Australian reporter hides out in Bangkok temple

Date: May 20, 2010

US condemns Thailand protestors over Bangkok arson attacks

Date: May 20, 2010

Bangkok: This is a massacre

May 17th, 2010 by Anonymous · 92 Comments

Noam Chomsky once noted that when the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan that at least one Soviet radio station announcer characterized the action as an invasion. He was courageous for making such a reasonable depiction of things. But for saying so, Soviet authorities promptly placed him into a psychiatric hospital. Chomsky argues that people in the Soviet Union could recognize an invasion when they saw one, but risked being put away for saying so publicly.

In contrast, no mainstream US media outlet in the 1960s ever suggested US involvement in Vietnam was an “invasion.” The thought was unimaginable.

The inability to use such an unpleasant term led to the death of at least a few million Vietnamese and more than 50,000 American soldiers. Necessarily coupled with the inability to imagine the act as an invasion was the construction of the North Vietnamese “communist terrorist.”

The same failure of courage and imagination now faces Thai society. Previously, the killing of at least 40 student protesters in October 6, 1976 was considered a “massacre,” as was the estimated 40 killed in May 1992 military suppression of protesters calling for the coup leader-cum-prime minister to step down.

Since 10 April , more than 50 Thai protesters, many bare-handed or armed with bamboo sticks, have been killed. A number of prominent international journalists in Bangkok have themselves witnessed unarmed protesters shot by Thai security forces, both on 10 April or over the past few days, especially in the “live-ammunition zones” established by the government.

It is true that there was a mysterious black-clad force shooting back at the Thai military on 10 April 2010, leading to the death of five soldiers. And there may be other forces at play in the killings of the past few days. But these factors do not change the basic contours of this struggle: the main body of protesters adhere to non-violence, are unarmed or dramatically under-armed against military and police forces that have been using live ammunition against them. If the red shirts are armed and dangerous, you wouldn’t know it from the number of casualties: in the last two days, 29 protesters have been killed, and zero army and police personnel. This suggests disproportionate, excessive, and deadly force used by security forces in dispersing the protesters. But this skewing of numbers can’t last long: the situation created by the government has created has opened the doors wide to extremists on both sides.

The definition of massacre is: “The act or an instance of killing a large number of humans indiscriminately and cruelly.” Let’s be clear about what is happening on the streets of Bangkok: this is a massacre. Perhaps not a single act or instance, but when taken as a whole, the military and police operations against the red shirt protesters have killed up to this point more than any crackdown by previous Thai military regimes in the past 50 years. It is a slowly unfurling, staggered massacre that promises to soar. The Thai government has promised to bring an end to the crisis by escalating this slow-motion massacre.

If this is not a massacre, then when will it be? At 80 killings? At 100?

This massacre, though, differs from previous Thai massacres in a number of ways. First, there has been no outrage over the deaths. Governments have hesitated condemning the Thai government. Human rights organizations have urged both sides not to use violence and return to the negotiating table. In 1976, it was largely urban students killed. There was an international outcry. In 1992, it was urban populations killed. There was a domestic and international outcry. But this time, there is no outrage, but rather a grim celebration of a show of force and getting those rural people and terrorists out of Bangkok, at any cost.

Regardless there are Thai citizens being killed indiscriminately. If one believes that the conduct of the Thai government is acceptable, then at least call it for what it is: a massacre. One should not console ourselves by saying that the red shirts had been warned by the government of their impending doom, or that there are certain factions of the red shirts killing other red shirts, or that these people are “terrorists.” Understand and accept that it will be a continuing massacre.

For those who cannot accept the possibility of a massacre, for those who choose to error on the side of caution on the chance that much of the killing is a slaughter of the innocents, then it is time to show express outrage and moral revulsion. It is time to focus on the responsibility of the Abhisit Vejjajiva government. Whether intentional or due to the carelessness or lack of intelligence on the part of the government in deciding to move against protesters on 10 April 2010, the Abhisit government is ultimately morally and legally responsible. The dead deserve their day in court to confront their killer. If the Abhisit government cannot begin to figure out who was responsible for these deaths, it should resign so that a non-interested one can.

