Thailand: Red Shirts Struggle to Survive Crackdown

BANGKOK, Thailand -- To prevent another urban insurrection, new CCTV cameras will eyeball streets where 90 people died, mostly civilians, and 1,400 were injured when the military battled Red Shirt protesters and crushed their bamboo barricades in April and May.

Police monitor CCTV cameras which now show Ratchaprasong's pacified streets.
(Photo copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich)

Thailand's army-backed government now wields surveillance, imprisonment, censorship and other "state of emergency" powers across much of this Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian nation.

The Red Shirts admit they have been strangled, and are struggling to stay alive.

"Basically, we as an organization, we do not exist," said Sean Boonpracong, international spokesman for the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) -- commonly known as Red Shirts for their distinctive colored clothing.

"What we are trying to do is trying to survive. There are 820 warrants for arrest, for Red leaders nationwide. I think just slightly over one-third have been arrested," Mr. Boonpracong, 60, said in an interview.

The military also hauled him in, for six hours of interrogation at the army's headquarters in Bangkok, he said.

Ratchaprasong intersection at the height of the Red Shirts' insurrection.
(Photo copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich)

"They wanted to find out how I came to join the movement, and what was my relationship. They asked what the military wanted to know about the UDD."

The army does not want the Reds to create a domestic or international tribunal to investigate the government and military for its use of armored personnel carriers, U.S. and Israeli assault rifles, and other weapons to crush the insurrection which ultimately ended on May 19, he said.

"I think the army is trying to intimidate us, to not form what we call 'this hearing', for the deaths and the wounded."

As a result of the bloody crackdown, the Reds' UDD is now in limbo.

"We have not met, and we have not been doing anything as an organization.

"We are all on our own, without an organization. Our office has closed down," Mr. Boonpracong said.

"All top 10 [Red] leaders are on the run, or are arrested. Several of them are in jail. We don't coordinate. Essentially we don't exist. We don't exist."

During their nine-week protest, which began peacefully on March 12, the Reds demanded Parliament be immediately dissolved, and elections be held.

They hoped to elect candidates who would help pardon convicted fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra, who was their popularly elected prime minister until the U.S.-trained military toppled him in a 2006 bloodless coup.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who took office in December 2008, survived in power by obliterating the Reds' blockade, but the government and military now fear another uprising by frustrated Reds.

Thailand on July 6 extended its harsh "state of emergency" on about 25 percent of the country, including Bangkok, and continues to seize Red leaders and other suspects, for alleged "terrorism" and other crimes.

"The government's use of terrorism charges to go after Red Shirt leaders, as well as Thaksin, is inappropriate for what was mostly a peaceful political movement that did not target civilians," said the Belgium-based International Crisis Group on July 5.

The "draconian" emergency decree conveniently also "grants officials immunity from prosecution," the ICG said.

The military's recently created Center for Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) said Thailand was "unstable" on July 5, because a "distortion of facts and information continues, and missing weapons have not been returned to security agencies" after some Reds seized guns and ammunition during street clashes.

The government said most Red protesters were peaceful, but a mysterious, unidentified group used weapons against the military and staged arson attacks during the siege, possibly duping naive Reds and using them as a front during an attempted violent power grab.

The Royal Thai Army used armored personnel carriers to smash the Red Shirts' barricades on May 19, ending their occupation of Bangkok's Ratchaprasong area.
(Photo copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich)

Meanwhile, here inside a small secretive room, Thai police monitor a slew of closed-circuit TV (CCTV) cameras which expose the upscale streets where thousands of Red Shirts lived for weeks behind barricades made of bamboo poles and tires, until military gunfire forced them out on May 19.

The police cameras now show the Ratchaprasong area filled with passive shoppers, tourists and vehicles, after cleaners removed bloodstains, burnt rubble, graffiti, and bullet holes.

"We have 68 cameras in the Ratchaprasong area, and there will be more cameras installed," said

the Ratchaprasong Square Trade Association's president, Chai Srivikorn, in an interview.

During their blockade, Red Shirts tied plastic bags over many of the earlier installed CCTV cameras, blinding police monitors, Mr. Chai said.

To thwart such civil disobedience in future, technicians are installing better cameras high atop Ratchaprasong's tall buildings and "other places where they cannot reach," and using wireless cameras with "a very high zoom power" to observe everyone along the two-kilometer commercial zone where the Reds were encamped behind barricades, he said.

The army fought its way toward the occupied Ratchaprasong intersection on May 19, killing Reds and clearing the streets.
(Photo copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich)

"If it is an organized movement, they [protesters] will identify any camera that they can reach.

"So to defend them, and make that more secure, it has to be high up where they cannot access. So that's why we have to put more cameras there."

Ratchaprasong's cameras and operating costs are privately paid for by building owners, but stream digital video only to police, he said.

The government "plans for 10,000 cameras" to be installed elsewhere across Bangkok, including where other deadly clashes occurred.

"But that is a different [system], it is more like at intersections" to monitor large crowds and traffic, Mr. Chai said.

For Thais and foreigners not directly involved in the Reds' uprising, life is relatively normal though some sectors of the economy took a severe hit, especially tourism which is suffering from cancelled arrivals, low hotel occupancy, and a painful ricochet to related businesses such as restaurants, transportation, and handicrafts.

Real estate speculation and fresh foreign investment have also sagged, prompting Thailand's regional rivals -- including Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia -- to woo international cash which might be looking for a safer haven.

Thai and foreign media, meanwhile, is being lashed by complaints from both sides of bias, with the officials complaining that too soft an approach is given to the Reds, while the protesters claim the government's expensive, international public relations campaign is demonizing their struggle.

One media activist group, Freedom Against Censorship in Thailand (FACT) has access to its website (facthaiwordpress.com) blocked from within Thailand.

Thousands of other websites are also reportedly censored, with no explanation except a notice appearing on users' screens which states in Thai and convoluted English:

"An access to such information has been temporarily ceased due to the order of the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) under the authority of emergency decree."

Pro-Red radio, TV and print publications are also restricted.

Prime Minister Abhisit told the British Broadcasting Corp (BBC) the ban was necessary, because the Reds' media has "been involved in incitement of violence. That's not something I think the country can afford."

Previously the Reds' extensive media network published graphic scenes of troops shooting protesters, bloody documentation of dead and injured victims, strident speeches by demonstrators, Red leaders and Mr. Thaksin, plus rumors and innuendo maligning the government.

Mr. Abhisit also justified extending the state of emergency and said, "We need to restore order, the last thing we need now is a repeat of violence or clashes."

Each day, the government defends its state of emergency by insisting the Reds remain a threat.

For example, the Reds' UDD allegedly ran three weapons-training camps in the countryside, which have now been identified, said Prime Minister Abhisit's Democrat Party spokesman, Tepthai Senpong on July 7.

The camps were said to be in isolated hills, accessible by narrow dirt trails, including along the Thai-Burma border where the Reds allegedly enjoyed help from Burma's minority ethnic Karen Christian guerrillas.

"I think the information we have is enough for the authorities to follow up," Mr. Tepthai said.

It is difficult to know how many people have been detained, because some have "disappeared" either into jail or on the run, but the Reds estimate more than 200 are currently behind bars while others are being hunted.

Court cases will eventually be filed against those who can be indicted, the government said, though that process is expected to be slow, especially in cases where officials want to press "terrorism" charges and need to find evidence to support prosecution.

Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist who has reported news from Asia since 1978. He is co-author of "Hello My Big Big Honey!", a non-fiction book of investigative journalism. His web page is

http://www.asia-correspondent.110mb.com

(Copyright 2010 Richard S Ehrlich)

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