Talk:2008 Thai political crisis

Consolidating Other Articles

I really think that information from History of Thailand since 1973 and Politics of Thailand regarding the crisis should be moved here. There are some citations as well. What do you think? RainKing (talk) 04:31, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Be bold and feel free to do so. There's a lot to be done with this article. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 07:50, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Removal of Template:Politics of Thailand

I think this article doesn't really belong to the politics series. The subject is historical rather than political, and if the History of Thailand since 1973 template were a side box format, I think we would agree to keep the history box over the politics box. I believe the politics box should be reserved for time-independent (& current) institutions, elections, laws, etc. rather than historical events. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 20:50, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

User:YURiN's edits

I don't believe an encyclopaedia article needs to go into such detail on the various issued decrees and their exact statements. Please trim them down if possible. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 17:08, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:RoyalPAD.jpg

The image Image:RoyalPAD.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --21:10, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

PAD = "right wing"?

When I read in this article: "...facing civil unrest from the right-wing People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD).." it makes me think: are the PAD really a "right wing" groupt? In People's Alliance for Democracy under "Supporters" are mentioned a couple of "conservative groups" - even Buddhists, but "right wing" rather reminds me of Jean-Marie Le Pen. He and PAD do not have much in common, don't they? --hdamm (talk) 07:03, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Le Pen is extreme right wing. Other "conservative" parties are gnerally regarded as being on the right albeit on the lesser end of the scale. Admittedly, the larger conserative parties in many western democracies tend to be desribed as "right of centre", they are still right wing. Since the PAD wishes to disenfranchise what it regards as "uneducated" rural populations abd a parliament more alligned to Royal patronage then Right Wing would be a fair description Dainamo (talk) 08:05, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

--- It's very difficult to define the struggling groups in Thailand turmoils as 'right' or 'left'. I have questioned that some facts and details haven't been described. As for PAD, it comprises of well-experienced radicals, ex-communist party's members, tycoons, royalists, monarchists, humanitarian workers , students, workers' unions mainly from The State Railway and THAI airways and many NGOs groups. Interestingly, the name of Hugo Chavez and Che Guevara were praised many times on their stage and their movement. (A book on Chavez was published by the Manager House, the PAD's base.) Moreover their leaders have shown their opposition to privatization of public service. Yet the 'nature' of their pro-monarchy has yet not been 'examined' in details. This does not mean, easily, that they only promote monarchy.The corruption of the politicians is their main target and one of their charge against Thaksin Shinawatra. Yet, the term 'conservative' now should be examined clearly, in details too.

image biased?

The image of PAD members attacking an anti-pad member seams to be biased, as im sure the opposite must have occurred. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.150.12 (talk) 18:59, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

What to do in 2009?

What will we do to this article when it becomes 2009 and the crisis has not yet ended? Patiwat (talk) 06:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

The problems did not start in 2008. The article needs to be renamed. This is particularly true since it's an article on the main page. Chergles (talk) 15:40, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, the 2005-2006 crisis should be renamed the Thaksin crisis while the current crisis should be called the post-Thaksin crisis. That's not going to happen though (because some people will claim that Thaksin is directing the current crisis). When the current crisis extends beyond the new year, I think we should just rename it the 2008-2009 crisis. Deal with it using redirects? Patiwat (talk) 16:42, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Whether such a rename isn going to happen has little to do with Thaksin's actual involvement. We have to see what society and academia retrospectively decide to call the crises, preferably from a historical point of view. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 12:57, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

We'll name it 2008–2009 Thai political crisis, just like 2005–2006 Thai political crisis. It's not our or Wikipedia's place to invent and establish common names, so we can't name them "Thaksin crisis" and "post-Thaksin crisis" unless a substantial part of the media, the experts or something like that uses those names. —Nightstallion 07:42, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

How to reorganize

Please make specific suggestions as to how this article should be reorganized. Or else I will remove the tag. Patiwat (talk) 17:15, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I feel that the article gives undue weight to some specific events while skimming over or neglecting others. That the lengthy text regarding the court decision was removed seemed to be an improvement, but I think the article should give as much weight to background information and consequences of the crisis as to the series of events themselves.

