As for me, the best kind of traveling for Pico Iyer, the travel writer, is when he is searching for something he never finds. “The physical aspect of travel is for me,” he says “the least interesting…what really draws me is the prospect of stepping out of the daylight of everything I know, into the shadows of what I don’t know and may never will. We travel, some of us, to slip through the curtain of the ordinary, and into the presence of whatever lies just outside our apprehension…” he goes on to say. “I fall through the gratings of the conscious mind and into a place that observes a different kind of logic.”

Being a wanderer, says Alain de Botton in “The Art of Travel”, crossing different lands among people who speak languages strange to one’s ear…meditating dreamily to the rhythm of train wheels, allowing the sounds of the world to be one’s mantra, enables one to grow…to transcend one’s known life. The silence of being alone (much like being on retreat in a monastery) without the ease of familiarity allows one to stand outside oneself… large sublime views and new smells revealing new thoughts and emotions…thrilling or disappointing aspects of oneself…here-to-for hidden from one’s awareness.

If we find poetry in tattered old men weaving home on bicycles, a grateful charm in smiling young country girls… and a shared intimacy in the look of recognition in the eyes of kindred travelers we have found “an alternative to the ease, habits and confinement of the ordinary rooted world.”

Introspective reflections revealed by  new places and people much different than us may reveal hidden thrilling or disappointing aspects of ourselves.  Thrilled by finally learning the geopolitics of another people and learning that there are many valid ways of living in the world other than ours.  Disappointed at discovering we have limits to our tolerance for what we judge as inefficient or unsanitary.  So as another travel writer says “it is not necessarily [only] at home that we encounter our true selves. “The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we [think] we are in ordinary life…who may not be who we essentially are,” says the author.

I love to travel alone. Traveling companions can keep us tethered to our predefined idea of ourselves. They may expect certain reactions from us that obligates us…underneath our awareness…forces us to accommodate in a way that feels unnatural. Or in our companion’s desire to have their own experiences, they may not have the patience to reciprocate and share. In traveling alone we are free to connect with what and whom comes our way.  We are more approachable.

Robert Young Pelton nailed it for me though when he said in his “World’s Most Dangerous Places” “living is (partly) about adventure and adventure is about elegantly surfing the tenuous space between lobotomized serenity and splattered-bug terror and still being in enough pieces to share the lessons learned with your grandkids. Adventure is about using your brain, body and intellect to weave a few bright colors in the world’s dull, gray fabric…”

The purpose of his book, he says, “is to get your head screwed on straight, your sphincter unpuckered and your nose pointed in the right direction.”

I retired in 2002, rented out the house long term and “went on the road.” I traveled for the next four years but then got sick of piling on and off buses, trains, planes, taxis, boats and all other manner of transportation…and packing and unpacking.

I returned to the states and for 4 months went from the computer to the TV and back again. One day, I thought, I could just die in this chair. Go for a walk? Where? Around the neighborhood block? Have to get in your car…and then go where? A coffee shop? I was bored to death. Not that there are not a jillion activities I could have participated in. But why? I felt I had done all I wanted to do there. Bored by a country I had spent 60 years in and bored by a town I spent 40 years in. I am not attached to the place and the culture….although I do miss incredibly sweet raspberries and strawberries in the spring and cherries and peaches in the fall…picked by migrants from here and sold cheaply in the US due to their cheap labor.

One son is in Hong Kong, one in Thailand and one in Las Vegas. No grandchildren. My grandparents immigrated from Poland and Ireland but died before or just after I was born…no extended family to speak of and the ones I have are all ranchers in Montana…a physical and intellectual world away.

My friends and former co-workers are scattered from “hell to breakfast” as we say.   Generally speaking, with only one or two weeks of vacation a year,  Americans don’t frequently travel outside the country.  So, “Oh,” you say, “in Thailand…” And then the veil comes down over the eyes and that is the end of that!

Many of my friends that I have now, I met on the road and keep in frequent contact through skype, email and Facebook. I have learned that “community” doesn’t have to be a physical place. It can be virtual. Guess I have, as Pico Iyer puts it…a “global soul.”

No roots to speak of…in a physical sense. I HAVE learned, however, after witnessing incredible poverty and injustice in the world, to value much more all those things (my roots) we as Americans take for granted…but they are internalized and remain with me wherever I live…independence, self-sufficiency, efficiency, innovation, freedom of thought and speech, an appreciation for the rule of law and government with relative separation of powers and relative lack of collusion and corruption. I said “relative.”

So…long story short…what I realized I wanted now, was a daily life that was interesting and full of small enjoyments. And to search for an understanding of a culture I will never find. So I moved to Oaxaca. I chose Oaxaca because it is in the mountains which I love and the weather is temperate year round. I also chose Oaxaca because I had worked with many farmworkers in Oregon who were from here and I found the people to be real.

Music everywhere. Rockets, fireworks going off. Church bells to wake you up in the morning. Processions, Fiestas. Protest marches, daily walks around the Centro…(I have arthritis so I need to walk) always discovering new little cafes and other places of business. And am trying to understand that when my Mexican friend says “I will see you manana he may mean tomorrow, next week or next month or never! Ha!)

I am learning to cook “Oaxacan” so going to a different little market for specialty items…mole and rare chilis at the Merced, Friday market tienges in Llano Park for meat and vegetables is a joy. A hundred small vendors selling everything you can imagine…and great chivo (BBQ goat) with consumme or tacos with hand-made tortillas.  I love to feed my friends and couchsurfers and watch them delight over estofado or mole.

Five blocks to the tree-filled Zocalo (plaza) where I can sit for hours in one of the little sidewalk cafes surrounding it over coffee or beer with friends who wonder by…both local and expat. There are 16 different indigenous groups from small mountain villages that are easily accessible whether 1 hour or 7 hours away. Or I just sit on my veranda overlooking a lovely park to read. Or the news junkie that I am, peruse the internet for the latest via my WiFi…amid wafts of dance music coming from the nearby cultural center.  Or visit with a friend over Pechuga Mescal. On Saturday and Sunday mornings I watch people practicing Tai Chi in the park below. Or video-skype one of my sons.

And then there is learning and practicing the language…a challenge to keep the brain from totally disintegrating.

Of course my social security and pension goes farther here. But it’s not the reason I am here.  Friends in the U.S. say” but why do you want to live in Mexico?  It is so poor!”  You don’t know poor until you’ve gone to India or black Africa.  Or they worry that I will get kidnapped or shot.  The narcos leave the tourists alone…they only kill each other or people who get in the way. And that is mainly in the border areas.  I feel very safe here.

I don’t know how long I will be here.  Much of it depends on my health. A debilitating or chronic condition would require me to go back to the states in order to be covered by medicare.  But for now, I enjoy the daily small things.  I still do travel periodically…mostly to Asia. In fact I just returned from 8 months away….6 of it in Thailand and Hong Kong.  But I live in a culture I will probably never understand.  It’s rewarding and enlivening to push my boundaries and try.

Taken from NarcoNews:

The Real Battle for Oaxaca: Who is Permitted to Earn Money, and Where?
“The lesser officials manage the street scene, but also the professionals, vendor bosses, who run a crew of ten or a dozen”

By Nancy Davies
Commentary from Oaxaca

August 17, 2009

A plague of ambulatory vendors annoy the tourists sipping cappuccinos in the Oaxaca zócalo. Beneath the cafe umbrellas vacationers, often with their families, don’t want to be pestered. They have disposable money; smart vendors head for the “whities”. The peddlers, here called ambulantes, have changed. A decade ago I could greet the same few — a family who sells homemade candy, Jorge who sells rebozos, AltaGracia who sells place-mats and table runners—all “inherited” their peddler’s licenses from parents, or so they tell me. During 2006, they suffered —no tourists, no sales. AltaGracia, a vital woman with a nice smile, lost almost all her teeth in the past two years.

Vendors waiting for permission

D.R. 2009 – Photos Nancy Davies
Who are the new ambulantes? Women from Chiapas, recognizable in wool wrap skirts and braided hair, selling beads and Chinese rubber chickens. Children follow behind, or if they’re nursing, nuzzle a breast and lunch on the go, like busy business-people must. Children vend by themselves if they are over eight or nine, thin-legged, endlessly circling in their plastic shoes. Others Oaxaqueños sell handmade wooden toys, or canes, or plastic necklaces.

On the corners the sellers of raspas station their ice-carts, and the popsicle vendors and soda vendors criss-cross the square.

Stationary vendors descend for any and all fiestas, to set up on the sidewalks their blouses and “hand-made” tourist goods, tortillas and comals for cooking food, oil cloth covered tables and iron benches or stools -a carnival atmosphere. In the background the blaring music. The permanent puestos (the booths which might or might not be taken down at night) smothered Bustamante Street, supplemented by sidewalk vendors with lettuce and radishes and fruits in season. Las Casas Street has been jammed for so long that I think of it as my favorite street, for its “true to life” confusion. The shopkeepers complain, probably with good reason —there’s hardly space to enter.

Welcome to hard times. The slippage of the Oaxaca (and Mexican) economy can be calculated by the numbers of vendors multiplied by the number of fiestas. Read the rest of this entry »

Wondering around in the Zocolo (plaza) Monday, my friend Paula, who has lived here before, was approached by some young girls with a questionaire for tourists and asked if she had been to the Guelaguetza…or if she had been to see the reenactment of the Princess Donaji legend or any other official  related event of which she had attended none.

But she announced that she HAD been in the Zocolo that morning when the Municipal Police ignominiously strutted in with their flak jackets, shields and rifles to throw the street vendors out, releasing tear gas,  injuring four, detaining eight (mostly local hippie looking jewelry-makers who were standing up for the rest of the vendors who are mostly indigenous people from the mountains)  and sending tourists and locals alike into a frightened flurry to get out of the way.

It is not clear whether the vendors had a permiso to be in the zocalo but this is not the first time they have been thrown out over the years.  Maybe they didn’t pay their mordida (bribe to the city)?  This happened at the same time that the out-going Governor was giving his welcoming speech at the Guelaguetza so I guess he figured most of the tourists wouldn’t witness what was happening in the zocalo.

Read the rest of this entry »

OMG narrow colonial streets are overrun with buses bringing dancers down from the mountains and by cars full of Mexican tourists. Calendas plug up what the cars don’t. Calendas are processions with a band with huge dancing 20 foot tall dressed figures with boys on stilts hidden inside leading a parade of costumed people. Got to be careful not to get hit by the flapping arms.

A bus ripped a hole in it’s fiberglass bumper turning the corner by my apartment the other day…and the night before a car hit another car and flipped over and slid down the sidewalk in front of the Arabia Cafe on the same corner…waking my house guest in the bedroom on that side of the apartment at 1am. A party of about 20 young men in the park from midnight until 5am kept her awake a few nights before that. I think she might be glad to leave next week. :))

Popular Guelaguetza (free), Governor’s Guelaguetza ($40US). The word Guelaguetza comes from the Zapotec language and is usually interpreted as the “reciprocal exchanges of gifts and service.” Communities from within the state of Oaxaca gather to present their regional culture in the form of dance, music, costumes and food.

Local indigenous groups traditionally perform these dances to fulfill their obligations to their Uses Y Costumbres organized communities which is called doing your “tequio.”

Oaxaca has a large indigenous population, 40 percent, compared to 15 percent for Mexico as a whole. Indigenous culture in the state remains strong in its own right, with over 300,000 people in the state who are monolingual in indigenous languages. The celebration dates back to before the arrival of the Spanish and remains a defining characteristic of Oaxacan culture. Its origins come from celebrations related to the worship of corn as Oaxaca is considered it’s birthplace.

As the festival became a bigger tourist attraction, there was an inevitable backlash from purists that saw the ancient traditions being used for commercial purposes. The 2005 decision by the PRI Governor to conduct two performances a day for each of the two Mondays, was perceived by many traditionalists as a blatant attempt accommodate more ticket purchasing tourists. So the “popular” Guelaguetza, or a return to the more spontaneous celebrations of the pre-Columbian era, was organized.

In Oaxaca, where there is conflict between some groups and the state, the festival can become a focal point of contention.

