quote In 2004, he oversaw the killing of 85 protesters in a single day during his mishandled, heavy-handed policy in the countrys troubled deep south. The atrocity is now referred to as the Tak Bai incident. Also in 2004, Thaksin attempted to ramrod through a US-Thailand Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) without parliamentary approval, backed by the US-ASEAN Business Council who just before the 2011 elections that saw Thaksins sister Yingluck Shinawatra brought into power, hosted the leaders of Thaksin’s red shirt United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) in Washington DC. Throughout his administration he was notorious for intimidating the press, and crushing dissent. According to Amnesty International, 18 human rights defenders were either assassinated or disappeared during his first term in office. Among them was human rights activist and lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit. He was last seen in 2004 being arrested by police and never seen again. Also throughout Thaksins administration, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) claimed in its report, Attacks on the Press 2004: Thailand that the regime was guilty of financial interference, legal intimidation, and coercion of the press. Since the 2006 coup that toppled his regime, Thaksin has been represented by US corporate-financier elites via their lobbying firms including, Kenneth Adelman of the Edelman PR firm (Freedom House, International Crisis Group,PNAC), James Baker of Baker Botts (CFR, Carlyle Group), Robert Blackwill (CFR) of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR), Kobre & Kim, Bell Pottinger (and here) and currently Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Partners (Chatham House). In April of 2009 gunmen would fire over 100 rounds into the vehicle of anti-Thaksin activist, protest leader, and media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul in a broad daylight assassination attempt. He was injured but survived. On April 10, 2010, heavily armed professional militants deployed by Thaksin Shianwatra and his red shirt front targeted and assassinated Colonel Romklao Thuwatham who was at the time commanding crowd control operations near Bangkoks Democracy Monument. Thaksins red shirts would go on to clash with the military for weeks before ending their riot with mass city-wide looting and arson. In August of 2013, businessman and outspoken Thaksin opponent Ekkayuth Anchanbutr was abducted and murdered. This does not include more recent events, which also includes attempted and successful assassinations targeting Thaksin Shinawatras enemies, and a campaign of increasing terrorism being employed against growing dissent in the streets railing against his regime symbolically led by his own sister, Yingluck Shinawatra. It is easy to see why the West, despite the unraveling of the regime in recent months, is still stalwartly defending it, particularly in the editorials and columns of their newspapers - the West has invested a decade propping it up and is unlikely to find another political machine as effective and as willing to divide, destroy, and attempt to wholesale handover the resources and sovereignty of Thailand to foreign interests. landdestroyer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/wishful-thinking-nyt-claims-thai.html
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 09:47:50 +0000