Where are Thai protesters now?

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Few PAD members seem clear about what exactly the movement stands for

For most of last year, news from Thailand was dominated by the yellow-shirted protest movement calling itself the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). It helped drive two prime ministers from office. But since December, the PAD has disappeared from the scene. The BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok has been finding out what happened to it.

An area of fields surrounded by spectacular hills just outside Kanchanaburi in western Thailand has, within a couple of hours, become a giant campsite.

There are tents, picnic tables, and a huge traffic jam as more and more people arrive. A lot of the cars are Mercedes or BMWs; many in this crowd are from Bangkok's well-heeled business class, here to celebrate their success as political insurgents.

The party was being thrown by Gen Chamlong Srimuang, one of five leaders of the PAD. He has run a leadership school and organic farm here since the early 1990s.

It was the first big get-together by the PAD since they abandoned their occupation of Bangkok International Airport on 3 December.

Chamlong Srimuang has close ties to the king's most senior adviserPeople who met during the three-month long camp-out at Bangkok's main government offices greeted each other like old friends.

They come from all walks of life, but they are predominantly middle class.

I'd arranged to meet Galiyani and her friends, all of them flight attendants with the national carrier Thai Airways.

Galiyani had been due to fly to London that day, but had switched shifts with a colleague so she could come to the party.

"I don't do this for my company, I do it because I am Thai," she told me. "If we see something is wrong, then we have to do something, we have to become political activists.

"Every time I would come back from a flight, I would go straight home, change into my yellow shirt, take my hand-clapper and go down to join the PAD at Government House."

I'd met a surprising number of airline staff at the PAD rallies last year, so I asked if they all supported the movement.

'Mythical quality'

No, they said, their company was like many others, split between the pro- and anti-Thaksin camps. But they were barred from discussing politics on board the aircraft.

Very few people there seemed to be clear about what the PAD really stood for, aside from distaste for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and love of the monarchy.

No-one could clarify what the PAD meant by its call for new politics. Did this mean an elected parliament, or an appointed one? Could you rid Thailand of the entrenched culture of corruption? Has the PAD won, or would it have to take to the streets again?

No-one seemed sure, although there was no appetite to do anything as dramatic as taking an airport again.

Much about the PAD still remains a mystery, in particular where its funding originates, and the identity of its most powerful backers Instead, they talked about the bonds they felt for each other, after months of sticking it out at the PAD's camp in Government House, where the occasional grenade attacks on them, and their sometimes violent confrontations with the police, had taken on a mythical quality that bound them together.

"During the 192 days and nights, all the people ate together, slept together, cried together, laughed together. We shared the same sorrows - we had tears, smiles. Just like the movies of Spielberg, you feel the same feeling," said flight attendant Oranee Chindamanee.

"A lot of these people have never participated in political movements before," said Professor Chaiwat Satha-Anand, a political scientist at Thammasat University.

"The PAD provides almost a religious communion to all kinds of people to fill in their political void - the nightly gatherings, speeches, dances, entertainments - it makes people's lives whole, being part of something meaningful."

Cleaning up politics

Much of the PAD's success in wooing Thailand's previously apolitical middle class can be put down to its TV station, ASTV, which is broadcast nationwide via cable and satellite.

ASTV puts out intense, emotional propaganda that has proved extraordinarily addictive for its viewers.

The Thai Airways staff I met said their awareness of what was wrong with Thailand had come through watching ASTV. When I suggested that its programmes might only present one side of a story they seemed surprised by the notion.

I watched an ASTV broadcast going out from its small studios in central Bangkok with Panthep Wongpuaphan, a core activist and one of the few leading PAD figures willing to speak to the foreign media.

"We can say that we will never be on the left, and never be on the right, but we will be in the middle of the right thing, of the drama," he said, when I asked him to define the PAD's political orientation.

The PAD has become a political force and has a significant mass followingIt is difficult to get beyond official propaganda when talking to a lot of PAD followers.

They are a non-violent movement, they always say, despite the well-documented incidents of PAD guards firing guns against their opponents and the police.

They were forced to take over the airport because there was no other way the government would listen to their demands, they say.

Mr Panthep has another variation on this; he argues that they were forced to take that action because they were too vulnerable to attack inside Government House.

But he is clear about the PAD's central goal: cleaning up Thai politics and replacing it with a purer "New Politics", which he defines as appointing qualified and ethical people, from outside the tainted arena of politics, to be ministers.

Much about the PAD still remains a mystery, in particular where its funding originates, and the identity of its most powerful backers.

Its vision for Thailand remains hard to pin down. But it has become a powerful political force, one that still enjoys a significant mass following.

It could certainly play a pivotal role in shaping Thailand's political landscape in the future.