Monday, May 10, 2010
Whose Bluff am I calling?
This is a very interesting endgame. On the one hand, the redshirts are cornered, essentially killed with kindness. Their only hope of a decisive victory is to have someone use violence against them.
So, today, they announce that they'll accept the deal and immediately disband on condition that Mr Suthep gives himself up to face the charges of ordering the April 10th crackdown. They must have thought that he would never do so, because that seems to be the way they themselves act, by demanding the impossible and then acting like the injured party when they receive "almost" the impossible in return.
These guys must never have had the Brer Rabbit stories told to them as children, because the briar patch beckons. Suthep can easily turn himself in. Getting convicted would be exceptionally unlikely. Why should he care?
So, it must have been a shock when Mr Suthep immediately announced that he would turn himself in the next day, meaning that they would have to disband tomorrow.
Now, at about 7 pm, comes the news that a new condition is in place. It is unacceptable for Mr Suthep to turn himself into the Special Investigations office. He must turn himself in to the police. Or else the reds won't leave. So ... the fate of millions hangs on which office this guy will show up at tomorrow?
Does this mean that someone, somewhere, isn't getting what they want? And could "what they want" be something as simple as 46 billion baht and a get-out-of-jail-free card?
The renegade general Seh Daeng, considered by many to be the most radical red shirt, suspected by some of being behind the grenades and the "men in black" ... has announced that Thaksin has given orders by phone that the red shirt leaders are all to be replaced by ones who will carry on fighting and that the others are to be relieved of their command. The "Three Stooges", however, deny all this. It is conceivable that both versions are true.
Tomorrow, it may all be a dream....
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I noticed the other day someone in the paper asking why nobody had done any profiles or short biographies about these red-shirt 'leaders'. I did some superficial digging and found out that one of them was a high school girl's basketball coach in Kentucky ten years ago. Great qualifications for a political activist! I think a few short profiles would reveal these guys as mainly political opportunists who have done very little to help the poor.
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