The longing for liberty and dignity is a part of the story of all peoples. For there are certain aspirations that human beings hold in common: the freedom to speak your mind, and choose your leaders; the ability to access information, and worship how you please; confidence in the rule of law, and the equal administration of justice.

Which might be construed to have a subtext directed not only at the Burma Generals but also at another Asean country which Obama will probably not be visiting soon …

BBC feeds on Cambodian spat were nothing like he described, and I don’t think BBC is totally out of sync with the rest of Western media.

1] (…) news agencies seem at a loss of how to report Bangkok’s verbal and diplomatic saber rattling (…)”

Bangkok has largely been responding to Hun Sen’s escalating provocative rhetoric and actions. If one version doing the rounds is to be believed, the Thai MFA started by summoning the Cambodian ambassador – who was “too busy” to go herself and declined to send a deputy; hence the jump to recalling the Thai ambassador. My own take is that Hun Sen has been orchestrating the decline in relations quite deliberately (mainly with an eye to getting international arbitration on border disputes with bigger Thailand – particularly marine gas-field boundaries). Given the way diplo-pingpong usually works, Abhisit’s responses have been largely predictable and by the book. That said, I also think old hand Hun Sen has his junior counterpart exactly where he wants him – and see also Siam Report’s analysis for a more personal angle that fits well.

Either or both ways – while I’m no fan of Abhisit – it looks like his hand has been forced; difficult to imagine that he could have done much less and still escape vilification from
not just the usual suspects but also from the famously xenophobic Thai public.

2] I still think Abhisit shouldn’t have accepted the premiership back in December.

For sure it was a poisoned chalice – but that triggers the question, if not the Dems (and therefore Abhisit) – then who and what? Too early a year ago for a Newin-led regime (even with him behind the scenes and a totally* stooge PM out front). For what it’s worth, I do think that’s the way we may be heading – probably with a new “centre/unity” party into which enough soft/moderate Peua Thai, Democrats and sundry other minor party flotsam can move … leaving the “extreme” inconvenient elements (including busted flush Abhisit and close circle) out in the cold. But that’s thinkable only now – not a year ago.

* As opposed to the partial stooge we see now.

I wonder what they are noting down there?

Written in the blog’s peculiar English

- you say. Your own English is hardly exemplary, with several instances of poor grammar, punctuation and style.

(BD: Mea culpa Kit, still learning over here, wasn’t meant condescending in any way. On the contrary. I like that emotional flavor.)

This is yet another thing that will not play well overseas. More foreigners not understanding the way Thai people think I suppose. Always assuming they think at all, which frankly, is often in doubt.

And agree with you 100% in your penultimate paragraph. Abhisit was never going to be a PM by electoral victory an sold his soul, gambling that he would sell himself to the Thai people and merit re-election.

All that has gone by the board now and he has shown himself instead to be duplicitous by saying internationally one thing and doing domestically quite another.

The army and the big house have got this little rabbit by the balls and they are not going to let go as Thailand drifts into the inevitable civil conflict. It seems that every defining social change requires a blood sacrifice, and I fear that the scale of the upheaval and bloodletting that I believe is inevitable will be just awful unless the elites decide to let go and negotiate.

From along the corridors of the past I keep hearing echoes of the reeducation camps that Mao ran.

I feel somewhat gloomy as to the prospects for keeping Humpty Dumpty on the wall, because nobody will be able to put him back together should he topple.