Your say ...

Sombat

Three years on, The Nation asked six people what they learned from the bloody end to the red-shirt protests in Bangkok on May 19, 2010.
The crackdown followed 10 weeks of an anti-government rally. Ninety-one people were killed and about 2,000 others injured during the period of unrest and riots. Here are the reflections of the six people interviewed.

Dr Tul Sittisomwong, leader of the multi-colour shirts group, who is a critic of the red shirts.

"I learned that this is a society where people can easily be incited into believing and hating one another, causing social rifts. We must make clear the truth about what happened - to discover the real terrorists.

"Thai society learned so little [from the incident], particularly the red shirts. They have even plunged themselves deeper [into propaganda] since."

Payao Akhad, whose daughter - volunteer medic Kamolkaed Akhad - was killed at Pathum Wanaram Temple, near the major protest site, on May 18, 2010.

"My life has changed, from an ordinary housewife to a mother who has to fight for justice for my daughter. My daughter was killed at Wat Pathum Wanaram when not even a dog could pass [due to military control]. The government is considered the direct murderer of my child.

"Three years have passed, but where is justice? What we have instead is an attempt to pass an amnesty bill. We're like a piece of political meat that can be exploited by anyone.

"An attempt by Deputy Premier Chalerm Yoobamrung to introduce a blanket amnesty [for people involved in the unrest] is like throwing acid on people like me."

Army Colonel Teeranan Nandhakwang, deputy director of the Strategic and Security Affairs Division at the National Defence College.

"I don't think we learned any lessons from it. The crackdown did not solve the problems. We need to rethink the idea of military deployment as a solution to political crises.

"Some people may have learned a lesson from the incident, but it's just a slice of the population. Nothing changed, despite the 139 explosives that went off [in 2010]. Two hours after a bomb went off at Big C [near the Ratchaprasong intersection], people even boarded a bus as usual. We ought to learn something from the conflict and try to solve conflicts democratically."

Poramate Minsiri, social activist

"I learned that perhaps society hasn't learned anything. That's why such incidents kept recurring. So how can we find a way of preventing such incidents from recurring again? It's difficult to imagine a blanket amnesty materialising."

Sombat Boon-ngam-anong, leader of the red-shirt Red Sunday group

"What I learned was that it was not worth it. We said we would fight to the death, but we didn't expect to really have to die. It's horrible that politics can still lead to killings. When we are pressed, we must try to overcome the political dead-end. It's not shameful to retreat.

"I thought society was already civilised, and that political killings would not recur again after October 6, 1976 and May 1992, but I was wrong."

Sirote Klampaiboon, political scientist

"I think we must create a political system wherein regime change can be done without street protests or bloodshed. This is vital."

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Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2013/05/19/your-say/