I’m surprised by how ill equip the reds are in this conflict.
You can find crude sharp weapons very easily here, if you know where to look. An overpass near my home has vendors selling knives/swords as long as 2 1/2 feet in plain sight.
Student wars had them all the time. We’ve seen plenty in pissing matches between rival institution around the country. Handguns /makeshift bombs is rare, but acquirable.
Given how easy it is for the reds to be armed, it is a credit to them that they are not.
Hell, they don’t even have baseball bats/golf clubs that the PAD love!
IMO, I’m not the one who thinks the world of Thaksin. If you watch an entire day of ASTV programme, you’d find out that either –
-The man’s is an illegal alien from the planet Krypton or
-A illegitimate love child of an elder God.
Because he controls the world international media / puppets millions of ppl from his Montenegro/Dubai home /had a love affair with several youngin’ despite his gland cancer problem so severe he died and came back to life. / is now the 14th richest man in the world /has total loyalty of the police and some of the army in 5yrs/ got the underground world under his thumb and carted their earnings to his penthouse overseas./kills Muslims and still retain buddy-buddy status with Dubai/Abudbi/Saudi Arabia Sheikhs.
All of this and many more that had Germsak – oops soory – Jermsak Pinthong wrote an entire series of books that baffled the academics in how all of this escapes their notice.
And right now the man is plotting to outdo himself, overthrow Thailand’s beloved God-king!
So other than those 2 choices I mention, he also must be an incarnation of Satan!
If by “forced out” you meant the leaders of the Federation got threatened with legal action by police, and then were shot at after having bottles thrown at them by a group of anti-Reds, then you are correct.
But then all 500 of them just shifted to the protest down the road at Lad Prao. And they’ll probably be back.
I was actually at this rally at the university, by the way. Everyone was sitting listening to speeches by students and academics calling for the bloody massacre to end. It was an entirely peaceful affair.
I find it a bit disturbing how smug you sound about the fact that it was broken up with violence.
Prem, Surayudth, even Chamlong is a hardcore Killer.
StanG, let me ask you a question. You seem hellbent on pinning the deaths on Thaksin, to the extent that one would thought that your relatives got caught up in the ‘Drug war’.
Surely this is not it, right?
Thaksin’s crimes can’t be greater than Abhisit, who you are defending with zeal that belies your color preference. Abhisit took his decision knowing full well of the consequences, Thaksin may or may not have.
The death tolls are an estimate, it might have been higher or lower by a large margin. Such a hazy evidence is used to prosecute him w/o trial time and time again, isn’t this just bias?
And you can’t dismiss the events leading up to Thaksin’s decision on it. A certain someone who no one can ignore commented on the drug problems that had been escalating sometimes before it all happen. That someone whose words is took as a mandate rather than a suggestion, is often ignored in all context of the ‘Drug war’.
Thaksin is obviously guilty of issuing it, but if you’re in his position, you’d had no other choice but to do so. Circumstances and incompatance factored into a disastrous outcome. Kresae and Takbai , are events that illuminates the thai army as cold blooded and incapable army.
I say again, you pinned everything on the man. Can you give solid, hard, concrete evidence that he is responsible for every killing, every tortured, missing cases in that war?
Sometimes in life, you are left only with the wrong choices in front of you. So you can only choose the smallest evil. This is a quality that Thaksin has, and Abhisit doesn’t. It’s a quality that marks him not as a saint, but as a leader.
Remember, in Thailand, every politician is evil. The police are corrupt, the military more so. The officials are either under trained/sub-standard.
Not to mention the country just got hit by it’s worst depression in decades. Later it even got hit by a large natural disaster unheard of in the region.
Face with such problem that had plague the country for more than half a century/ new harsh ones. I’d say the man did a splendid job.
Now StanG, can you tell me why you want to carve the man’s guts out?
It is very fishy, Natasha, is it not, when the majority seems not to know what it’s voting for. Certainly, this is more evidence of a third hand manipulating both the foreigners and the Red Shirts.
