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437개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.

  1. 2010/01/05
    두바이:아름다운자본주의
    no chr.!
  2. 2009/12/17
    코펜하겐 '경찰 축제'
    no chr.!
  3. 2009/11/24
    이탈리아: 反이주 캠페인
    no chr.!
  4. 2009/11/12
    인도: 반공(反共)의 전쟁
    no chr.!
  5. 2009/05/20
    독일: 파시즘/인종적 차별
    no chr.!
  6. 2009/04/20
    '사회주의' 쿠바(&美)
    no chr.!
  7. 2009/04/09
    反G20투쟁날/살인경찰
    no chr.!
  8. 2009/04/08
    M.E. '평화'..
    no chr.!
  9. 2009/03/25
    세계(경제) 위기 #7
    no chr.!
  10. 2009/03/23
    '아름다운' IDF (^^)
    no chr.!

이스라엘: 인종 차별주의

While Jews especially in Europe are still confronted with (partly increasing) anti-semitism, Arabs(i.e. Muslim, Christian & Druze Palestinians/25% of the Israeli population), migrant workers(aprox. 180,000) and refugees in Israel are confronted with a massive wave of racism.

 

Israel's top Reform rabbi declared y'day:


Israeli society falling into deep pit of racism


The head of Israel's Reform Judaism movement on Tuesday harshly criticized a letter by 30 rabbis' wives calling on Jewish girls not to date Arabs, work with them or perform national service in the same places where they work.


"Israeli society is falling into a deep, dark pit of racism and xenophobia," said Rabbi Gilad Kariv, who two weeks ago also vocally condemned a move by a number of leading rabbis who signed on a ruling to forbid the rental of homes to Arabs


Just weeks after several dozen state-employed rabbis ignited a major controversy by issuing a letter calling on Israeli Jews not to rent or sell their homes to non-Jews, and some days after an anti-Arab demonstrations in Bat Yam and Tel Aviv Israel sees more and more incidents in the rising tide of hatred and racism that appears to be sweeping the country...


Here just some examples ('highlights') from the past ten days:

School principal prohibits students from speaking Arabic (12.29)
Rabbis' wives: Don't date Arabs (12.28)
Arabs flee home due to racist threats (12.23)
...racism ...take the streets against Arabs, migrant workers (12.22)
Bat Yam: Death to Jewish women who date Arabs (12.21)
Hundreds in Tel Aviv call for deportation of migrant workers, refugees (12.21)
Bat Yam rally: 'Arabs dating our sisters' (12.19)


 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

위키리크스: 中-北 '친선'


 

Some of the most interesting parts of the recently released WikiLeaks ("The US embassy cables") concerns the - probably uneasy - relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang.


Today's Al-Jazeera reported the following (making the "Dear Leader" possibly a bit unhappy, resp. just pissed off!!):


China 'backs Korean reunification' 
 

Chinese leaders privately support a unified Korea and would not stop the North's collapse, according to leaked US cable


Chinese officials increasingly doubt the usefulness of neighbouring North Korea as an ally and would support the reunification of the peninsula if the communist state were to collapse, according to leaked US diplomatic cables.


The latest documents released by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks on Tuesday detail conversations between US officials and Chinese diplomats, as well as a senior South Korean official's discussion with his Chinese counterparts.


Cheng Guoping, the Chinese ambassador to Kazakhstan, was reported to have told Richard Hoagland, the US ambassador, that "China hopes for peaceful reunification in the long-term, but he expects the two countries to remain separate in the short-term".


The remarks were made during a three-hour dinner in Astana, Kazakhstan's capital, in June 2009, according to documents published on WikiLeaks website.


Cheng was quoted as telling Hoagland that China's objectives in North Korea were to ensure they honour their commitments on non-proliferation, maintain stability, and "don’t drive [Kim Jong-il] mad".