Due to protests in 2006 against the state government calling for the fraudulently elected Governor to step down, the state-sponsored Guelaguetza was not held up on the hill at the Cerro del Fortín as planned. The protests were led by the Asamblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca, an umbrella organization of teachers, human rights groups, political organizations, unions and others, which were met with state violence. Instead a free, “Popular Guelaguetza” was held by APPO.

The 2007 Governor’s celebration was again boycotted by APPO, and attempts to hold a Popular Guelaguetza were thwarted by government police repression. APPO members had barricaded the entrance to the Governor’s outdoor auditorium which resulted in the police killing of at least one and the disappearance of many others.

This year, the Governor attempted to build a protective cover over the stage of the state sponsored outdoor auditorium but it was not completed in time due to another boycott but also probably more by poor planning. Instead it will be held in an old baseball stadium. The Popular Guelaguetza is being held at an outdoor venue at the Technological University.

Well, that’s probably all you want to know about the Guelaguetza. Of more interest to many is the the annual Mescal Fair in Llano Park. $1.50 entrance fee and free samples from about 50 vendors. Whew!

Futbol, as Spanish speaking countries call it, is the national game in Mexico and all Latin American countries and Oaxaca is no exception.  Americans call it soccer, I think mostly to distinguish the game played with a round ball from the game played with an oblong pointy one that refuses to roll on the ground in a straight line. Apparently the word “soccer” was the original name for the game in England where it was invented but that’s another story you can find on the web.

My kids played soccer in grade school and my oldest banned me from the games for being too loud and embarrassing the heck out of him. So here in Oaxaca even I have found it difficult to avoid the mania.  But the audio of the vuvuzela I downloaded onto my iPhone was pretty sick.  I watched Serbia and Ghana…then expecting to see the Americans play (a game they won) SKY TV immediately replayed the Serbians!  What was that all about?!! I won’t even attempt to speculate.

The restaurants in the zocalo (plaza) have TV monitors facing the sidewalk cafes where mostly young people huddle together…those who don’t go to the bars to watch anyway or depending on the time of day or night the game occurs…and many of them are European language students.  Yesterday Uruguay played Germany. The Europeans were in the minority and rendered pretty mute by the locals urging on Uruguay…the underdog. A table of young French girls were oblivious…tentatively tasting the black mole with barely a drop on the tips of their knives.  It was fun watching the looks on their faces. Either they were famished or they loved it because afterward not a bit was left on the plates.

My son, the chef at the American Club in Hong Kong, is napping.  Tonight (or rather tomorrow) the final between Spain and Holland will air at 2am.  He will open the restaurant…featuring free hot dogs and hamburgers…for those intrepid souls who will stay up.  No fun watching by yourself on the couch in front of your home TV…side-line coaching with friends and a little testosterone thrown in adds much to the pleasure.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Ironically the 4th of July was also the day of Mexican state elections. Exit polls last night showed that the PRI, the corrupt party that has ruled Mexican politics for over 70 years, was voted out nearly all over Mexico and even in Oaxaca. Well. We’ll see if the actual vote counts are commensurate. If the PRI contests the vote results this will end up in the courts…if not also in the streets.

Criollo corn is under attack in Oaxaca.  Hand made criollo corn tortillas are the prize find for any foreign foodie and for all local Oaxacans.  Industrial corn tortillas taste like sandpaper.  This reads like a detective novel in which Monsanto’s Washington-based communications company uses “phantom” or fake sources to derail a biologist’s career because he was demonstrating that genetically modified corn has indeed infested criollo corn fields.  In other words, the industrialists are fighting natural corn from within in order to make farmers dependent upon their products.

Phantoms in the machine: GM corn spreads to Mexico
MARIE-MONIQUE ROBIN
July 3, 2010

I LANDED in Oaxaca, Mexico, in October 2006. Nestled in the heart of a lush landscape of green mountains, the city is considered one of the jewels of the country’s tourist industry. I was here, however, to investigate contaminated corn.

On November 29, 2001, the scientific journal Nature had published a study that created a stir and drew heavy fire from the St Louis headquarters of North American multinational agricultural corporation Monsanto – manufacturer of the world’s best-selling herbicide, Roundup, and the world’s leading producer of GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Signed by David Quist and Ignacio Chapela, two biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, it found that criollo (traditional) corn in Oaxaca had been contaminated by Roundup Ready and Bt genes. (Bacillus thuringiensis is a bacterium that produces a protein toxic to some insects. The gene inside the bacterium – the Bt gene – is added to seeds such as corn to create genetically modified crops.)

The news was particularly surprising because in 1998 Mexico had declared a moratorium on transgenic corn crops in order to preserve the extraordinary biodiversity of the plant, whose genetic cradle was Mexico. Grown since at least 5000BC, corn was the basic food for the Maya and Aztec peoples, who worshiped it as a sacred plant.

Travelling around the indigenous communities of Oaxaca, I encountered everywhere women drying magnificent ears of corn coloured pale yellow, white, red, violet, black, or an astonishing midnight blue. ”In the Oaxaca region alone, we have more than 150 local varieties,” said Secundino, a Zapotec Indian who was harvesting white corn by hand. ”This variety, for example, is excellent for making tortillas. Look at this ear: it has a very good size and fine kernels, so I’ll save it to plant next year.”

”You never buy seeds from outside?”

”No. When I have a problem, I exchange with a neighbour: I give him ears for him to eat and he gives me seeds. It’s old-fashioned barter.”

”Do you always make tortillas with local corn?”

”Yes, always,” he said with a smile. ”It’s more nourishing, because it’s of much better quality than industrial corn. Besides, it’s healthier, because we farm without chemical products.”

”Industrial corn” means the 6 million tonnes of corn that flood in every year from the United States, 40 per cent of which is transgenic (modified by the introduction of genetic material from another species).

”Look,” said Secundino, holding out in his hand like a gift a magnificent violet ear. ”This corn was my ancestors’ favourite.”

”It existed before the Spanish conquest?”

”Yes, and now there is another conquest.”

”What’s the new conquest?”

”The transgenic conquest, which wants to destroy our traditional corn so industrial corn can dominate. If that happens, we will become dependent on multinational corporations for our seeds. And we will be forced to buy their fertilisers and their insecticides, because otherwise their corn won’t grow. Unlike ours, which grows very well without chemical products.”

IGNACIO Chapela, one of the authors of the Nature study, agreed to meet me at Sproul Plaza on the Berkeley campus. ”Small Mexican farmers,” he said ”are very conscious of the stakes raised by transgenic contamination, because corn is not just their basic food but a cultural symbol.”

It was an October Sunday in 2006, and the huge campus was deserted. Only a police car drifted by like a damned soul. ”That’s for me,” said Chapela. ”I’ve been closely watched since this affair started, especially when there’s a camera.” When I looked incredulous, he went on: ”You want proof? Come with me.” We drove to the top of a hill overlooking San Francisco Bay. As we walked towards the lookout point, we saw the same police car, parked conspicuously at the side of the road.

”How did you find out that Mexican corn was contaminated?” I asked, rather disturbed. Read the rest of this entry »

To all foreign men who visit Thailand in search of a beautiful Thai girl who will “love you long time.”

The video is good but the comments are best.

About 20 minutes after 2am last night, my friend Paula and I felt a pretty strong but momentary earthquake that woke us both up.

Reuters already had an article posted by 5:30 this morning in the NY Times.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck near the town of Pinotepa Nacional around 80 miles (125 km) southwest of the colonial city of Oaxaca, but police patrols checking surrounding towns did not report problems.

The USGS reported the quake as strong as magnitude 6.5 but later revised the figure to 6.2, also moving the epicentre slightly.

I have felt several of these here before but so far so good.

I have begun asking myself, why is it so hard to put aside our assumptions that we have the corner on the truth and the other guy is dead wrong. (besides ego of course.)

I just read an essay in the NY Times by Erroll Morris, the filmmaker who made “Fog of War” (interview of Robert McNamara after the war in Viet Nam) and “The Thin Blue Line” and some other great films.  His thoughts are precipitated by a ludicrously botched bank robbery where a thief was told by someone he believed that by rubbing lemon on his face it would be hidden by the video cameras. It leads to the question, “Can you be too incompetent to understand just how incompetent you are?”

From NY Times
By Erroll Morris
June 20, 2010, 9:00 pm

The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)

Morris:

David Dunning, a Cornell professor of social psychology, was perusing the 1996 World Almanac.  In a section called Offbeat News Stories he found a tantalizingly brief account of a series of bank robberies committed in Pittsburgh the previous year.

As Dunning read through the article, a thought washed over him, an epiphany.  If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.

Dunning wondered whether it was possible to measure one’s self-assessed level of competence against something a little more objective — say, actual competence.  Within weeks, he and his graduate student, Justin Kruger, had organized a program of research.  Their paper, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments,” was published in 1999.[3]

Dunning and Kruger argued in their paper, “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.  Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.”

It doesn’t speak to the healthy optimism that we are all familiar with but blind optimism (magical thinking?) When people are incompetent they may not know that they are incompetent.

Read the rest of this entry »

In case you missed it on 60 Minutes, this is what Andy Rooney thinks about women over 50

60 Minutes Correspondent Andy Rooney (CBS)

“As I grow in age, I value women over 50 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 50 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, ‘What are you thinking?’ She doesn’t care what you think.

If a woman over 50 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it’s usually more interesting.

Women over 50 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be unappreciated.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 50.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 50 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest.. They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk or if you are acting like one. You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 50 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 50, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize.

For all those men who say, ‘Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’ Here’s an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!”

Andy Rooney is a really smart guy!  But he should have also added that they make better lovers.

Early each quiet Sunday morning, sitting on my veranda, I watch a small group of people practicing their Tai Chi in the park below. This morning I ponder my birthday tomorrow.  How did I get to be 66 already? Then I see the old blind homeless guy who sleeps in the park.

This cartoon originally appeared on womensEnews.org.  Check out more of the New Yorker cartoonist’s work at lizadonnelly.com (“How I Do and Don’t want to be Helen Thomas.”) and on her Open Salon blog.

89 year old Helen Thomas, a virtual institution in the Washington Press Corp, when ambushed by a rabbi, growled that Israel should get the hell out of Palestine and and that the Israelis there could move to Poland, Germany and the U.S.  Wow! Talk about speaking truth to power! It was too much for PC ears to take and she resigns her political column. The Washington press corps is pondering taking away her front row seat where she has needled presidents for generations. Hmmm.

_______________________

I have recently endured flights from Bangkok to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Oregon, Oregon to Las Vegas, Las Vegas back to Oaxaca where I live. Right now, I don’t care if I see another airport or security line as long as I live. You don’t think jet lag combined with culture shock doesn’t turn the world into more of a surreal event than it already is?

Combine this with two months of demonstrations with round-the-clock fireworks, rockets, petrol bombs and gunshots and then three days of riots where 30,000 tires turned Bangkok black and 25 buildings were burned down…one of them Asia’s second largest mall…more than 90 people killed and a couple thousand injured…over 400 arrested and 200 disappeared…a volcanic eruption in Iceland that brought air travel to a halt nearly the world over and almost detained my dentist for weeks, floods, earthquakes, tsunami warnings…an outrageous “oil spill” that is surreal in itself. Add to that bombings in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan killing hundreds. A video  released by Wikileaks.com shows a U.S. helicopter attack on a group of people in Baghdad (and also their good samaritan rescuers) in which they were all killed including two Reuters journalists. Looked like a surreal video game except that it was horrendously real. Then a vicious Israeli attack on a Turkish flotilla attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza by taking in supplies to the Palestinians. Helen Thomas conveniently took that off the front pages. (News junkie that I am, it’s a good thing I don’t have TV.)

Then Las Vegas, surreal in itself, where my son spent a week telling me all about the coming world financial crisis…backing it up with all his audio tapes by “renowned economic experts.”  Having read about the German bail-out of the Greeks and fear that Spain and Italy will follow, and with our debt in China’s hands it sounded rational to me. Buy gold and silver and get out of the market my son tells me. But…but…Come live with me in Oaxaca, I said, where people already live like people in the U.S will in the future.  It’s called self-sufficiency.

Finally it feels weird to be back in a relatively tiny slow Oaxacan pueblo after six months in Bangkok and Hong Kong.   70,000 teachers are striking again and a caravan to a barricaded Trique village in the mountains suffered the shooting death of a Trique woman and a Finnish human rights worker by a rival Trique group aligned with the government.  The weirder thing is that the demonstrators in Bangkok wore red T-shirts and the Triques wear red ethnic dress…at least the women.