[…] mancano poi le testimonianze dirette sul web, inclusa quella di Nick Nostitz [in] che si trovava nella “killer zone”. Anche Vaitor e Riding out the Economy [in] […]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llnt_v7AIxA
‘Fighter of the Earth’ or ‘Naksutuleedin’ is the song that is played every time a ‘hero’s body’ is recieved on the red stage.
It’s pretty powerful. If you can understand it in Thai, that is. but the phrase ‘р╕Ьр╕нр╕Зр╕Шр╕╕р╕ер╕╡р╕Фр╕┤р╕Щ р╕Ир╕▒р╕Бр╕Юр╕ер╕┤р╕Бр╕Кр╕░р╕Хр╕▓’ ‘Our group of dirt shall overcome fate’ is very tear jerking to me. T_T
Seh Daeng# 50, if you popped ya head out of the workers cooperative occasionally you would know that Paragon is just sooo Lo So. Real men always have and always will, buy their handbags in Paris. Dear Leader out n about on Satdi!
The RTA is not exactly short of helicopters – and they can’t all be in use ferrying generals to and from golf courses. If Col Sansern is so convinced that the “five to ten armed men….. must be supporters of the red-shirts, how is it that one wasn’t called in to deal with them?
I decided today to take a tour of the peaceful areas so I left the house hoping to visit the five reported stages that the red shirts have put on around the city and take pictures of the monks chanting in Victory Monument. I drove down Sathorn where the empty road was dotted of burned phone boots (where are the phones?) and somebody put a statue of two people in black twisted in a fight at the corner with Soi Convent.I then drove down Narathiwat and turned into Surawong, emptied out with small crowds of people watching the situation. First military check point. I passed through easily with the excuse of visiting a friend house. Down Surawong turned into Rama IV in the direction of MBK. Second checkpoint. The street is completely empty, just some soldiers here and there and a column of smoke coming from Sala Daeng. Then got out of the military zone at the corner with Ratchatewi, this time after being checked by soldier as a young Thai man opens his motorbike’s seat to reveal a compartment full of 10 bath coins, wrapped in plastic bags. Down in the direction of Hualompong and then into Rama VI until Aree, then back to Victory Monument. As I pass chanel 5 station, the police is setting up a road block. At the entrance of the highway right before Victory Monument as big crowd of motorcycle and people starts moving frenetically, bringing plastic barriers and wood in the middle of the street and piling them before starting to burn the pile. “The army is coming” shout a motortaxi driver as many people move in the direction of Victory Monument. Goodbye peacefulness today. I drive into the back soi, to try to cut into Victory Monument but end up in a small closed community where police officers in anti-riot gear lounge inside a compound, taking pictures of what is going on in the street. I drive back and cut into Victory Monument as a barricade is created in the middle of the street with whatever is available and a big fire set in front of it. The round square is surreal, completely empty with few groups of curious standing on the long overpasses that surrounds the empty roundabout. Again stillness is accentuated by the memories of this buzzing transportation node. A long line of police man in uniform but bringing no weapons or protection crosses the roundabout and stop underneath a tend on the northern side of the square, they arrive quietly saluted by the crowd. I ask around and a woman tells me that they came to prevent the army from attacking from Phahon Yothin. She also tells me that the only way out of the area is toward Ratchawithi, as the other two exits are blocked one by a military line and the other by the heavy fighting in Din Daeng. Slowly the police officers take position in rows and move to Phahon Yothin were the fire is now releasing black smoke. The police scatter beyond the barricades and start taking it off as the crowd looks trying to understand their role. From a small gate beside the highway entrance the groups of anti-riot police exit from their refuge and take position at the right side of the crowd, an older policeman tells people around to let them do their job and reassure they are here to protect the people. A loud applause follows his words. The police take charge of the situation, rapidly removing the barricade and putting off the fire. Never in my lif I thought I would see the police dismantling a barricade just built being cheered by the same people who put it on, standing cheerfully around. Only smoking debris remains in the middle of the big road as the police takes again position in rows and the anti-riot group goes back to where they came from. An older police officer, who act as the person in charge, stands in the middle of the street and tells a small crowd formed around him mostly by motortaxi drivers to be calm and that if they don’t stop the street the military will not arrive. “Do you believe me?” he ends. “believe” is the common answer as people applause and cheer the police battalion moving back into Victory Monument and leaving the area.
