Crackdown in Bangkok(not for faint hearted)


ninelives

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Jan 16, 2002
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warning: dead bodies everywhere.

Earlier today, soldiers from the Thai Army broke down barricades and entered the fortified camp occupied by anti-government Red Shirt protesters for the past several weeks in downtown Bangkok. Several clashes took place, and Red Shirt leaders announced to their followers that they were surrendering to police as the soldiers approached. Many protesters dispersed, but some continued to battle with grenades, guns, slingshots and fire, setting as many as 20 locations ablaze in central Bangkok. At this stage, it is unclear how many have been killed or injured, but at least five are known to have died, with dozens more injured. Thai authorities have imposed a curfew as they battle fires, process detainees and clear the rest of the Red Shirt encampment. (39 photos total)

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/crackdown_in_bangkok.html
 

Heart wrenching photos... my heart goes to those who lost their life in this episode... Let there be peace from now on.....
 

Sigh.... I hope whoever started this mess can do something about it. What is the point of fighting when innocent lives are lost. There seems to be no end to it. Who knows if 2 years from now the yellow shirts will start another fight if the red shirts win this time?

Please stop losing innocent lives. Nothing is more precious than lives.
 

Love the quality of photos... even in a moment of life and death the photo journalist still able to take breath taking shots! kudos to all the photographers and journalist!!:thumbsup:
 

(*cries) Yup this world is going crazy. Learned frm bio tht this is part of wad we know as mass extinction.
 

hmm. i noticed a super outstanding canon neckstrap. but i digress.

my take on this situation. stuff has never been more messy than this. thailand having so much probs, nkorea and south too. so many stuff happening.
i dunno but i sense more stuff are still gonna happen.
 

superb coverage of the tragic event in photos. really salute to those photojournalists who risked their own lives for this... :thumbsup:
 

Can anyone spot any picture were taken by tongtung ?
Most probably this year's pulitzer prize will come from Thailand.
For most, some might not have seen those pictures of the N-S Vietnam turbulence where the monk set themselves as human torch or when the napalm bomb wipe out the whole village. It lasted for ten years, but yet the numbers of journalist casualties can't compare to that of the Iraq invasion which lasted only three years.
As days goes by, the end is drawing nearer.

Just couln't understand, a country which claim by visitors worldwide as friendly nation, can just turn cold blood and start killing their own fellow countrymen just bcoz of different political stand point.
 

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Just couln't understand, a country which claim by visitors worldwide as friendly nation, can just turn cold blood and start killing their own fellow countrymen just bcoz of different political stand point.


BBC has given a very good summary of the Reds and Yellow camps and what they stand for.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8004306.stm
 

very good coverage with a good eye by the photographer.
 

Oh, now it is topical and in the news. But only for a while. 1 month later something else will be hogging the news.

According to the Internet article, there is an ancient prophecy that the dynasty will only last 9 kings.
The present king is the 9th one.
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15718981

About the crack down...oh again nothing new. Others have done similar before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_1905
What happened in Russia after that is history.

Political opportunists abound. They wear a certain colour shirt and pretend to have instant legitimacy by claiming to be on the side of the royalty, to further their own agenda.

You still have a chance if people bother to peacefully protest.
When people protest, it means they still look up to you as the authority. They still respect you.
If you violently put them down, they will not bother to protest anymore. Not because they fear you. But because you lost the moral authority and they do not respect you anymore. So no point in protesting. When violently silenced, they return to their rural villages and they and their families start to nurture an enduring sense of injustice and hatred. They keep their feelings bottled up. In the violent crackdown, the wealthy elite has lost the hearts and minds of the rural poor. They cannot repair the rift. Rural Thais (population 63 million of which 60+% are rural folks) may begin to develop this frame of mind. What if much later they have new leaders who are not as peaceful minded as the present ones.

It does not bode well for the future.

Already the Muslim south is restless. Now you have the north that is angry. What if both want autonomy.

Ironically, the violent crackdown has damaged the image of the royalty too, as it did not intervene to stop the killing.
 

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I hope this dun destroy Mabukong my fav shopping centre
 

Something does not add up.

It has been said that Thaksin is close to the Crown Prince.
If the Crown Prince becomes King, then it is likely that Thaksin (or Thaksin's annointed follower) may be reinstalled as the PM.
And the judges replaced with another crop of judges. If that scenario happens, someone (you know who) may later be hauled to court to face mass murder charges over the large number of civilian killings in the crackdown.

So in removing Thaksin in 2006 and then later engineering this crackdown, is some extremely powerful shadowy group actually trying to prevent the Crown Prince from becoming King after the monarch passes on?

Getting too complicated for my simple mind.

When watching the TV news, sometimes it looks as though some one is controlling the monarchy, behind the scene. Maybe we are too imaginative.
 

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Something does not add up.

It has been said that Thaksin is close to the Crown Prince.
If the Crown Prince becomes King, then it is likely that Thaksin (or Thaksin's annointed follower) may be reinstalled as the PM.
And the judges replaced with another crop of judges. If that scenario happens, someone (you know who) may later be hauled to court to face mass murder charges over the large number of civilian killings in the crackdown.

So in removing Thaksin in 2006 and then later engineering this crackdown, is some extremely powerful shadowy group actually trying to prevent the Crown Prince from becoming King after the monarch passes on?

Getting too complicated for my simple mind.

When watching the TV news, sometimes it looks as though some one is controlling the monarchy, behind the scene. Maybe we are too imaginative.


well u nvr knows. maybe there is really some ppl who do not want the crown prince to ascend the throne.