Ebb and flow in flood relief – Asia Times

August 31st, 2010

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LI01Df02.html

LARKANA, Sindh province – It is 40 degrees Celsius in the mid-afternoon. Buffalo submerge themselves in floodwaters covering farmland to cool off. Only their heads are above water as they snort and shake to dismiss the morass of flies buzzing around.

For many among the estimated 6 million people now homeless by the floods in Pakistan, such comfort remains elusive. Many are still without basic shelter and rest under trees, under their carts, and beneath makeshift canopies fashioned from beds, blankets and whatever bits of timber or trees they can find.

On Sunday, teams of foreign and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attempted to reduce the vast deficit by supplying 500 families in Larkana with temporary shelters, along with basic survival kits such as jerrycans and buckets to fetch and store water, and kitchen sets to enable families to cook. A drop in the ocean in a many ways, but something nonetheless.

Larkana’s pre-flood population of around 345,000 has been swollen to over half a million, as the Indus River expanded to 40 times its usual size in places. The roaring, unstoppable river has spawned a tidal wave of people – on the roads, into towns and cities, all seeking refuge, shelter, food and dry land. A vast ebb and flow of water and people, and of tear  for the vast losses incurred. (more…)

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After blood comes the clean-up – The Diplomat/CBC Canada

March 21st, 2010

http://the-diplomat.com/2010/03/21/thailand’s-blood-red-protest/

For more than a week now, ‘red shirt’ demonstrators seeking to topple the Thai government have been stirring a mixture of curiosity, revulsion and some support among the people of Bangkok as they seek to use a show of numbers to pressure the government into calling fresh elections.

On Saturday, the demonstrators, also known as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), paraded around the capital in a 10 kilometre-long convoy in what was portrayed as a public relations exercise aimed at securing support from residents of a city assumed to be indifferent–or even outright hostile–to their cause and their putative leader, the fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Last week saw some creative and gruesome rituals, with protestors pouring their own blood outside Government House and the ruling Democrat Party office before, in a more sinister turn of events, spilling their blood at Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva’s house last Wednesday.

On Sunday, the last of the blood was to be used to make a mural, with artists and protestors collaborating to paint slogans and images explaining their political beliefs.

According to Thai politics analyst Paul Chambers, the red shirts have at the very least managed to call greater domestic and global attention to their agenda. Yet he says that he doesn’t think they’ll be able to achieve their stated ambition of toppling the government, ‘with the military, courts, ruling coalition, and most business interests aligned against them.’

Such scepticism hasn’t stopped them from trying. The protesters have worked to ensure a politically clean image, with leaders seemingly distancing themselves from firebrand allies in the military and the ‘Red Siam’ faction; they also managed to get lawmakers from the pro-Thaksin Peua Thai political party to address the rally (although the lingering blood ritual images could serve to undercut such efforts at moderation).

In response, and despite the gruesomeness of the blood spilling, the government has made less of an issue over the personalised nature of this protest than it has over what it’s spinning as ‘red disunity’. Going on the offensive over the weekend, Abhisit remained firm in his refusal to dissolve the government and call fresh elections. He said he’d talk to the red shirt leadership, but not Thaksin, and sought to amplify divisions within the red shirts by slamming Thaksin’s ostentation and wealth, a move aimed at pulling the rug from under the red shirt leaders’ efforts to contrast the alleged opulence of the premier’s house and neighbourhood with the rural and agrarian origins of many of the demonstrators….

To read the rest of the article, go to http://the-diplomat.com/2010/03/21/thailand’s-blood-red-protest/

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Thailand’s Blood Red Curse – The Irrawaddy/BBC/CBC Canada

March 17th, 2010

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18055

BBC iPlayer – Mark Patterson 16-03-2010.htm – Radio report, about 90 mins in.

– TV report on Canadian afternoon news (no url yet).

- See photos from the march at:

http://www.simonroughneen.com/asia/seasia/thailand/build-up-to-blood-in-pictures/#more-2360

BANGKOK—Potent smells, vivid colours and ominous ritualism was again the order of the day in Bangkok as red shirt demonstrators found a way through riot police lines to make a blood curse at the residence of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva.

This comes after yesterday’s “blood sacrifice” at Government House and at the Democrat Party offices, when tens of thousands of red shirts lined up to donate blood at the main rally site at Phan Fa Bridge.

The demonstrators want the Prime Minister to step down and to call fresh elections, which the government has so far refused to do.

By 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning, thousands of Redshirt demonstrators in pickups and on foot thronged Sukhumvit Road near the Asoke intersection in central Bangkok. Their target was Abhisit’s residence, which is on Soi 31, a side street running off Sukhumvit Road lined with condominiums and restaurants.

Thousand of protestors moved across the city from the Phan Fa Bridge area to Sukhumvit Road, passing through some of Bangkok’s busiest shopping areas, before closing in on the street where the PM lives.

The PM’s house can be approached from at least three directions, and several lines of riot police 8-10 men deep backed by police vans and trucks formed cordons at successive points down the 400 meters from the main road to the PM’s compound.

The Redshirts chanted and cheered for about two hours until their leadership showed up with the remaining bottles of blood donated by thousands of their members yesterday. After a stand-off which was followed by negotiations with Pol Maj-Gen Wichai Sangprapai, Redshirt leaders were allowed to get closer. The crowd advanced down Soi 31, pushing the police lines back onto each other. (more…)

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Reds in the city, Bangkok brinkmanship – New Mandala/CBC Canada

March 14th, 2010



http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2010/03/14/sunday-in-bangkok-reds-in-the-city/

Earlier today, the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship demanded that the Thai Government dissolve the House of Representatives within 24 hours. Otherwise, the Red shirts will disperse from the main rally area in front of Phan Fa bridge and spread around Bangkok.

*UPDATE – Some of the Red shirts intend to move from the rally area to the HQ of the 11th infantry Regiment tomorrow morning, where PM Abhisit has been staying in recent days, and perhaps to other as-yet unspecified locations in Bangkok.

The deadline is noon tomorrow (Monday), so the Reds could bring Bangkok’s already-choked traffic to a standstill at the start of the working week, upping the ante with the Government.

Jaran Dithapichai told me that “we still have to analyse the situation, to see where we would go. But General Prem’s house, or the Prime Minister’s office, they are not important.”

Both sides are now clearly engaged in a form of brinkmanship, with Government mulling the introduction of emergency powers. The UDD takes this as an attempt to disband the protest, saying that the emergency laws prevent gatherings of more than 5 people. (more…)

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