Red shirts VS yellow shirts

Politically things are crazy but we are fine. Airports closed etc but life goes on. Went to a New Years celebration for a ethnic group called the Thai Yai or Shan who live in Burma and NW Thailand. The Shan are fighting the Burmese military to have their own land but are out gunned for sure. More Shan links Here and Here. We were going out for Thanksgiving dinner with friends when we found out that the people we were sharing a ride with were going to a temple where the Shan new year celebration was taking place. So after our Indian curry and garlic nan Thanksgiving dinner we went back to see what was going on. They sure didn't seem to be worrying at their temple fair! We had to buy a 90 cent entry ticket and the police were frisking for, I assume, alcohol at the gate. There were many, many, many food booths and also people selling Shan clothes, music and video CDs. There was a live stage show with modern Shan and traditional dances. The competing sound systems were deafening and unintelligible. (All of the announcements etc were in the Shan or Burmese language - I think - I know it was not Thai) This was all taking part in a Shan temple which we will revisit as it looked very interesting and had an unusual stupa. Lots of candles and offerings all around the stupa too.

The political situation is another matter; the politicians,their parties and followers are all jostling for power. Basically there are two players: the PPP - People Power Party or red shirts (the supporters of this party wear red T-shirts) who support the current government. This government is the remnants of the over thrown government from the last coup and which the opposition says is a puppet of the former prime minister, Taksin. He is in exile both because of the coup and because he has been convicted of tax evasion. The first prime minister of this government was forced to resign because he was guilty of working privately while in office. The job he had was doing a cooking show on TV. The current prime minister is the brother-in-law of Taksin.

On the other side of the ring is the PAD - Peoples Alliance for Democracy or the Democratic party. They are the yellow shirts. They have been demonstrating for months to try to get the current government to call a new election. They have been trying to bring down the government by occupying the parliament and other tactics. The government has tried to crack down and a month or so ago very ineptly sent in riot police and used excessive force and 7 people died. This has only increased the determination of the PAD to force a new election. Since the government couldn't work at the parliament they moved to a temporary location at the old airport. The current tactic of the PAD was to demonstrate at both airports to again try to force a new election. However, the PPP or current government closed the airports, probably to create a crisis, and to allow the police and military to clear the demonstrators. The PAD claim they were demonstrating and there was no need to close the airports. Closing the airports is causing huge financial losses both for the airlines and the tourism business which is already down due to the negative news from here.

There have been some incidents of grenades lobbed into the PAD demonstrations and people have died as a result. The PAD claim they are shot from the police head quarters and there is some reason to believe this.

On Thursday the prime minister returned from Peru to Chiang Mai (his home town and Taksin's too) and had a cabinet meeting here instead of Bangkok. Now he has declared a State of Emergency at both the Bangkok airports to give the police and some military the power to end the demonstrations.

There is a lot that we don't know and lots and lots of rumors flying everywhere. I guess the advantage of being an expat is our ignorance and detachment from the political process. Our Thai friends have hardly slept the last month following the situation. It has affected us in that we had planned to go to Bangkok to a funeral of a good friend who died suddenly last Sunday. We had air tickets :-(

Well that is all for now. We are well and volunteering at Kids Ark and many of you will get a "appeal" request for Kids Ark this year as we are setting up a 501c3 foundation so donations will be tax deductible.

Help if you can - that is all anyone can do.

Tom and Bev