Pyongyang's protector


The cable said that Cheng suggested that Kim Jong-il's decision to anoint his youngest son as his successor was driven more by Kim's deteriorating health than any carefully planned strategy.


"They had no time to plan for this," he was quoted as saying, adding that Kim Jong-il's announcement was designed to send a message to the military that he held the power.


Beijing has long been considered Pyongyang's protector, as seen during the recent crisis over the shelling of a South Korean island close to a disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea.


In the aftermath of the incident, which left at least four people dead and saw both nations increase their military readiness, Washington appealed to Beijing to rein in the North. China responded by calling for a meeting of world powers to diffuse tensions.
 

But in another cable from Seoul, South Korea's capital, the country's then vice-foreign minister was quoted as telling Kathleen Stephens, the US ambassador, that two high-level Chinese officials told him they "believed Korea should be unified under ROK [South Korea] control".
 

Chun Yung-woo, now the national security advisor to South Korea's president, said that the younger generation of Communist leaders in Beijing did not regard North Korea as a useful or reliable ally and would not risk a renewal of armed conflict on the Korean peninsula, the cable said.


Those younger leaders, Chun said, "would be comfortable with a reunited Korea controlled by Seoul and anchored to the United States in a benign alliance".


He reportedly dismissed the prospect of Chinese military intervention in the event of North Korea's collapse, noting that China’s strategic economic interests now lie with the United States, Japan, and South Korea, not with North Korea.


Chun was quoted as saying that he believed that the North would cease to function as a state within three years of Kim Jong-il's death and said Beijing had "no will" to use its economic leverage to change the country's political policies.


Chinese 'conundrum'


Andrew Leung, the chairman and CEO of International Consultants Limited in Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera China was in a "conundrum" over the future of North Korea.


"China doesn't want to cause an immediate collapse of the regime and force reunification because a divided Korea could at least provide a possible buffer against encirclement," he said.


"An immediate collapse of North Korea could also not be good for South Korea. If you look at the unification of the two Germany's, you have got to wait until the conditions are right and it could drag down the economy in South Korea quite dramatically."


The diplomatic memos were released as North Korea announced details of an expanded nuclear programme, saying it has thousands of working centrifuges in a new uranium enrichment plant. 


In the cable from the US ambassador to Kazakhstan, China's Cheng described the North's nuclear programme as "very troublesome". He said that China "opposes North Korea's nuclear testing and is working to achieve peace and stability on the Korean peninsula," the cable said...


http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/11/2010113034727624560.html

 

 
MUST READ! The Guardian (UK) has some more detailed articles about the issue:

Wikileaks cables reveal China 'ready to abandon North Korea'
WikiLeaks cables: How China lost patience with North Korea
  

Related article:

Unhappy China Seeking "Not to Drive Kim Mad" (DailyNK, 11.30)


 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

독일: 국수주의/외국인혐오/반유대주의...

Germany 2010:

Far-right Radicalism, Xenophobia and Anti-semitism...


One in 10 Germans want 'new Fuehrer to lead the country with iron fist'; every third German believes foreign immigrants should be expelled; 17% of Germans believe Jews have 'too much influence'...


Sixty-five years have passed since the end of the Second World War(i.e. the military destruction of the Fascist Germany by the Allied Forces), but even today it would seem that many Germans still cling to the prejudice and racism which the Nazi party identified with.


A new poll conducted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for Political Education(a part of the German Social Democratic party) has found that one in 10 Germans wants "a new Fuehrer to lead the country with an iron fist", and that every third German thinks all foreign immigrants should be expelled from Germany if unemployment becomes a problem. The poll consisted of 2,500 people of different ages. The results were announced last Wednesday(10.13).

 
Some 25% of all respondents expressed racist opinions, and 15.9% said they somewhat understood why a Fuehrer needed to be appointed; 58% of the participants claimed that Germany needed to curb the traditional Muslim lifestyle. As for anti-Semitism, 17.2% of the survey's participants supported the statement that "Jews have too much influence in the world today"...

