Thai army moves in for the kill – ISN
May 19th, 2010
Much of central Bangkok is a no-go area after recent street fighting. A senate mediation proposal has fallen flat, and this morning the Thai army is moving in on the main protest site.
Soldiers on the lookout at protestors back down the Rama 4 road. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
By Simon Roughneen in Bangkok for ISN Security Watch
As deadly clashes continue in central Bangkok, another proposed mediation effort has gone awry.Thai senators offered to act as go-betweens in the hope that this would bring the government and the redshirts back to the table. The redshirts welcomed this, after exiled de facto leader Thaksin Shinawatra called for UN intervention and asked the government to rein in the army. However, the government says it will not talk to the redshirt leaders – most of whom face terrorism charges – until the thousands of demonstrators leave the downtown shopping and hotel area they have occupied for six weeks. (more…)
No Deus ex Machina in Manila – ISN
May 7th, 2010
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=115980
A Presidential race depicted as a run-off between a saint, a CEO and a faded movie-star is being overshadowed by worries over a computerised vote-counting system.
On the way out: Arroyo billboard near old city of Intramuros in Manila (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Simon Roughneen in Manila – In a first for The Philippines – a country with intermittent electricity supply and a history of electoral fraud – a computerised system is being used instead of the manual count used in most other countries. Despite 11th-hour glitches meant the recall and re-programming of 76000 flash cards used to scan votes in the optical scan machines, the electoral oversight body (Comelec) remained confident that “the elections will go through”, according to Comelec chair Jose Melo.
Whether the equipment will be ready and distributed across the whole archipelago in time, remains to be seen. However Comelec is resisting calls from candidates and media to conduct a manual count in parallel and as a back-up to the computerised alternative.
The ‘saint’ in question is Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino, son of former President and democracy icon Cory, who died in August 2009. A poll published this morning Friday put Mr Aquino on 41%, over double that of the second-place candidate. Aquino has capitalised on the family lineage – an aura of martyrdom, heroism and clean hands that dates back to the 1986 People’s Power Revolution – in a country listed by Transparency International as more graft-prone than Pakistan or Liberia. (more…)
Makeovers and Takeovers in Burma – ISN
May 5th, 2010
Burma’s military elites are ditching their uniforms so they can run as civilians in elections scheduled for later this year. That makeover might be just cosmetic, but is likely to guarantee continued army rule in what is being slammed in some quarters as a ‘military election’.
The junta is encountering problems, however, in its takeover bid with the country’s ethnic militias, the largest of whom have defied five deadlines to stand down and become part of the country’s border guard forces.
Since June 2009, the stakes have been raised by army attacks on rebel-held areas, in some cases carried out in partnership with proxy militias working with the regime. These attacks drove thousands from their homes, with Karen refugees fleeing to the jungle or across the border to Thailand, in a grisly re-enactment of large-scale displacements during the 1990s and later.
In August, the junta’s army made light work of a small ethnic Chinese or Kokang militia, but angered Beijing in the process. This was seen as a test run and a warning shot – aimed at unsettling the larger militias such as the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and the Shan State Army – North (SSA-N). However these groups would be unlikely to cave in so quickly. Threats from Napyidaw, the new isolated jungle capital built by the regime, have prompted talk of a multi-ethnic alliance if the junta tries to settle the border guard issue by force. (more…)
Confrontations and Conspiracies in Thailand – ISN
April 30th, 2010
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=115676
Redshirts get armed with slingshots inside their main rally area. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
The next steps in Thailand’s political face-off are becoming increasingly hard to predict. After seven weeks of occupying various sections of Bangkok’s commercial and tourist heartland, where can the anti-government redshirts strike next?
On Thursday, the redshirts called off a rally scheduled to take place at one of Thailand’s news stations, which they accuse of biased reporting. However late on Thursday night, a group of around two hundred redshirts invaded Chulalongkorn Hospital, claiming they were searching for soldiers hiding inside. They did not find any, and a redshirt leader later apologised for the action. This came after a gunfight on a highway north of the city, close to the old international airport, when redshirts baited the government by attempting to send around 2,000 of their group to a market north of Bangkok.
