Red Shirt/Yellow Shirt

In 2005-2006, widespread public anger with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra resulted in a crisis that formed the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD, so-called ‘Yellow Shirts’). On 19 September 2006, the crisis culminated in the overthrow of the Shinawatra’s government by the coup d’etat of the Royal Thai Army, and the establishment of the junta led by Surayud Chulanont. Two days later, the PAD voluntarily dissolved after announcing its goals had been accomplished. However, when Thaksin-affiliated parties won the 2007 general election, in August 2008 the PAD regrouped and launched a new wave of protests, between others sizing the Government House, airports of Phuket, Krabi, and Hat Yai, and blocking major highways. Reinforced by sympathetic labor units that stopped train services and threatened to shut off electricity and water services to non-PAD supporters.

However, the military coup resulted in the creation of another political movement – name the Red Shirts – led by the segments of population frustrated by inequality and mishandling of the state, the government, and the economy by the ruling-class hegemony, and supportive for the deposed Prime Minister. In turn, the PAD aligned itself with several state-enterprise units, human-rights- and civil politics activists who feared human rights abuses and the loss of the freedom of press.

In 2007. Shinawatra successfully defended himself and won new elections. Six years later, renewed political crisis and period of instability and insurrection erupted over the election of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra (Thaksin’s brother). This led to another coup d’etat and the establishment of a new military junta.

Dominated by the Red Shirt/Yellow Shirt dispute, the crisis in Thailand of 2000-2015 period shook the fundaments of the state, and is still dropping a deep shadow over the future of the country as of 2002. Red Shirt/Yellow Shirt: Protests and Insurrection in Thailand, 2000-2015, is the concise military-political history of this dispute.