 


And the study has revealed that far-right attitudes are deeply rooted in the mainstream German society as you can see here:

Right-wing extremism in Germany (Interactive Survey Results)  


Related articles:

Right-Wing Attitudes On the Rise in Germany (Spiegel, 10.13)

German multiculturalism dead (Yedioth Ahronot, 10.16)

 



 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

쿠바: '21세기 사회주의'(^^)

Welcome to the "Socialism of the 21st century"!


Last week the Cuban gov't has announced it will lay off more than 1,000,000 state employees. According to the Cuban trade union CTC they'll get no unemployment assistance!
Currently there are 5,000,000 state employees (plus 140,000 in the privat sector) in Cuba...


Related article:
Capitalist storm clouds loom over Havana... (Guardian, 9.14
)

 

 

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

프랑스: 反인종 차별 투쟁

Almost three weeks ago France has begun the deportation of possibly thousands of members of the Roma (aka Gypsy) minority, to Romania and Bulgaria (member states of the E.U.)...

 

Roma mother and their children sit next to luggage
in Bucharest, Romania, after deported from France

 
Opposition politicians, labour unions and human-rights organizations have widely condemned the operation as abusive and racist, saying the Roma have too often been Europe's scapegoats.


On Aug. 18, the E.U. Commission for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship reminded France of the "freedom of movement for E.U. citizens." It also warned that it would be watching France closely to make sure due process and the rights of European Roma were being respected.


But despite the criticism, the Sarkozy administration is moving ahead with the plan...


But at least since y'day a broadly organized resistance takes the streets of France to damand: "Stop Deportation! Stop the State-operated Racism!"...


Today's Haaretz/AP reported the following:


Thousands march across France against decision to expel Gypsies


Protesters accuse Sarkozy of stigmatizing minority groups like Gypsies and seeking political gain with a security crackdown. They also say he is violating French traditions of welcoming the oppressed, in a country that is one of the world's leading providers of political asylum.


Thousands of people marched in Paris on Saturday to protest expulsions of Gypsies and other new security measures adopted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.

 


Protesters blew whistles and beat drums in the largest demonstration among those in at least 135 cities and towns across France and elsewhere in Europe. Human rights and anti-racism groups, labor unions and leftist political parties took part in the protests.

 


They accuse Sarkozy of stigmatizing minority groups like Gypsies and seeking political gain with a security crackdown. They also say he is violating French traditions of welcoming the oppressed, in a country that is one of the world's leading providers of political asylum.


The protests mark the first show of public discontent since the conservative Sarkozy, a former hardline interior minister, announced new measures to fight crime in late July.


Sarkozy said Gypsy camps would be systematically evacuated. His interior minister and other officials said last week that about 1,000 Roma have been given small stipends and flown home since then.


For years, Sarkozy has used his image as a tough, law-and-order politician to win political support. Sarkozy has linked Roma to crime, saying their camps are sources of prostitution and child exploitation. The latest moves by Sarkozy came after violence between police and youth in a suburban Grenoble housing project and other clashes in a traveling community in the Loire Valley.


Sarkozy also said naturalized citizens who threaten the lives of police officers should lose their citizenship - and his leftist critics slammed that proposal as anti-constitutional and evocative of nationalist measures during France's collaborationist past in the Vichy regime during World War II.


"Mr. Sarkozy is there to stand for the Constitution, not to trample it," said Jean-Paul Dubois, president of France's Human Rights League. "So we consider this situation extremely dangerous, that's why we are here."


Paris police said some 12,000 people took part in the protest in the capital and that no violence took place. Organizers estimated that 100,000 people took part in such marches across the country - though they did not immediately estimate how many of those attended the largest one, in Paris.


Small groups of Gypsies took part, including women with flowered skirts, sandals or looping earrings, and men in jeans with gold caps on teeth in the corners of their smiles. But they were far outnumbered by left-leaning political parties, labor unions, and dozens of activist groups like those supporting illegal immigrants or gays.