After royalist yellowshirts had defied an emergency decree with impunity by holding several small rallies around Bangkok, urging the government to remove the redshirts now seven weeks into their mass rally in the heart of the city, it appears the redshirts sought to test the security force reaction by sending a convoy onto the northbound highway.
A predictable skirmish ensued, and 18 protesters were injured and one soldier killed amid a shoot-out on the highway close to the city’s old international airport. It was the third serious incident of violence since the redshirt rally started over a week ago, following explosions that rocked the financial area of the city. On 10 April street fighting left 25 dead, after gunmen among the redshirts targeted an army officer closely connected to the country’s royal family. (more…)
Fallen Angels in Bangkok – ISN
April 16th, 2010
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=115035
As the Government moves in to arrest protest leaders and alleged ‘terrorists’ in Bangkok, more violence looms in the city.
Red shirts gathered at Rajaprasong, last Thursday night (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Even as the eponymous protagonist in Shakespeare’s Macbeth descended into madness, there were fleeting moments of sentience; enough, at least, for him to deliver some memorably prescient insights.
‘Blood will have blood‘, he said, implying that once blood is spilled, more will follow. And so three weeks after the anti-government red shirts poured their blood on the gates of the Thai Prime Minister’s Abhisit Vejajjiva’s residence and the country’s Government House, the gruesome symbolism was transfigured into tragic reality last weekend, with 19 civilians and 5 soldiers killed in the ‘The Battle of Bangkok’. Over 800 people were injured, as tourists looked on, and there are calls for the Government to establish an inquiry into what happened in Bangkok – or to give it its less well- known abbreviated name – Krung Thep or ‘City of Angels’. (more…)
Standing Tall or Stepping Down? – ISN
March 30th, 2010
What now for the opposition in Burma after Aung San Suu Kyi’s party refuses to take part in what it deems sham elections being organized by the country’s military dictatorship?
Burma’s main opposition party has refused to take the bait and run in the country’s sham military-run election scheduled for later this year.
Members of the detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy Party gather at the party's headquarters before its central committee meeting Monday, March. 29, 2010, in Rangoon. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)
“Without any objections, all the party leaders reached a consensus not to register the party and join the election because the junta’s election laws are unjust,” said senior party official Khin Maung Swe yesterday. The decision came days after the party’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi voiced her opposition to the National League for Democracy (NLD) taking part, however adding that she would leave the final decision to a party vote.
While nobody ever expected a free and fair election in Burma, the regime made doubly-sure with some Machiavellian electoral laws published a few weeks ago. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the NLD, would have had to expel its leader if it wanted to take part.
John Dale teaches at George Mason University and is an analyst of Burma’s domestic politics. He reminded ISN Security Watch that “the new election laws make clear that the 2010 elections will not be democratic because they restrict from participation at the outset the very candidates who legitimately won the previous elections that the military refused to honor. Therefore, “many defenders of Burma’s democracy are concluding that these elections will be even less fair than those of 1990.”
Confusion and division
The prospect of an election has caused division among the opposition and the various ethnic groups living in the borderlands near China, Thailand, India and Bangladesh. Sixty percent of the country is ethnic Burman, with the remainder split among over 130 different ethnic groups – the Chin, Karen, Mon and Shan among the most numerous. Many of these have been at war with the junta, on and off, since the end of World War II, while the Muslim Rohingya in the west are denied citizenship, with hundreds of thousands fleeing to squalor and abuse in Bangladesh and beyond.
Ethnic parties are being set up to take part in the election, despite exhortations from mainstream ethnic leaders to boycott the polls. This comes after years of ‘divide and rule’ military campaigns, where the junta set up proxy militias drawn from the ethnic minorities to fight against their own kin. Last June, thousands of Karen fled to Thailand after an attack by the Democratic Buddhist Karen Army (DBKA), backed by the army, ostensibly on the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), but also on civilians. (more…)
Burma’s Election (f)Laws – ISN
March 11th, 2010
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=113635
Burma’s new election rules vindicate the Cassandras who warned that the 2010 polls would be little more than window-dressing for continued army rule.
