Playing cat and mouse with Thailand’s junta | New Mandala

Playing cat and mouse with Thailand’s junta | New Mandala
Nick Nostitz,  9 JUNE 2016 

Nick Nostitz captures the opening of the UDD Referendum Monitoring Center.

On June 5, 2016 the UDD brought itself back to the political map with their opening ceremony of their referendum monitoring center, which took place in their headquarters at the 5^th floor of the Imperial Lad Prao Department Store. In addition to the press conference with most UDD leaders in attendance, hundreds of their supporters in red shirts mingled there, among a strong presence of security forces, both in uniform and in plainclothes.

It was almost like in the old days – a market selling Red Shirt trinkets – coffee mugs with images of Thaksin and Yingluck, amulets minted to raise funds, freshly printed T-Shirts with the motto of their monitoring center: Do Not Cancel, Do Not Cheat, Do Not Be Embarrassed About Burma (in context of the high voter turnout in the Burmese elections). After the press conference, the UDD leaders and their supporters danced and sang songs in their recently opened coffee shop/library.

 

UDD leader Dr Weng Tojirakan insisted that their center is not aimed at disrupting the referendum, but to get as high a voter turnout as possible, saying also that boycotting the referendum, as proposed by some critics of the referendum, would only serve the government’s aim of passing the constitution, and would be against the law. He said that while the backbone of the monitoring center will be the UDD members and hierarchies it is open to all citizens of Thailand to volunteer, which is why the UDD leaders decided to wear black colored T-Shirts at the press conference – “Red is already in our hearts – we do not want to discriminate against anyone”.

He added that the UDD’s ideology is to create a democratic system, but they have to create new strategies, so that people will not get killed or jailed. “We have to walk delicately and carefully, one wrong step can get us imprisoned”, he warned.

Nick Nostitz is a photo-journalist and long-time contributor to New Mandala. All the photographs in this article are credited to him.