"It warms the heart to see so many people out here. Fortunately, there are nice people in the world," said Delia Romanes, walking behind a banner of a 17-year-old Gypsy circus that she heads in northeastern Paris. She said the government has recently sought to strip its performers of their work papers.


Other Roma without proper residency rights were more fearful.


"We are afraid. We aren't prepared for this, said David Anghel," a 24-year-old mason from Romania, who has lived in France for eight years. Holding the banner of a Gypsy-support association, he said his wife had been served with an order to leave their camp in Fleury-Merogis, south of Paris, about 10 days ago. They fear police will come to expel them in the next few days.


Similar peaceful protests took place outside French embassies elsewhere in Europe. In Belgrade, Serbia, dozens of Gypsies chanted anti-racist slogans and held banners calling for an end to the expulsions from France.


http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/thousands-march-across-france...1.312191


 
Related articles:
France Steps Up Deportation of Roma (Time, 9.01)

French protest over Roma expulsions (al-Jazeera, 9.04)

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

러시아: 파시스트 테러 작전

Escalating Fascist Terror in Russia


Y'day(8.29) during the course of an assault upon concert-goers in Miass (Chelyabisnk Region, 1400km east of Moscow) hundreds of “bare-chested” boneheads (fascist skinheads) have apparently injured scores and killed a 14-year-old girl(*). Some reports suggest that there may be more victims, but accurate information will be difficult to obtain while the Russian state goes into damage control mode.


AP reported the following:


Scores of bare-chested skinheads attacked a crowd of about 3,000 people at a rock concert in central Russia on Sunday, beating them with clubs, media reports said.


Dozens of people were left bloodied and dazed in the attack, television and news agencies reported, and state news channel Rossiya-24 said a 14-year-old girl was killed at the concert in Miass...


Not surprisingly — or incredibly, if you prefer — some other reports said that the cops stood aside as the boneheads went about their bloody business!


According to local media reports, shooting was also heard as a crowd of angry bare-chested boneheads, armed with batons, sticks and iron rods, forced their way through security cordons.


“Police and security guards were either inactive or ran away. Some attackers snatched truncheons from police officers and started beating the visitors,” the Chelnovosti reported citing eyewitnesses.


Today's Guardian (UK) reported the following:


Skinheads attack crowds at Russian rock festival


About 100 skinheads attacked crowds of revellers at a Russian rock festival yesterday, injuring 19 people, reports in the Russian media say.


The state-run Rossiya 24 television channel showed footage of large groups of bare-chested men with cropped hair running up to the entrance of the Tornado festival in the Urals city of Miass, about 850 miles east of Moscow.


A spokeswoman said local police had no immediate comment on the motive behind the attacks. Six of the 19 victims were taken to hospital.


At least 60 people were killed and 306 injured in hate crimes in Russia last year, according to Sova, a rights group that monitors racist violence in the country. Most were attacks on Muslim migrants from central Asia.


Witnesses at the festival, which was attended by 3,000 people, said some of the men fired gunshots into crowds, Rossiya 24 reported. Footage showed policemen collecting axes and batons belonging to the skinheads.


The Ekho Moskvy radio station said the owner of a local cafe had been detained on suspicion of organising the violence.


Activists in Russia have warned that increasing xenophobia and a corrupt police force are allowing far-right groups to prosper.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/30/skinheads-attack-russian-rock-festival

 

 


* According to the Russian Indymedia, "in the attack died from 3 to 7 people, more than 50 people were injured"...
  "Russian state-run news channel Rossiya-24 reported the death of a 14-year-old girl, but the ITAR-TASS news agency quoted police in the Chelyabinsk Oblast as saying no one had died in the violence", according to
Radio Free Europe

 

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

이스라엘-팔레스타인 '평화' 회담

For next Friday's "Peace Talks" the Obama administration plans to present Israel and the Palestinian Authority with a new outline aimed at ending the Middle East conflict. The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported two days ago that "the Americans will pressure the parties to sign a framework agreement for a permanent settlement within one year"...


