Thailand in turmoil as protestors rise against PM / Thai riot deaths

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Title – Thailand in turmoil as protestors rise against PM / Thai riot deathsSource – The Independent / Metro
Date – 14th April 2009 / 13th April 2009

Is Thailand on the brink of civil war?

I don’t think so, but there is no doubt it has some serious problems that are far from being resolved and full-blown intervention from the army is still a distinct possibility. We seem to be between protest at this particular time, but I don’t think anyone would bet against a further escalation.

Protesters be they the ‘Red Shirts’ or the ‘Yellow Shirts’ will certainly appear again and how the government deal with these protest will be crucial. It is very difficult for a Prime Minister who came to power on the back of similar disruptive and ‘expensive’ protests to subsequently quash similar protests without looking very hypocritical.

The other parameter to this whole situation is the King; revered and respected and most importantly with an army who would almost certainly act on his requests; he has yet to make any ‘contribution’.

So the question I am asked a lot is; should people travel to Thailand?

Here I tend to agree with the

FCO Advice (it is a brave man who thinks they know better than the FCO), for now it is probably better to stay away from Bangkok. People there and who travel there at the moment may tell you differently and if you stay away from protests you are probably in no more danger than usual, but there is certainly the potential for the situation to turn dramatically and quickly. The main reason for you to stay away will be the ability to leave the region or the country through Bangkok if the situation does turn. You may find yourself stranded there and there can be no guarantee that airlines will put you up while you wait to fly out. Maybe more importantly now the FCO has advised against travel to Bangkok, you may well find your travel insurance invalid while you are there.

But travel to Thailand as a whole is still very possible outside of Bangkok (and the south where there is ongoing conflict and the border region with Cambodia (Cambodia appeals over ‘imminent war’ on Thai border) where there has also been conflict). Visiting the tourist islands in the Gulf of Thailand, the Andaman Sea and the Malacca Straight and the north (Chang Mai) remains at the time of writing, relatively no more dangerous than before.

We are advising people to be aware however that their travel plans may be disrupted if the airport protests are repeated. One way of protecting against this possibility is to book flights through a different transit point than Bangkok. It is easy enough to connect to your final destination through Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia or Singapore and this mitigates the threat of airport closures in Bangkok to some degree.

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