I decide to take a look in the direction of Ratchaprarop, without getting too close. At that side of the roundabout a much bigger crowd is chatting and sitting on at least 500 motorcycles parked everywhere. I have never seen this many motortaxi drivers around protests since the violent turn. I recognize many of them in the crowd and greet some of them. We exchange information about what is going on in different part of the city for five minute and greet each other, but only after having wished good luck and reminded ourselves to be careful. Some unspoke routine over and over. I decide to keep going down the street when in the small soi people have stored big objects to put up more barricades. In the empty street, crowded only on the sides, a guy on a motorcycle stands in behind the barricade, as if was speaking to the phones (here what they do with the phones inside the boots) that compose this motley barricade. I walk pass him, smiling at the odd scene and walk down. I arrive to soi 6 and sit there for a while, as the smoke coming from Ratchaprarop hugs the flyover. On a side of it a small group of people hides behind the street, rolling tears into the smoke, I guess to be picked by other hands down the street. As I stand watching the scene in Soi 6 two men come to me and say that the soldier shooting down Ratchaprasong are not Thai, but kmer send by Newim. “How do you know?” I ask “We just know, we have seen them. Go there and see yourself”. Around people point in the direction of the Century Park Hotel that overlooks the area.
They ask me to take a picture in that direction with the zoom to see if there are any snipers. Lucky shot. I zoom with my camera and there they are at least two shapes that look like military guys, looking down at the street, kneeling in the plants that come out of the higher balcony. Immediately the news runs around and I get assaulted by a myriad of people asking me to take a look, too fast to declare that the balcony is full of snipers and you can see them very clearly. As soon as they take a look to the small screen of the camera people turn around saying out loud “it’s full of snipers, at least five or six” I keep repeating that at most it would be two but it take the instant to turn around for the story to grow bigger. Images in this situation come to play a strangely authoritative role. In a time where manufacturing pictures or just selecting what to show seems not only easy but diffused, an epoch of spin doctors and intrusions on the media-scapes images is funny how images, often blury ones become the higher form of truth. Nowhere else more than in that small soi close to a cloud of smoke I have felt this. The people who want to watch seem to never end. Again, again, again. My camera on play keeps turning off so I have to zoom again as people ask me to take pictures of my camera screen. Pictures of pictures, often taken with a small self phone camera, pixeled images of truth, the first victim in this situation, that people here seem to be decided on not losing, in their tenacity to hold on to a trace of it, stored in their self phone or memory card. Soon a camera crew comes around and wants to shot the small camera screen. I show the picture over and over again, moving from being sure of seeing snipers in it and thinking is just some strange shadows. After a while I decide to walk back to Victory Monument. I see there a motortaxi driver whom I have met before at the protest site, as people distribute food and water, just arrived from a pick-up. I tell him that I am surprised to see so many motortaxi drivers around and he tells me that it has always been like this in street protest since 1992. “I was there” he says “hiding in a temple as the military shot people in the street. This time is not like that. On that day the soldier would fires straight at people, so many. You could just run away.” Funny to have this conversation on the 17th of May, in this bloody anniversary of the events of eighteen years ago. I ask his phone number to interview him on those events. “Call me later on” he says “now there is no time and besides that interviewing now is a very dangerous thing, you may get shoot”. His sour smile fails to open up in his face as he thinks at the recent death of Seh Daeng. I show him the picture I just took and in a second another flow of people comes around, taking pictures of my camera screen, asking me to send it to the red shirt leaders and to put the picture on the internet. A guy walks to me and ask me if I would stay long enough for him to come back with his computer. People starving for “evidences” or just crumbs of it. I notice however how many of them do not really look at the picture to see something but rather to find something and see what they want to, as the older woman who showed me the Xerox copy of a picture of alleged bodies of military killed by other soldiers. A Thai journalist arrives and pulls out a small notebook. I pass him the picture, happy that we would take up the pressure and requests that come with that blurry frame. I decide to drive away as people thank me and offer me food and water. I grab a bottle of water and drive back to the Rama IV area. Here in both Ngan-Dumphli and Sawan Sawat the situation is stable, military shooting, protesters hidden behind the corner of the sois and tire barricades. I stay there for a while watching the tense faces and words of people who are being shot at, but mostly close to, since three days, almost getting used to the sounds of shots and explosion but still interpreting them for the new comers. Rifle, rifle, M-16, M-16, M-16, us, us, us, sniper. A large tires barricade has been positioned across one lane of Rama IV 20 meters east of Sawan Sawat and behind it about 15 men hide in silence eating grilled pork and sticky rice. Cameras and self phone taking videos everywhere. One man completely covered in black stains from managing tires asks me when I am from and tells me he is a supporter of Inter Milan. We are on the same side I tell him. A younger man on his left tells me he likes Manchester United. Bullets pass over our heads. “Red devils” he laughs as he show me a foulard of the UDD wrapped around his waist.
