the police say, but a 22-year-old man is being questioned about the murder of his parents and brother. Reports that he would have confessed are incorrect, says the chief of the Bangkok municipal police.
The man has only admitted that he was "partially involved" in the crime. He had plotted with friends to kill his family, but those friends would have hired the killers.
The man told police he was annoyed that his parents loved his older brother more than him. And he hoped to be the only heir to their land and money. That land is an inherited plot of 20 rai opposite the Mall Bang Kae shopping center and is worth 200 million baht.
- Failed. This is how environmental organization International Rivers describes the summit of the Mekong River Commission, which ended in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday. IR is disappointed that the leaders of the four Mekong countries have not vigorously resisted the construction of two dams by Laos. IR wants all work on both dams to be stopped and to wait for the results of a number of studies.
However, the summit limited itself to acknowledging that the development of hydropower can have negative environmental and social consequences. Furthermore, the four Mekong countries reaffirmed their desire to cooperate and implement the 2010 Hua Hin Declaration, a declaration with many pious words about the opportunities and challenges in the coming ten years in terms of population growth, the rising demand for water, food and energy and climate change.
– Two fires in Bangkok and Songkhla cost the lives of five people and injured eight people. A car accessories shop caught fire in the Wattana district of Bangkok on Friday night. Two people were killed and two were injured. Seven nearby stores were damaged. The suspected cause was a short circuit.
In Sadao (Songkhla), a fire broke out early Saturday morning in a karaoke bar. Two women and a baby were killed and six people were injured. This fire is also believed to have been caused by a short circuit.
– Severe thunderstorms wreaked havoc late Friday evening in the Central Plains and the Northeast. In Tha Rua district (Ayutthata), hail and storm caused damage to 580 houses. The storm lasted an hour. In Bang Rakam (Phitsanulok), heavy rain and a storm damaged 100 houses and buildings. Severe weather is expected in thirty provinces in the same area this weekend.
– The death penalty for the Thai woman, who two years ago had tried to smuggle 2 kilos of cocaine from Brazil to Vietnam and was arrested at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, was confirmed by the Supreme People's Court on Friday. That sentence was handed down by the Ho Chi Minh City Court in August.
– A toddler, who was playing in front of his house in Phayao, was run over by his uncle. The kid got under the wheels of the pickup truck as the uncle drove off with it.
– The claim of former governing party Pheu Thai that the Constitutional Court is guilty of conspiracy against Prime Minister Yingluck lacks any basis, says opposition party Democrats. That conspiracy would be apparent from the fact that the Court has taken up the Thawil case. The aim would be to appoint a neutral, unelected prime minister.
Deputy party leader Ong-art Klampaiboon of the Democrats plays the ball back: Pheu Thai points the finger of blame at the wrong person. After all, it was Yingluck himself who transferred Thawil Pliensri, then Secretary General of the National Security Council; a transfer that has been called unlawful by the Supreme Administrative Court.
Ong-art calls Pheu Thai's claim an attempt to put pressure on the judges of the Constitutional Court, now that this case is being played there. The Court is expected to rule after Songkran. When the court finds Yingluck guilty, her political career comes to an end. She may drag the cabinet down with her.
www.dickvanderlugt.nl – Source: Bangkok Post
Editorial notice
Bangkok Shutdown and the elections in images and sound:
www.thailandblog.nl/nieuws/videos-bangkok-shutdown-en-de-keuzeen/
The blockade of the Government center Chaeng Wattana will be lifted on Tuesday.
The farmers on Sanam Bin Nam(Ministry of Commerce) have been gone for more than a week.(is near me)
de betogers voor het NACC (Sanam Bin Nan) zijn ook maar kortstondig aanwezige geweest. Eergisteren nog langs Ministry of Commerce en het NACC gereden . Buiten wat prikkeldraad niks te zien.
@ Henry Thanks for your complement. Unless I missed a message, but about ending the farmers' action I have not read anything in BP. This also applies to the end of the action on Chaeng Watthanaweg, but it may still be reported by the newspaper. The NACC action by the red shirts has been correctly defeated by BP. When they slunk off, they said they'd be back, but apparently that never happened.
According to the photo attached to the article, there must be a lot more than 35.000 supporters. My wife has heard that, according to the BBC, there would be 380.000 yesterday (we don't know where they get their information from). Today, at least another 20.000 would have arrived from the Isaan. What is true I leave in the middle, maybe someone knows?
If you know how people lay electrical cables in a house, it's no wonder that every now and then one catches fire: 2 wires twisted together, some tape around them and that's it, the fuses are way too heavy and the current is way too light, so the fuses can't work if something goes wrong and the wires start glowing (that's lightning fast), bird's nests against the wires or cobwebs and the case is gone. For example, the electrician who recently laid the pipes in our house and before we even lived in it, replaced meters of wire. Afterwards I saw why: they had melted together and that without the fuses having worked. After all, if you have placed fuses of 16 Ampere, but you only have 10 A at the most on the net, the fuses will not blow because the current to make the fuses work is not reached!!! They can then only react to the heat that is developed, but then it is already too late!!!
I thought Suthep was going to disband his protest actions when the red shirts came to Bangkok? But that is again an empty promise from him, when and if that guy will keep his word??? Instead, he plans many more actions. Now the red shirt rally is still peaceful, but will it stay that way? That's still looking like coffee grounds in my opinion.
@Hemelsoet Roger, I think there are also people at the BBC with a very large thumb.