The deaths of score protesters that night somehow were presented as proof of “terrorists” and justified their killings. In the last few days, the indiscriminate killing is justified because there are supposedly “500 terrorists” hiding within the main body of protesters. As a protest leader has said, such a statement is tantamount to the advance issuing of 500 death certificates of protesters, “terrorists” or not.

This state of affairs, this eager acceptance of massacre, should and cannot be acceptable to any dignified and democratic society.

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2010/05/17/bangkok-this-is-a-massacre/

khonthakek · Guru

update

TOKYO, May 20 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Japan and Laos shared concerns Thursday about the Thai political turmoil that has led to casualties and also reaffirmed their cooperation for poverty alleviation in Laos, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

In a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada at a Tokyo hotel, visiting Laotian Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh expressed appreciation for Japan's economic assistance to his country and called for continued support, especially in the areas of maternal and child health as well as education.

Okada told Bouasone Japan has much experience and capability to help Laos achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction and recommended that Vientiane not only boost spending but establish new mechanisms to improve maternal and child health services.

Japan has long been the top aid donor for Laos.

Bouasone later met with his Japanese counterpart Yukio Hatoyama. The Japanese leader welcomed a broad agreement reached between the two countries on Laotian accession to the World Trade Organization and expressed hope that the country will join the global trade liberalization body at an early date, according to the ministry.

Date: May 20, 2010

What a great change of topic.
At last there's something pertaining Laos and thanks for sharing Bro! smile

Dark Angel · Guru

Here come again the United States only care about money and property and then condemns when the building have been burning or destryed but did not give a damn when the crime against humanity had been committed when the snipers shot the unarmed protesters in cold blood.

Date: May 21, 2010

Australian reporter hides out in Bangkok temple

AUSTRALIAN photojournalist Steve Tickner was last night taking refuge in a temple less than 100m away from the heart of the deadly protests between Red Shirts and the Thai military in Bangkok's retail centre.

Tickner spoke to The Australian last night as the sounds of gunfire and heavy explosions continued in the background.

He said, "a stream of dead and wounded" were finding their way to the temple in which he took cover with more than 2000 Red Shirt supporters and three British journalists.

Tickner said most of those seeking refuge were women.

He said one of the journalists, who did not want to be named, had suffered shrapnel wounds to his buttocks.

"Most of the Red Shirts here are not the hardcore ones," he said.

Tickner, who is from Newcastle, on the NSW mid-north coast, said he had flown to Bangkok from Timor on Sunday to cover the protests.

He said that earlier in the afternoon he witnessed a Thai man being shot by the military just metres from the temple.

"I saw the bullet come straight out of the other side of his chest and he just dropped to the ground," he said.

When he and a monk went to help the man, Tickner said, they were also shot at.

"They knew I was a foreign journalist - they saw my cameras," he said.

"We were worried that the man was going to bleed to death on the pavement - we couldn't just leave him there."

Tickner said he and the monk carried the man inside to safety but he died in the temple.

He said there were "at least six dead bodies" among those crowded in the temple.

"A lot of the people here are wounded," he said.

"People are still being shot and there are explosions in the background."

Tickner said the mood was sombre in the temple and almost everyone was "panicked, scared and nervous".

He said he feared he would "be shot within minutes" if he left the temple.

"There are snipers out there, there are tanks - it's just chaos and carnage."

Thailand's army said last night the situation in Bangkok was "under control" and that a military operation against the anti-government protesters' rally base had been halted.

But Tickner said he wasn't sure the gunfire would stop today.

