There is little difficulty choosing sides in the current class war being conducted in Thailand.
Photo: SpecialKRB
On one side we have the Red Shirts, the poor: workers and small farmers from Bangkok and the provinces who are demanding a return to democracy. They want immediate elections and they proudly call themselves "serfs" in the battle against the elites.
After the brutal repression of anti-government protests last month Comrade Sung gives her assessment of the movement
After the announcement by the core members of the National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD, or the "Red Shirts") on 14 April that we were to abandon the protests, I was on the road to attend a meeting of the Missing Peoples Complaint Centre at the 14 October Memorial building in the centre of Bangkok.
Giles Ungpakorn, a socialist activist and academic in Thailand, is facing a possible prison sentence after Thailand's Special Branch charged him with "lèse majesté" - insulting the monarchy - last month.
The charges are based on eight paragraphs in the first chapter of his book, A Coup for the Rich, which was published in 2007. It has sold 1,000 copies and is now available online. In it he criticised the coup of 19 September 2006, in which the military seized political power in Thailand.
At least 80 Muslims were massacred by the Thai authorities on 25 October.
Those killed were part of a 1,000 strong demonstration in the southern province of Naratiwart who had assembled to demand the release of those arrested on charges of stealing weapons from an army camp earlier this year.
It is widely believed that those in custody are innocent. After their arrest they were systematically tortured into giving 'confessions'. A leading Muslim defence lawyer was about to expose this torture and also many 'disappearances' of southern Muslims at the hand of the Thai police, when he himself was abducted and murdered by police.