Given the track record of Burma’s rulers, a free and fair election was never likely, and the election laws make it even less so. Since abrogating civilian rule in 1962, the army has maintained a vice-like grip on power. Its ‘Four Cuts’ army policy has caused immense suffering in ethnic minority areas, where civilians have been targeted as part of the junta’s attempts to defeat ethnic militias. The UN human rights rapporteur on Burma believes that the attacks could constitute war crimes, and has recommended an international investigatio. (more…)
Judgment Day in Thailand – ISN/The Irrawaddy
February 25th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=17892
Politically troubled Thailand faces “Judgment Day” on Friday when the country’s Supreme Court rules on what to do with US $2.26 billion frozen in ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s family bank accounts.
Fading away or looming large? Thaksin Shinawatra addresses redshirt rally in Bangkok by videolink (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
The nub of the allegations are that Thaksin transferred his wealth to family members to sidestep a rule that he could not hold company shares while in office. It is also alleged that as PM, he implemented policies that were of commercial benefit to businesses controlled by him. The charges include his dealings with the military junta in Burma, alleging that state loans were extended to the regime to finance a deal with a company then under the control of Thaksin’s family.
The case appears to be the first of its type in Thailand. A foreign diplomat in Bangkok – speaking on condition of anonymity - said that the case is complex and difficult to second-guess. Speculation is that some or all of the one-time telecom entrepreneur’s assets will be seized, or some could be seized and some remain frozen, perhaps with with a final decision left pending for another day. We will know on Friday when the judges read the verdict.
Worries abound that seizure of Thaksin’s assets could be the spark for demonstrations like those that forced the cancellation of an April 2009 summit of Asian leaders in Thailand, which could prompt a violent counter-reaction. How the police and army respond to the demonstrations is cause for worry among the public and politicians. (more…)
Electing to imprison – RTÉ World Report/ISN
February 22nd, 2010
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0228/worldreport.html
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=112923
Burma’s military junta frees one opposition figure as many others languish in prison, while setting up up front parties to compete in what can only be a sham election.
When people in the West think of Burma, thoughts most likely turn to the iconic opposition figure Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been locked up for most of the past 20 years, more or less spanning the time since Nelson Mandela’s release from jail in South Africa. Her crime: winning the country’s single election held since independence from Britain.
Burma is due to hold elections again this year, but Suu Kyi is not permitted to run. The military regime in charge of the country since 1962 seems determined to hold onto power and looks likely to use the elections to try to craft some form of civilian veneer for continued army rule.
The constitution reserves 25 percent of the seats in the proposed new parliament for the army, which is enough to block any attempt to change the law in Burma.
As for the rest, the army is setting up front parties, with officers and civil servants resigning their posts, under orders from the top, to ‘compete’ in the elections. (more…)
Assessing Thai Coup Rumors – ISN/The Irrawaddy
February 3rd, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17733
NEWS ANALYSIS/BANGKOK—Coup-mongering is nothing new to Thailand, but speculation about an impending putsch was revved-up last week when a column of more than twenty armored vehicles was seen on the streets of Bangkok.
The column was on its way from Bang Sue railway station to their barracks in Pathum Thani. Apparently the vehicles are being readied for deployment to Darfur, a dusty and desolate terrain vastly different from anything in Thailand. Thai troops are serving as part of the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in the vast western Sudan province.
It usually takes more than a few armored trucks to mount a coup, however, and, unexpected as the sight may have been, it takes more than a lone armored column on city streets to suggest that a coup is looming.
But with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva in Europe at the Davos World Economic Forum, and an upcoming February 5-14 visit to the US by Army Chief Gen Anupong Paochinda, the coup gossip has gathered steam over recent days, suggesting that elements in the army could move in the absence of either man. (more…)
