After the earlier post this morning, Marwaan of IPS visits Sang Khom District in Udon Thai, in the Northest of Thailand* and writes what he saw. Of particular interest to BP is the red shirt fundraiser:

Meal by meal, a political feast is being laid out under the night sky to nourish a wave of anti-government protests rapidly spreading across this rural heartland. The diners come dressed in their signature red shirts.

This rice-growing town was the latest to join the bandwagon of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), a protest movement with strong links to the ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The organiser of the inaugural dinner and fundraiser in Srang Khom, in the north-east province of Udon Thani, were not disappointed. By 7 p.m. an open ground by the side of a harvested paddy field and scrub forest was full of local residents who had come to eat and to listen to anti-government tirades delivered from a stage.

“The people wanted to have a Red Shirt event here like other places,” says Suthat Budom, one of the organisers of the Saturday night dinner, referring to the uniform red shirts that the pro-Thaksin protest movement is identified with. “They want real democracy.”

Suthat estimated that over 2,000 locals from five neighbouring subdistricts had filled the 220 tables that were laden with fried rice, fried fish served with sweet and sour sauce, a spicy Thai salad and a Chinese-style soup.

BP: You should remember that this is not the capital city of a province, it is just a single district in the north of Udon Thani province. Have heard anecdotal evidence for a while of such fundraisers of varying scales. From what have heard it is 50 percent for expenses and the remaining 50 percents of the money goes to the red shirts. We are not talking Democrat Party Chinese buffet (To Jeen) type money, but we are talking about small-scale widespread fundraisers in many areas throughout the country. Like the yellows before them, the red shirts have created a movement which is not going away soon. There seems to be this view, as articulated by Korn of the Democrats, is that the red shirts are like a house of cards and that if you take away Thaksin’s money it will all fall down. This would have been a fair assessment to make back in 2007, but BP has heard and seen more than ample evidence that the red shirts have created a movement which is self-funding for many events (this is not to say that Thaksin and others do not fund some activities such as trips to Dubai etc). However, the cost of maintaining the red shirts is likely to be much lower than the yellow shirts with their continuous rallies costing 1 million baht per day.

BP’s point is that once they take away Thaksin’s money, the red shirts will not just dissipate.Thaksin has been able to tap into long-held resentments. These will not go away. This is why one should be careful of just focusing on February 26. Now, the red shirts could do something that harms their image in the eyes of their supporters, but that would have to quite dramatic.

Marwaan continues:

On the Saturday evening that Srang Khom hosted its inaugural UDD rally, there were five others across Isarn, as north-east Thailand is known locally. At Piboonrat, a crowd of over 3,000 stayed till well after midnight to listen to the speeches, including a Thaksin phone-in.

They came on the back of more impressive red-shirt support that the UDD is trumpeting. A rally on Jan. 31 in the north-eastern province of Khon Kaen drew an estimated 100,000 people, according to sources close to military intelligence operatives. The UDD, though, boasts that the crowds were twice that number.

In the province of Ubon Ratchathani, the next day, a reported 50,000 red- shirted protesters assembled at a UDD rally.

“Every week, every month we have these dinner meetings, or some without dinner,” says Wichian Khaokham, a parliamentarian from this province who belongs to the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai party. “The people who come here are from the poor and they used to be afraid of the people in high positions in our society. They could not speak to them.”

But the legislator of nearly 20 years senses a change in the political attitudes of the grassroots voters. “They knew about politics before, but now they know what is true, what is right and wrong,” he said. “The people understand that even if we win the next elections, they (the pro-royalist political establishment) will not let us form a government.”

BP: The other thing is that the red shirts are more energized. They have red shirt community radio stations, red shirt magazines and papers etc, and they are given the right information/feed propaganda by Thaksin (depending on your point of view). You can’t just undo this by taking away Thaksin’s money.

The red shirts are building, but building for what?

*another “foreign media disgrace” (also see here), what is it with these foreign journalists who refuse to sit in their offices and have the audacity to visit the countryside and seek the views of those who live there.