He said if the situation had not calmed by that stage, the group would run out of food and water.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/australian-reporter-hides-out-in-bangkok-temple/story-e6frg6so-1225868915779

By Andrew Buncombe in Bangkok

Eyewitness: Under fire in Thailand

Andrew Buncombe reports from the streets of Bangkok which have become a lethal battle zone

By Andrew Buncombe in Bangkok

Thursday, 20 May 2010

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

An anti-government protester stands under a canopy of black smoke from burning tyres and debris in Bangkok

There was nothing for us to do but take cover, as the incoming fire sprayed and hissed. People lay flat, terrified, crouched behind cars, tried to squeeze themselvesinto the meagre protection offered by the wheel hubs. They took cover frantically, diving behind not just cars, but trucks, trees and even flower pots.

This was near to the entrance of a Buddhist temple, a supposed oasis, a place of prayer. But we knew its sanctity had been fatally breached when the crack of rifles and the sound of bullets ricocheted close to the temple's souvenir shop.

One after the other, the injured were carried, rushed and dragged inside the temple compound. On bamboo mats, blankets anything to hand, they were carried in bloodied and screaming. Fearless Red Shirt volunteers did what they could. They used towels, bandages and plasters to try to treat ugly bullet wounds that needed surgery, not first aid kits.

The sign outside the temple says "apayatan" a word indicating that here in the centre of Bangkok is a safe zone – a haven. Yesterday afternoon, as buildings across the Thai capital blazed, thick black smoke billowing into the air, the streets outside the revered, 15O-year-old Buddhist compound had been transformed into an ugly, lethal battle zone from which no one could leave.

Of those killed yesterday, several died directly outside the temple – and many, many more wounded. Those sheltering inside the temple were just as vulnerable. In one of the compound's buildings, seven bodies were laid out on the floor.

Early yesterday, thousands of Red Shirt protesters fled the intersection that they had occupied for more than two months after government troops finally forced their way into the barricaded encampment and the protest leaders told them it "was all over". They moved to occupy the sprawling temple area, at the centre of which sits a series of gold-edged buildings. The mood was tense and anxious, but people believed – or so they prayed and hoped – that the troops would not turn their temple into a place of violence.

"After the leadership told us to go home, we came here. They told us it was all over," said one of the Red Shirts, a woman who had taken shelter within the compound. Another woman, Malee Ngaun Sanga, added: "As long as I have lived here I have never seen any government so evil."

And then things rapidly changed. From the west, we could hear loud firing as troops advanced towards the temple area. Some reporters who had been outside said that a small number of Red Shirts were firing back with sling-slots, hand guns and petrol bombs. A photographer said he saw a man shot in front of him as he ran away from a line of soldiers, two bullets hitting him in the back and apparently exiting from the chest. The image that photographer had taken did not look good.

Suddenly the firing intensified. The explosions grew louder and appeared to get nearer to us and the crack of weapons became more frequent, their cap-gun noises giving no clue as to their deadly capability.

A bare-chested young man ran in. He had a large, ugly hole in the lower back. Was he struck as he ran or had he already been wounded when he came in? It was too frenetic, too chaotic to be sure. Either way, as soon as they became aware of his injuries, a group of medics ran to his aid, dragging him to what they hoped was safety. The medics turned him over on to his stomach, pressing down with bandages and towels. One woman in particular appeared utterly fearless.

Soon afterwards, another victim was rushed in through the entrance to the temple. He appeared older, frail. It looked as if he had been shot in the shoulder. Once again, the volunteer medics rushed to his help. The man's moans were soft amid the ongoing clatter of gunfire.

That's when I – one of just a handful of journalists still present at the temple – was hit in the outer thigh by what appeared to be several pieces of shrapnel. They later transpired to be large pellets from a shotgun that buried themselves deep – perhaps three inches – into the flesh. Where had this shooting come from? Were soldiers now deliberately firing at journalists or did they simply not care? The medics dived over, pouring cold water on the burning wound and pressing down bandages to stop them. It was effectively just a bad flesh wound but the fragments of lead burned and stung. There were countless people with wounds, but the medics – who had set up a pharmacy and emergency clinic amid the temple's lush, exotic foliage could have done no more.

