New Mandala

The violence at Kru-Se and and Tak Bai were appalling acts by the Thaksin government. The war on drugs represents an equally appalling legacy of violent repression.
Amidst the political chaos of the past two years one of the positive points has been the extraordinary restraint exercised by security forces in the face of legitimate protest [...]

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A short essay that I wrote on the current stalemate in Bangkok was published yesterday by East Asia Forum.  It is available here.

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Right now, an end to the ongoing standoff between the People’s Alliance for Democracy and the Thai government seems as distant as ever.  We will probably not be making any substantial posts on the situation in Bangkok over the next day or so.  But we are, as always, very keen to host comments that make [...]

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The notion of external ‘help’ to the people of Burma has taken a beating from across the ideological board. The debate around the issue even made international headlines during that brief moment following the tragedy of Cyclone Nargis when Burma was apparently interesting enough to the rest of the world to warrant significant reportage (September [...]

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In today’s Melbourne Age, Andrew and I have an article about current events in Bangkok.  Our brief was to help explain the airport siege, and offer some reflections on the broader political and social context.  The article is available here.

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We’ve seen it plenty of times before but the latest spate of coup chatter is looking more credible all the time. There seems to be a good chance that the army will move later this evening Thai time. Here are some of the latest reports:

Bangkok Pundit is live blogging now. In a post earlier tonight Pundit [...]

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With Thailand’s political standoff rapidly approaching a point of no return, some are speculating that King Bhumibol Adulyadej may intervene to ease the tension. A royal intervention to resolve a seemingly intractable crisis could add much to the authority and mystique of the monarchy. One of the most powerful and enduring images of the king’s [...]

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…or so begins an analysis of Thailand’s current political showdown published in Britain’s Telegraph.  As the current “final battle” lurches into Thursday I expect there will be many more similar efforts to probe beneath the surface of this now huge international story.�
As long-time New Mandala readers are aware, on both the “Yellow” and the “Red” side [...]

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Readers looking for a solid overview of the political situation in Thailand current as of late Wednesday afternoon (Bangkok time) will find much to consider in this piece by Shawn Crispin.  It provides a nicely balanced analysis of the situation since General Anupong Paochinda called for the protesters to disperse and suggested that the government [...]

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We came here and we saw all these people in yellow. We thought they were football fans. Now we’re just waiting…
- Statement from a Dutchman stranded at Suvarnaphumi Airport, quoted by Reuters.

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