MonsterP

Morning All.

It's not just been a sad day yesterday, but a sad two months whilst daily lives are threatened.
I'm surprised there are no forums on this subject yet. Whilst we should keep opinions to ourselves rather than on here, question is:-

Have you or your company thought of plan B yet in case this develops into a civil war? Interested to hear your thoughts.

Regards

Inselaffen

we are keeping a slightly worried eye on the situation as we have to fly via Bangkok in 3 weeks. looks like its all being kept well away from the airport this time though

MonsterP

Thanks for your input.
This question mainly goes out to those who are lving here in BKK like me.
I'm at the airport right now, going to Singapore for two days business. There has now been an announcement that a curfue is being considered. I'm hoping that I can return on Tuesday night, especially since my wife is still here. Our office in Chitlom and a fairly large area around it, is completely a no man's land now. Very sad. Even the tourist areas of Nana/Asoke are relatively risky now. BTS and MRT services have been suspended completely.
regards

nosheen

Hi!
It is indeed very sad what is going on in thailand. I have been keeping a close eye on the situation as I am travelling via bangkok to phuket in july 10th and am planning on staying there in the summer (as im training in a thai camp and hoping to fight) - i have been told by the owner of the camp that the situation is far from attacking tourists/phuket area and as long as u don't go out in the main area of BKK then u should b fine - flights are still going, things are still moving along.. but it does worry me no doubt... shame about the innocent lives lost during such violence.. my heart goes out to all those affected
Nosheen

nonthaburi

I think you're getting a bit too worried to be honest. I've lived here for eleven years and although what is happening at the moment is bad I don't think there is going to be a civil war or anything like that. One of the main reasons being that when push comes to shove Thais are quite cowardly and the vast majority of them do not want to risk their lives for a vague idea like " democracy ". Most of the people I know ( Thais) just want an end to it all, and it will be ending soon, however messy that may be. However at the same time I do think the central areas of Bangkok are definitely to be avoided untill that happens. It is very dangerous right now. My wife's sister was there last night and she was shot in the back. She is okay but in the hospital. Personally speaking I live and work in Nonthaburi in the suburbs. I have no plans to get my wife and kids away anywhere as it doesn't affect me at all. If I lived or worked downtown though I would try and go on holiday for a while , waiting for the end.

paul_thompson

I feel that things could develop into a civil war when the King dies - I sincerely hope not, but that's my gut reaction. I was planning to move here in a couple of weeks! I'm now looking at alternative Countries.

MonsterP

Dear Nonthaburi,
Thanks for your reply. If you've lived here for so long, then you'll be well aware of the spontaneous combustion of emotions that happen here. Your email was written before they burnt down 27 spots in BKK and several others across the country. Worst case is civil war, but it's not far off that. The events over the last couple of days certainly put your comments on an about turn, not your fault of course, but I'm sure you're now learning very quickly. If you do come to BKK, stay safe. In the mean time, we're all keeping our heads down here no doubt for weeks to come.

nonthaburi

Monster P, I see that you wrote this message last Thursday when I imagine that you got carried away by the way that everything was looking. I still stand by my ascertation that there is not going to be a civil war or anything like that. What happened last week was the redshirts final play as they realised that they could not win in the face of overwhelming government strength. One last hurrah if you like. If you look at the ownership of the buildings that got burnt then you would realise that it was a way of giving two fingers as you leave. Who do you think owns Siam Square and the buildings around there?
Two of my wife's sisters had been camping out at Ratchaprasong for nearly two months. The idea of these middle aged women suddenly slinging an AK-47 over their back and going to war is quite laughable. All the problems were created by a hardcore minority within the redshirt movement. If you look at the numbers then I think you will see how ridiculous you sound ( maybe getting carried away with all the striking images on TV).
The population of Isaan is twenty-five million. There were five thousand people at Ratchaprasong before the government moved in. Out of those five thousand how many of them do you think were going out and committing arson. Although a sizeable portion of the Thai population does share redshirt ideology a very small minority actually goes and protests about it. As I said in my original e-mail the vast majority of Thai people are either
too scared to get involved ( for fear of getting hurt ) or they are too busy going out to work to put food on the table and they don't have time for all this.
Last week was last week and this week is this week. Things look a bit different now. The Thai government did an admirable job in clearing the areas without too much loss of life and now there is a massive clean-up operation underway. Life goes on at the end of the day and Bangkok is a big enough city to cope.
Sure last week was dangerous, I never said it wasn't. In my original post I did say that I would avoid downtown and try to leave there if I could if I stayed there, but it would only have been a temporary measure. I think if you look at things now you will see that there is not going to be a civil war. Life goes on. Eighty-five people dead since April the tenth. Definitlely bad but remember under Thaiksin there was Tak Bai; seventy-five unarmed harmless people dead in one day, or the Krue Sae mosque incident, or the 2002 war on drugs when over two thousand people died in extra-judicial killings.
At the end of the day evryone has to make personal choices as to whether they feel comfortable in a country or not. Personally I see a rocky time ahead until an election is called but there won't be some kind of massive outbreak of fighting like you suggest.Not enough people support this.
But on the other hand who knows, this is Thailand and anything can happen. Look on the bright side , at least it isn't boring !

MonsterP

Agree with most you say, it's a pity you couldn't convince your Wife's sisters, they were unfortunately one of the many thousands of pawns in the game...
My original question does sound a bit stupid now, but it was the likes of BRITCHAM and AMCHAM asking what plans we'd made, to which most were saying 'errrrr'.
Today is like waking up from a bad dream, back to work as normal, and not a thing in site to indicate that there were any problems (except for Central World etc), all back to how it was before 12th March! Amazing. Full marks to the troops, and full marks to the BMA and all the volunteers that cleaned up that mess. I wonder who's going to pay the bill......? Probably all the TAX payers like your sisters and I. Keep smiling...