Precisely which positions the firing was coming from was unclear and why the troops would be shooting so widely, with so little caution, was unclear. Was it coming from snipers or from the regular troops? It seems almost certain it was coming from the troops. And who within the chain of command was ordering troops to fire so recklessly, so close to so many people, the vast overwhelming majority of whom were unarmed, unthreatening and who – as they had been asked by the authorities – had just left their place in the city centre. Had they had an opportunity to leave, safely, then they would have. Everyone recognised this was the end of their struggle, or at least this stage of it. Pressing, vital questions need to be answered by the highest levels.

Last night, the temple, built during the era of King Rama IV when the surrounding area was lakes and canals rather than sky-scrapers and shopping malls, was a cross between a refugee camp and a hospital. As orange-clad monks chanted prayers, people went about the task of trying to find a place to sleep, laying down sleeping mats, trying to arrange something to eat. Most had the most meagre possessions, many washing their single change of clothes every day. The mood was one of anxiety and uncertainty. How long would they have to stay?

The terrible irony was that a well-equipped police hospital – where staff had supposedly been preparing for this day for months in advance – was located just yards from the entrance to the temple. The road outside – now a deadly shooting gallery – was simply too dangerous to cross.

What was incongruous was why the injured could not be moved to safety. Some of the Red Shirts said that hardcore elements were still firing at the troops, who they feared would respond with the heavy weapons which they had been firing all day. With an 8pm curfew imposed and people too petrified to move, there was little option but for us to be laid out on deckchairs, stretchers or mats. Some sat quietly, others moaned. There was a feeling of utter helplessness.

Eventually, after the intervention of the office of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva – the man whom the protesters have been so desperately seeking to remove from office – some sort of ceasefire deal was brokered. Had the injured not included a foreign journalist whose Canadian colleague and translator made furious efforts to get help, would so many, high-level efforts have been made? Perhaps not. Either way, the Red Cross was able to send ambulances in convoy to the temple to take away the most badly injured. They said the injured women and children would be collected later today.

The injured were removed, with priority given to those most badly hurt.

The first to leave was the man shot in the lower back. Next was a man shot in the leg. As he was lifted on the stretcher and carried towards the ambulances, he moaned and cried. He pressed his palms together as if to say a prayer, perhaps both for himself and his country.

A man who had been shot in the thigh and I were taken out in the final two ambulances. That man's name was Narongsak Singmae, he was 49 and from the north-east of the country. As he lay waiting to be taken away to hospital, he said: "I cannot believe they are shooting in a temple."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/eyewitness-under-fire-in-thailand-1977647.html

Date: May 21, 2010

From The Times

May 20, 2010

‘I promised. So I’ll stay until the soldiers come and shoot me’

Richard Lloyd Parry, Bangkok

The loneliest woman in Thailand sits in front of the Red Shirt stage in central Bangkok. She wears a red T-shirt and red bandanna, and carries in her hand a red flag.

For 43 days Pusdee Ngamcam has camped out here, sleeping on a thin mat with the noise of this city in her ears, living off instant noodles and braving the unspeakable lavatory facilities. Only one thing has now changed: she is alone.

Two hours earlier this spot had been a tumult of singing, speechifying and righteous anger against the Government of Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Thai Prime Minister. It was also a place of fear. The armoured cars and infantrymen of the Royal Thai Army were advancing towards the Red Shirts, less than a mile down the road.

Many Thais expected a massacre, worse even than the botched operation last month to clear another protest site in which 25 people died. Or perhaps the army would advance and then stop, putting more pressure on Nuttawut Saikua, the Red Shirt leader, to negotiate. Very few, if any, expected Mr Nuttawut’s announcement made on the red stage a few moments after 1.30pm: that the Red Shirt leadership was capitulating, handing itself over for arrest en masse, and that the epic conflict that had unfolded in Bangkok over the past two months was over.

“As soon as the leaders told them to leave, in ten minutes everyone was gone,” Ms Pusdee, 45, an unmarried nurse from Bangkok, says. “It’s not right, because we are fighting for democracy.”

