Red Shirts Come to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.

(Photo left to right) Dr. Yukti Mukdawijitra, Sombat Boon Ngamanong, translator.

FCCT.  Bangkok, Thailand.  November 7, 2013.  The Red Shirts are the group that burned down central Bangkok in 2010 and are the main backers of their hero, fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin, whose sister is now Prime Minister and dutifully following his orders given from his sanctuary in Dubai.  However, there are some signs that the Red Shirts are in disagreement with Thaksin, who has recently committed a major political blunder by forcing through Parliament an amnesty bill which would clear his return to Thailand and enable him to regain about $1 billion of his money ceased by the courts. 

At any rate, the two panelists who showed up (the real Red Shirt powers, Jataporn and Thida, canceled at the last minute) are academic and social critic types, who view the Red Shirts as a democratic movement, whose goals go way beyond personal loyalty and unswerving support of Thaksin.  To hear them talk about democratic rule, freedom from corruption, respect for the law, and equality, one would think that they are Thomas Jefferson reincarnated.  However, it is clear that they represent within the Red Shirt movement, a desire to separate the movement from Thaksin’s governing political party, Pheu Thai, but in the real world, they have no or little influence and, at this point, can be viewed as an ineffectual fringe.  Shortly after their appearance, the Red Shirt leaders made it clear that they were still allied with Thaksin and the Pheu Thai party.  Here’s some information on the two panelists:

Dr. Yukti Mukdawijitra, from Thammasat University who calls the movement a new middle class struggling to protect democracy and not a group "simply favoring Thaksin Shinawatra." Dr. Yukti has been studying the phenomena of the red shirts and has focused on accountability, freedom and human rights in the years since the September 2006 coup. He has been called by some "a red shirt academic."

Leader of the Red Sunday Group Sombat Boon Ngamanong, who has been a respected cultural activist for years and instrumental in renewing Red Shirt public activity in the aftermath of the crackdown in May 2010.