From the Editor

For this month’s lead essay the review’s Colum Murphy talked with a broad range of Thai political activists and analysts in order to understand how the April riots are being understood within the country. He found something surprising—after years of being sworn enemies, the pro-Thaksin Shinawatra Red Shirts and the pro-monarchy Yellow Shirts are beginning to look more and more alike.

Both are looking to evolve from mere protest movements into sustainable political institutions. Their methods and goals are not that far apart: They are setting up their own media to reach grass-roots voters, and share a message of empowering the lower ranks of society.

In a best-case scenario, these new populist forces could break apart the cozy relationships between traditional power brokers and rebalance the priorities of the state so that the poorest are not left behind. In a worst-case scenario, they could embark on campaigns of social leveling, redistributing wealth and passing protectionist measures. The damage to the economy could be immense.

The irony is that the Yellow Shirts were initially mobilized to stop the Thaksin populist agenda. While the former prime minister is still stymied in his efforts to return to Thailand and compete again in the political arena, the forces he unleashed cannot be put back in the bottle. The country’s political elites—tycoons, the military, the monarchy and the bureaucracy—will have to find new ways to coexist with the activists and temper their more radical tendencies, or else Thailand will continue to be rocked by instability.

Longstanding political conflicts are rocking other societies in the region. We continue our coverage of Sri Lanka’s eradication of the Tamil Tiger rebels movement with a second essay by journalist Angilee Shah, as well as a contribution from Simon Montlake. Colombo’s hard-line policies have created a humanitarian catastrophe beyond the lenses of the world’s media. A feel-good story of the defeat of a brutal terrorist group threatens to bring more decades of ethnic division and violence.

Likewise in Nepal and Burma, the quest for reconciliation and power-sharing has been set back. Nicholas Owen writes on how the power plays of the Maoists threaten to topple an unwieldy 22-party coalition government. Meanwhile, Ian Holliday describes how the Burmese junta’s attempt to imprison Aung San Suu Kyi seems to be backfiring. The common theme in all three countries is that they need the help of other countries to solve conflicts that defy purely domestic solutions.

H.R.