I don’t know if Bangkok ppl have been slow to wake or not, but from what I read from local papers is that the red shirt stage at Ram was forced out by university students and local residents.
Seems it’s too late for bkk ppl to wake. It’s 01:56 now. ha…
The protests aren’t over by a long shot. In fact, I would say that the real uprising is just beginning. Now that the Rajprasong rally site has been sealed by the Army, and everyone attempting to enter it are shot at (with varying degrees of success), the democracy movement has been shut off from the central leadership and finally has a chance to “democratise.”
Satellite rallies are springing up all over the place, in hotspots such as Sala Daeng, Din Daeng, Victory Monument and Khlong Toei (the latter of which has reached a crowd size comparable to the Rajprasong rally itself.) More worryingly for the military, impromptu protests are taking place in districts previously untouched by political tension, including Lad Prao and at the front gate of the (hastily sealed off) Ramkamhaeng University.
All of these rallies have various shades of Red, from the hardcore fighters manning the barricades, to academics and students who are not necessarily fond of Thaksin but are united in their call for the crackdown to end and for elections to take place. And as more of these protests spring up, more of the Bangkok middle class, including those put off by the mainstream Red rallies, jump on board.
What the military administration is facing in Bangkok is a monster that grows five new heads every time one of them is cut off. The citizens of Bangkok have been slow to wake, but I am pleased to report that beginning to waken they are.
Damage done by UDD? You’ve got to be kidding. Raiding a hospital in itself is not a damage? Having to move patients out of the hospital as a consequence of the action is not a damage?
If UDD didn’t feel guilty about raiding the hospital, they would probably have taken Seh Daeng there which is the nearest hospital.
Firstly, to who is curious about the news I heard about the assassinated Private, I’d like to make it clear that in previous thread, I mentioned in a comment that the name of that Private was even mentioned and I didn’t say the name out because I didn’t want to flame him (if he is really exist).
However, it is quite understandable to all Sae-Dang followers or whoever follows the situation to “believe” who is behind the assassination. So when it comes clearer, I will talk about this again.
In Asia Sentinel, there is some interesting analysis of this coward act.
Okay, update: at 00:43 a.m.
At Victory Monument, the UDD and some folk at around 1,000 people are setting up a mobile stage.
Rumor spread that in early morning, the troop will wipe out the stage at Rajprasong.
– I have videoof incidents at Bon Kai and Din Daeng (16th May) to present,
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Day 5 – how much longer?
Red Shirt protesters fire home-made rockets at Thai soldiers on Sunday May 16, 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand.
http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/thai_05_17/t03_23423425.jpg
Thai soldiers versus peaceful UDD protesters indeed.
Day 5 – how much longer?
I just want to add this bit before I hit the hay,
I’m surprised by how ill equip the reds are in this conflict.
You can find crude sharp weapons very easily here, if you know where to look. An overpass near my home has vendors selling knives/swords as long as 2 1/2 feet in plain sight.
Student wars had them all the time. We’ve seen plenty in pissing matches between rival institution around the country. Handguns /makeshift bombs is rare, but acquirable.
Given how easy it is for the reds to be armed, it is a credit to them that they are not.
Hell, they don’t even have baseball bats/golf clubs that the PAD love!
17 May 1992 and 17 May 2010
LesAbbey // May 17, 2010 at 7:44 pm said “Wouldn’t it be interesting to do a ‘where were they then’ on some of the politicians of today?”