I've created a new section called "Origins of the crisis" where I try to give some context for Thaksin's popularity, why various factions hate him, and other key things leading up to the reformation of the PAD. I'm glad to see there is a section on economic consequences. A section on political/social consequences would also be welcome. But I don't see the need for a wholesale reorganization. Patiwat (talk) 16:49, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The article now is not so much in need of reorganization as filling gaps in coverage and continuity, though. The court cases, for example, have been ongoing during the protests, but no mention has been made of their progression. Feel free to remove or change the template message.

On another note, "or else", even if it conveys a clear meaning, feels confrontational to me. I would personally try not to use such phrases to avoid misunderstanding. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 08:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

No misunderstanding or confrontation intended. Usually, the person putting such a tag in makes specific suggestions for improvement in the Talk page. I didn't see any, nor any discussion about organization. Patiwat (talk) 16:40, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Motives of the protestors?

Has there been any discussion of the motives of the protestors and why they choose to invade the airport at the end of November? Was it solely to try and stop the PM returning? It seems a bit odd to me since they appear to have achieved little other then seriously damage the countries reputation and tourism industry. What resolved the crisis was the court and from what I gather people knew the verdict was probably coming in December so it would have made sense to just wait Nil Einne (talk) 12:35, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

---

Response to above question; according to PAD, their sieges of the airports were said, a counter-attack to the government as they called 'upgrading movement', aiming firstly to blocked the return of PM Somchai from aboard. Later, the sieges were decided as a harder pressure on the government.

Please fix 2005-2006 Thai political crisis to 2005–2006 Thai political crisis

{{editsemiprotected}} at the start of the "Origins of the crisis" section. The latter, with an en-dash, is the correct name of the referenced article.

 Not done Semi-protection will expire in two minutes. Ruslik (talk) 07:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Captions under the photos

This commentary seems highly biased in favor of the military and coup forces. In fact some of the comments are out right provocative and are seething with a Pro-Coup bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.88.146.130 (talk) 02:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the entire gallery as per WP:BRD and put the text below for now. I have 2 problems with these, verifiability and the captions. The captions need to be re-written to comply with WP:NPOV and to be encyclopedic. 'inhabitants of the flats' do not swarm for example. Anything contentious like 'The liquid gas truck that the red shirt protesters threatened to blow up ' needs to be verifiable via a reliable source. If that can't be done then the image can't be in the article. Similarly 'while shots are being fired by both sides'..says who ? If it's not verifiable it has to go. Use of the word 'riot' is questionable unless the word is derived from a cited reliable source and preferably the majority of reliable sources. I could go on but I won't apart from to say that wikipedia isn't iReport.

<gallery> File:1HumveeatRatchaprarop.jpg|Thai army Humvee at Ratchaprarop road, Bangkok. Taken during the red shirt riots; 13 April 2009. File:10Rodeshirtsconfronterenmilitaireninanderestraat.jpg|Red shirt protesters confront the military on Pracha Songkhro road just off Din Daeng road, Bangkok. File:2Degastruck.jpg|The liquid gas truck that the red shirt protesters threatened to blow up in the midst of the Din Daeng flats, Bangkok. Just minutes after this picture was taken the army moved in; 13 April 2009 File:8Rodeshirtsschietenterugengooienmolotovcocktails.jpg|Storming of the Din Daeng/Pracha Songkhro intersection by the Thai military; 13 April 2009 File:4Dindaengflatbewonersvallenderodenaan.jpg|After the liquid gas truck which the red shirts had threatened to blow up in the midst of the Din Daeng flats was removed the inhabitants of the flats swarmed on the street to attack the red shirts File:MilitairenbestormenDinDaengPrachaSongkhrokruising.JPG|Thai military storming the Pracha Songkhro/Din Daeng intersection while shots are being fired by both sides. (Bangkok, Thailand); 13 April 2009 </gallery>

Sean.hoyland - talk 17:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Assassination attempt on Sondhi Limthongkul

What would be the best way of working this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8003531.stm) into the article? Should it be put in the section on the April 2009 state of emergency, or would it be better to start a new section for it? Caleb Jon (talk) 03:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

April 2009 states of emergency section has serious POV problems and distorted facts

For the most blatant act of twisting the fact from a citation (that was originally negative for the protesters) and make it into a misleading statement that shed a different light, making the military seems so cruel (which is false in this particular incident), go see my discussion in the Abhisit wiki talk page here: Talk:Abhisit_Vejjajiva ,first section. (The other guy there read it and says 'Indeed Patiwat, you have clearly cherry picked the information in that source to skew the reading of the incident' .. oops.. did I just mentioned the writer's name?)

