Jag undrar hur stort stöd Thaksin fortfarande har kvar bland de röda? När han under de mest intensiva dagarna uppmanade till revolution, att han skulle komma till Thailand och leda sitt folk, att fler skulle komma till Bangkok för att demonstrera med mera. Samtidigt satt han tryggt på hemlig ort och sin familj hade han redan skickat ut från Thailand. Borde inte detta ha retat upp väldigt många tidigare supporters?
Här kommer en liten historia från New Mandala http://rspas.anu.edu...ution/#comments
Not that what I am about to say next is newsworthy, but it definitely is thought-provoking. I sat in a cab yesterday (no, that’s not the big news) who was what you call a ‘red shirt’ guy, but he was no longer a red shirted, at least no longer part of the Thaksin-wing.
We had a nice chat he and I. We both agreed that there are too many ‘invisible people’ who play a role in Thai politics, and these people do need to be neutralized. The whole Songkran episode has however made him “wake up” to Thaksin. He really believed that Thaksin was coming back, and was disheartened when he found out (after the riots) that Thaksin had removed his wife and children from the country. They were earlier told that the family was still in Bangkok, and he was at the rally where Yaowapha Wongsawat said the same, that the family was just away on a quick preplanned trip, but would be back in Bangkok in no time… for him, the worst was when he saw Thaksin on CNN deny that he had any part in the Red-shirt movement and that he only offered them ‘moral support’…. (he said he saw this at the house where he stayed in for 2 days of people who had let him stay in their house).
He wasn’t one of those ‘hardcore’ fanatics, he played a part in closing down the Victory Monument…. he was shocked when a few ‘hardliners’ in the Red shirt drove and parked gas tanks at Din Daeng, he told me he was there all night, and roughly 3:30-4am when (in his words) some crazy red-shirters (not blue, not anyone else) told them that they “received orders” to fight the military. He didn’t go up front, but said he was near enough to know that the red shirt tried really hard to get the military to attack. His claims were that the claims of ‘hundreds’ of bodies dead is totally false. He told me that he was there (like a hundred times), and said that “if” anyone died, the number could definitely not exceed 5. When the military shot at people after (he has no recollection much of what happened as he didn’t sleep the whole night), he just heard gun fire and ran…. removed his red-shirt, and ran begging for help from someone in the area. He was first told to move on, but he begged, and was allowed in. He hadn’t showered for 3 days prior to then, and lived with these people for 2 days.
Having said all that to me, he re-iterated that there is still a class system that exists in this country, and that the way the Red Shirts were dealt with was totally different from the PAD, and he still feels pained at that. However, at this moment in time, he does not believe nor trust the red shirt leadership anymore. He feels that they duped him and at the end, left him on his own. He still ‘feels red’, and definitely has no love for Prem and Thailand’s ‘background’ politics. I really wished I had taken his name, but I was taking more a role of a listener, and thanked him profusely when I reached my destination. I didn’t realize the valuability (i’m like Bush, I make up words) of information till I told my colleague of what happened.
I don’t know how this ‘proves’ or ‘disproves’ Thaksin’s call for a revolution, but it was worth noting that someone who thought Thaksin called for one, went there to fight, and was disillusioned by the lack of support given later.
