After seeing the news reports that matched Connecting the Dots earlier predictions, it is now obvious the intent of the Red shirt rallies is to cause violence and chaos and not to protest. This has nothing at all to do with democracy or politics and everything to do with treason.
As the prefixes to Thaksin Shinawatra’s name continue to shrink in positive titles and grow in negative titles, the convicted fugitive, traitor now looks to solidly add treasonist to that prefix list. The difference between The April 2009 riots and what looks to happen now is the April riots were made to look spontaneous. However now the pending December riots are marketed as a battle.
With the announcement of military style tactics of disbursement by the Red shirts, it is very obvious violence is planned and will not be spontaneous. This is very clearly a counter tactic to being boxed in by police and military at a single rally site. If violence was not planned, being boxed in would be irrelevant.
Because Thaksin’s style is to multi task and to have more aces up his sleeve than there are in the deck and he never plays by the rules, expect the unexpected. Pro-Thaksin elements in the military are likely to come into play as well as dormant elements in the government and police. Thaksin most likely has been busy buying people over the last 6 months, of that there is little doubt but also little proof. This again is a classic Thaksin signature and tactic.
It is also very likely Thaksin will physically be in Cambodia when all of this goes down. If it looks like he is coming out on top he will need to be in close proximity to Thailand to jump in and take over as doing so remotely has proven to be a handicap for him.
This certainly is being motivated by deadlines and the likely court ruling that will send billions of ill gotten Bhat that are presently in Thaksin’s bank accounts flying away to government coffers. Those rulings are due sometime in December.
As for risk to the government, this is clearly the most significant threat to date as this is not a democratic protest, it is open war with intent to overthrow and physically harm government officials and looks to happen on the streets of Bangkok.
As for tourists and businesses, they clearly support The governments move to surround and quench the violence. So unless tourists are at or near the red shirts, they will be oblivious to the events unless a little tear gas drifts their way. Perhaps using laughing gas would be better in this case.
