<p><span>What happened last Wednesday and is going to happen tomorrow can be called position C, at which point they have turned against the junta-installed NLA and questioned its legitimacy.</span></p>

<p>I am sure many people read or watched the news about the &#39;&#39;peaceful&#39;&#39; invasion of parliament last Wednesday at noon by around 100 demonstrators led by myself. This resulted in the meeting of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) being suspended by the Chair. I am well aware that our actions did not meet with the approval (to say the least) of the majority of the media and probably the majority of society. </p>

<p>Thailand is a middle income country with a majority of the working population employed in the industrial and service sectors. No longer are the days when most of the population were provided basic food and housing security by the land they owned and worked on. With our rapid economic growth over the past two decades has come ever increasing income disparities between rich and poor, urban and rural populations. </p>

<p><span>Wanida Tantiwittayapitak</span><span>, aka &quot;Mod&quot;, was a fighter for justice and a prominent leader of people&#39;s movements. The following lecture delivered at the 1997 vividly explains her feelings and deep commitment toward the causes of the poor. </span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: black"><font size="2">An adviser to the Assembly of the Poor (AoP) since the early &#39;90s, &#39;&#39;Mod&#39;&#39; Wanida Tantiwittayapitak is a dedicated social activist well-known both in Thailand and in the global social justice movement. Many Thais regard her as an incessant troublemaker who devotes her energies to inciting rural communities to protest against the authorities with never-ending demands for their rights.</font></span></p>

<p>The conflict about the planned construction of the smelting plant had reached a dead end after a year-long dispute on the wetland.&nbsp; A panel had been formed comprising representatives of the National Human Rights Commission, provincial authorities, and local people, but it had been ignored by the company.&nbsp; Now the local people had come to a definite conclusion to reject the planned smelting plant.</p>

<p><span><span>This week my</span></span><span> organisation</span><span><span>, the Thai NGO Co</span></span><span>-coordinating</span><span><span> Committee on Development, which represents the common views and objectives of Thai NGOs and people&#39;s networks involved in community and social development, will be waging a campaign for the immediate closure of the National Legislative Assembly appointed after the 2006 military coup.</span></span></p>

<p>The Solidarity for Asian Peoples&#39; Advocacies (SAPA) Working Group on ASEAN invested time and energy to engage the ASEAN Charter building process. </p>

<p><span><span>The way we treat our two million migrant workers is absolutely appalling! We treat them as we see them. We don&#39;t seem to see them as human beings with human rights, or as important (even essential) contributors to the Thai economy.</span></span></p>

<p>This connection between social change and dealing with repression is a more acute problem in countries outside those that are called developed countries. In that part of the world called developed countries social revolutions have taken place to deal with forms of repression which maintain the type of inequalities that are prominent in their countries.</p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">Here comes the election fest again.<span>&nbsp; </span>Politicians are busy grouping, merging, parting, and regrouping, while calls for free and fair election are made and echoed. </span></p>

<p>There is no end in sight for the chronic violence which has made life miserable and very insecure for communities living in the southern border provinces of our country, Muslims and Buddhists alike, ever since the armed raid on the army camp in January 2004.</p>