[Jake]

Copy of e-mail from girlfriend regarding current political position in Thailand



Hello John,

Sorry for being quiet, I have been busy mak mak, but yes, i am still protest, we all do, but it seems the government is worse than we thought. We want to reform our country's politic system before a new vote take place. Yesterday was the advance voting, one of a core leader of Anti-government leader was shot. Read more from http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/...dvanced-voting .

Thailand right now is the land with no laws, the whole police forces are bought and paid by Thaksin, many of these police officers have disguised themselves as black shirt snipers who shot and killed the peaceful protesters and got away with their crimes. In the meantime Thaksin who lives in Dubai has organised, funded and armed terrorist groups across the country to sustain and protect his sister's government. These protesters are unarmed and based on non-violent civil disobedience who want to get rid of corrupted and abusive government; a government who won election from vote buying and electoral fraud.

Below is a letter written by a Thai lady who works in USA, it would be great if you read it and get more understanding why we have to protest. I am not scared of death. We will protest until we won.

"Letter to President Obama regarding Thailand's Political Crisis - A Response to Michael Turner"

President Barack Obama
President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washing, D.C. 20500

17 January 2014

Dear Mr. President,

I am writing in response to Congressman Michael R. Turner's letter to you yesterday, urging you to publically voice opposition to the anti-government movement and support the election on 2 February 2014. With all due respect, Congressman Turner's letter is misguided and shows a lack of understanding of the Thai political crisis.

As a U.S. trained lawyer, and citizen of the U.S. and Thailand, I am pro-democracy. Indeed, I have often volunteered for voters' assistance groups to inform Americans on voting registration, necessary documents for voting, and finding the right precinct to ensure that their votes do get counted.

The anti-government protestors are also pro-democracy. The movement is not to rid Thailand of democracy. It is to rid Thailand of the most tyrannical and dictatorial regime in history. Throughout history, many dictators have been democratically elected. Saddam Hussein received 100% of the votes. Hugo Chavez, whom you publically called authoritarian, was also elected by the majority.

The Thaksin authoritarian government, elected through vote-rigging, proved to be the most corrupt and the gravest human rights violator. In order to fully appreciate the current political crisis, one must examine the telecommunications Tycoon' legacy. To name a few examples of Thaksin's egregious conducts:

▪ In February 2003, Thaksin launched a "war on drugs" campaign resulting in 2,800 extrajudicial killing in the span of three months. In 2007, official investigations concluded that more than half of those executed had no connections with drugs. The UN Human Rights Committee raised serious concerns yet perpetrators were never prosecuted.
▪ In 2004, Thaksin's security forces shot, suffocated or crushed to death 85 southern protestors in what is known as the Tak Bai massacre. Human Rights Watch has condemned this atrocity and urged independent criminal investigation but again, to no avail.
▪ According to Amnesty International, 18 human rights defenders were either assassinated or disappeared.
▪ Due to Thaksin's censorship and intimidation of the press, human rights violations remained unreported and any dissent was silenced.
▪ In an attempt to circumvent conflict of interest laws, Thaksin illegally transferred billions of baht in assets to his maids and drivers, without their knowledge.
▪ Thaksin aided his wife to purchase government land at a reduced rate of 1/3 in violation of the law prohibiting political leaders from engaging in business dealings with the government. Thaksin was consequently sentenced to two years in prison but fled the country and never served his sentence.
▪ Thaksin approved a US $127 million low-interest government loan to Myanmar's military-run government to purchase satellite services from his telecommunications business.
▪ During his tenure as prime minister, Thaksin sold his stakes in telecoms giant Shin Corp to Temasek holding, evading taxes worth $16.3 million.
▪ Thaksin's countless measures to benefit his telecommunications business prompted the Supreme Court to unanimously find him guilty of 4 counts of policy corruption and order seizure of $1.4 billion of his frozen $2.3-billion fortune.

These are just examples of the myriad ways in which Thaksin abused and robbed this country. Although in self-imposed exile, Thaksin continues to run Thailand and implement the policy of corruption through his sister. In a guised attempt to foster reconciliation, the current Thaksin regime passed the Amnesty Bill, designed to pardon protestors from all sides for engaging in political expression. At 4:25 am on a Friday night, the Thaksin-controlled parliament passed the final version of the bill that would now pardon all politicians ever charged or convicted of corruption since the coup. The revised bill also provided for the return of assets seized. To state the obvious, this law was passed solely to pave way for Thaksin's return as a free man with all his wealth restored.