A few days ago I took a nap about 3:30 in the afternoon. When I woke up, feeling quite refreshed, I went into the kitchen and checked the clock. 6:30, it said.  Oh my gosh, I thought, I slept clear through the night…not an uncommon occurrence these days! So I made coffee, toasted a bagel, and went out onto the veranda to check my email.

As I was sitting there facing the park, I noticed the sky getting dark. Oh, a storm must be coming in, I thought. I went on checking email (most of which are Couchsurfing.com forum posts) and Twitter where I get the latest information on the political aftermath of the Red Shirt rally in Thailand.  When  I looked up again the sky was a little darker…but no wind was coming up as is usual just before a storm, which, btw, took down one of the huge trees in the Zocalo the other day…the crack of it sending people running every direction. Somebody should prune!

So onto my Facebook updates.  By then the sky was really getting dark. I thought about that Mayan calendar that ends in 2012.  I noticed that my friend Rico was on line on Facebook chat so I asked him, Why is the sky getting dark?  He ignored me, however,  and started describing all his latest. Damn. Typical Rico, I thought.  But why is the sky getting dark!  By this time, I was really getting freaked out. RICO! What is going on?!!!  Dunno.  Is a storm coming in?  Don’t think so. It goes on like this.

Serious concern here. Finally I checked the date/time on my computer thinking maybe I didn’t change the time zone from Asia to Mexico…a 12 hour difference. No, it’s ok. Then I noticed the computer said it was Wednesday.  It should have said Thursday. What day is it, Rico? Wednesday, why?

As is obvious by now to my dear readers, in all this time it never once occurred to me that it was 6:30 in the evening.  Damn. Is this what I have to look forward to? Quit reading the news, I hear you telling me.  But isn’t this what senility really is?  Thoughts wondering aimlessly…alone…among their own disconnected damaged brain cells…oblivious to the world?

I take heart, though, from 89 year old Helen Thomas, who, btw, I think is sneaky sane. Me? Dunno. At 66 it doesn’t look good.

My extraordinary friend Lyn Horine put flowers on my parents’ graves for Memorial Day because I wasn’t there! And she didn’t even know them!

Whew!  What a ride! A week in Vegas, a month in Salem Oregon, a week in Hong Kong, 5 months in Thailand (4 in Bangkok and a month on Koh Samui) a week in Hong Kong again, 2 weeks in Salem, 10 days in Vegas and now back home in Oaxaca. Right now, I don’t care if I see another airport again!

Oaxaca is in the middle of an historical heat wave. Am I still in Thailand? Three fans on in my bedroom at night. Oh where is that Thai A/C?! Too hot to go grocery shopping!  (Maybe I’ll lose some weight.) Tomorrow I’ll just water my plants and drink what’s left of my Arizona Iced Green Tea.  And then take a nap.

Yesterday got my glasses replaced that son Greg’s new yellow labrador puppy ate. Puppy? At 16 weeks he’s huge…but oh so loving! And he’s so cute when he carries his own leish in his mouth when we go for walks. 🙂 He jumps in the pool and swims after the bugs…but like any two year old he’s constantly underfoot looking for affection.  Now Greg is getting a taste of his own medicine. He he.

Greg and I (in Las Vegas) talked to Greg’s father in Thailand on video skype. No, I didn’t fall down! Now making big batches of chili and spaghetti sauce to blues music. I’m in my glory.

The Strip? What’s that?

You can just imagine the look on my son Josh’s face in Hong Kong today as my chair collapsed out from under me in Las Vegas as I disappeared from view in his skype video frame! He he. Fell on my bum as he kept helplessly asking “are you alright?” Are you alright?”

On couchsurfing.com there is a thread on a forum with people talking about places they didn’t like and why.  After reading a few posts, a very funny couchsurfing friend who I shall call the “Green Lady of England” finally let loose with this rant.

O gawd lets all moan. I’ll join in. Trouble with the world is that it’s so damn cluttered with all these bloody poor people. Some of them steal. Some of them stare. Some of them just don’t know how to behave around tourists. And they seem to hang around and clutter up the most beautiful places, ie precisely the places we want to visit and where we like to spend our money how we want (mine, typically, on copious amounts of ice cream, chips and rugs). Damn the lot of them. I’m staying home from now on where I only have to do daily battle with the bloody neighbours and the surly staff on the trains and in the shops. You know where you stand in England – we all keep our expectations low in anticipation of disappointment. Works for us.

Karrrrggghhhh

The Green Lady really made me laugh! One person can love a place and the next person can’t stand it…usually for an isolated experience that is specific to that person. I think many of what we term bad experiences are largely due to attitude. If we are traveling to truly experience the reality of another country then we have to accept that these experiences are just part of the learning how other people live… inconveniences and all. In 10 years of constant travel, having my computer stolen on the Prague subway was the only experience I would call bad…mainly because of the trouble in replacing it because it was a MAC.

And a WHOLE lot of other things happened too..a teacher strike in Oaxaca that paralyzed the city for months…and I just returned from Thailand where the entire shopping area and business districts were paralyzed for 6 weeks with up to 100,000 demonstrators that ended in 3 days of rioting that burned down the second largest shopping mall in Asia and at least 25 other buildings and the burning of thousands of tires that turned the city black…and the deaths of 80+ people including 2 journalists…one Italian and one Japanese. And others critically wounded. And a curfew that is still in place. Imagine having to be in your hotel from 9pm until 6am. When one up-country demonstrator asked why they burned down Central World he answered that he has no sympathy for the store owners. We have no money, he said. “Do you understand?”

This is the reality of the poor up-country farmers in Thailand in the face of institutional corruption. Not that I support all the violence. And some backpackers are grousing in the CS Bangkok Group! I remember a couple with 2 small children in Oaxaca City who stopped me to ask what was going on. They were quite angry as they were stepping around burned tires in the intersections. Knowing what the lives of the poor mountain people were like, I had no sympathy for them.

But I just choose to not consider these bad experiences. I am a guest in these countries. They are not there to accommodate me. Although the one thing that does irritate me are the topless women on the beach in Thailand because it is so disrespectful of the locals who really don’t like it but would never say anything.

Happy Travels Everyone!

Embedding is disabled but remember this

LBJ election TV ad when Johnson ran against Barry Goldwater in 1964? 

It ran only once and then was banned.

Had an outside lunch with son Greg, his Punjabi surgeon friend, Jody, and his wife Heather, and Greg Smith who was a classmate of Greg’s in high school.

Playing with Val, Greg’s 16 month old yellow lab who is constantly underfoot.  He is now jumping by himself in the pool and getting out and jumping in again over and over…shaking himself on us each time. “OMG, close the door!”

Son Doug calls from Salem, Oregon

Greg gives me a knife to carry for protection when I travel. He worries about me. Gives me a lecture called the Color Code of Mental Awareness

White:    Unaware of any threat in your immediate surroundings
Yellow:   Aware of your immediate environment
Orange:  Aware of specific, potential threat; continue to observe
Red:        Aware of specific, real threat; no doubt in your mind
Black:     The line in the sand is crossed by your assailant

I clean and polish all of Greg’s stainless steel cookware

Noi, my Thai friend Skype-chats me from Bangkok.

A high school classmate visiting here in Las Vegas will drive over to see me.

Great Greek dinner last night with Greg and erstwhile girlfriend, Adela, at a Greek restaurant

Naps during the afternoon.

In other words I am no longer aware of any danger in my environment.  It’s nice.  But Greg says I should always be aware.  Ok, so I usually am when I travel.  But I figure an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

About 10,000 Bangkok residents, including teenagers and foreigners have joined hands to help the (BMA) clean Ratchaprasong Intersection and surrounding areas in the ‘Big Cleaning Day’ activity. Said that they must help clean Bangkok together because it is their home. Shops, give away free drinks,
lunches, snacks, and yogurt…

The current situation in Thailand is not necessarily due directly just to the political history,  but indirectly because of all the long-standing alliances and divisions between parties, the military and the privy council members who are all trying to position themselves before the elections.

This current round of conflicts started with the 2006 coup that resulted in a government installed by the military. Then Thaksin was elected prime minister. He was the first PM that did anything for the rural poor…a health system and high-interest micro loans to farmers. So the NE rural people (Reds) think he is wonderful.

Then Thaksin was indicted for corruption (bilked the country of a few billion baht of taxes and some other stuff) and fled the country when he was sentenced to 3 years in prison. The government froze about 2/3 of his money and recently returned it to the treasury. Many people think Thaksin would like to return to Thailand, get his money and return to power. He represents new money.

Meanwhile the Yellows (Royalists) and the PAD party, complaining about corruption, held the government house hostage for 193 days in 2008. These folks are supported by old money, many in the Thai diaspora and many in the University system and are called “elites” by the Reds because they feel condescended and disrespected especially by the privileged in Bangkok (and local government house leaders I might add because they line their pockets and wield power just like the people in Bangkok.

When the police tried to dislodge the Yellows with grenades and tear gas they went to the airports (my Yellow friend says) for protection. Of course they must have known the government would shut down the airports then. This resulted in the current government with the election of the current Prime Minister by a coalition of parties in the Parliament with general elections scheduled for this fall.

The Reds, meanshile had been holding “Democracy Workshops” all over Thailand and convinced the people that the interim government wasn’t elected so therefore Thailand wasn’t practicing democracy. IMO an election does not a democracy make in Thailand anyway because there is no division of powers between the courts, the Parliament and the Prime Minister…indeed there is political and economic collusion at every level.

So it is in the political interest of Thaksin and his proxy party to dismantle the government (dissolve the parliament now and have elections) now instead of waiting until the scheduled elections in the fall. There are reasons for this. One is that the military still wields a great amount of political power in Thailand. If the elections were now, it means that the new Military General that is scheduled to replace the current one would be appointed by a new Prime Minister (Thaksin or his stand-in) whose party would certainly be elected. However, the current Prime Minister and his party (who would certainly lose an election) want to stay in power long enough to appoint the new head of the military.

So. Thaksin is paying 500 to 1000 for each rural Red to come to paralyze the city of Bangkok and force Abhisit (current Prime Minister) to step down and dissolve the parliament and have elections now. The timing of elections is part of what the negotiations were about that failed. Abhisit is backed by a coalition of parties opposed to Thaksin and they are holding firm.

When the Reds held a press conference at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Thailand just before the rally started, they insisted that the rally would be peaceful. No weapons. The journalists didn’t buy it. They also wanted to know who was paying the Reds. Presenters answered that most of the demonstrators were volunteers. The journalists didn’t buy this either. (Incidentally, one of the four Red presenters was introduced as the “accountant.”

The problem came when weapons appeared. Many weapons were stolen from a military barracks before the rally started…probably with help because some in the military and 70% of the police are Red sympathizers. For months before the rally started bombs were going off all over Thailand.

Everyone is wondering who the “men in black” were that were seen April 10 shooting with high powered rifles when 27 people died including 4 military officers. Don’t believe the press when they portray the Reds as having only sling shots. They were armed with rocket propelled grenades and other weapons. Some people think this is part of a battle between military factions underneath the Red Rally. Recently, one demoted general, Sae Deang, purported to be behind the Red Shirts, was assassinated. Some are speculating that it was vengeance for the killing of several military officers on April 10.

This is the first time I have said this publicly, but IMO I think the meeting between Thaksin and Hun Sen (no love lost between Cambodia and Thailand) resulted in hired Cambodian mercenaries. It would make sense because Thai blood runs thick and it seems unnatural for Thais to be killing Thais. JMO.

So for 6 weeks the Red leaders had been using volatile rhetoric to stir up the Red demonstrators at the main stage…backed by very loud DJ music. Reds kept pouring in from up-country and the “camp” strethed all the way from the main rally site among all the malls and 5 star hotels to the business district of Silom. There were huge screens about every 50 yards so people camping in the street could see and hear what was going on on the main stage. Red Guards dressed in black guarded the demonstrators and some were seen carrying weapons. ID cards were issued and people searched before entering the site. Foreigners (witnesses) were welcomed and treated well. When it looked like the police were about to close in they exchanged their red shirts for multi-colored ones to hinder identification.

