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| By Manager Online | 30 April 2010 13:56 |
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by Claire Truscott, April 30, 2010
BANGKOK (AFP) - The international community is urging a peaceful resolution to Thailand's protracted political crisis but is unlikely to intervene in the affairs of the key Western ally, experts say.
Following a series of violent confrontations in the heart of Bangkok and weeks of mass anti-government protests that have hit many businesses, including foreign hotels, diplomats say privately they are very worried.
But foreign governments seem unlikely to put strong pressure on either the protesters -- who want greater social equality -- or the authorities, who are insisting that they will not be bullied into calling snap elections.
"There's no real pressure being applied. People are just listening to both sides but trying to keep neutral ground," said one European diplomat on condition of anonymity.
Governments across the world have issued calls for "restraint" and for a negotiated solution following the worst political violence in almost two decades, which has left 27 people dead and hundreds injured this month.
"To date the level of bloodshed has not been such that a decisive intervention from the outside is going to happen," said Michael Montesano, a Singapore-based Thailand expert.
The United States, a longstanding and staunch ally of Thailand, is among the countries that have condemned the violence.
The US embassy has also "intensively engaged in discussions" both with the Thai government and the "Red Shirts", a US State Department spokesman told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.
"And our message remains ... to peacefully resolve the situation," he said, without disclosing whether those talks were ongoing.
Washington is thought unlikely to move beyond the usual expressions of concern and calls for restraint in a country that is often seen as a pillar of stability in the region despite its frequent political upheaval.
"The US policy is to hope that this doesn't become terribly violent and to try to push Thailand towards a more normal stable procedural democracy. Nothing they have said strikes me as particularly meaningful or Thailand-specific," said Montesano, of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
But one Western diplomat believes that the Thai government, led by British-born, Oxford-educated Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, is particularly sensitive to the US comments, even if they have been relatively restrained.
"These statements were read and heard. A certain coldness on the US side was noted," he said.
This message is also likely to make Thailand's military wary of staging another coup, he said. Tense diplomatic relations followed the last coup in 2006 that deposed the Red Shirts' political icon, Thaksin Shinawatra.
Governments refused to maintain their diplomatic links with the junta that stayed in power for a year, while some US military assistance was suspended.
The Red Shirts have sought in vain to increase international pressure on their government by delivering letters to the UN and US, British and European Union embassies seeking support.
But few expect to see UN peacekeepers or EU observers on the streets of Bangkok any time soon.
"There is no need for international intervention at this point in time," Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya told a news conference Thursday during a visit to Jakarta.
A group of lesser-known diplomats irked the Thai government by visiting the Red Shirts' protest compound last week -- a move that was criticised by Kasit.
The Reds accuse the current government of being elitist and undemocratic, because it came to power on the back of a parliamentary vote that followed a controversial court decision ousting Thaksin's allies from power.
But diplomats note Abhisit's ascent to power was within the constitution.
And with close diplomatic and economic ties at stake in a region home to military-ruled Myanmar as well as communist Vietnam and Laos, Thailand's allies seem unlikely to do anything to upset the current administration.
"World governments still consider Thailand a relative beacon of democracy in the region, so if we let them down what hope is there for all the other Asian allies," said the European diplomat.
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