สองนัก วิชาการจากอังกฤษเรียกร้องให้รัฐบาลยุติการใช้ความรุนแรงสลายผู้ ชุมนุม แล้วกลับเข้าสู่การเจรจา

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 07:02 | by Noblesse | Vote to close topic

สองนักวิชาการจากอังกฤษเรียกร้องให้นายกอภิสิทธิ์ยุติการใช้ ความรุนแรงสลายม็อบ กลับเข้าสู่โต๊ะเจรจาก่อนที่จะสายเกินไป

Even if the protests can be ended peacefully, Thai society will remain polarised
Gareth Price, the Head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/gareth-price-even-if-t...

The problem now is that the protests have an impetus of their own. The former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose supporters are among the demonstrators, is clearly not in charge; his pleas for calm were largely ignored by the hardline protesters. The government, and Thailand's elite, will have to make some tough choices. They will need to reassess the distribution of political and economic power in Thailand, and accept that bottling up divisions (or cracking down on protest) does not provide a long-term solution.

In the event of a massacre in Bangkok, the international community is likely to impose such a solution. The hope is that the government works this out before it is too late.

Now is the time to talk to the redshirts
Dr Frank Faulkner, University of Derby
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/18/time-to-talk-redshirts-thailand

With the recent imposition of security measures nationally, the whole of Thailand is now beginning to reflect some of the early characteristics of a failed state, and the danger is that the current standoff will, in a putative worst-case scenario, deteriorate into civil war. Moreover, Thailand's prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, in keeping with the strongman approach of some of his predecessors (and that includes the opposition exile Thaksin Shinawatra), is in serious danger of allowing the Thai national characteristic of saving face to dictate his policy towards the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) redshirt protesters.

In the final analysis, both sides are going to have to accept that dialogue must be a mutually engaging process. In a deteriorating situation that is increasingly disfiguring Thai political, economic and social life, there can be no real winners; the time to beat swords into ploughshares is now, not when the casualty statistics force a rethink.