I suggest you start with Sonthi Limthongkun.
Day 5 – how much longer?
Nok, do we have a video evidence of one’s shooting? In case that it’s a mock gun. Replica guns nowadays is very convincing.
17 May 1992 and 17 May 2010
IMO, I’m not the one who thinks the world of Thaksin. If you watch an entire day of ASTV programme, you’d find out that either –
-The man’s is an illegal alien from the planet Krypton or
-A illegitimate love child of an elder God.
Because he controls the world international media / puppets millions of ppl from his Montenegro/Dubai home /had a love affair with several youngin’ despite his gland cancer problem so severe he died and came back to life. / is now the 14th richest man in the world /has total loyalty of the police and some of the army in 5yrs/ got the underground world under his thumb and carted their earnings to his penthouse overseas./kills Muslims and still retain buddy-buddy status with Dubai/Abudbi/Saudi Arabia Sheikhs.
All of this and many more that had Germsak – oops soory – Jermsak Pinthong wrote an entire series of books that baffled the academics in how all of this escapes their notice.
And right now the man is plotting to outdo himself, overthrow Thailand’s beloved God-king!
So other than those 2 choices I mention, he also must be an incarnation of Satan!
Day 5 – how much longer?
@ Frank
If by “forced out” you meant the leaders of the Federation got threatened with legal action by police, and then were shot at after having bottles thrown at them by a group of anti-Reds, then you are correct.
But then all 500 of them just shifted to the protest down the road at Lad Prao. And they’ll probably be back.
I was actually at this rally at the university, by the way. Everyone was sitting listening to speeches by students and academics calling for the bloody massacre to end. It was an entirely peaceful affair.
I find it a bit disturbing how smug you sound about the fact that it was broken up with violence.
Day 5 – how much longer?
A demonstrator shoots a pistol during clashes with security forces in Bangkok on May 15, 2010.
http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/thai_05_17/t25_23412635.jpg
17 May 1992 and 17 May 2010
Prem, Surayudth, even Chamlong is a hardcore Killer.
StanG, let me ask you a question. You seem hellbent on pinning the deaths on Thaksin, to the extent that one would thought that your relatives got caught up in the ‘Drug war’.
Surely this is not it, right?
Thaksin’s crimes can’t be greater than Abhisit, who you are defending with zeal that belies your color preference. Abhisit took his decision knowing full well of the consequences, Thaksin may or may not have.
The death tolls are an estimate, it might have been higher or lower by a large margin. Such a hazy evidence is used to prosecute him w/o trial time and time again, isn’t this just bias?
And you can’t dismiss the events leading up to Thaksin’s decision on it. A certain someone who no one can ignore commented on the drug problems that had been escalating sometimes before it all happen. That someone whose words is took as a mandate rather than a suggestion, is often ignored in all context of the ‘Drug war’.
Thaksin is obviously guilty of issuing it, but if you’re in his position, you’d had no other choice but to do so. Circumstances and incompatance factored into a disastrous outcome. Kresae and Takbai , are events that illuminates the thai army as cold blooded and incapable army.
I say again, you pinned everything on the man. Can you give solid, hard, concrete evidence that he is responsible for every killing, every tortured, missing cases in that war?
Sometimes in life, you are left only with the wrong choices in front of you. So you can only choose the smallest evil. This is a quality that Thaksin has, and Abhisit doesn’t. It’s a quality that marks him not as a saint, but as a leader.
Remember, in Thailand, every politician is evil. The police are corrupt, the military more so. The officials are either under trained/sub-standard.
Not to mention the country just got hit by it’s worst depression in decades. Later it even got hit by a large natural disaster unheard of in the region.
Face with such problem that had plague the country for more than half a century/ new harsh ones. I’d say the man did a splendid job.
Now StanG, can you tell me why you want to carve the man’s guts out?
Nick Nostitz in the killing zone
It is very fishy, Natasha, is it not, when the majority seems not to know what it’s voting for. Certainly, this is more evidence of a third hand manipulating both the foreigners and the Red Shirts.