But instead of "ending the Middle East conflict" last week's Haaretz (Israel's most important "left"-liberal newspaper) predicted that...


Peace talks... will make war more likely

 
Terror is likely to resume during the talks, in order to thwart them. And Israel must prepare on all fronts for a long period of unrest.


This time, Benjamin Netanyahu really wants to do it. The decision had been percolating for some time, and was finally made, after a not particularly hard push from U.S. President Barack Obama, in his Bar-Ilan University speech.


The prime minister's opponents, who look for flaws in everything he does, don't believe him. They think he doesn't mean what he says. How could he?


But he can. It happens to many decision-makers: They behave in ways that violate their fundamental beliefs. Improvement of Government Services Minister Michael Eitan, who this week called for extending the freeze on settlement construction, expressed it well. His explanation: On the issue of two states and the future of the settlements, he, his leader Netanyahu and a majority of their Likud Party have accepted the left's positions, if only by default.


The Bar-Ilan declaration became binding Israeli policy. It was also an ideological milestone with far-reaching ramifications: The leader of the camp identified with the indivisibility of the Land of Israel was the one who announced, in his role as prime minister, that the land will be divided.


Now, in embarking on talks whose aim is to implement the division, he has reconciled himself to that declaration, without any signs of traumatic guilt on either his own part or that of his party. What's done is done, as Eitan rightly observed.


But Netanyahu will not be able to do it this time, either. Not because he doesn't want to, or because he will lack a majority in the Knesset. If he reached an agreement with the Palestinians, the opposition would provide him with a majority, as happened with the Oslo Accords and the disengagement from Gaza. But with the Likud leading the move to divide the country's heartland, there would most likely be no need for the opposition's support.


Rather, Netanyahu will not be able to do it because this time, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas really can't. And he also doesn't want to.


Netanyahu, in contrast, has put himself in the political position of his predecessors Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. There was almost no compromise they were not willing to make, or they indeed made many. But the Palestinians simply "couldn't do it." They even escalated the terror.


The minimalist Jewish Zionist consensus includes recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people; relinquishing the "right of return"; ending the conflict and waiving all further demands once the agreement is signed; no division of Jerusalem by formal agreement, as opposed to practical arrangements; and the continued existence of the settlement blocs. Are the Palestinians prepared to accept this Zionist minimum? Absolutely not.


But even if it turned out that this time, the Palestinians didn't want to miss another opportunity to miss an opportunity, those with the real power would torpedo the process: Tehran, Damascus, Hezbollah in Beirut, and soon also Baghdad, where Iran will pull the strings. They would never accept recognizing Israel as the home of the Jewish people. They would use force to prevent the Palestinians from relinquishing the right of return, to prevent a declaration that the Arabs have no more ideological, religious and territorial claims in Palestine, that the conflict has ended.


The man who forced Abbas to go to Washington next week is the same one who, by withdrawing from Iraq and appeasing Iran, sowed the seeds of trouble that will undermine any agreement. Iraq's abandonment by the United States is creating regional instability.


The one who will benefit from the chaos is the one with power, defined goals and the determination to achieve them: Iran. And America, its wings clipped by choice and fearing another entanglement, will not be able to stop Iran from achieving decisive influence in the region and completing its nuclear bomb project. The axis of evil will not make do with its outpost in Gaza.


Given this situation, how could Abbas reach an agreement, even if he wanted to?


Terror is likely to resume during the talks, in order to thwart them. And Israel must prepare on all fronts for a long period of unrest - because Egypt is also in transition, characterized by instability, and the Jordanian monarch, as we all have seen and heard, is in a panic.


