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| Southeast Asia |
| Thai Protesters Shut Down Parts of Bangkok |
| 2010-03-16 |
| BANGKOK — Antigovernment protesters shut down parts of this capital on Monday, but appeared a long way from achieving their goal of forcing the Thai government to step down. Shops and offices on the northern outskirts of Bangkok closed for the day as convoys of red-shirted protesters converged on a military base that had become a sort of field headquarters for government leaders, including Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Grenades fired at another army camp in Bangkok wounded two soldiers and highlighted the risk of further violence during the protest, which has drawn at least 100,000 people, many of them farmers, to a neighborhood of ministries and government offices in Bangkok. The relatively high turnout by protesters, who call themselves the Red Shirts, has underlined divisions in Thailand between the rural poor and the Bangkok establishment, as well as the enduring popularity of the billionaire tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted as prime minister in a 2006 military coup. The strategy of the Red Shirts appears to be to disrupt the functioning of government for as long as possible, in the hope that the prime minister blinks. “It's a game of chicken,' said Gothom Arya, director of research at Mahidol University in Bangkok. “They are saying, ‘We will bring you to the edge and see who falls first.' ' Prime Minister Abhisit had said that he would not agree to the protesters' demand that he dissolve Parliament, but said Monday that he was open to compromise. “Asking for the dissolution of Parliament before noon in exchange for a halt to the demonstrations, we all agreed it can't be done,' he said on television, The Associated Press reported. “However, it doesn't mean the government coalition parties and I won't listen to their ideas.' But it remains unclear how long opposition leaders can sustain their protest. Unlike their rivals, the royalists known as the Yellow Shirts, the Red Shirts have less support in Bangkok. Some protesters said they were running out of money. Others said they were receiving support from friends and families in their hometowns. A local radio station has organized donations to sustain them in Bangkok. The radical street politics of recent years are a measure of how the parliamentary system is failing to resolve the deep-seated divisions in Thai society. The Yellow Shirts took over the airport for a week in 2008 and occupied the prime minister's residence for several months that year, and there were violent clashes between the military and the Red Shirts last April. On Monday, the Red Shirts announced a new tactic in their quest to unseat the government, a plan to collect blood from protesters and splash it outside the prime minister's office. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 To add bit of local insight - the "parts of this Capital" that were shut down on Monday represented about 0.5% of Bangkok - at most. Bangkok is a huge city - greater Bangkok covers probably something like 400 square miles - and the remaining protesters numbered about 60,000 people - enough to fill up a medium-sized sports stadium. I live and work in Bangkok, and there was nothing remarkable going on in any parts of the city that I transit. Basically, a group amounting to 0.1% of the population is trying to intimidate the sitting government into resigning. Fat chance. The Thai government handled itself masterfully on Monday - it really did a great job of defusing potential violence, while remaining even-handed. The press is pushing for sensationalism - but under 95F heat and high humidity, the protest is going to dissolve on its own within another day or two. |
| Posted by: Lone Ranger 2010-03-16 02:05 |