BANGKOK – The young children of the PAD protestors have reportedly split from the movement and demanded that their parents take them home because they are sleepy.
Over the weekend, a group of four-to-six-year-olds formed a separate circle inside the Government House compound where they say they will cry, shit, and piss themselves until their demands are met.
Analysts say the brilliant tactics, copied from their parents, represent the biggest threat to the PAD since its inception.+
“It is very clever. These kids are trying to beat their parents at their own game,” said political scientist Thitinan Pongsudhirak of Chulalongkorn University. “They refuse to budge, they do not wash and they scream at high decibels. They wear the same outfit over and over and take intermittent naps to keep going.”
The splinter group, which is calling itself the Children of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (or, C-PAD), formed its demands early Saturday morning after a lethargic game of Ring Around the Rosie ended in tears and exhaustion.
Led by four-year-old Tor Watanasuk, C-PAD is currently building a LEGO stage, and are being fed by donations of Play-Doh from other toddlers in Bangkok who sympathize with their plight. They do not have the sophisticated motor skills to manipulate “clapping hands”, but they are able to throw their own feces.
C-Pad has also named a replacement leader should Tor be arrested.
The adult leadership of the PAD is urging the parents to continue with their own shouting and yelling and to ignore their children’s demands, but C-PAD’s strategy is apparently already undermining the PAD.
“What kind of lesson does it teach my daughter if I do not acquiesce to her every wish and command?” said a 45-year-old mother. “She would think I was a hypocrite. I will take her home.”
Other parents were less sympathetic.
“My son Daeng is constantly asking the world,” his father said from underneath a tarp held up with a stick. “Before he asked me if he could sleep outside. Now he gets to sleep in the mud and he complains that he is tired and misses his own bed. He needs to form some consistent principles before he starts making demands.”
At least one PAD parent wasn’t concerned in the least.
“Little Johnny? He crawled off somewhere weeks ago. He pretty much fends for himself now.”