The reason I cited it is becuase.. the exact same paragraphs is COPIED from there to this article! (no doubt by the same writer) And the problem is, I don't know how much more misrepresentation there is, especially a sensitive article written from a guy who has make thousands of edits on Thaksin's article (where many guys there mention POV problems in the article... see its discussion) And I'm not here all the time to check on an added POV statements unlike some writers who can professionally respond to a partially biased facts within 1 business days.(see history on Thaksin's page)

Therefore, I'm putting up a NPOV tag until all distortet facts (meaning lies) like the one I mentioned is resolved. I hope that all fair writers here can help check on the neutrality of the pages and preventing the wiki from becoming politically-biases.

(To P, I never want to make personal attacks, but the fact is that you deliberately distorted the facts to make readers misinterpret what really happened. That act ,then, makes your political affiliation relavant to the article. Please write fairly and don't do it again.)

Donny TH (talk) 22:36, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Found another trick.(Pointed out by Manop, thanks) It's Reverse Psychology. The writer add an often unrelated accusations by opponents which sounds silly/rediculous/non-sense (especially when readers don't understand Thai culture, or don't know the unmentioned context). The readers then see the silliness of the accusaion then look at the accused in a better light. How smart...

The first one if the mentioning of Earawan Shrine incident in all political articles, see here Finland Plot discussion.

Thanks Dave for finding another one using this tactic here in Thaksin's page. --Donny TH (talk) 04:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Donny, I generally agree that your edits have been neutral. Ddave2425 (talk) 00:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)ddave2425 (discussion moved from other page by Donny TH)

Another distorted facts... in Thaksin's introduction, by same person of course:

Following violent clashes between the UDD and military forces in April 2009 which caused almost 10 million baht in public damage,...

When look in the source it says 10m was only from BMA which include "9 mobile toilets, 30 surveillance cameras, traffic lights and passenger bus pavilions", excluding properties from other agencies like 15 burned-down buses. Another distorted facts by him. From common sense, what you see in the news doesn't look anywhere close to 10 million. The more important damage was economic damage in tourism and investment, from country's unstable image and from invading the Asean+6 summit, damages which analysts varied from 100 billion - 200 billion baht. But I'm not gonna put it there because it may sounds too harsh on him, and that writer's gonna revert it automaticly anyway. PS. Something like this shouldn't happen in Wikipedia. --Donny TH (talk) 08:01, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Donny, in cases where find clear misrepresentation/misreading of a source and you don't have time or the inclination to fix/replace it I suggest you just delete the information. It's better to have nothing rather than something that is inaccurate or misleading. Sean.hoyland - talk 10:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Revolution categories

I've removed the revolution categories. There are no RS in the article decribing these events as revolutions. Those are required before the cats can be assigned. Sean.hoyland - talk 03:38, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Media war

Do you think the media war between Thaksin and Abhisit belongs to this article?

61.90.230.99 (talk) 08:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

March 2010 section?

I admitingly know little about this subject, but BBC is reporting that the "red shirts" have poured blood at the gates of the capital and have been protesting for days on end. I kinda feel like this should be called 2008-present thai political crisis" b/c it really doesn't seem to have even lowered in intensity. --Fshoutofdawater (talk) 17:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

STRONG SUPPORT definately need to add a 2010 section (couple of bombs going off too (including today)). and also a cahnge to the title suggesting 2010.

