Thailand Red Shirts debacle just like a movie

Thailand’s Red Shirt debacle is straight out of the movies if you stop and think about it. Unfortunately the movies that have the same plot line tend to be invasion war movies.

There are a number of movies that follow this theme of war. Even the story of the Trojan Horse has a similar theme. A rowdy group visits the big city under the pretext of being just loud and harmless. Then they start to invade and set up bases around the city. When asked to leave they show their true face as invaders and become violent. When the military surrounds them to box them in, they attack the military. Then when the military moves to drive the invaders out they burn the city.

So what now of the sequel is the question. Does the movie become a TV series that is milked for several TV seasons, or does it come to an eventual end? Will the Red Shirts or other Thaksin funded supporters be banned from rallies in Bangkok or all of Thailand for that matter? Certainly that makes a lot of sense at least until they pay for the damage they have caused. However that decision is actually up to the courts, and that will be decided if a solid link to Thaksin can be proven. With hundreds of millions of unexplained Baht in the bank accounts of Red Shirt leaders, Helen Keller could probably find the Thaksin link fairly easily with her cane.

So what we are saying is this will now fall to the judicial branch of government for it to be within the scope of democracy. So the courts could set up any number of requirements the Red Shirts would have to meet before they are allowed to rally again. A huge security deposit of Billions of Baht may be required to offset damage is one such option if the next generation of leaders takes the helm, and that is likely the case as this bunch of Red Shirt leaders are not likely to see the light of day again.

On another note, the calls to hold talks with Thaksin are just in bad taste and heighten the level of anger. It would also cause the Thai government to somehow seem weaker. But based on the events of this month, there are a lot more people hunting Thaksin today than at the start of the month.

As it would be, those new Thaksin hunters are not all Thai. In fact a significant percentage are not Thai. When people connected that using children as human shields is not beyond what Thaksin would do, he opened the door to angry mobs from any country he would hide in. In fact it is fairly easy now to close your eyes and see Thaksin getting lynched by an angry mob of parents at a shopping mall. The universal simmering anger generated by terrorists can easily be bridged to Thaksin now, and that is not a good thing for Thaksin. It is a bit ironic that the fate of Thailand could be decided by a group of non Thai shoppers in a shopping mall in another country.


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