For some time now, Thailand has been seeing a division of the country along political lines. The rich and the entitled feel that the poor are voting adversely, supporting a populist former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. They detest his policies, and were sore that he was voted in as the leading vote-getter, and his party having won the most seats in Parliament. After some time of simmering tension, the sale of his telecom company to a Singapore company was enough to set off the tension, and he was deposed in a military coup in 2006. However, even though his party was disbanded, a cobbled together version of his supporters won the maximum seat and came to power again.

continue reading "Thais protests ongoing"

Thailand has been going through some severe problems till now, a classic case of democracy under test. It has been argued by many people at different periods of time that democracy should not be fully open, that a rule of the people is colored by the problem that the mass is swayed by emotions or other such feelings to elect a person who in turn is not appropriate for ruling the country. Some classic cases that have been quoted in the past have been the election of the Islamists in Algeria, the election of Hamas, and the election of some of the South American leaders and African leaders, many of whom have caused their country great problems. Many of Thailand’s opposition leaders are saying the same thing about the current prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, who is accused of being a puppet of the previous Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra (a truly polarizing figure in Thai politics), a person who won (and continues to win) the hearts and the votes of people in the rural area, and was massively disliked / hated by people in the cities because of his policies (and who was eventually uprooted by the military). For the past few weeks, Samak Sundaravej has been facing a massive demonstration by people opposed to him who have even occupied his offices and forced him to hold cabinet meetings elsewhere.
And now he is under threat because of a very different reason – he is under a court threatened dismissal because of his having a running TV cooking show, and for which he had taken payments from a private company. It is illegal for a Prime Minister to receive money from a private company, and his detractors are looking at this as an opportunity to finally get rid of him, although it is unclear whether he will eventually go even if the court finds him guilty (he could resign, and then be re-nominated by his party for the post). He is meanwhile roaming around the countryside, locations where his predecessor was very popular:

continue reading "Thailand’s continuing problems over Premier Samak Sundaravej"

Seems like a very obvious statement to make, given how China has reacted in the past. Ever since China took over Tibet in 1951, it has been extremely touchy about any external reaction on Tibet, dismissing all reaction as being an interference with its internal affairs. A lot of it is due to how China’s Communist politicians decipher any external reaction – any reaction from a politician outside China is seen as interference, not to be tolerated. The other part of the reaction is internal politics. China’s political system, with the politburo being at the peak of the political system, is in a system of constant tension. Any sign of relaxation, of letting things go out of control, or of letting people start to lead a protest, can lead to a weakening of the position of the President, and maybe slowly start his fall. The past history of Zhao Ziyang, who made the ‘mistake’ of being sympathetic to student protesters in 1988, and was then overthrown and put under house arrest until his death in 2005 (17 years later). Even after death, there was no mourning allowed for him. This is the precedent that any China leader would want to avoid. Hu was the leader in charge of Tibet at the time of the last protest in 1988, and he was the one who made his name by suppressing the protest; and it was even more impressive politically for him because he did in a fairly ruthless manner. Read what he said:

continue reading "Hu affirms that Tibet will continue to be suppressed"

It is being reported that China is currently upto its usual practice of repression. Nobody can really forget the Tienanmen Square massacre of 1989 where China employed its soldiers and military machine to murder thousands of its own young citizens in cold blood. After that, China employed the same tactics against the practitioners of the Falun Gong sect (for some reason, seeing these members as being against the Communist party), and quite recently, China has been using its heavy-handed tactics to put down the frequent protests by the various rural citizens across the country (protesting against the repression, land-grab and corruption of the Communist Party). So, it would not surprise anyone if even the hint of a protest by Tibeteans leads to large-scale suppression. After all, China annexed Tibet in 1951, and ever since then, it is has been trying to assimilate Tibet through trying to put down Tibet’s culture, its leader (the Dalai Lama is a strict no-no for anybody trying to get into China’s good books), and by moving the main Han Chinese into Tibet. In the wake of all this, it is still surprising that Tibeteans even try to protest. Well, this is the week when a protest and the put-down by China have been making worldwide news:

continue reading "China up to its regular repression – this time in Tibet"