The "yellow shirts" who shut down two Bangkok airports in November were well funded. It should also come as no surprise if some wealthy people had been funding the "red shirts" who brought Bangkok to a standstill over the weekend. If it could be shown that former Thai PM Thakin's fortune made its way into the pockets of red shirt demonstrators, that would hardly be of surprise to anyone.Yet the popularity of a newly released video indicates that Thaksin may be uniquely vulnerable to such a charge.
Jotman suggests why this may be the case and presents the wildly popular [but misleading] "smoking gun" video here.
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Some background posts on the yellow and red shirt movements.
Thaksin was not paying protesters 500 baht to protest.
ReplyDeleteHe could have meant that the poor people (red shirts) no longer have to work hard their whole lives for a mere 500 baht paycheck, if he gets to come back.
Even if he did pay them 500 baht, remember that this is NOT a lot of money. It is only enough for lunch and dinner at a small noodle stand!!! NO one will face off against the status quo and military for 500 baht!! Not even the poor, rural red shirts!
Heck, Thaksin was probably compensating the red shirts for travel costs (the red shirts did come from provinces outside of Bangkok)!
The protesters protested because the elite, rich and monarchs are against them. They have no voice and the only way to do it is to protest.
Some may argue that violence shouldn't have played a role in the past few days. That is true!! However, when was the last time did you see a non-violent protest (someone did die in the PAD protests, remember). In other words, violence is implied in a protest, unless you marched with Gandhi!
Do follow the link at the end of this post -- some interesting updates to this story.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of examples of non-violent protesters besides Gandhi, of course. I would go so far as to say that the remarkable thing about most protests is that violence tends to be the exception, peaceful activity the norm.