Another Thailand watcher characterizes the rally demonstrators this way:

Some of the foreign press are painting the endgame as the Alamo, but it is not. It is a lot closer to Jonestown or Waco.

Like those latter two cases, a highly charismatic leader figure (in our case operating from a distance, shopping in Paris while his minions sweat in the 94°weather) has taken an inspirational idea: in one case Christianity, in the other democracy, and reinvented it so that mainstream Christians, or real democrats, can no longer recognize it. The followers are trapped. There is a siege mentality and information coming from outside is screened so that those trapped believe they will be killed if they try to leave. Women and children are being told that they are in danger if they fall into the hands of the government, and to distrust the medics and NGOs waiting to help them. There are outraged pronouncements that they’re not in fact using the children as human shields, but that the parents brought them willingly to “entertain and thrill” them. There is mounting paranoia coupled with delusions of grandeur, so that the little red kingdom feels it has the right to summon the United Nations, just like any other sovereign state. The reporters in Rajprasong who are attached to the red community are as susceptible to this variant of the Stockholm syndrome as anyone else.

The international press must separate out the very real problems that the rural areas of Thailand face, which will take decades to fix, from the fact that a mob is rampaging through Bangkok, burning, looting, and firing grenades, threatening in the name of democracy to destroy what democracy yet remains in this country.

Then talks failed and the Red leaders announced they were giving themselves up (probably handed a deal by the govt) because if terrorism carries a death sentence.  The demonstrators responded with tears and jeers. Before the leaders left, the main speaker called for Bangkok to be burned. (you can see video of this with English subtitles on my blog here.  It is interesting, however, that 83 Yellows were convicted of terrorism for shutting down the airports in 2008 but most of them are free today.  Can you imagine world headlines stating that Thailand hung 83 terrorists?

Meanwhile, CRES, the Thai department in charge of security, has gone on live TV to defend why the police needed to use live ammo.  They showed caches of arms and firebombs retrieved from the rally site. But it may not be over yet. Regrouping reds have announced another Bangkok rally in June.

This is just a skeleton outline  My info has come from Thai friends and following articles and tweets since November but also following events since the coup in 2006 that I witnessed in Bangkok in 2006.

Simon Montlake has an article in the Christian Science Monitor speculating on the political future now that the rally is over. It doesn’t bode well for Thailand because neither the the Yellows (PAD Party) or the Reds (Thaksin) will accept the validity of a government by the other. This is how he ends the piece:

The red shirts, known as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), called for snap elections in Thailand, which has been roiled by political turmoil since 2006. An election is likely to return a government allied to Mr. Thaksin, the former premier.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva offered to dissolve parliament in late September, paving the way for a November election. But UDD leaders rejected the proposal, part of a reconciliation package. Mr. Abhisit, who must call elections by December 2011, hasn’t said if he would stick to this timetable after ordering the crackdown.

Duncan McCargo, an expert on Thailand at the University of Leeds, in England, says it is hard to imagine a quick return to parliamentary politics after the recent upheaval. But he warns that early elections may not end the crisis, as rival “yellow-shirt” protesters oppose any restoration of Thaksin’s influence.

“The big fear is that whoever wins the election will face some repetition of the 2008-2010 protest cycle, since neither red shirts nor yellow shirts will accept the legitimacy of the other’s position,” he writes in an e-mail.

Security officials say the string of arson attacks was organized and that black-clad gunmen had stopped firefighters from tackling at least one blaze. In some attacks, looters also cleared out stores and bank ATMs.

Last month, Nattawut Saikua, a UDD leader, encouraged poor protesters to loot malls in the event of a crackdown. “When we are panicked, we will smash glass windows of these luxurious shopping malls and run amok inside,” he said, according to Human Rights Watch.

Kung, the protester at the temple, said he didn’t take part in any looting but had little sympathy for store owners. “People don’t have money. Do you understand?”

 Well, the most you could say about this recent conflict in Thailand is that even if the rancor remains for decades, there is a whole generation that is now politicized.  The Reds from up-country have undergone a process known here as ta sawang, or a “brightening of the eyes” — an awakening, a realization of a truth they had not recognized.  Unfortunately their eyes followed Thaksin who recognized them as a huge voting block.

But in the northeast the rage goes on. The nation reported this morning that Education Minister Chinnaworn Boonyakiart on Friday formed two panels, one in charge of fact-finding related to the arson attacks of three schools in the Northeast and another responsible for assessing the damage.

During the first day of curfew on Wednesday, two arson attacks were reported in Nong Khai and Yasothorn.

Ban Tha Chiang Krua School in Nong Khai’s Seka district was burned down. The arson happened at Ban Yang Krue Nong Thom School in Yasothorn’s Muang district.

During Thursday’s curfew, Ban Wang Keng School was torched at Khon Kaen’s Nam Phong district.

After a week in Hong Kong,  just in time to avoid the worst of the burning of Bangkok just up the road from Sukhumvit 20 where I was staying, I flew to Portland Oregon with a transfer in San Francisco on my favorite airline…Cathay Pacific.  Travel time from Hong Kong to the west coast is much shorter (about 10 hours) than a flight from Bangkok with a long layover in Taiwan or Seoul (14-18 hours).

But after 8 months in Asia, the jet lag and culture shock really hit me hard, as usual, flying to the western hemisphere from the east.  In short feeling like I have the flu on top of disorientation, lack of short-term memory (where are my glasses now…and those damn keys…and my phone!) and feeling scattered, very fatigued and strange.  So I holed up in a hotel for a week in Salem…not wanting to inflict myself on my friends…and where I could curl up on a cloud-soft mattress like a baby.

But then, beginning to feel somewhat normal again and stuck in a “cell”  the weather turned from rain to sun and I really wanted out of the hotel. And didn’t appreciate US CNN which is incredibly inferior to International CNN!  I missed the superior BBC, Aljazeera and Russia Today that I could get in Bangkok so I just relied on my computer on free wireless internet which was better than TV anyway. Then a very generous friend offered to have me stay with her and her husband.  This couple had spent a few years in Thailand in the Peace Corps in the 70’s, so it was wonderful to have someone to trade information and debrief the chaos in Bangkok with…especially since they had been following the web videos, articles, forums and tweets like I had been.  Thank you so much Judy and Bob! I hope someday I can be as generous with you!

So now, after almost missing my plane because of bumper to bumper traffic from Salem to Portland, I am in Las Vegas with weather in the 80’s and enjoying my son Greg and his new toddler, Val, a very sweet yellow labrador 18 month old puppy.  We have plans for a Bar B Q with his friends and a Cirque du Seleil show based on Elvis. If it is as good as the one based on the Beatles during my last visit to LV, it will be a fine evening. Greg is at work. Think I’ll curl up and take a nap.

Boston Globe

Incredibly good photos of Bangkok during Red Shirt Crackdown

Photos and narrative explaining the political situation in Thailand

Just about eight minutes after the Red Shirt leaders gave their last speech on the main rally stage to jeers and tears, just before they gave themselves up to police who were closing in, flames and black smoke from burning tires has nearly covered 20 sites of the city for the last three days.  In the clash, protestors used everything from rocket propelled hand grenades, petrol bombs,  and molotov cocktails to slingshots and rocks and the military used hi-powered rifles, tear gas and tanks, although the BBC took video of the Reds using rifles too.  On wednesday, several people were killed…including both Red Shirts and at least one soldier. Anger at what was perceived as a biased media resulted in reporters being targeted and an Italian photographer dead. Hundreds were wounded including 3 other reporters.

Central World, the second largest shopping mall in Asia was burned out, the old Siam Theater, a cultural icon, was burned among about 3 dozen buildings, people being harbored in a wat were attacked, a TV station was attacked with staff having to be airlifted out by helicoptors, soldiers wounded, almost the entire country came under Emergency Rule and the government is enforcing a 9pm to 5am curfew…much to the consternation of young backpackers.  The MRT subway and BTS skytrain has stopped until further notice. The battle has spread to the provinces with at least two provincial halls being burned. So much for  peaceful Thai farmers.  The following Washington Post story with links to photos depict the disaster.

Thai military breaks up red-shirt protests in Bangkok

Story: Thai soldiers assault ‘red shirt’ encampment in Bangkok

The military launched an offensive to evict anti-government protesters from central Bangkok, a move that left parts of the city near anarchy.

Unrest in Thailand Thailand has a long history of political unrest and protests. View a graphic showing the relationship between pro- and anti-government demonstrators over the last four years. Graphic   Protest in Bangkok View a graphic that chronicles the protest in Bangkok, Thailand.

Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 19, 2010; 2:06 PM

BANGKOK — Thai soldiers launched an assault Wednesday against “red shirt” protesters in a military operation that forced anti-government protest leaders to surrender but left parts of Bangkok in the grip of near-anarchy.

This Story

• Thai soldiers overrun protesters’ camp; ‘red shirt’ leaders surrender
• Four protest leaders flee Thai army crackdown
• Bangkok burns after protest chiefs arrested
• Bangkok video: Thai troops open fire at protestors’ encampment
• Thai soldiers assault ‘red shirt’ encampment in Bangkok
• Thai army clashes with protesters

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View Only Top Items in This Story

Enraged by the offensive, protesters set fire to Thailand’s stock exchange and Southeast Asia’s second-biggest shopping mall, looted luxury boutiques and fired grenades and guns in areas previously untouched by the mayhem. Disorder spread to at least seven provinces, and protesters set fire to town halls in three northern cities.

In an effort to contain the violence, the government imposed an overnight curfew on Bangkok and extended it to 21 provinces. It also banned coverage of the unrest on local television channels, which limited themselves to government announcements.

At least five protesters and an Italian freelance news photographer were reported killed in Wednesday’s clashes, and about 60 other people were wounded. But there were indications that the death toll could rise. The Associated Press quoted witnesses as saying at least six more bodies were recovered in the capital’s protest zone after the military assault.

Speaking on television, embattled Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said he was “confident and determined to end the problems and return the country to peace and order once again.”

But exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose followers formed the red shirt movement, warned that military attacks on the protesters could spawn mass discontent and lead to guerrilla warfare, Reuters news agency reported. “There is a theory saying a military crackdown can spread resentment, and these resentful people will become guerrillas,” the agency quoted Thaksin as saying.

In an offensive launched at daybreak after days of escalating confrontation, armored vehicles smashed through barricades made of sharpened bamboo poles and rubber tires while heavily armed troops raced deep into territory occupied for more than a month by protesters.

As the military advanced toward the center of the fortified encampment, protest leader Jatuporn Prompan announced that he and other “core leaders” would turn themselves in to police. He pleaded with followers to leave the area to avoid further bloodshed.

“We have no more words to speak because all your hearts are already far beyond death,” Jatuporn said. “Today we will stop the death but we will not stop fighting. People keep dying; let’s stop the death together.”

An angry mob ignored the appeal for an orderly retreat and set fire to parts of Central World Plaza, an upscale nearby shopping mall, under the gaze of fashion models pictured on billboards advertising luxury clothing. Thick smoke billowed from the shopping center and also from Siam Theatre — a popular movie house — a government-owned bank and other buildings. Rioters set fire to the Thai stock exchange, which had closed early because of the violence. Some protesters began setting up new barricades and fought running battles with soldiers.

The government said it had the situation under control but also declared that a curfew would go into effect at 8 p.m. and continue until 6 a.m. Dazed tourists struggled to get back to their hotels through military checkpoints amid sporadic rounds of gunfire. Electricity went off in residential areas far from the protest zone.

There also were reports of unrest elsewhere in Thailand, a close military ally of the United States and popular tourist destination that touts itself as the “land of smiles.”

An angry mob ignored the appeal for an orderly retreat and set fire to parts of Central World, an upscale nearby shopping mall, under the gaze of fashion models pictured on billboards advertising luxury clothing. Thick smoke billowed from the shopping center and from the Siam Theatre — a popular movie house — as well as a government-owned bank and other buildings. Rioters set fire to the Thai stock exchange, which had closed early because of the violence. Some protesters began setting up new barricades and fought running battles with soldiers.