In a ploy to control both the parliament and the senate, Thaksin's current government attempted to amend the senate structure and bar appointed senators who are professionals from all sectors. Eliminating this system would result in Thaksin's party controlling the legislative branch without any checks and balances. The Amnesty Bill or any other laws to enable Thaksin's corruption can then easily pass. Although the Constitutional Court struck down the senate-restructuring measure, Thaksin's government openly declared that it would defy the court's decision.

It is this blatant systematic policy of corruption and abuse of power solely for the benefit of Thaksin that fueled Thai citizens to stand up and say, enough is enough. The protestors want democracy. But first, Thaksin's dictatorship must be eradicated.

Over a decade of being under Thaksin's regime, one thing is clear. Our current democratic system has failed us. It has allowed for an authoritarian regime to usurp power and strip the nation's wealth. When a system accepts voter fraud and places corrupt politicians above the law, citizens must question and rise up against this broken system. The citizens are calling for reform. A true democracy with transparency, accountability, and most importantly, balance of power.

We want democracy. And it is through this civil obedience that we will achieve it.

Sincerely,

Vanina Sucharitkul
cc: CongressSee More

Miss you as ever. Take care.

[Jake]

Jake Needham is an American author based in South East Asia. The following is his take on current affairs, taken from his Letter from Asia


Friends and neighbors,

A few years ago, I published a Jack Shepherd novel called A WORLD OF TROUBLE. It was about Thailand and its female prime minister being dragged to the brink of a civil war by marauding street mobs trying to damage the country badly enough to cause the government to collapse.

Today, A WORLD OF TROUBLE is coming true. It's happening right now, right outside my windows in the streets of Bangkok

As many of you know, political protests of one kind or another have racked Thailand for months now. The government moved to defuse tensions by calling an election, but that wasn't good enough for the mobs in the streets.

They demanded that the election be cancelled because...well, the government would almost certainly win and they would almost certainly lose. Instead, they issued an ultimatum that they would disrupt the functioning of the country until a group of "good people" was appointed to take over the government and the rules of the election process were changed to make it certain that...well, they would win and the government would lose.

The government, to its credit, didn't yield to the mobs, and the first day of early voting in the election was last Sunday.

The mobs blocked polling places, bullied voters, and harassed people whose only crime was wanting to cast their vote in the election. The picture below was taken outside a polling place in Bangkok on Sunday. That is hard, I know, for many of you to believe, but nevertheless it is true. It becomes increasingly difficult to avoid the obvious parallels between the mobs in the streets of Bangkok and the fascist brownshirts who stalked Italy in the 1930's bullying and threatening people until they had forced out the government and seized power for themselves.

Up until now, the mobs had been pretty benign and the overall atmosphere has been more like a scattering of street fairs than a political movement.

The leaders of the mob have loudly proclaimed that millions of people are in the streets of Bangkok opposing the election, and a few pathetic make-believe journalists -- probably trying to get laid -- have repeated those claims in the international media. The truth is that the mob numbers in the thousands, not the millions, and their blockades of the major intersections in Bangkok have been more of a nuisance than a disruption.

The sourest note has come form the intemperate, sometimes downright racist rants that the mob leaders toss out from the demonstration stages when they want to throw a little red meat to the crowd. The squads of bodyguards made up of local thugs that these same leaders have deployed, allegedly to keep order at the protest sites, haven't helped either. Many of these so-called guards are pretty nasty looking characters...

Police have been banned from the protest areas by the mob leaders and the cops have quietly accepted their banishment from large parts of Bangkok they are supposed to be policing. It was the replacement of the police by this private army that contributed the most to an underlying sense of unease here last week. We seemed to be only a short step from something very ugly.

Then, on Sunday, the mob and their guards took that step, and the ugliness was on display for all the world to see.

Welcome to the Land of Smiles.

The main voting day is next Sunday.

Stay tuned...




Mr Needham then goes on to say


At about 10:30am on Sunday morning, February 2 -- election day in Thailand -- I have a long-standing engagement to speak to the Pattaya City Expat Club at their regular weekly meeting. It's held at the Tavern By the Sea, which is at the Amari Orchid Hotel on Beach Road in Pattaya.

That's a hundred miles from Bangkok, so I don't mind the scheduling one bit. I'm going to talk about writing A WORLD OF TROUBLE and why it wasn't very hard even back then to see how easily it could come true.

The club is expecting a turnout of about 150, but guests are still welcome regardless. If you're in the neighborhood, drop in and say hello, and I'll be more than happy to sign any books that you might want to bring along.

Stay cool.


Please visit www.JakeNeedham.com
to learn more about
Jake Needham's international crime novels:
THE KING OF MACAU
THE UMBRELLA MAN
A WORLD OF TROUBLE
THE AMBASSADOR'S WIFE
KILLING PLATO
LAUNDRY MAN
THE BIG MANGO