[wisconsin_cur]

BANGKOK — Soldiers armed with assault rifles fought running street battles with anti-government protesters in Bangkok on Monday as unrest spread through a wider swath of the Thai capital and the chief of Thailand’s armed forces vowed to use “every means to end the chaos.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/world/asia/14thai.html?_r=1&hp

I understand that this cycle has been going on for a while. Any insight on the source of this? Did higher food or oil prices have a role in kicking it off? What's the narrative?

[wisconsin_cur]

On the future side of the equation, Thailand is a rice exporter. If the violence and unrest spreads, if it disrupts food production that would be an additional pressure on the price of rice.

[AgentR]

This is normal for Thailand. Just relax. Neither the Army nor the King WANT political power, so they are always the eventual reset button. If the government can't get its act together and the mess falls apart (as usual), there will be a coup, maybe a new constitution, the royalty will bless it, everyone will cheer, new government is elected by whatever voting method seems coolest at the time, yada yada.

edit ps: wanting political power, as in holding office in the government. They both have enormous influence.

[midnight-gamer]

Any insight on the source of this? Did higher food or oil prices have a role in kicking it off? What's the narrative?

This kicked off with the ousting of the Thai prime minister a few years ago. There was the allegation of corruption which lead to civil unrest and a military coo.
The old prime minister was wildly popular with poor and rural Thai people for raising standards of living among the poor.
Supporters of the removed PM, I think his name is Thaksin? want to stage a take over to reinstall the old government.

[SeaGypsy]

Thaksin was a multi billionaire who became so by selling the monopoly telecom to Singapore. His following is a Cult which only makes sense if you understand that Mahayana Buddists effectively worship personalities which display the opulences they would like for themselves. His opposition, who rightfully deposed him for corruption, staged the airport closure to get rid of his brother in law.
The opposition now are the Mahayanist personality worshippers, the Government the pragmatist modernists.
To construct a paralell it's like if Bush was an out and out rich illuminatist with public back slapping from the billionaires club, got the boot for corruption and put his brother in law in his place while dashing off to exile in France. Obama's supporters seize JFK and demand he is installed as caretaker leader. Bush's billionaire club take a few weeks to get a show organized (paid for) and Shazzam! A 'Massive Public Uprising'.
Do either side know what the hell is going on? No.

[midnight-gamer]

This is normal for Thailand.

Yes and no, the last few decades had shown Thailand to be stable. The stuff going on now worries me. A destabilized Thailand is in nobody's best interest.

Did higher food or oil prices have a role in kicking it off? What's the narrative?

Yes and yes, but those two things are peripheral to the major catalyst that is causing trouble.
Last summer was a breaking point for many Thais. Food, gas, and other necessities were harder to get. Crime was and is way up due to a weakening currency coupled with increased prices.
All of this is my opinion, rather than fact of course. I think this is caused by too many people wanting a share of the pie and not enough pie to go around.

[wisconsin_cur]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6109804.ece

Sondhi Limthongkul, the founder of the political movement that overran Bangkok’s airport last year, is in hospital recovering from surgery after gunmen wielding automatic weapons ambushed his car and sprayed it with bullets early this morning.

An unknown number of gunmen shot out the tyres of the car owned by Mr Sondhi, the head of the People’s Alliance for Democracy "yellow shirt" movement, and riddled the vehicle with bullets. Stray bullets also hit a nearby public bus.

The tycoon’s media network reported that more than 100 bullets were fired by the gunmen and AK-47 and M16 shells were found around the car. Mr Sondhi's bodyguard and his driver were also injured, his driver seriously.

A spokesman for Wachira Hospital in Bangkok said that Mr Sondhi, 61, had been wounded in the head but was recovering well from surgery to remove the shrapnel and stem the bleeding in his brain.

[SeaGypsy]

This will be extremely good for his career. (unless they actually kill him next time).

[midnight-gamer]

Protesters and rioters burned down the Central World Mall, in Bangkok. I have been there during better times, and it's hard to convey how large this building was. I mistook it for a skyscraper the first time I saw the place.
Many other locations have been burned. The Thai stock exchange, Banks, Government buildings, so on and so forth..
Friends and family cannot go to work, because work no longer exist. Job sites are raised to the ground and angry protesters rule the streets.
I hope this is not what real collapse looks like, I don't want to see it.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/images-of-unrest-in-northern-thailand/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100519/ts_afp/thailandpoliticsprotest_20100519235417

[midnight-gamer]

Here is a video of a bicyclist with a video camera riding down several deserted streets in the heart of Bangkok.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhDZ9-OHfC8

[Pretorian]

So what all that stuff boils down to, can somebody sum it up? Some people's services became useless
and the government doesnt want to maintain them and subsidize prices?

[Ibon]

Tea Party activists with teeth.

