Yesterday I spoke with Robert Amsterdam about recent defamation allegations levelled against him by the Royal Thai Army chief, General Prayuth Chan-ocha. Amsterdam also clarifies his relationship with Thaksin and with the Red Shirts. I also question him about lese majeste and Thaksin’s human rights record. The full interview is available here.
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Let me get this straight. Amersterdam begins his defense of the Yingluk government’s approach to lese majeste by saying that it is better than Mark Vedge’s. Did I really hear that? And the murder that came with Thaksin’s war on drugs is a matter of “hype”? Did the Network drug Amsterdam before he did this interview with Dr Walker? How else to explain the sheer crudity of his analysis and the thread-bare quality of his invocations of human rights? Oh, wait. There is another explanation in fact. Amsterdam has fallen into the typical habits of vain American celebrity lawyers, I mean blowhards. Can the Red Shirts possibly need this guy?
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He ‘works for’ the UDD but he … and the UDD ‘core leaders’? … are paid by Thaksin. So they follow Thaksin’s line.
Thailand’s line needs to be a Constitution in place of the present Substitution. Everyday the Substitutional Court assumes more power in Thailand. The Reds Shirts effectively may no longer speak in public.
The Royal Thai Army, too, is daily taking more off the table. Threatening those who make any attempt to prosecute those responsible for the Royal Thai Army’s latest massacre of Thais in 2010.
The only ones any longer even talking about the treasonous mutiny of 2006 are the Nitirat, and they are the only ones with a concrete proposal for a new Constitution as well. Guaranteeing popular sovereignty, with the government serving at the pleasure of the people.
And they are being sized up, once again.
That’s what needs support, in my view. As things stand … it’s just the slow slide down the slippery slope. Or else in a flash, all at once.
Quality comment or not?
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