2008 - 2010 Thai political crisis

This is still happening - need article change and updated information to include year 2010. -Kylelovesyou (talk) 15:39, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. According to Thai news sources here 10 soldiers have been killed by "red shirt" protesters in the last few days. I'll try to find some sourced information and move the page to "2008–2010 Thai political crisis". Kernow (talk) 04:29, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

merge

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The 2010 issues should be merged here, as an ongoing extension of the same unrest. The original tags were removed by a sockpuppet-I have replaced them. --Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 18:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - First, being logged out doesn't make you a sock puppet. For the record, the logged out edit was made by me while at a public computer this morning. However, even if it was made by some random person it would be no less valid. (The tag was removed as a drive by tagging with no justification given.)
  That said, the articles should clearly not be merged. This article is already too long (see WP:PAGESIZE). The proper thing to in such cases is to split the article into sub-articles for the most important events, and summarized here. That is exactly what the 2010 Thai political protests article does. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose as well. In my opinion, there should be an overview article covering the political history of Thailand since the PAD started its demonstrations in 2006, with separate subarticles discussing the 2006 PAD protests, the coup and the interim government, the 2007 elections and the 2008 PAD protests (up until the court's ruling against Samak), and the 2009 and 2010 Red Shirt protests (which may be one or two articles). This page is, as ThaddeusB said, already too long. --Paul_012 (talk) 06:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose agreed with Paul, the page is way too long should be divided and a template made for navigation. Sodacan (talk) 22:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose for two reasons 1. the 2008-2010 crisis is way too long (need to shortend that still more), 2. something like a brief synopsis on the aftermath/followup can be listed on the 2008-2010 page with a link to the main article. something like what we did on the other revolution taking place simultaenously 2010 Kyrgyzstani riots Lihaas (talk) 05:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - Agree with everyone above. Detailed information from the 2008-2010 article should be used to make new sub-articles for each of the periods of significant activity. The 2008-2010 article should then be stripped down to a summary of the important events and the periods between them, with links to the relevant sub-articles. Kernow (talk) 11:30, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support - there have been many protests in Thailand that have been merged into the 2008-2010 Thai political crisis article, and this is just another protest, so why stop now? Also, the Kyrgyzstan one only got its own page because it isn't linked to anything else. Ggoere (talk) 12:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose the 2008-2010 election is long enough, one can link to the 2010 page details after a summary on that main 2008-2010 page. It seems like the protests are over now as elections calls have been accepted, so the page won't keep going on.Lihaas (talk) 12:26, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose The events of 2010 are notable enough themselves, and the page is too long to include in the already very long 2008-2010 crisis article. Elostirion (talk) 03:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

OpposeTogether, the two articles would be too long to read, and nobody would bother to do so, if only interested in one protest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.114.43.236 (talk) 17:07, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose This article is already long. Perhaps it could be trimmed a bit but the other article is also very long and while it to might be trimmed a bit given the current state of play, it could easily get larger. In other words, there is clearly a lot to cover for both so any combined article will be too long. While the 2010 protests may be a continuation, they are also special and distinct enough to warrant a seperate article Nil Einne (talk) 02:17, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The article is unintelligible to a non-expert

I just wanted to know what it was about. A few paragraphs. As far as I can tell, the army did not like Thanksin. The yellow shirts are army/monarchy/establishment, and the new red shirts are the rural poor. But a proper summary would be most useful.

The situation is to complex for a Jounalist to understand, so there is no useful coverage on the main. I doubt if they even realize that there are two distinct protest groups. Tuntable (talk) 08:16, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I see on one side the "Democrat Party" and on the other side the "National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship". It looks as if they all want Democracy. Why are they fighting? --Plenz (talk) 09:18, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

The lead may need to paraphrase this. Or at least a brief background section at the top. The history and origins sections are far too long for the lay reader Lihaas (talk) 12:27, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The situation is unintelligible to experts. By way of analogy, see English Civil War Historiography. --Pawyilee (talk) 15:50, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Pawyilee. Mootros (talk) 15:56, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

For Thailand, it has been a long winding red road. One waypoint in the fight for Democracy has been the Democracy Monument. Click on the link and scroll down to the image from October 14, 1973. Then take a gander at the red birds in the image I just posted to Facebook. --Pawyilee (talk) 16:12, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Civil War or Revolution?

Has anyone heard if this is turning into a Civil War or Revolution for Thailand? It's been going on for quite some time now, and does not seem to be getting any better. I could see why it would be neither, seeing as its mostly just rioting and protests and not battle for control of areas of Thailand.