Udon: The other side of the other side

May I remind anyone who has sympathy for Kwanchai Praipana that he is not the downtrodden, non-political deejay that some make him out to be and that last year he led a gang of around 500 people to attack the PAD on 24 July 08 armed with sticks and axes that left 20 injured, 13 of which were serious enough to have to be admitted to hospital. Furthermore, he did so when he was on government pay as an advisor to Prime Minister Samak.

The BBC would like us to believe that he and his supporters are peaceful, poor people who just want their democratic rights respected. Perhaps, but in most democracies, one doesn't smash an axe into the face of people on the other side of the argument and leave them like this:



Yes, that is one of the people injured by Kwanchai and his gang just for having opposing views.

The full story of what happeend is here and here, albeit in Thai. The latter also has lots of videos of the carnage which shows the local Udon police seemingly helping the mob attack the anti-Thaksin protesters.

Democracy? Sounds more like tyranny to me. But obviously some people think that elected officials (and their family) can do no wrong. Alongside Kwanchai that day was Uthai Saenkaew, brother of PPP Udon MP Teerachai Saenkaew.

Obviously all this could be just a set-up, the injured people might be wearing lots of make-up and the entire video of the attack done in a studio. Then again, it might not be.