This Story

• After day of violent frenzy, relative calm returns in Thailand
• Military assault breaks up Thai protesters
• Interactive: Protest timeline
• Four protest leaders flee Thai army crackdown
• Bangkok burns after protest chiefs arrested
• Bangkok video: Thai troops open fire at protestors’ encampment
• Thai government says Bangkok protests mostly under control

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The military eventually halted its advance on the center of the protest zone, saying it wanted to let people leave. The government said it had the situation under control but also declared that a curfew would go into effect Thursday. Dazed tourists struggled to get back to their hotels through military checkpoints amid sporadic rounds of gunfire. Electricity went off in residential areas far from the protest zone.

There also were reports of unrest elsewhere in Thailand, a popular tourist destination that touts itself as the “land of smiles.”

Most of the trouble outside Bangkok occurred in northern regions, the main base of support for Thaksin, a billionaire former police officer who wants to return to Thailand and to power. In Khon Kaen, a major city, protesters torched the town hall. In another big northern city, Ubon Ratchathani, about 1,000 red-shirt sympathizers set fire to city hall, gutting it, a resident said.

Such incidents show that far from settling Thailand’s deep political divisions, Wednesday’s assault threatened to polarize the country further. The protesters first gathered in central Bangkok to try to force early elections to replace the government, which was chosen by parliament, not a popular vote. It took power from a government loyal to Thaksin, who was overthrown in a military coup in 2006. What began as a peaceful movement for change, however, became increasingly unruly as hard-line militants took up arms and protest leaders lost control of their own cause.

Although the government clearly won the battle this week, it now faces the more difficult task of winning what will probably be a long campaign to restore enduring calm and to prevent pockets of resistance coalescing into a threat that could jeopardize the entire country’s stability.

In Bangkok on Wednesday, trouble spread beyond the “red zone” into Sukhumvit, a main thoroughfare usually clogged with foreign tourists. At Asoke, a major hub, red-shirt sympathizers set fire to tires outside a police station and blocked the street with buses. A crowd of bystanders cheered. A fire truck was chased away, leaving the fires to rage unchecked. They were later put out, and the crowd dispersed.

Jeremy King, a private fund manager and longtime British resident of Bangkok, said the onlookers’ cheers signaled a surprising degree of “grass-roots support for the red shirts.” But he was also surprised, he said, by “how quickly the crowd evaporated . . . and the fires were put out when the order came to stand down.”

Special correspondent Nate Thayer in Bangkok and staff writer John Pomfret in Washington contributed to this report.

Thaksin’s vendetta is wrecking the country
By Sopon Onkgara
The Nation

BANGKOK: — After a few days of armed skirmishes between rioters, terrorists and government troops in areas around Rajprasong, an end to the trouble remains elusive, despite the deadline given for the red shirts to disperse by 3pm yesterday afternoon.

Some more military action could ensue now that the crowd in front of the stage is thinning out. Only a few thousand are left to serve as shields for the red-shirt ringleaders, who have vowed to fight to the end.

But that sounds like empty bravado. Several have already left the stage for safety, especially the key leader Veera Musigapong, who opted out as if knowing that further persistence would lead to an unpleasant end.

It has been proven beyond any doubt that the red shirts, who serve as the political wing for the campaign to oust the government by Thaksin Shinawatra, have comrades in arms in the true sense of the word. They periodically fire grenades at troops and other targets during the running battles.

The number of grenades at their disposal has been amazing. The M-79 grenade launchers have become a key weapon of the unidentified, hooded men who look mean and lethal. The troops have not been able to capture any of them, either dead or alive. Only video clips of their actions have been shown.

The red-shirt leaders have not denied that they are allies of those forces. Since the beginning of the rally, they have elevated their campaign from a claim of peaceful protest and ahimsa to harassment and terror for Bangkok residents.

Now, they have realised that the punishment they deserve for their crimes is too serious for them to surrender to the authorities. Their options remain the same – flee, go to jail, or be killed if they resist the final crackdown.

Thaksin Shinawatra no longer remains silent, though he does not show himself for public view. Through messages and tapes, he tries to drag international organisations, including the UN, into participating in truce talks despite his status as a fugitive criminal fleeing a two-year jail term.

His whereabouts and the condition of his health remain vague, despite reports that he has been battling prostate cancer. Always on the move to avoid being tracked by the Thai authorities, Thaksin has become an international fugitive and is always causing trouble to the Abhisit government through his cronies in and outside the House.

The riots at various spots in Bangkok have claimed more than 30 lives. They include thugs, rioters and innocent by-standers. Among the casualties are foreigners and a medic who were shot by unidentified gunmen.

It is not a civil war, but the government is trying to suppress rioting, store looting, armed attacks and terrorism. Sporadic gunfire and grenade explosions are heard around the battle zones. Bangkok is virtually at war with Thaksin, who is at the core of the crisis.

His vendetta, financed by billions of baht paid to red-shirt protesters and armed men, is taking a heavy toll on the country’s political, economic and social structure.

No matter how the crisis ends, the country will not be the same. It will be ridden with deep-seated division and conflict, even with or without Thaksin being around.

After two months of tolerating illegal rallies and terror, the government only began to take real action in the past few days with the blockade of Rajprasong to deprive the crowd of sufficient food and support. Persuasion will cut down the size of the crowd to just a few thousand before a further crackdown, if the government decides that such action becomes inevitable.

A bold move was taken on Sunday when the government prevented financial transactions by 106 corporate entities and individuals with Thaksin connections. Starting right from Thaksin’s ex-wife and his siblings, the list includes all sorts of business and political cronies, as well as classmates from his days in the pre-cadet school.

The big names will not be allowed to engage in financial activities, and the measures are designed to cut funding for the rallies and mobilisation of supporters from upcountry.

The final death toll and number of injuries will depend on what actions are taken to flush out red shirts from their rally sites. The ultimate cost will be high in financial terms as well as human tragedy.

By now, Thailand and the world knows that Thaksin has unlimited potential to destabilise his homeland, from which his family has amassed wealth through political power and corruption.

One man like Thaksin is more than enough in the long history of this country.

And then there are the Red Shirts themselves. Supporting Thaksin because he handed out bits of help that no other Prime Minister had before him…small high-interest loans and a health program.  But the up-country folk couldn’t see past that to the man who bilked the country of a couple of billion dollars in taxes, was convicted of corruption and who fled the country rather than serve a 3 year sentence. They just turned their heads like many Thais do.  And now they are faced with the consequences of what the man who many call “Toxin” wrought.  But it seems out of his control now.

So the Reds are keeping up the pressure in Bangkok. My yellow shirt friend didn’t want me to take a taxi to the airport yesterday for a flight to Hong Kong (taxis being almost all Red because most of them are up-country folks too) so he picked me up at my hotel at 4am. Heading down Asoke to the expressway, we passed a dozen military trucks with army soldiers so the Reds apparently weren’t able to detain ALL the troops trying to get to the city at checkpoints they had set up in four provinces.

Boy, was I one happy camper yesterday when I stepped off the plane to spend a week with my son! It’s overcast and coolish and I said to Josh that the weather was just fine when he lamented no sun. So I’m out on the veranda of his tiny hi-rise apartment, in a jungle of hi-rise apartments overlooking the bay, with morning coffee and my computer on his WiFi reading the latest on the Red Shirt rally in Bangkok and of course keeping up with my adventuring Couchsurfing friends on the internet.

As before, I took the hi-speed train from the airport to the island but this time I wasn’t paying attention and got off at Kowloon…silly me! So had to wait for the next train to get back on for the final stop to the Hong Kong station.  You’d think after all this time traveling I’d finally get it right! While waiting I get a call on my Thai phone…surprised that the Thai sim card was still working in Hong Kong… from Luk, son Doug’s Thai wife on the island of Koh Samui in Thailand…mom, you ok?

After a little nappy we made a grocery stop…of course my son being a chef there wasn’t a thing in his refrigerator except two small containers of expired milk…and then met Cantonese girlfriend Polly for some off the beaten track sushi.  “Now we go for pizza,” Polly says with a sly smile…parroting an inside joke between her and Josh when when they overeat as usual.  Hmmm.  Wonder where we will eat tonight…eating of course is what I mostly do with my main man while in Hong Kong. 🙂

View of Hong Kong from Josh’s penthouse restaurant

The “Royalists” (PAD Party), also called the “Yellow Shirts,” supports the King of Thailand and is in opposition to the mostly up-country “Red Shirt” farmers who support ex-prime minister Thaksin who has been indicted for corruption and is in exile. The “Reds” charge “the Bangkok elites” with being condescending and derisive and too fond of old money and privilege.

But ironically no one is more representative of the elites than Thaksin’s mafia which has a virtual stranglehold of Bangkok’s poor where the vendors have to pay tribute even to get a business started. But of course Thaksin, when he was in power, bought off the upcountry Reds with small loans that saved their rice crops and building clinics many of which stand empty because of the lack of equipment and trained staff. So now Thaksin has a nice constituency that sent over 300,000 farmers to camp out in the business district of Bangkok. Divide and conquer through class division, I say. Americans should recognize it.

The militant arm of the Yellow Shirts held the Government House hostage for 193 days in 2008 when it fled the military grenades and tear gas to hide out at the airport. It resulted, of course, in the airport being shut down by the government…devastating to tourism and disrupting air travel all over the world.  Eighty-three protestors were convicted of treason which carries a death penalty but as usual no sentences have been handed out. But it also led to a coup against the then Democrat Party Prime Minister Abhisit. Confusing at the best.

The battle against corruption is occurring these days on the internet social sites like Facebook and blogs instead of on the streets. Except for a big strategy meeting in April at Rangsit University, sponsored by the University President, the “Yellow Shirts have been strangely quiet during the Red Rally but one Yellow Shirt friend told me: “they are just finishing what we started.”

Thaksin is part of the new monied class and is funding the Red protest, most people think,  to position a return to Thailand to recover the money that was confiscated by the government after he was convicted for fraud and sentenced for 3 years in jail and also to possibly run for Prime Minister again. A megalomaniac, IMO.  The Yellows support the current Prime Minister (Phua Thai Party) that came into power as a result of the Yellow protest. So you could easily say it’s old money and power against new money and power and class warfare that is driving the political division.

YouTube is full of propaganda videos against the Reds and the corrupt Thaksin and I am getting them in emails from Bangkok Thai friends. But they reflect the feeling of a lot of middle class Thai people…a fact.

About 2000 protestors in trucks and on motorcycles from the Saladaeng rally site were led by Red leader Kwanchai Phraiphana on a march to Talad Thai Market near Don Muang Airport to urge people to join the rally site. Hundreds of police fire rubber and live bullets in air but protestors sat on the highway and refused to budge until they were told by a Red leader to desist and return to the rally site.

Traffic is chaotic and Don Muang urged passengers to expect 3 hrs to 4 hrs for traveling to airport.

Local media reports police shooting rubber bullets and live ammunition in the air to stop protestors but CNN reports “gun battles” at more than one point which implies shooting on both sides. I’ll wait for local reports.

Kwanchai Phraiphana, the red-shirt leader, was arrested near the clash site at Don Muang (when Red Shirts ran into a gas station,) Thai Rath Online reported.

The paper said Kwanchai was arrested at 2:41 pm while was trying to flee back to Rajprasong.

The BBC is reporting that one soldier was killed by a shot to the head and 10 people injured.

Unspoken until now, in the background, is the matter of the Thai Monarchy.  The beloved king is old and sick and on his way out.  Many are wondering what will happen when he dies.  His son is unsuitable to replace him to say the least. The daughter is much loved…but it is questionable whether the people will accept a Queen.

The Yellows (Royalists) and current government support the Monarchy.  Those behind the Reds (and some academics)  speak of “modernizing” governance in Thailand. Traditionally, the King is the Head of State and is supposed to stay out of politics and the Prime Minister is the head of the government.

There are a myriad of rumors pointing to the self-exiled Thaksin who fled the country rather than accept a three year jail sentence for corruption and who is financing the Reds…ironically mostly made up of up-country farmers who Thaksin gave “nitnoy”  help  (little help) to while Prime Minister.

The government has now said they have uncovered a wide conspiracy to overthrow the King. The Reds deny it. Deputy PM Suthep says this morning that an arrest warrant for ex-General Chavalit (also rumored to be behind the “third hand” mercenaries who appeared with hi powered rifles and grenades on April 10 where 25 people were killed including 5 soldiers) will be issued if he refuses to testify in his involvement in an alleged plot to overthrow the Monarchy. The investigation of the alleged plot may be a way of getting him out of the way.

