It seemed Thailand was bursting with national pride last week when President Obama made it the first stop on his historic trip to Southeast Asia.
The president’s visit made quite an impression on Thailand, and adoring crowds gathered around him and chanted ‘Obama, Obama’ as he visited the Temple of Reclining Buddha just after arriving in Bangkok.
(Associated Press, November 19, 2012)
And no Thai seemed more impressed and adoring than (female) Prime Minister Yingluck Shinatwatra. So much so in fact that opposition forces threw cold water on the national celebration by practically accusing her of treason for behaving more like a teenage girl meeting Justin Bieber than as one head of state greeting another.
Except that when they took to the streets in protest within days after Obama’s visit it became clear that Shinawatra’s flirting with Obama was the least of their grievances with her.
At least 9,000 people attended the rally, organised by activists who believe the current prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, is the puppet of her brother, the deposed former PM Thasksin Shinawatra…
The group is supported by the ‘yellow shirts’ of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, who have been involved in destabilising or ousting governments led or backed by Thaksin in 2006 and 2008.
(London Guardian, November 24, 2012)
As it happens, no political commentator in the United States has written more than I have about the perennial struggles between the Yellow Shirts and the Shinawatras’ Red Shirts for control of Thailand.
More to the point, I myself felt compelled to throw cold water on national celebrations there last year when Yingluck made history herself by becoming Thailand’s first female prime minister. I did so because I feared back then that the relationship between Thaksin and Yingluck was nothing more than what the Yellow Shirts are complaining of now; namely, that it’s one between a master and his puppet.
This constrained me to observe that she was hardly worthy of being hailed among the vanguard of women in international politics:
Just as electing an obvious dingbat like Sarah Palin as president of the United States would do nothing to advance the noble cause of women in politics, electing an obvious puppet like Yingluck as prime minister of Thailand will do nothing to advance this noble cause.
(“Alas, Thailand’s First Female PM Is Just a Puppet,” The iPINIONS Journal, July 12, 2011)
So it’s hardly surprising to me that she was unable to comport herself with Obama as a head of state should. Far more troubling though is that this latest round of anti-government protests vindicates my fears that the cycle of destabilizing conflicts between Yellow Shirts and Red Shirts will continue in perpetuity.
Specifically, here is why I warned that Yingluck’s election was bound to incite the protests now raging in Thailand:
I doubt the Yellow Shirts will standby and allow Thaksin to rule over them again – even if only by proxy from exile in Dubai.
Especially because Thaksin seems to believe that his little sister’s top priority should be forcing the government to grant him amnesty and return the $1.2 billion in assets it confiscated after he fled.
(“Alas, Thailand’s First Female PM…,” The iPINIONS Journal, July 12, 2011)
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