There is no certainty that the instability will lead to war. But it certainly doesn't bring peace between us and the Palestinians, or with most of the Arab world, any closer. Obama, when he imposed the direct talks, apparently didn't think about that. Thus the peace talks bring us no prospect of peace - only the seeds of war.


http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/peace-talks-that-will-make-war-more-likely-1.310283

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

반유대주의 = 파시즘!!!

About two weeks ago antisemitic graffiti was sprayed on the wall of the Jewish cemetery in the (west) German city Aachen. A wellknown militant neo-nazi, "only" one week later he was arrested, sprayed swastikas and the slogans: “Free Palestine”...

 


...and "Turn on the gas tap for the Jews!"(*)

 


 

* As you possibly know, between 1942 and 1945 millions of Jewish civilians were murdered in the gas chambers, located in a number of German concentration camps!


For more info please check out:
http://antisemitism.org.il/eng/events

 

 

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

이스라엘: (인터넷)연대

Yesterday's Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's (conservative) "number-one newspaper", published the following nice piece about creative solidarity:


Bloggers get Palestinian village water


Israeli activists hold online campaign to convince authorities to connect village to water supply


Hundreds of Israelis managed to overcome years of bureaucratic battles in only two and a half months – without ever leaving the house.

 
The viral activists used blogs, emails and social networks in order to pressure authorities to connect a Palestinian village to running water.

 
"We wracked our brains over how to reach people beyond the bureaucracy. We thought about the typical Israeli and how to appeal to him, and then decided to open a blog and act through the internet." Ehud Uziel from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel told Ynet.

 
The group, in cooperation with Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights Foundation, launched a blog entitled 'One action a day', with the aim of getting the Palestinian village of al-Tawana, located on Israeli territory south of Mount Hebron, water.


Aside from the blog, the activists launched social network groups on sites such as Facebook, and called volunteers to apply pressure on different bodies in order to advance the cause.

 
Eventually a group of some 1,000 activists formed, of which between 60 and 200 people participated in the 55 daily actions carried out during the past 11 weeks.

 
As part of their campaign, the activists "bombarded" Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilani, and several MKs with letters relating to the subject.

 
The activists also appealed to Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, urging him to connect the village to running water "for the sake of Israel's global PR campaign."

 
Some activists offered creative solutions by filming water faucets and uploading videos, participating in an activism festival, creating a Wikipedia entry and a computer game, and even organizing a group visit to the village.

 
After two and a half months of activity, the tables finally turned. Two of the activists received phone calls from head of the Civil Administration Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, who thanked them for the numerous letters and said the Civil Administration plans on connecting the village to a water supply in the near future.

 
"Truthfully, we didn’t think we would succeed. We simply wanted to raise awareness to one of the village's many problems. We were pleasantly surprised," said Uziel.

 
Despite the optimistic outcome, Uziel said their achievement will not be completed until water is flowing in all the village's faucets.

 
"We have proven that there is a civil democracy in Israel," said Uziel, and noted that they plan to continue their activities in the matter.


http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3921620,00.html

 

 

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

(주말) 독서를 즐기다!!

Check out the "weekend reading" (the follwing report has been published in last Wednesday's Guardian)!


Thailand's redshirts pledge to fight on


• Rebel movement goes underground in Chiang Mai
• Political activists in hiding as police search continue


In the near-empty Red Coffee Corner cafe, in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, the portraits of four men have pride of place above the front window: Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and Thaksin Shinawatra (oops... outright confusion!!^^).


Beneath the picture of the exiled billionaire former prime minister – ousted in a coup, convicted of corruption but still a hero to millions – Jakrapon Botirak was holding court, discussing the future of Thailand and its fractious politics.


"This [cafe] is not a good business," he said. "It loses a lot of money. But it is important that people have a place where they can come to talk about our country freely. This is a place for that."


Thailand's north, populated largely by small-scale farmers and shop owners – the country's "rural poor" – is known as the redshirt heartland. It is from here that the anti-government movement, whose protesters occupied the streets of Bangkok for more than two months, drew its numerical strength and where it remains strongest.


