If you step back far enough to see the time line of events in Thailand starting from December 31, 2006 to today, you will see what looks like war with sporadic battles with death and bloodshed, and not simple disagreements between two political parties. So is there any wonder why other countries and major companies have cold feet about investments in Thailand.
This is just one of those things that suddenly hits you. At first you see them as isolated events and do not give them much thought. A Politically motivated series of bombs on new years eve started it off. And every few months or so something else violent happens. The list is actually long and a variety of targets have been attacked. The only constant is the people initiating the attacks are in some way associated with the now convicted fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra.
Each attack is spaced far enough apart so that they seem to be a separate and isolated incident. But now looking back, there is enough of them to show a clear pattern of war. So to rephrase a situation, the attacks coming from Thaksin are not political, they are in fact acts of war using what could be accurately described as a militia. The term ‘Thaksin’s red shirt army’ that has been loosely used as a catch phrase, is in fact an army seeking to overthrow the government by any means.
By looking at Thailand’s situation in the light of war and Thaksin being the commander of the red shirt militia, Thailand’s government may have a bit more leverage with countries that may host Thaksin. In short military attacks on Thailand’s government are being initiated by Thaksin from another country, and in reality they can no longer be classified as political attacks. Taking it one step further, Thaksin is simply now a warlord.
Political attacks involve swaying the opinion of the voters to unseat one or more politicians. The loss of life and spilling of blood simply do not meet the criteria of politics. In the United States, the Secretary of State sees to politics, and the Secretary of war sees to killing or maiming. So what is going on in Thailand falls more under the Secretary of War jurisdiction and not the Secretary of State.
That may open doors and get the United Nations involved in bringing Thaksin to justice. If a country hosts Thaksin during one of his attacks, technically the hosting government is seen to be supporting the attack on the Thai government, and certainly qualifies getting the United Nations involved for extra leverage.
The attack on the ASEAN Summit in Pattaya was nothing short of a military assault on politicians from several countries. The riots that followed in the days after that required the Royal Thai Army to put it down. And at the moment warlord Thaksin is busy building for yet another attack. The proposed location for the next red shirt rally on August 30 is not neutral, but essentially it is exactly the same venue that lead to the April riots. So it is fair to assume the intent of the rally is to incite more violence as the alleged reason for the rally also matches that of the April riots.
So essentially there is enough evidence to take this to an entirely new level, and few would dispute that it could be justified if the Thai government decided to push the issue. The United Nations would usually respond with some strongly worded resolution or sanctions against the offending country. With the Asian branch of the United Nations located in Bangkok, there is not much need for explaining as they have seen Thaksin related events happen literally 100 meters outside their front door.