[sparky]

.
I've followed Thai politics for a fair few years
here is the best summary I've read so far
" Foreign policy " is definitely on the right wing but they are not completely brain dead
and have a few good writers
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... n_thailand
.

[thaiexpat]

I can offer some of my insight having lived here in Thailand [for 10+yrs] and watching the recent events as they were happening. I live in the north [a red shirt strong hold], but it was front page news in Bangkok until the army finally broke up the party and all the red shirts ran home and did a bit of damage at their home bases.....the north and northeast [that didn't get much mainstream coverage]. Burned provincal capitol buildings and took over train and bus stations, then went quietly underground....time to plant rice again......but I feal that they will return, as their issues were not settled.

No one will ever begin to figure out this whole political complicated brew.........corporate sponsors, old political power, newly emerging middle class, lower classes wanting their fair share, corruption as an accepted way of life, and then mix in the Royal element with an ailing beloved King and more......
Now we can add the peal oil situation to their complicated mess.

Thailand as a country CAN weather the 'hard times' as they are only a generation away from the third world and do have some natural gas and lignite as well as some hydro. Just a generation ago, they were graduating from bicycles to motorcycles, but unfortunately their evolution to 4 wheels will be delayed. The Thais have always been able to feed themselves and were major rice exporters, so it may have a little less impact than the more developed countries will suffer.

This is my first post on this forum and hopefully I can answer any questions from this little corner of Asia that others may have.

[Ibon]

This is my first post on this forum and hopefully I can answer any questions from this little corner of Asia that others may have.

Welcome to peakoil.com. Good assessment of the situation there. The only thing I would have added would be the threat to thailands food production by the vast monoculture plantations of oil palm and rubber trees in the south that replaced former food crops and the ethnic muslim insurgency in the far south Pattani province even though this is mostly contained.

[thaiexpat]

Thanks, I enter these [poluted] waters with caution and at this time, I am just introducing myself to this whole PO thing.

re: thailands monoculture.....it's true that the south is mostly palm oil and rubber, but both are comodies that could help with survival. Palm oil is mixed with diesel at 5-10%....so helps a little. Rubber, we'll always need.
The whole north and central Thailand is dedicated to rice, and a few other crops and the current rice farmer does depend on nitrates and chems, but as stated in my last post, the Thais are just a generation away from independence of oil and the old timers are still with us to show the way it was done before.

I'll properly introduce myself in the 'welcome' thread later in the day.

[eastbay]

Thew number of tourists is way down.... like 50% from the 'normal' expected load. We just spent the better part of a week in Phuket, which escaped the unrest, yet the streets were relatively clear of shoppers compared to years past, and in addition there were strangely lots of empty seats on the scheduled airplanes. The usual tourist sites were a real joy without the crowds of yesteryear and the beaches of Patong were wide open.

The rumor mills were busy however and the consensus among the locals is to expect large protests to resume shortly.

[Graeme]

Thailand militarisation is symptom of accelerating global system failure

Military coups in Thailand are nothing new. But the latest seizure of power by army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha underscores the risks to democracy when governments consistently fail to deal adequately with the complex convergence of systemic crises.

Although Chan-ocha has said he is merely seeking to "restore order" in reaction to escalating protests that have seen the deaths of 28 and injury of 700, informed observers point out that the declaration of martial law appears to have been calculated to benefit the coup instigators.

Whatever the case, the opportunity to impose authoritarian rule has emerged in the context of escalating political instability. But few recognise that the driving force of this instability is not simply 'political infighting', but the inexorable intersection of global trends that affect us all.

Three years ago, a prescient editorial in Thailand's English language daily, The Nation, noted that global economic growth was indelibly tied to the abundant availability of cheap oil. Pointing out the links between domestic oil scarcity in countries like Egypt beset with surging social upheaval, the editorial diagnosed the problem as follows:

"The recent sharp rise in food prices has triggered riots in Egypt and other less-developed countries. Higher energy prices have also added on to the inflationary pressure. The poor are the most vulnerable sector to fluctuations in food and energy prices. Governments thus have to come up with subsidy measures for food and energy."

What does this imply for Thailand? The editorial continued:

"The Thai inflation rate is very sensitive to higher oil prices, which will drive up local transport and production costs. As a heavy importer of energy, the rising oil price could derail the Thai economy and drain our reserves if we're not careful."

theguardian

[Tanada]

Low scale attacks like this used to be claimed by one or more dissident or terrorist groups when they happened, but nowadays nobody seems to want to be directly associated with random killings.

At least 20 people died in Monday's explosion, including nine foreigners, and more than 120 were injured.

In a separate attack on Tuesday, an explosive device was thrown at a pier in Bangkok, but no-one was hurt.

Nationals from China, Hong Kong, the UK, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are among the foreigners killed in the attack.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33969621