Political Violence in Thailand - Research Paper Example

Political Violence in Thailand Political Violence in Thailand Thailand has been through a lot in the past few years and the political instability has been evidently seen and it has not been good news to the citizens of Thailand. The political violence has accelerated at a higher rate and more killings have been taking place recently. Trying to trace how this violence began we get to understand that violence has been led by the protests that have been going on since November 2013. The protests were brought up in order to facilitate the removal of the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from the politics of Thai. The leaders of the of the Suthep Thaugsuban who were retired military and were also associated with the former defense minister General Prawit Wongsuwan and the former chief of general Anupong Paochinda who are believed to have also played a major role in this. The protestors were so much influenced by the amnesty bill that was protecting some of the prominent politicians who had gotten away with murder charges since the year 2004. The prime minister had been accused to be corrupt. The bill is said not to be reasonable since it would allow the former prime minister back to their country and no conviction would be imposed to him even after all his bad misdeeds and he would get away with all the corruption cases that had been imposed on him. 1Though there were a lot of protests coming from the Democratic Party and the Red Shirt movement regarding this bill. The senate discussed on the same bill on November 11th 2013. On November 25th, 2013 the People’s Democratic Reform Committee made sure that some of the government offices were closed without the police’s notice since they had fear that it would lead to a coup like the one that had happened in the year 2006. At first the protests were peaceful but then it was not for long since violent began between the anti pro groups of 1st December 2013 and the 30th November 2013. This violence had resulted to the death of four and the injuring of about sixty people. The protesters were demanding to enter the government house but the security stopped them for two days that they protested. On 3rd December they were allowed to enter the government house since it was his birthday. This was just a way of trying to create calmness between the two groups. On December 8th 2013 153 Democrat members of parliament resigned from office and the prime minister dissolved the House of Representatives the next dayand he announced for the general elections which was scheduled for February 2nd 2014. This decision was greatly opposed by the anti-government movement and they did reject the election. They did so to offer protection to the people’s council which was not elected. The protests facilitated by the anti-government began on Bangkok, Thailand on January 13th, 2014. They still stood to protest the election and they blocked the major road networks to be able to protest and engage more people in the city of Bangkok. Violence that involved shootings, bomb attempts and grenades were used in the process of the protest. 2These again lead to the killing of many other people over the days that followed. The state of emergency was declared in Bangkok and the areas that surround it and in this case the police intervened in order to determine whether the elections were to take place. Advanced voting began on January 26th, and was rejected much in the south of Thailand and in Bangkok. There were so much protest in these two places and many citizens were prevented to vote. On January 28th it was confirmed that the elections were to take place as planned. When February 2nd came the turnout of the voters in the whole nation was 47.72 %. On the 5th of February criminalcourt told the Department of Special Investigations was given arrest warrants for 19 members of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee and this was implemented by February 10th 2014. On the 21st February the constitutional court declared the elections to have been invalid and they said that the elections were not conducted in the appropriate manner and that they had gone over a day which is not right according to the constitution. The ant-government protesters still maintained that they would protest the election until their grievances were heard and considered. Much of the protests had begun before because of the amnesty bill that had been passed in by the Pheu Thai Party that was holding majority of the leaders in the House of Representatives. The violence and the criminal activities were much facilitated by the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) with its leaders and supporters get involved in the process in a big way. There was a man who was caught and he revealed that he had been paid by the PDRC to shoot the protesters of the Red Shirt Protester and had led to the injuring of eight people at Lak Si. Violence had become too much and there was the use of the M16 rifle that had led to the killing of some people.3 The man who had used it was caught and he confessed that he had gotten the riffle from the leader of the leader of the PDRC. The warrant of arrest of the leader of PDRC who was known as Issara Somchai was given together with other five guards of the PDRC. The leader was accused of and order he had given too his police guards to kill and beat an innocent citizen who they had come across with a card that supported the Red Shirt Movement. The PDRC rally at Lumpini on April 5th, 2014 led by Suthep was meant to come up with ways on how to end up the reign of prime minister Yinluc k as the caretaker, Suthep asked them to submit the list of the supporters of the PDRC and he told them that he would get involved in a fifteen days battle that will yield good fruits. He said that he will follow up the matter and find out the verdict of Yinluck had been followed the 2007 constitution. The PDRC is trying to fight for the reform process of Thailand and the amendment of the constitution. Thailand is going through a lot of unstable government and there has been a lot of crisis and political violence that has been taking place all along. It has not been that easy to solve the crisis since they has been incitement from strong political leaders who have influenced much the protests. With the way the situation is at Thailand anything might happen anytime since the government is not that stable currently. There is fear of the overthrowing of the prime minister who is serving currently. The political violence that is happening in Thailand is significant and it is involving two forces that is the supporters of the Election and the people opposing of the election who have failed to come to a conclusion on what measures should be taken on these matters. 4Some of the protesters are doing it for the amendment of the constitution whereas others do it to fight for the interests of their parties. The case in Thailand falls under the political violence which is committed on behalf of the state. This is because most of the events that are taking place are all based on the politics of the country. In this country it seems that there are two groups of people who have got different political reasoning and supporting different things. The process of expressing their views these result to the protests and the war in Thailand. The outcomes of the violence have led to very many problems. The first and one of the major things that the war has led is the losses of lives of many who have been lost in the process. Most of those who have lost much are the children who have been left by their parents when they are young since it is hard to raise children when they are young without the love and care of the parents. It is very clear that most of the children will end up being street children and when this happens it will be a threat to the country since most of them will survive on petty crimes. 5The other problem that has been associated with the political violence is that the economy of Thailand has been affected by the economy since no more tourists go there so the source of income to the government goes down and also most of the investors would never agree to invest in Thailand at its present state of crisis and violence. Lack of investment to the people of Thailand will mean that most of them will be left with no employment and this will lead to many unemployed people to be idlers. This will now lead to another problem which will be the accelerating of violence and crime. Violence comes with a lot of destruction of property and infrastructure and so to the government they incur costs when there is violence. Violence also affects the relations between individuals or groups and this will lead to disunity. 6Violence also creates a bad image of a country since most of the countries are always watching on the others for the sake of the citizens who visit other countries from theirs in order to control the safety of their citizens. The rice scheme has had very many crises since the political violence began and the government failed to pay the farmers their dues and they plan to go to court and sue the government. The relationship between Thailand and the other countries that they do business with has really changed as a result. The United States government has not yet intervened together with the United Nations to intervene in this war and try and neutralize the situation there and fight for the lives of the innocent citizens of the country. There are still hopes that this powerful country and the UN organization will chip in and try to solve the issue before it deteriorates. 7The reason why some of the states don’t have violence is because citizens have been enlightened about the results of war. So they never engage in war because they understand better. In many regions the constitution is strong and protects them so they don’t go for violence since they receive good governance. The problem with Thailand is that the leaders have been leading tyrannically leading to radicalization. Reference List Frank, A.Political violence, Cengage Learning: New York.2013 Furrer, O. Resolving Political crisis, Taylor & Francis: New York.2012. Levy, S. Causes of War, John Wiley & Sons. Copyright: New York, 2011. Read More

 

Reference List

Frank, A.Political violence, Cengage Learning: New York.2013

Furrer, O. Resolving Political crisis, Taylor & Francis: New York.2012.

Levy, S. Causes of War, John Wiley & Sons. Copyright: New York, 2011.

Read More