Prime Minister Abhisit said today at noon that the Puea Thai Party filed a police complaint against the PM and CRES on defamation charges for accusing it of involvement in a movement to topple the Monarchy.

Seems the Monarchy has become politicized and the Red farmers and Red sympathizers from Bangkok rallying in the streets are being manipulated and used by all sides.

A journalist for TIME, an expat who has lived in Bangkok for 15 years, has this to say:

On may 19, I watched my adopted city burn. Plumes of thick black smoke rose amid deserted office buildings about 1.5 km from my Bangkok home as troops stormed the Red Shirt camp. There, chaos reigned: protesters set buildings ablaze, soldiers exchanged fire with black-clad gunmen, ambulances raced off with the dead and wounded. But farther south, near my home, there was no bloodshed, just shuttered shops and deserted roads. This unsettled me almost as much. I have lived in Bangkok for 15 years. What terrible force could empty the streets of this once vibrant city?

Fear, of course. The fighting and standoff of the past two months have claimed the lives of at least 70 people — mostly civilians, including foreigners — and injured hundreds. Thais pride themselves on unity. Now they are at one another’s throats, and the institutions that have always claimed to represent their best interests are too outdated and mired in crises to pull them apart. All countries weave myths about themselves, and here is Thailand’s: its people live in harmony, regardless of class, creed or ethnicity, their stability and prosperity assured by unblinking loyalty to King, country and religion — the so-called three pillars of Thai-ness. (See a TIME video on the violence in Thailand.)

The battle of Bangkok has shattered the myth of national harmony. Many Thais welcomed the crackdown. They regarded moderate Reds as dupes and militant Reds as terrorists and both as funded by fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown in a 2006 military coup. But others, including those who were sick of the protests, shuddered to see soldiers firing live rounds at people armed with rocks and slingshots, if armed at all. The last time that happened was a generation ago, in 1992, when at least 48 people were killed. Now Thais watch with horror as their fast-modernizing nation slips back into a darker era.

In 1992 it was Bhumibol Adulyadej, Thailand’s widely revered King, who intervened to halt the violence. But this time the ailing monarch, now 82, has remained silent. Other key institutions that might play a mitigating role are too busy wrestling with their own dysfunctions. The parliament barely functions; mobs have twice burst through its gates in recent years. The judiciary, which in 2008 toppled a government that Red Shirts helped elect, is widely viewed as partisan and unreliable. So are the media: free-to-air television channels effectively skew to the official line. The police are corrupt and incompetent, and in recent days they were conspicuously absent on Bangkok’s lawless streets. Thailand even has a crisis of faith: Buddhism is reeling from repeated scandals that Pope Benedict XVI might recognize. (See pictures of the showdown in Bangkok.)

These institutions need reform. But they are shielded from scrutiny and even well-meaning criticism by custom, taboo and — in the monarchy’s case — draconian lèse majesté laws. How can a country progress when its people cannot safely debate the very institutions that are central to their lives?

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1990640,00.html#ixzz0ogOJhzVm

Before I left Bangkok, this last Monday Bob, who was in BKK for the weekend, and I attended a meeting in the Merriott Hotel Ballroom called by the U.S. Consulate for U.S. passport holders to update us on the current crisis in Thailand. They didn’t reveal or explain much that we already didn’t know about the political aspects. (Most of it is so complicated and there is such a lack of transparency that even the ordinary Thai doesn’t understand it).

The emphasis was on safety in case we found ourselves near a flair-up. No predictions. As most others have iterated, they said the only way to resolve this is political negotiation. They (as well as about 40 other countries) have been talking to the government and the Reds urging non-violence. Lot of good that is going to do! They said any negotiation needs trust and at the moment there is zero trust on either side. They warned that the conflict could very possibly be a very protracted one. If bombs go off near you, they said to get away from windows. When bombs went off in front of the embassy in Nairobi everyone ran to the windows and were taken out by the next bomb. That was about it.

I thought they grossly under-estimated the number of protestors…said 20,000. The Friday before the meeting, on my walk from Silom to Siam Center and then to the main rally site at Ratchaprasong, it was a veritable tent city on both sides of streets all the way. Every 50 yards, huge screens were relaying the events on the main rally stage. People were lined up for food at make-shift commissaries; tents and sleeping mats, personal effects everywhere. Basically they have set up house-keeping. Walled barricades composed of tires and sharpened bamboo poles lined the streets. Reminded me of the 70,000 striking teachers in Oaxaca in 2006. The Red Guards dressed in black with red bandanas and flash-lights have set up check-points and are issuing red identification cards because, to become less identifiable by the police and army in case of an attack, they now they are wearing no colors.

In the last three or four days, three police and 8 people have been injured in a grenade blast in front of an ex-Prime Minister’s  house; an M-79 grenade hit Chiang Mai police HQ. UDD (Red) protests have flaired in four province capitals where they are blocking police from entering Bangkok…where there apparently is not enough police to disperse the protestors. But that’s not the only problem. (A gross understatement!) At the same time that Prime Minister Abhasit is saying there will still be a crackdown if no agreement is reached, the Army General is saying that no blood will be spilled by the government troops. However, now this morning, the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation is saying they have given the police permission to use live ammunition. A bomb went off in front of Bangkok Bank this morning…the bank chosen because one of the political backers has close ties with it.

Any compromise must balance between the mounting public pressure to hold elections and resistance by Abhisit’s government and its military backers to a potentially unfavorable vote. One way forward could be a delayed election timetable that gives red-shirt leaders a reason to end their rally with a promise to return if the government doesn’t deliver. Fat chance.

Simon Westlake of the Christian Science Monitor, in his report April 26 shows how complicated the conflict on the ground is:

Government officials accuse the red shirts of harboring “terrorists” armed with military firearms and explosives. Red shirt leaders have denied the charges and disowned the shadowy paramilitaries.

The red shirts’ antigovernment movement is supported from exile by former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, whom Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya recently compared to Hitler and Mussolini.

Mr. Piromya berated foreign governments for not apprehending. “He is a bloody terrorist,” he told a seminar at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.

For all the hyperbole, there is growing evidence of an armed red-shirt wing, abetted by sympathizers in military headquarters who have leaked confidential plans.

Thai media identified one combatant caught on film during the April 10 clashes as a paramilitary border guard. Security sources say mercenaries with military or police backgrounds are also involved and that training camps have sprung up outside Bangkok.

A shared background

This doesn’t mean that rogue officers like Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol, an ally of Mr. Thaksin who was suspended this year from duty, are taking control of government troops, say analysts and Western diplomats. General Khattiya is a celebrity among red shirts and is known for issuing threats against his enemies.

Divided loyalties among the rank-and-file, most of whom share similar rural backgrounds as the protesters, remain a concern for commanders in the event of a crackdown.

Red shirts can also probably count on the sympathies of Thailand’s police, who have been reluctant to confront them.

“There isn’t a breakdown of the Army command structure,” says Paul Quaglia, director of PSA Asia, a security consultancy in Bangkok. “But it’s hard for them to keep a secret.”

   So talks are off and Reds say they are expecting a crackdown within 48 hours. Apparently military watermelons are leaking information to the Reds about military build-up and movements. Apparently the military said they have to wait for the right time and separate out the women and children before they crackdown on the “terrorists” and arrest the Red leaders.  But how the heck they would do this I have no idea. One never knows how to take these pronouncements.

In the meantime, groups of Red Shirts in the upper NE are converging on Mitraphap Rd. in Udon Thani to stop 178 policemen from joining the security forces in Bangkok.  Some people are fearful that the resistance will migrate out into the provinces and plunge the country into anarchy.

The Prime Minister went on a public TV station this morning to be interviewed and explain the government’s position but it was scrambled after the first few minutes by somebody.  This would be like President Obama giving an address to the nation but Dick Cheney’s inside hacks scrambling the station.  It’s interesting that I was shocked but the hotel employees I was watching it with were not.  Just that enigmatic Thai smile that can mean anything. Eventually, the station was broadcasting again.  Wish I could have understood it but by this time the bilingual hotel employees were watching another station.

Back at the rally site,  Reds have decided to abandon their Red color and they are already distributing different colored shirts this morning…obstensibly to become unidentifiable if the military intervenes.

The Reds who have been holding Bangkok hostage for six weeks have given the government an offer today with the following conditions:

•  That the government stop threats and harassment
•  That an independent body will undertake an investigation into recent violence.
•  That the  Abhisit government dissolves the House within 30 days.If the government agrees to dissolve the House within one month, after the House dissolution, the government will have another 60 days to prepare for elections.

Also, Army chief General Anupong Paochinda has ruled out the use of force to resolve the political predicament, saying that “the use of force would only cause untold damage and far reaching implications but the problem will not end.”

Now we are waiting to see how the government will respond. Prime M Abhisit Vejjajiva has already offered to hold elections by the end of 2010 – one year ahead of schedule, to cease the political deadlock caused by red shirts rallies.

One wonders what the arrest of an actor turned activist has to do with this:

BANGKOK (NNT) — A key supporter of the anti-government United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD or Reds) disclosed that the black-clad firemen captured on video were involved in the 10 April attack on Ratchadamnoen Avenue, according to the Department of Special Investigation (DSI).

The actor-turned-activist Methi Amornwuttikul, who is also a leading supporter of the UDD (Reds), was nabbed yesterday by police while carrying heavy weapons. He was suspected to be involved in armed attacks against state troops on 10 April.

According to DSI Chief Tarit Pengdit, Mr Methi gave out information on the source of armories he was holding. He revealed that the men in black, who were caught on tape firing grenades during the 10 April clash, were also involved in the series of bomb blasts on Silom Road on Thursday night.

Mr Tarit stated that the authorities were compiling information and evidence, which could not yet be unveiled.

In Thailand, attackers and those behind the plots or involved with what is officially being termed as “terrorism,” could face death sentences for their actions against public order and well being.  A plea bargain against conviction could sure make Mr. Tarit sing.

It’s 6pm Friday and Bob just called that he couldn’t get on the skytrain at Nana to get to Asoke.  All of sky train closed down. And this morning the subway was closed between Asoke and the Thailand Cultural Center where I was supposed to go this morning to my dentist so I took a taxi.

Expecting something no good to happen tonight.

Six weeks have passed since the mostly upcountry Reds launched protests in Bangkok and two since the occupation of Ratchaprasong intersection. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has not wavered in his resolve to stay on as premier amidst calls for him to step down, and the country remains in an increasingly intractable crisis with no clear end in sight.

Thailand’s ongoing political impasse reached it’s most recent boiling point on Saturday April 10 when troops clashed with red shirt protesters leaving 25 dead and 840 injured.

Last night, Thursday April 22, at the very moment that the grenades were going off at the Sala Deang sky train station, the second Red rallying site, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand was hosting a panel discussion on the conflict to speculate on what could possibly be done to end it with any lasting results.  The presenters, however, weren’t about to expose themselves politically by giving any clear answers even if they had any.

The panelists:
-His Excellency Lennart Linnér, Ambassador of Sweden to the Kingdom of Thailand since 2007 stressed the need for the international community to speak out and for responsibility of the press to not distort the facts which could possibly further divide the country and tip it into chaos and possibly civil war.

– Prof Thanet Aphornsuvan, former Dean of Liberal Arts at Thammasat University where he currently is the Associate Professor of Liberal Arts. He brought his perspective from his student days as an activist during the 1972 riots that left hundreds dead. He said that in spite of what you think about the Reds, the mainly agricultural and poorly educated people from upcountry, that that population has now become politicized which may be the point at which the people begin to stop looking up to the “caretakers” (or the elite if you want to call them that) for answers and instead become participatory members of Thailand’s democracy, such as it is, which has never happened before in the history of the country. He also spoke of Thailand’s need for it’s governmental structure to become “modernized,” whatever that means to him, and more participatory. To many of us, it implied a reference to the future of the Monarchy.

– Prof Gothom Arya, director of the Research Centre for Peace Building at Mahidol University. Professor Arya taught electrical engineering at Chulalongkorn University in 1997 and subsequently became an Election Commissioner until 2001. After that, he was Chairman of National Social and Economic Advisory Council. He spoke about the possibility (or not) of negotiation and peace-making at this point in the conflict where both sides have only become more entrenched in their positions due to the tactical errors of the government. For example, why was it necessary to issue an emergency decree which only served to place the government in the position it is in now wherein to follow the rule of law they would be required to unleash the military on thousands of it’s own citizens who are refusing the order to disband. They were a nuisance, he said, but were they really a threat?

