<p>It should come as no surprise that Thai police are considering charges against nonviolent activists who scaled Parliament&#39;s fence December 12 to confront the &#39;Shameless Assembly&#39;.</p>

<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 style="margin-bottom: 0cm">This is confusing.&nbsp; We have an interim legislative body, not elected but appointed by a military junta. That&#39;s not very democratic. This group of generals got the authority to appoint this legislature not through any constitutional means, but by force of arms. That&#39;s not democratic at all, but hey, they&#39;re generals, what would they know?</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>I apologize to those of a non-scientific disposition but this is important. I&#39;ll try to make it as simple as possible.</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>I hate to say this, but I do think we are losing the plot with these elections. There seems to be a widespread misunderstanding that they have something to do with democracy, compounded by a second misunderstanding that somehow democracy is good for everyone.</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>In what counts as an act of high bravery for a UN bureaucrat, UNESCO Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau for Education Director Sheldon Schaeffer recently argued for the preservation of languages. </p>