The Thai capital is filled with protesters

As Leftfield has already reported, Thailand is currently in the grip of a political crisis as hundreds of thousands of some of the nation’s poorest are on the streets demanding democracy.

The Red Shirt movement demands the immediate dissolution of parliament and the calling of new elections. The current government was installed in a military coup in 2006. The coup overthrew Thailand’s first government to install a national health system for all, and was constantly attacked by the elite for using state funds to help the poor.

For weeks now the Thai rural and urban poor have been engaged in a rolling campaign of non-violent campaign of protest demanding a return to democracy. The response of government has been to crack down, with a massive wave of censorship taking TV stations off the air and websites off the internet. This weekend at least 21 people were killed by government forces, including a Japanese cameraman.

This morning Red Shirts carried coffins through the streets of Bangkok, at least some of which contained the bodies of killed protesters. They have declared they will “not negotiate with the murderers in government.” They control key streets in the city, and have let it be known they will stand firm against attempts to move them by the police or military. They are braced for state violence after the government branded them “terrorists.”

Carrying coffins of killed protesters through the streets

The current Thai government is backed by the Royal elite in Thailand, the military, and a minority of the population, mainly the small middle class and wealthy. The Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was educated at Eton and Oxford.

Unlike the Red Shirts, who have protested peacefully, the government’s supporters, who wear Yellow Shirts, have previously used violence and weapons. Despite this, they have received support from the Liberal International, the global grouping of liberal parties of which the Lib Dems are a member.

The ironically named Democrat Party which holds power in Thailand is afraid of holding new elections because they know their anti-poor policies would almost certainly lose. The poor people of Thailand are on the streets demanding democracy and an end to dictatorial rule by the country’s aristocratic/military elite, proudly calling themselves “serfs.”

For updates on the situation in Thailand, check out the blog of Thai socialist Giles Ji Ungpakorn, who’s currently living in exile in the UK. There’s also a free download available there of his book ‘A Coup for the Rich.’ He’s got some useful links as well, although some are currently down, possibly due to Thai government censorship. This just makes it all the more important that people around the world spread the word about what’s happening.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 12th, 2010 at 12:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.