I thought that it would be interesting to watch the situation in Thailand at the moment.
The government, the result of a military coup has been given an ultimatum by protesters. They demand a democratic election by midday monday, or else they will hold a mass demonstration. However, even if the government does give in and hold this election, the likelyhood of following through and upholding the results are very slim.
This makes me wonder what the function of such an election really is? Why do people demand elections that won't succeed in a regime change?
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how it will play out. Check out the link to stuff.com for more info.
I'm following it at work right now and the latest from the protest says that Thai Govt have warned against Fringe groups taking advantage of the political unrest to transport weapons to Bangkok. Given there was an attack on barracks a couple of hours ago, I think we can probably assume this protest is going to become increasingly violent.
ReplyDeleteThe Red Shirts are demanding a democratic election as their 'hero', Former Thai PM, Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted from his position during a 2006 military coup and has since had fairly unsubstantiated allegations of corruption, tax evasion, and the like made against him. The Red Shirts basically feel the current govt did not fairly win a democratic election.
I just watched a video of blood being split at the prime minister’s office. The blood was drawn from supporters, which included monks who are by law not allowed to participate in political protest. The video comments that the Red Cross did not approve of the protest because of the amount of blood poured. I think it is an interesting symbolically powerful non-violent method of protest. However how effective can such a protest be in this situation? The blood was cleaned up after by a cleanup crew. How much impact can be made through such means? I think the greatest success of the protest will be the international attention it gathers.
ReplyDeletehttp://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/video-of-thai-blood-spilling-protest/?ref=asia
I've just been reading about the blood protest on the Guardiands website too. The fourth paragraph in gives some interesting insights into individual reasons for such a form of protest;
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/16/thailand-human-blood-protest