While the few thousand other protesters melted away into the city or found sanctuary in a nearby Buddhist temple, Ms Pusdee found herself the Last of the Red Shirts.

“I keep my promises, and I promised not to leave until they dissolved Parliament and we have elections,” she says in a wilderness of abandoned chairs, sleeping mats, cooking equipment and amplifiers.

“They have not dissolved Parliament so I won’t leave. No country in the world got democracy just by asking — you have to fight for it.” How long will she stay here? “Until the soldiers come here,” she says, “and shoot me.”

There is nothing fantastic about this idea. All morning the Royal Thai Army has been shooting people in its path, both Thais and foreigners. The dreadful end of the day, as furious and leaderless Red Shirt hooligans set fire to buildings across the city, has provided the images that the Thai Government will thrust before the eyes of the world. But until lunchtime it was a day like the four days that preceded it — in which soldiers armed with automatic weapons killed and injured civilians armed, for the most part, with sticks, stones, bottles of petrol and fireworks.

One young man, whom I met as the sun was rising over the massed armoured cars on the perimeter of the Red Shirt zone, proudly showed me his contribution to the struggle: three hand-made arrows, crafted from bamboo and feather-flighted. The difficulty was that he had no bow from which to fire them.

Instead he planned to shoot them at the advancing armoured column with a small catapult. These are the people whom the Thai Government has labelled “terrorists”, though they have as much in common with the Bash Street Kids as Osama bin Laden.

There are some armed anti-government protesters — the so-called Black Shirts, hardcore militants who do their best to avoid the gaze of foreign journalists and even of their Red Shirt fellows. By lunchtime yesterday they were fortifying one of the stations of Bangkok’s overhead Sky Train against the army’s advance. I saw one automatic rifle; colleagues reported at least one more, as well as handguns. Ninja-like men were seen furtively running with long, thin wrapped objects that may or may not have been grenade launchers.

These may — or may not — have been used last month to kill a colonel who was leading a botched assault on a Red Shirt protest site, but in the past few days the influence of a handful of urban guerrillas has been insignificant. Since the army began its operation of suppression last Thursday, only one military man has been killed: an air force officer accidentally shot by his comrades.

The rest of the dead, close to 50 of them, and almost all of the injured, have been civilians.

Some of them were Black Shirts, firing suicidally over the barriers at the soldiers. But others were ordinary Thais and people like me, nervously backing down the street ahead of the advancing fire, unable even to see through the smoke of the burning barricades to the soldiers shooting their assault rifles.

Shots whistled down the street unpredictably. The victims were carried out, a few every hour, by daredevil ambulances screaming and skidding in and out of the kill zone.

All morning one tried to imagine what would happen when they reached the main stage, where Ms Pusdee and her friends were waiting, tremulous but determined.

For weeks speakers such as Mr Nuttawut had been reinforcing their belief in the nobility of their cause and the necessity of defending it to the death. Their demands are straightforward: that Mr Abhisit, whose party has never been elected, and who came to power as the indirect result of a military coup, step down and call elections.

No wonder then, that Ms Pusdee feels betrayed — and no wonder that Mr Nuttawut made the choice that he did. “All the people were ready to give up their lives,” a woman named Pom told me in the temple where she had taken refuge. “The leaders chose to give up their freedom to save our lives.”

And no surprise, really, that the younger and more thuggish of the Reds chose to run amok, burning banks, the stock exchange, a TV station regarded as favouring the Government and a shopping centre. Such destruction can never be excused, but this has never been a conflict with clear rights and wrongs.

Perhaps one should simply be grateful that it was not much bloodier and that the worst Ms Pusdee has to deal with is disappointment. For Mr Abhisit, who always seemed such a decent man, this is a victory, but a victory of which he can only decently feel ashamed.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7131331.ece

Dark Angel · Guru

The Canadian reporter who was shot by the military soldiers must sue the Thai government for attemped to commit murder and crime against humanity by the Thai government which lead to a lot of death and injured and lost of property and lives.

Date: May 21, 2010

Red shirt is too bad