My question: At what point does rhetoric cease to become free speech but instead a means of inflaming enough anger to send a country into anarchy. The Reds have been saying since the beginning that they intend to burn down the city. I don’t know Thailand’s position on free speech. I have been thinking about a similar issue a little closer to home…the fiery rhetoric of radio commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and the others at Fox News that are continuing to distort the truth for millions of an uninformed electorate. To what extent is their rhetoric causing a meteoric rise in the number of extremist militias in the U.S.? To what extent will we follow what is happening in Thailand now and try to bring down a corrupt government through violence instead of the ballot box? But this discussion is for another day.

– Dr Pijaya Nagavajara, director of BMA General Hospital (Klang Hospital), the nearest hospital to the clash area that had a capacity of around 80 beds but had to triage and treat over 800 hundred injured and dead people the night of April 10. Definitely could put him into that arrogant attitudinal category of the “elite,” in my opinion! One amazing fact: “his hospital,” (he repeated this at least 30 times) the nearest to the site of the melee, is public, and injured Thais are required to go their first to be triaged before being shipped out again to other farther-flung and private hospitals. My physician husband who was with me just shook his head.

In a few minutes, at 4pm Friday April 23, the supposed pro-government “no coloreds” or “rainbows” will gather at the Royal Plaza… promising to bring in 100,000 people. Renaming this group of people doesn’t take away the fact that they are really led by the Royalist PAD, and you can be sure they and their Yellow Shirts, who held the Government House hostage for 193 days and took over the airport in 2008, will be among them. Their fiery leaders were impressive speakers at the meeting I attended with a Yellow Shirt friend last Saturday at Rangsit University. They decided at this meeting (or before) that if the government and the Reds didn’t resolve the conflict in 7 days they were “coming out.” Did we see them at the Sala Deang sky train station on Silom Rd last night? But hey, today is Friday, “and it is the 7th day!”

No one expects an end to this any time soon. But to end this on a lighter note, you should have seen my husband, who is here from his home in Jomptien Thailand to visit me in Bangkok before I leave, scamper past the Red’s encampment, down Sukhumvit from the Maneeya building, to the nearest Chid Lom sky train entrance last night after the FCCT meeting! LOL

Pro Government Protestors had grouped around the Saladaeng sky train station on Silom Road beginning Monday night as a response to the Red’s second rally site at the Silom/Rama IV intersection across the road from the station.

The Reds had been threatening to take over Silom business district and the people there (and probably not a few Yellow Shirts) were vowing to stop the Reds.  The two groups  had been taunting each other since I was there late Monday afternoon.

Finally on Thursday night April 22, tempers boiled over when one of the Silom protestors burned a red handkerchief and all hell broke loose.

Hundreds of police, lined up 30 deep in the intersection between the two groups, had difficulty keeping them separated from each other’s bottles, sling shots and other lethal flying debris.  The army was holed up on the sky train flyover.

The clash reached it’s height when five M-79 grenades apparently were launched from behind the Rama VI statue in Lumpini Park, behind the rubber tire and spiked bamboo Red barricade, where many Reds were grouped. The Reds are denying they were responsible.  Many people are wondering if it was indeed some rogue Reds or a “Third Hand.”

The first hits took place a little after 8.00pm. Police said three explosions, believed to be M-79 grenades, were fired at the third floor of the the sky train. The explosions sent people waiting at the station running out in panic.

The fourth explosion hit the roof of the sky train station shortly after.

The fifth bomb attack took place in front of Bank of Ayudhya’s Sala Daeng branch near Sala Daeng skytrain about 20.45pm. The blasts killed one woman and injured nearly 80 people, four of them foreigners crazy enough to be there.

Photos again courtesy of Gary Jones, British journalist based in Hong Kong.

Courtesy again of my friend Gary Jones, British journalist based in Hong Kong.  This way I can just stay holed up in my hotel room! lol

Yesterday, I went to the Silom business district to pick up some pharmaceuticals. I knew the Reds were threatening to take over the area around the Bangkok Bank there that has ties to the Democrat Party, but didn’t realize they were already amassed at the Saladaeng/Silom intersection and that the army had dug in on the sky train walkways above Silom street. They looked rather forlorn and sad to me, lying on the floor and leaning against the wall in their heavy uniforms in the heat. This would make two rally sites if they moved into Silom.

People had been giving them food and drink and the garbage was beginning to pile up. Black netting was being hung along the open sides of the skytrain walkways to hide the troop movements…with peep holes cut out at eye level.

Shoppers, business men in suits, tourists and vendors (and probably a number of Red “scouts”) were all stopping to watch and take pictures. A large number of pro-government No Colours group were gathering…I suspect many of them Yellow Shirts and the PAD) and were waving flags and protesting in front of Silom Complex. The traffic on Silom was moving but slow.

A group of police were standing in formation to guard the entrances to the MRT subway station and the Dusit Hotel. Walking up the street I ran into my British journalist neighbor who had just watched some people handing out donuts to the police! </strong If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes he said laughing! So even in Thailand the police are eating donuts! :))

At the main rally site at Ratchaprasong they have a very large black net hanging above the seated crowd that completely engulfs the entire intersection…probably for shade and to protect the people on stage from sniper fire. High above the stage now is a huge sign in English!

We Just Want Democracy

Just as I was trying to squeeze into the cheek to jowl crowd to get a look at how far back down the street the crowds went from the stage at the intersection, a man came on stage to speak in English to warn (who?) that if the Reds were attacked the army would be using tanks and all manner of weaponry. Of course no one reacted…it being in English and all.

The Reds have set up six blockades around the Rajaprasong rally site to deter any attempt to disperse them. This reminds me of Oaxaca when the striking teachers set up blockades to all the streets leading into the Zocalo (plaza) to keep out the police in case there would be attempt to rout them again. Only they burned their garbage at night at these blockades which kept them warm and the vermin away. Bangkok, on the other hand, is collecting quite a large supply of it…garbage I mean…but probably vermin too.

The Red Shirts were distributing green armbands to reporters, but reporters were refusing to wear them because they were printed with “House Dissolution” wording.

The red shirts have been stockpiling home-made weapons, such as acid bombs and wooden clubs spiked with nails, to brace for a fight with the riot forces, Army spokesman Colonel Sansern Kaewkamnerd said today.

It is widely speculated that the anti-riot operation will take place within this week to disperse the reds from Rajaprasong Intersection.

“In light of the reds’ stockpiling, the riot forces have relocated their barricades to keep a safe distance of 40 yards in order to avoid accidental clashes,” Sansern said.

The malls and even Starbucks around the Chitlom sky train station were all closed…but guess what was open! McDonalds! Full of Reds! I had to laugh out loud all to myself!

By this time it was dark and I was drenched in sweat and exhausted. I stopped in at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in the Penthouse of the Maneeya Building at the Plounchit station to use up some chits and drink a huge glass of draft Heineken! Hardly anyone there to trade stories with…all out working the streets I guess.

In his email my British friend: Like you,he said, I walked back. Had to give up around Nana and get a motorbike to my friend’s place…Dehydrated. Dying. I chuckled.

Today there is an interesting and rather dangerous development in the Silom business area. We had no involvement in some stickers being given out with a message to promote “New Thai State under President Thaksin Shinawatra”the leader of the Reds, Natthawut Saikua, said.

The stickers, with white message on red background, were distributed in public places along Silom Road….I suspect as a destabilizing tactic by the Yellow Shirts. Thaksin has issued a statement declaring his allegiance to the Monarchy and denouncing the stickers’ makers via the media.

Meanwhile the Reds have decided against the push into Silom Road. Guess all those army soldiers with big guns had a deterrent affect.

Prime Minister Abhasit has repeated the crowd control procedures based on progressive severity but refused to give the timetable for dispersing the crowds.

Because the red shirts are armed, the riot forces have adjusted their tactical plan – allowing the use of live ammunition for self defense and avoiding physical engagement, he said, citing the instruction of Army chief General Anupong Paochinda.

The avoidance of physical engagement means riot forces would no longer line up with shields to push back protesters. The next anti-riot operation, if it happens, will see riot forces using rubber bullets to keep a safe distance from protesters and of course will only use live ammo “if they feel their lives are in danger.” Give me a break! That’s what was supposed to happen April 10 at the main rally site at the Ratchaprasong intersection!

Photos courtesy of Gary Jones, British journalist based in Hong Kong who is staying down the street from my hotel.

The Nation online

What went wrong? Probably, nothing was right from the very beginning.

Arisman Pongruangrong and other red-shirt leaders on a wanted list could not be apprehended when they were in full public view in the middle of the city, so what convinced Thai police that they could catch them by storming a hotel that once belonged to Thaksin Shinawatra?

From the embarrassing shambles left in their wake, not only did the police think they could do so – they must have presumed they could do it with one eye closed. When overweight Arisman, who must also be afraid of heights, staged a clumsy cable-descending stunt in front of local and international media from the SC Park Hotel’s third-floor balcony to safety, the humiliation of Thailand’s highly questionable police force was complete.

Not to mention that two senior officers were taken by the red mob from the hotel to the Rajprasong rally site to “guarantee” the escapees’ safe return. How come what was supposed to be a pre-dawn sting operation ended with Arisman staging the escape just before 10am and mobs accompanying all the police targets back to Rajprasong at noon?

Everything was so fishy that Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, who around 9am had proudly announced that Arisman and at least a couple of others were now in police custody, lost his cool and virtually everyone on the government side lost patience with his excuses. A probe into what went wrong was pledged, but the damage had been done and half the world was already laughing.

The operation reportedly started at 3am, with stake-out forces stationing themselves near the hotel’s entrances and exits, with a few disguising themselves as guests. Problem was, nobody knew for sure which rooms the targets – Arisman, Suporn Attawong, Payap Panket and Jeng Dokjik – were staying in. The four reportedly arrived at the hotel at around 4am.

Then around 6am another group of officers, purportedly working for an assistant police chief, arrived. One of them then committed a grave blunder by asking the hotel reception for house keys that could open all suspicious rooms.

That apparently did it. Phone calls must have been made by certain staff members and within minutes red shirts living nearby were gathering at the hotel. By the time the two groups of officers became aware of each other’s presence, the hotel was crawling with red shirts. Two pickups mounted with loudspeakers were used to block the road in front of the hotel, situated in the sprawling Town in Town estate off the Pradit Manutham (Ekkamai-Ram-Indra) Road.

The police called their superiors and requested commando reinforcements. Through all these hectic developments, the hotel staff managed to buy time and kept the house keys away from the now restless, and pretty much clueless, officers.

When the policemen finally got hold of the keys, Arisman was already playing a Mission Impossible hero, albeit with some difficulty due to his weight. His face was white and he appeared disoriented once he dropped himself to safety, into numerous red hands waiting to grab him on the ground.

“The police wanted to kill me,” he told reporters. “They wanted to kill me. There were bombs in the room.” Press photos of the room later showed what looked like grenades, which police said needed to be examined before they could ascertain the types.

According to Arisman, he did not escape from his own room, but from a “red guards” room where he had hidden after being alerted that the police were coming.

Details were sketchier as to how the other three red leaders escaped from the hotel. Reports said they were helped by red-shirt members, who easily outnumbered police officers and led the leaders out of their rooms without police resistance.

The SC Park Hotel incident has inflamed gossip about “tomato” police, the term for pro-red police who allegedly might have dragged their feet when it comes to legal action or operations against the protesters. Whether yesterday’s operations were simply lousy and ill conceived, or whether there had been moles within the force, reporters were able to locate one immigration officer, who described himself as a “brother” of Arisman.

The officer said he went to the hotel after hearing a distress call from Arisman’s mother and sister. The policeman said he was there only to make sure Arisman was not harmed after escaping from the hotel balcony.

The leaders of the Reds have announced today they will vacate their 30,000 plus rally site at the Phanfa Bridge and convene all together with the 20,000 thousand who are already at the rally site at the Ratchaprasong intersection near the Chit Lom BTS Station. OMG!  And these are just the ones who haven’t gone home on the 13th for the holiday! This will put additional pressure on the government to disband the parliament as this is the center of the business district, home to five-star hotels and major shopping centers.