Nick Nostitz in the killing zone
[…] mancano poi le testimonianze dirette sul web, inclusa quella di Nick Nostitz [in] che si trovava nella “killer zone”. Anche Vaitor e Riding out the Economy [in] […]
Bangkok: A dangerous new phase
[…] Mandala parla delle prospettive delle proteste delle Camicie Rosse: Riteniamo che quella che probabilmente è la chiave per […]
Day 5 – how much longer?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llnt_v7AIxA
‘Fighter of the Earth’ or ‘Naksutuleedin’ is the song that is played every time a ‘hero’s body’ is recieved on the red stage.
It’s pretty powerful. If you can understand it in Thai, that is. but the phrase ‘р╕Ьр╕нр╕Зр╕Шр╕╕р╕ер╕╡р╕Фр╕┤р╕Щ р╕Ир╕▒р╕Бр╕Юр╕ер╕┤р╕Бр╕Кр╕░р╕Хр╕▓’ ‘Our group of dirt shall overcome fate’ is very tear jerking to me. T_T
Bangkok: This is a massacre
Seh Daeng# 50, if you popped ya head out of the workers cooperative occasionally you would know that Paragon is just sooo Lo So. Real men always have and always will, buy their handbags in Paris. Dear Leader out n about on Satdi!
http://tweetphoto.com/22827806
Bangkok: This is a massacre
c55
The RTA is not exactly short of helicopters – and they can’t all be in use ferrying generals to and from golf courses. If Col Sansern is so convinced that the “five to ten armed men….. must be supporters of the red-shirts, how is it that one wasn’t called in to deal with them?
Day 5 – how much longer?
Victory Monument and snipers
sorry again for the long post:
version with photos available at http://sopranz.blogspot.com
I decided today to take a tour of the peaceful areas so I left the house hoping to visit the five reported stages that the red shirts have put on around the city and take pictures of the monks chanting in Victory Monument. I drove down Sathorn where the empty road was dotted of burned phone boots (where are the phones?) and somebody put a statue of two people in black twisted in a fight at the corner with Soi Convent.I then drove down Narathiwat and turned into Surawong, emptied out with small crowds of people watching the situation. First military check point. I passed through easily with the excuse of visiting a friend house. Down Surawong turned into Rama IV in the direction of MBK. Second checkpoint. The street is completely empty, just some soldiers here and there and a column of smoke coming from Sala Daeng. Then got out of the military zone at the corner with Ratchatewi, this time after being checked by soldier as a young Thai man opens his motorbike’s seat to reveal a compartment full of 10 bath coins, wrapped in plastic bags. Down in the direction of Hualompong and then into Rama VI until Aree, then back to Victory Monument. As I pass chanel 5 station, the police is setting up a road block. At the entrance of the highway right before Victory Monument as big crowd of motorcycle and people starts moving frenetically, bringing plastic barriers and wood in the middle of the street and piling them before starting to burn the pile. “The army is coming” shout a motortaxi driver as many people move in the direction of Victory Monument. Goodbye peacefulness today. I drive into the back soi, to try to cut into Victory Monument but end up in a small closed community where police officers in anti-riot gear lounge inside a compound, taking pictures of what is going on in the street. I drive back and cut into Victory Monument as a barricade is created in the middle of the street with whatever is available and a big fire set in front of it. The round square is surreal, completely empty with few groups of curious standing on the long overpasses that surrounds the empty roundabout. Again stillness is accentuated by the memories of this buzzing transportation node. A long line of police man in uniform but bringing no weapons or protection crosses the roundabout and stop underneath a tend on the northern side of the square, they arrive quietly saluted by the crowd. I ask around and a woman tells me that they came to prevent the army from attacking from Phahon Yothin. She also tells me that the only way out of the area is toward Ratchawithi, as the other two exits are blocked one by a military line and the other by the heavy fighting in Din Daeng. Slowly the police officers take position in rows and move to Phahon Yothin were the fire is now releasing black smoke. The police scatter beyond the barricades and start taking it off as the crowd looks trying to understand their role. From a small gate beside the highway entrance the groups of anti-riot police exit from their refuge and take position at the right side of the crowd, an older policeman tells people around to let them do their job and reassure they are here to protect the people. A loud applause follows his words. The police take charge of the situation, rapidly removing the barricade and putting off the fire. Never in my lif I thought I would see the police dismantling a barricade just built being cheered by the same people who put it on, standing cheerfully around. Only smoking debris remains in the middle of the big road as the police takes again position in rows and the anti-riot group goes back to where they came from. An older police officer, who act as the person in charge, stands in the middle of the street and tells a small crowd formed around him mostly by motortaxi drivers to be calm and that if they don’t stop the street the military will not arrive. “Do you believe me?” he ends. “believe” is the common answer as people applause and cheer the police battalion moving back into Victory Monument and leaving the area.
