Sunday, April 12, 2009

A crackdown will just delay the inevitable - DONT DO IT!

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Abhisit: My advice to you from yesterday still stands, however I would add the following:

8. Do not even attempt a crackdown, instead propose a joint interim national reconciliation government made up of Democrats and PT equally, and ask all protesters to go home pending political reform

9. Ask everyone to enjoy Songkran and have a break from all the angst

LIVE UPDATE 1:
(it's going to be a long night!)

Both Bangkok Post & Nation are reporting Abhisit says force will be used.

I can imagine the loss of face that Abhisit is feeling, and can also imagine the urgings he is getting to crack heads.
I'm appealing to Abhisits better instincts and suggest it is time to ignore the Suthep, Prem's & Newins of this world (look where listening to them has got you!)
Abhisit - please accept that this is Thai history in the making, and its your choice whether you will be on the right or wrong side of it.
If ever we need ObaMark it's now!

Maybe its unrealistic, but I'm assuming Abhisit still does have control over his own actions.

BTW, I have no idea whats really going on - I'm watching DTV, NBT and ASTV and guessing the rest.

LIVE UPDATE 2:

The regular political bloggers like Bankkok Pundit, Thai Crisis, TJTS etc seem to have been conspicuously quiet over the last 2 hours - it makes me think they have lost internet, because normally I can rely on them
New: Pundit just posted a comment here (nothings hapened) , so I guess it's just a waiting game. I will stop live blogging and leave it to the experts!

From where I'm sitting DTV is still showing the speeches on the red stage - this is the best link I have.

The most recent twitter updates are here, but I suspect, like me, they are outside Thailand

I still find it hard to imagine a crackdown due to the sheer numbers of reds, and the whole world still watching over the internet.
It is a bit of a worry that things from Thailand seem to be so quiet, and a lot will depend on what's going on at the palace - I'm not going to speculate one way or the other, except to say I'm sure this is the last thing I would want to be seeing if I was the King, especially at his age.