On Tuesday the government signalled that the movement was still a threat, as it extended a state of emergency for another three months in about a third of the country, including the areas around Chiang Mai.


"The people here are still red," Jakrapon said. "Not on the surface, [there are] no more shirts, but they still have the red feeling, they still oppose the government."


Since the violent crackdown by government troops in May that ended the redshirts' protest on the streets of the capital, the movement, once proudly public, has been forced underground. Few supporters are now willing to identify themselves or talk openly about the cause. Redshirt stickers and flags, once ubiquitous across this part of Thailand, are a scarcity now.


All that remain are anonymous, vague threats of "guerrilla warfare", and "uprising against the government", all without detail or timetable.


Police are still actively searching for known political activists in Chiang Mai. There is, reportedly, a list several dozen names long, but most of the people are in hiding. The Red Radio station, where Jakrapon was a DJ, has been raided several times and its broadcasting equipment confiscated under Thailand's emergency decree law. Jakrapon's coffee shop is one of the few places in the town that remains defiantly red.


But beneath their seeming acquiescence to the government's reasserted authority, people in Chiang Mai are still enraged, according to Jakrapon. "People are still very angry with the government. The government did not choose the smooth way to end the protests, by talking. They chose the violent way, by shooting."


Fourteen people were killed as troops marched on the reds' protest camp in central Bangkok on 19 May, bringing to at least 88 the number of people who died in the political violence over 68  days of protests.


But the forcible end to the protest has not dissolved the disaffection felt by many Thais towards their government.


"People are ready to fight again, they are not afraid. This is only a rest, a break," Jakrapon said.


Despite the portrait overhead, Jakrapon said the redshirt movement had moved beyond its former figurehead, the fugitive Thaksin. "Thaksin has no special rights or power. The reds are about democracy now."


This is debatable. Thaksin's foreign billions bankrolled much of the long-running demonstration, and opinion persists at senior diplomatic levels that it was his refusal to negotiate with the government that led to the demonstration's final bloody end.


But the redshirts in Chiang Mai say they oppose the government led by Abhisit Vejjajiva because it was never popularly elected. They say it is a puppet administration for the interests of the wealthy elite and the military figures of Bangkok. And, regardless of motivation, in that distant capital it is recognised that while the protest might have been crushed, the discontent that drove it remains.


"Things have calmed down," said Bangkok's governor, Sukhumband Paribatra. "But I am of the opinion that things are not back to normal yet. It may be just an interlude, I hope I'm wrong, but I think it is a possibility that this is a quiet interlude between two crises. This is why I'm very worried."


Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Chulalongkorn University, in Bangkok, said the government faced a difficult task trying to reconcile Thailand's yawning political divide. "The early signs aren't good. There's vindictiveness in the air."


Tawangwong Yoduppatham runs a tiny shop on the northern outskirts of Chiang Mai. He went by train to Bangkok four times to join the protests and was behind the reds' tyre-and-bamboo barricades when the troops advanced. "The soldiers, they shoot at everybody, even people who are peaceful. I saw people killed. We run, we have to leave, but we leave more angry at the government."


He is cynical about government talk of an early election, a "circuit breaker" on the political impasse gripping Thailand. Tawangwong believes that even when the parliamentary term expires at the end of next year there will not be elections. "Nobody here trusts the government. They say one thing and do another. They lie to us."


He added that the sense of peacefulness in Thailand's north belied the people's anger. But with the redshirt leadership in hiding or in prison on terrorism charges, there is a vacuum at the head of the anti-government movement.


"There are two groups of people, some who want more protests for the world to see, and other people who want to go underground, to do violence against the government. But for now, the people are just waiting for new leaders to come up. For sure, the grassroots people are all ready to fight."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/07/thailand-redshirt-fight-abhisit-chiang-mai

 

 

 

 

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