Enemy of the state 9 - Guerrillas, Abhisit and CRES

“The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.” Henry Kissinger


Some time ago an international correspondent friend and I were warning of a major problem in the North and Northeast. It was shortly after the coup we both thought may be a prelude to a civil war or popular uprising. Both of us received a lot of flack for our stand and comments. In retrospect it probably sounded absurd but may well be close to inevitable at this point. After all these years I’ve adjusted my thinking a bit. Now I do not feel there will be a full blown civil war, in the strict sense of the word, but rather a protracted Guerrilla war fought more like the southern insurgency which has proved almost impossible for the Thai Military to control.

After April 10th, 2010 Abhisit Vejjajiva should have done the right thing, manned up and taken his own advice.

On 8 October 2008 he was pressing for an inquiry into the violence in the actions taken by the police to clear PAD protesters leaving many injuries and a couple of deaths, none from bullet wounds. He loudly called on the government to admit responsibility for its handling of the People's Alliance Democracy (PAD) demonstration. In a statement, party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said he would no longer help the four-party discussion to find political solutions for the country unless the government investigated the order for police to suppress the rally earlier in the day.

Fast Forward to April. All calls by the PTP for Abhisit to hold an inquiry into the brutal April 10th crackdown or for him and Deputy PM Suthep to take responsibility for the actions taken against the UDD protesters have so far fallen on deaf ears.

“Whoever stands by a just cause cannot possibly be called a terrorist” Yasser Arafat

With the Prime Minister’s reluctance to take responsibility, he again ordered yet another evens more brutal and oppressive crackdown on the protesters. This time resorting to using snipers who, from many reports, fired on unarmed civilians. This was rationalized by the Abhisit administration and CRES by labelling the Reds as Terrorists. Along with this campaign to vilify the protesters the government embarked on a campaign to spread the word that the Reds were not loyal to the Palace and to censor all media that was opposed to the government. This amounted to closing more radio stations, the Reds TV station and blocking countless websites. The government and the CRES almost stole the script from previous times when bloody crackdowns were preceded by attacks against the protesters as not loyal to the Palace and they were all communists. This is despicable and shows a total disregard for the rights and freedoms of the people of Thailand.

Once the latest crackdown was in operation you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what would happen next. We had a preview a year ago, but this time the radicals in the UDD were more organized. These elements in the UDD not having any leadership, as they were all arrested, ran amuck, burning and pillaging. If this is a shock to anyone then you must have your head in the sand. Losses were exacerbated by the CRES having turned off the water in the area, to make the protesters suffer, rendering the building’s fire protection systems inoperable.

OOPS!

I’ve always said and had this reinforced in March when I personally surveyed five provinces in the North asking people what they thought about the Reds. The government has underestimated badly the support and conviction of the Reds in the North and Northeast. So badly in fact, that some of the radical elements in the Reds, who were reigned in by the leadership of the UDD, have now begun to move underground. I’ve also warned about this happening but no one listened, sometimes it‘s not all that rewarding to be right.

So where does that bring us. If things stay as they are now you can expect a Southern insurgency type operation from the radical elements. You will likely see roving bombings and shootings possibly aimed at Bangkok, PAD elements or non aligned politicians.

Abhisit can no longer reconcile with the North and Northeast. It’s no longer safe for him and some of his government to travel in over half the country, without a huge security operation. If the Reds do happen to get their hands on him, as almost happened last year, he would likely not escape unscathed.

It looks very much like a protracted armed Guerrilla war will be in Thailand’s future. Arms are cheap and easy to acquire. With most of the diehard Guerrilla’s already having received 2 years Military training from the Army, as conscripts, you can also expect things to be a lot bloodier than in the South with targeting of individuals deemed to be enemies of the Guerrillas. They will probably act as individual cells, like is used by Al-Qaeda.

“I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.” 'Che' Guevara

The Abhisit government, or their proxy, set this ball rolling down the steep slippery slope when they assassinated Seh Daeng, the Reds Military strategist, setting the ground rules for future confrontations. If the underground Reds feel that double standards are being used to single out or persecute Reds you could see swift movement by them.

I don’t think that it’s too late to defuse the situation but for any real reconciliation to happen Abhisit would have to step down and Suthep would probably have to retire from politics. It will be interesting to see what happens with the non confidence debate put forward by the PTP. The smaller coalition members may well side with the PTP otherwise they may have little chance of winning re-election as they will be lumped with the Democrats who cracked down so brutally on the UDD and have won no friends for it in the North and Northeast.

“One Man's Terrorist Is Another Man's Freedom Fighter”