My guesthouse is only a few yards off Sukhumvit 20 and over the last month, day and night, I have been hearing pick-ups and trucks with new and returning Red protesters from up north, singing and chanting to loud music, tooting horns and clapping their feet-shaped and heart-shaped quirky clappers coming to join the rally site down the road.  And when Songkran is over on the 18th many of those who have gone home to celebrate the holiday will be coming back again!

They are sleeping on sheets of plastic out on the road in sweltering heat that nears 40C or 104F during the day and lets up little at night. The rally sites have been fitted out with tents, canteens and large stages, where loudspeakers blast out a mixture of fiery anti-government rhetoric and Thai country folk music.

Red Shirts have set up makeshift toilets hooked up to the local water systems, brought in trailers equipped with showers and use washing facilities at nearby temples and hospitals. At a first aid tent, 200 to 300 people are treated each day, mostly for heat exhaustion or the effects of air pollution.

OMG! But with rice fields going belly up in the drought, I guess the people feel they have nothing left to lose.

Well, the political crisis hasn’t stopped Thais from celebrating the first day of their most important holiday when water is splashed on everyone to wash their sins from the last year.  Let’s hope it works this year! As for me, I’m staying in my room with a good book! 🙂

The Nation
Bangkok
April 13, 2010

BANGKOK: — Don’t hold your breath if you wish for a speedy resolution to the political predicament following the bloodbath on Saturday.

When blood got into the eyes of the opposing sides, common sense just flew out the window. It will take at least one to two weeks for emotions to cool off before the political battle can shift from the streets toward its proper arena – a ballot box.

It is also ironic and deplorable that past political tragedies did not serve as a lesson to avoid more bloodshed but may have hardened their determination to defeat one another. Instead of respecting the sanctity of life, key figures on the opposing sides plotted to splatter blood into hands of their rivals.

In the Black May incident, Palang Dharma Party leader Chamlong Srimuang led street protests to bring about the downfall of the then prime minister Suchinda Kraprayoon. Despite his personal victory, Chamlong’s party suffered a shattering defeat in the 1992 general election and he eventually faded out of mainstream politics. He failed to overcome the stigma of leading people to their deaths.

The Pheu Thai Party, and its puppet master Thaksin Shinawatra, made elaborate preparations to avoid Chamlong’s mistake. The red shirts are being led by people who harbour no hopes of becoming a prime ministerial candidate or a main force in politics.

Thaksin recruited Chavalit Yongchaiyudh as Pheu Thai chairman. Chavalit’s open mission is to prepare for the upcoming elections. Red-shirt leader Adisorn Piengket admitted, however, Chavait was actually Thaksin’s commander to wage the “last battle” to bring about political change.

What happened on Rajdamnoen Avenue on Saturday was not a botched anti-riot operation nor a lynching mob gone berserk. It was a head-on skirmish between two well-trained armed forces – one in fatigues and another in black. The red shirts were just props in the battlefield.

Like past tragedies, parties involved might try to sweep everything under the rug by blaming “a third hand” or terrorists or unidentified elements. But a tactical retreat to attack riot forces from behind was not something the mob could do on the spur of the moment.

Riot gear, such as tear gas, shields and batons, is designed to rein in unruly crowds but not to repel live ammunition. The death of Colonel Romklao “Pao” Thuwatham of the 2nd Infantry Division, is expected to reverberate through the Army ranks.

It is a century-old tradition that graduates from Chula-chomklao Royal Military Academy come from the same feeding bowl, and hence will not kill their own kind under any circumstances. In the failed coup of 1977, General Chalard Hiransiri broke the sacred code by fatally shooting General Arun Thawathasin. Chalard was subsequently executed by a firing squad.

Chavalit and top generals backing the red shirts should know that Army commanders will not allow Romklao to die in vain. Justice must be served one way or another.

In coming days, the government and the red shirts are expected to exchange barbs on the bloodbath. Autopsy reports on the victims will be highly politicised. The Pheu Thai Party candidates cannot afford to join the election with blood on their hands. Thaksin’s best-laid plan will backfire if the main opposition party is mired by such tragic incidents.

A deal will not be struck unless the opposing sides can ascertain a strong chance to win at the polls. Then and only then will the red shirts disperse.

Don’t kid yourself if you think a snap election will usher a fresh start. The Democrats and the Pheu Thai Party are expected to fight an election war of titanic proportions. The outcome is unlikely to end the polarisation, such that the next prime minister may well come from one of the smaller parties.

Update 2: Hmmm.  I just looked at the picture again. If he is so innocent why did he think to put on plastic gloves which would be for the purpose probably of keeping fingerprints off the gun? Well, either way, it’s all fishy to me.

Also, yesterday, since www.france24.com had video of the police shooting into the crowd of Reds,  the government finally admitted the police fired into the crowd to back up their comrades who were being fired on, they said.

Update: the man in black with the high-powered rifle pictured at the end of this post was taken up on the Red’s stage today where they explained that he had picked up a rifle belonging to the police.  Who knows.  The Red guards also dress in black so that may explain some of the confusion.

Thailand’s red-shirt protests darken with unknown snipers, parade of coffins

Thailand’s red-shirt protesters marched around Bangkok Monday carrying empty coffins, two days after the worst political violence since 1992.

Antigovernment red shirt protestors follow vehicles carrying the coffins of those killed during clashes with security forces two days earlier through the streets of Bangkok Monday.

Damir Sagolj/Reuters

Enlarge

• Thai protests’ deadly turn deepens tense conflict
• Thailand – all coverage
• Red Shirt protesters storm Bangkok TV station; Thai military responds with force

The parade looped around a subdued city, which many residents had already exited for a week-long New Year holiday, normally a joyful time. The somber mood was driven home by the coffins draped in flags on the back of pickup trucks, with a framed formal photo of slain protesters.

Protest leaders have vowed to rally until Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva resigns and dissolves parliament, which he has said could take as long as nine months, a timeline rejected by protesters.

On Monday, Thailand’s electoral commission dealt another blow to the prime minister, recommending that the ruling party be dissolved. It found that the Democrat Party had misused campaign donations. While chipping away at the legitimacy of the ruling party, the electoral commission’s recommendation has to be approved by the Constitutional Court, which has not yet set a date to hear the case.

Standing on a bridge to cheer the passing convoy, Sukit Opachaloemphan, an American-educated engineer, cursed the prime minister for his handling of the protests. “He has to take responsibility. He made the decision for the military to go in and continue after dark,” he says.

‘Terrorists’

In contrast to the boisterous defiance of the protesters, Mr. Abhisit has used solemn televised addresses to tell his story. He has blamed rogue gunmen, or “terrorists,” for the intense violence (at least 21 people died and 800 were injured) and emphasized the need for a full investigation into the killings of both soldiers and protesters. State television has broadcast repeated images of soldiers coming under fire from bullets and explosives.

Abhisit said Monday that his government was intact and unified with the military, a key constituent in Thailand.

Earlier, Army Commander Gen. Anuphong Paochinda called for a political solution and said elections might be the answer. Coalition partners in Abhisit’s government are reportedly discussing their position and may emerge as peace brokers.

As more details emerge of the carnage, Bangkok’s worst political violence since 1992, military observers say Thai troops stumbled into a trap set by agents provocateurs with military expertise. By pinning down soldiers after dark and sparking chaotic battles with unarmed protesters, the unknown gunmen ensured heavy casualties on both sides.

Some were caught on camera and seen by reporters, including this one. Snipers targeted military ground commanders, indicating a degree of advance planning and knowledge of Army movements, say Western diplomats briefed by Thai officials. While leaders of the demonstrations have disowned the use of firearms and say their struggle is nonviolent, it is unclear whether radicals in the movement knew of the trap.

“You can’t claim to be a peaceful political movement and have an arsenal of weapons out the back if needed. You can’t have it both ways,” says a Western diplomat in regular contact with protest leaders.

Links to rogue elements?

Sean Boonpracong, a spokesman for the red shirts, denied any links to rogue elements. “Most of the reds are fighting with their bare hands or rocks or water bottles. If this was a third hand we’d like to know who it was. It definitely wasn’t us,” he says.

Some observers questioned how the military could have blundered into battle without adequate preparation. Agents provocateurs, known to Thais as Third Hands,” have helped foment past political conflicts, and appeared in a 2008 confrontation involving protesters from a rival royalist camp that supports the current government.

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Simon can often be seen attending press conferences at the Thai Foreign Correspondent’s Club and is one of the most respected journalists there…working for the prestigious Christian Science Monitor.  This is the best summary of the clash I have read.

The France24.com website shows a video of police officers shooting directly into the crowd of Red demonstrators. The Reds had been playing hard-core DJ music for a month and you will notice that the army was playing piano music by Chopin to try to calm the protesters when the fight broke out.

Here are the last few frames of the Reuters Japanese journalist,cameraman Hiro Muramoto, who was killed in the melee.

And finally here is a picture of one of the black-clad sharpshooters, however it is “officially” unknown in whose interest it is for him to be working.

This makes me furious!  The NYT today had a decent article but the video in the sidebar said “City Like A War Zone.”  The Reuters’s reporter in the video repeats the term. The city is not a war zone!  Compare Bangkok to Los Angeles. The encampments of the Reds were in two small places only: at the Phan Fa Bridge and the intersection near the Chit Lom sky train station.  The battle shown by the video in the article took place at the Democratic Monument near the bridge…one place…a very small area. Sukumvit Soi 20, where I am staying, is four sky train stops from Chit Lom and 45 minutes away in good traffc away from the Phan Fa Bridge.

If you were not hearing about the demonstration, or just happened upon it, a person visiting Bangkok would never know anything was going on. The city is operating normally with the exception that the Chit Lom sky train exit and one mall is still closed.

And this statement:

“The aggressiveness of the anti-government forces, some among them using firearms and explosives, raised the possibility that provocateurs — the “third force” bent on destabilizing the government that some analysts had feared — had escalated the violence”

technically is correct but confusing. Mixing “anti-government forces” in a sentence with some among them when talking about a demonstration of the protesters gives the impression that indeed it was the Red Shirt protesters who had the high-powered rifles and bombs.  This has not been established yet. No one knows who fired the first shot which can be heard about one-third of the way through in the video on my last post.

And yes, there is a very real possibility that a “third force,” that the government is now calling “terrorists on the government run TV station” may have infiltrated the demonstration.  But you can be sure that whoever it was has a vested interest in the outcome of this crisis.

This makes me think of the massacre of 200 plus students in the soccer stadium in Mexico City in 1968.  Apparently, as most people understand it in Mexico today, the police stationed a sharpshooter on a roof of the stadium who then shot a policeman. What do you think the natural reaction of the police force was then?

Another sentence:

During Saturday’s clashes, bystanders sometimes cheered on the military, offered refreshments or gave them refuge to change out of their uniforms and flee the protesters.

Apparently the reporter was not on the scene for the whole month before the violence on Saturday when bystanders along the incoming routes were cheering the Red Shirts as they entered the city in waves. And it over-simplifies the divisions within the public itself toward the Red Shirts and the military that is itself divided.  It was the businesses in the malls that were complaining about the protesters. After the protesters took over ThaiCom TV station after fighting the police and military, the Red Shirts were seen shaking hands with the “watermelon” police who easily fell back.  Nothing is simple in Thailand.  But it’s the job of a good reporter to make it not seem so.

Between the country warnings and the press, tourists in Oaxaca in 2006  were scared off causing loss of jobs, closing of hotels and restaurants and all manner of other hardship that the city and state is still trying to recover from!  Is this going to help a country that depends (as Thailand does) on tourism for a good portion of it’s GDP?  The other reason for letting foreigners in is that they shine a light on activities and become “witnesses” that make it more difficult for the wrong-doers to get away with wrong-doing.  But the State Departments of various countries feel obliged to “cover their asses” in case some stupid tourist stumbles into trouble.

End of rant.

BTW, this afternoon some Red Shirts on motorcycles kidnapped the CAT Telecom CEO demanding he reconnect the broadband connection.

The number of casualties has gone up to 21 with nearly 900 wounded.  A call for blood overwhelmed the hospitals who have now called off the blood drive.