Six weeks have passed since the mostly upcountry Reds launched protests in Bangkok and two since the occupation of Ratchaprasong intersection. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has not wavered in his resolve to stay on as premier amidst calls for him to step down, and the country remains in an increasingly intractable crisis with no clear end in sight.

Thailand’s ongoing political impasse reached it’s most recent boiling point on Saturday April 10 when troops clashed with red shirt protesters leaving 25 dead and 840 injured.

Last night, Thursday April 22, at the very moment that the grenades were going off at the Sala Deang sky train station, the second Red rallying site, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand was hosting a panel discussion on the conflict to speculate on what could possibly be done to end it with any lasting results.  The presenters, however, weren’t about to expose themselves politically by giving any clear answers even if they had any.

The panelists:
-His Excellency Lennart Linnér, Ambassador of Sweden to the Kingdom of Thailand since 2007 stressed the need for the international community to speak out and for responsibility of the press to not distort the facts which could possibly further divide the country and tip it into chaos and possibly civil war.

– Prof Thanet Aphornsuvan, former Dean of Liberal Arts at Thammasat University where he currently is the Associate Professor of Liberal Arts. He brought his perspective from his student days as an activist during the 1972 riots that left hundreds dead. He said that in spite of what you think about the Reds, the mainly agricultural and poorly educated people from upcountry, that that population has now become politicized which may be the point at which the people begin to stop looking up to the “caretakers” (or the elite if you want to call them that) for answers and instead become participatory members of Thailand’s democracy, such as it is, which has never happened before in the history of the country. He also spoke of Thailand’s need for it’s governmental structure to become “modernized,” whatever that means to him, and more participatory. To many of us, it implied a reference to the future of the Monarchy.

– Prof Gothom Arya, director of the Research Centre for Peace Building at Mahidol University. Professor Arya taught electrical engineering at Chulalongkorn University in 1997 and subsequently became an Election Commissioner until 2001. After that, he was Chairman of National Social and Economic Advisory Council. He spoke about the possibility (or not) of negotiation and peace-making at this point in the conflict where both sides have only become more entrenched in their positions due to the tactical errors of the government. For example, why was it necessary to issue an emergency decree which only served to place the government in the position it is in now wherein to follow the rule of law they would be required to unleash the military on thousands of it’s own citizens who are refusing the order to disband. They were a nuisance, he said, but were they really a threat?

My question: At what point does rhetoric cease to become free speech but instead a means of inflaming enough anger to send a country into anarchy. The Reds have been saying since the beginning that they intend to burn down the city. I don’t know Thailand’s position on free speech. I have been thinking about a similar issue a little closer to home…the fiery rhetoric of radio commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and the others at Fox News that are continuing to distort the truth for millions of an uninformed electorate. To what extent is their rhetoric causing a meteoric rise in the number of extremist militias in the U.S.? To what extent will we follow what is happening in Thailand now and try to bring down a corrupt government through violence instead of the ballot box? But this discussion is for another day.

– Dr Pijaya Nagavajara, director of BMA General Hospital (Klang Hospital), the nearest hospital to the clash area that had a capacity of around 80 beds but had to triage and treat over 800 hundred injured and dead people the night of April 10. Definitely could put him into that arrogant attitudinal category of the “elite,” in my opinion! One amazing fact: “his hospital,” (he repeated this at least 30 times) the nearest to the site of the melee, is public, and injured Thais are required to go their first to be triaged before being shipped out again to other farther-flung and private hospitals. My physician husband who was with me just shook his head.

In a few minutes, at 4pm Friday April 23, the supposed pro-government “no coloreds” or “rainbows” will gather at the Royal Plaza… promising to bring in 100,000 people. Renaming this group of people doesn’t take away the fact that they are really led by the Royalist PAD, and you can be sure they and their Yellow Shirts, who held the Government House hostage for 193 days and took over the airport in 2008, will be among them. Their fiery leaders were impressive speakers at the meeting I attended with a Yellow Shirt friend last Saturday at Rangsit University. They decided at this meeting (or before) that if the government and the Reds didn’t resolve the conflict in 7 days they were “coming out.” Did we see them at the Sala Deang sky train station on Silom Rd last night? But hey, today is Friday, “and it is the 7th day!”

No one expects an end to this any time soon. But to end this on a lighter note, you should have seen my husband, who is here from his home in Jomptien Thailand to visit me in Bangkok before I leave, scamper past the Red’s encampment, down Sukhumvit from the Maneeya building, to the nearest Chid Lom sky train entrance last night after the FCCT meeting! LOL