| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Tuttles Almanac" |
| Date: |
13 Mar 2006 08:00:47 PM |
| Object: |
Over 100,000 Protest Thailand "Port Sale" |
100,000 descend on billionaire leader to seek his resignation
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-2084236,00.html
AT LEAST 100,000 Thai protesters,
led by barefoot monks carrying portraits
of the King and Queen, marched on Government House
in Bangkok this morning demanding the immediate
resignation of Thaksin Shinawatra, the Prime Minister.
The protesters, bearing Thai flags and chanting
anti-Government slogans, walked at dawn past
monuments commemorating the country’s past
struggles for democracy.
“This is people power,” boomed loudspeakers
mounted on a truck. “We are united. This
Government has no moral authority. If you’re free,
people join us and make political history.”
The protest was the largest and most vociferous so
far in the intensifying political crisis and blocked
rush-hour traffic from roads around government
ministries in the city.
But despite rumours of an imminent government
crackdown and the presence of 20,000 watchful
police, the march was peaceful and disciplined as
it approached Government House. Tourists and
local people in other parts of the capital went
about their business.
A demonstration by a few hundred supporters of
Mr Thaksin was kept away from the protest.
“I pray that they won’t meet at Government House,”
Ajiravid Subarnbhesaj, the national police
spokesman, said.
The campaign to unseat the Prime Minister has
opened deep and dangerous divisions in Thailand,
previously regarded as one of the more stable
nations in South-East Asia.
Mr Thaksin is a former police officer who became
a billionaire as head of the Shin Corporation, a
mobile phone and media conglomerate. His Thai
Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party came to power
in 2001. Last year he was re-elected with 377 out
of the parliament’s 500 seats.
He draws his support from the countryside, where
two thirds of Thais live. By setting up “village funds”,
which provide cheap loans to farmers, and
by providing health care for a fixed price of 30 baht
(44 pence) per hospital visit, he has won a
devoted following among a population that
formerly felt itself to be unrepresented.
Among much of the urban middle class, however,
he has become a bête noire, caricatured as a
fork-tongued lizard, and his enemies accuse him of
using his great wealth to compromise human rights
and freedom of the press and of undermining the
Constitution.
His “war on drugs” led to the deaths of 2,000
alleged dealers, Mr Thaksin’s friends and
associates have gained commercial control over
much of the broadcast media and he is accused of
loading the judiciary and election commission with
cronies.
But the simmering discontent came to the boil in
January when he announced the sale of
Shin Corporation to the investment arm of the
Singaporean Government for 77.3 billion bhat
(£1.14 billion). Not only was a strategic industry
being sold to a foreign power, it also emerged that
Mr Thaksin’s family had managed to avoid paying
any tax on the sale.
Three weeks ago Mr Thaksin seized the initiative
by calling a general election for April 2. The
opposition parties, who know that he could expect
to win another majority, have boycotted it in the
hope of rendering it invalid. Both sides have
refused to compromise, provoking fears of street
fighting between their supporters or a police or
military crackdown similar to that which left 50
anti-government demonstrators dead during the
last big political crisis, in 1992.
Thaksin's record
Village development
For: cheap loans and healthcare have revitalised villages
Against: Has left the rural poor with a burden of debt and
created dependency
Human rights
For: campaign against drug dealers wiped out a
corrosive social problem; tough approach in south
has shown an intolerance of terrorism
Against: drug war has been pretext for thousands
of extrajudicial killings
The media
For: TV reflects his overwhelming popularity
Against: TV channels under control of Thaksin
supporters have stifled critical coverage
The Government
For: practical "chief executive" style has brought
much-needed decisiveness
Against: has appointed cronies and undermined
independence of the State
_______________________________________
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