I decide to take a look in the direction of Ratchaprarop, without getting too close. At that side of the roundabout a much bigger crowd is chatting and sitting on at least 500 motorcycles parked everywhere. I have never seen this many motortaxi drivers around protests since the violent turn. I recognize many of them in the crowd and greet some of them. We exchange information about what is going on in different part of the city for five minute and greet each other, but only after having wished good luck and reminded ourselves to be careful. Some unspoke routine over and over. I decide to keep going down the street when in the small soi people have stored big objects to put up more barricades. In the empty street, crowded only on the sides, a guy on a motorcycle stands in behind the barricade, as if was speaking to the phones (here what they do with the phones inside the boots) that compose this motley barricade. I walk pass him, smiling at the odd scene and walk down. I arrive to soi 6 and sit there for a while, as the smoke coming from Ratchaprarop hugs the flyover. On a side of it a small group of people hides behind the street, rolling tears into the smoke, I guess to be picked by other hands down the street. As I stand watching the scene in Soi 6 two men come to me and say that the soldier shooting down Ratchaprasong are not Thai, but kmer send by Newim. “How do you know?” I ask “We just know, we have seen them. Go there and see yourself”. Around people point in the direction of the Century Park Hotel that overlooks the area.
They ask me to take a picture in that direction with the zoom to see if there are any snipers. Lucky shot. I zoom with my camera and there they are at least two shapes that look like military guys, looking down at the street, kneeling in the plants that come out of the higher balcony. Immediately the news runs around and I get assaulted by a myriad of people asking me to take a look, too fast to declare that the balcony is full of snipers and you can see them very clearly. As soon as they take a look to the small screen of the camera people turn around saying out loud “it’s full of snipers, at least five or six” I keep repeating that at most it would be two but it take the instant to turn around for the story to grow bigger. Images in this situation come to play a strangely authoritative role. In a time where manufacturing pictures or just selecting what to show seems not only easy but diffused, an epoch of spin doctors and intrusions on the media-scapes images is funny how images, often blury ones become the higher form of truth. Nowhere else more than in that small soi close to a cloud of smoke I have felt this. The people who want to watch seem to never end. Again, again, again. My camera on play keeps turning off so I have to zoom again as people ask me to take pictures of my camera screen. Pictures of pictures, often taken with a small self phone camera, pixeled images of truth, the first victim in this situation, that people here seem to be decided on not losing, in their tenacity to hold on to a trace of it, stored in their self phone or memory card. Soon a camera crew comes around and wants to shot the small camera screen. I show the picture over and over again, moving from being sure of seeing snipers in it and thinking is just some strange shadows. After a while I decide to walk back to Victory Monument. I see there a motortaxi driver whom I have met before at the protest site, as people distribute food and water, just arrived from a pick-up. I tell him that I am surprised to see so many motortaxi drivers around and he tells me that it has always been like this in street protest since 1992. “I was there” he says “hiding in a temple as the military shot people in the street. This time is not like that. On that day the soldier would fires straight at people, so many. You could just run away.” Funny to have this conversation on the 17th of May, in this bloody anniversary of the events of eighteen years ago. I ask his phone number to interview him on those events. “Call me later on” he says “now there is no time and besides that interviewing now is a very dangerous thing, you may get shoot”. His sour smile fails to open up in his face as he thinks at the recent death of Seh Daeng. I show him the picture I just took and in a second another flow of people comes around, taking pictures of my camera screen, asking me to send it to the red shirt leaders and to put the picture on the internet. A guy walks to me and ask me if I would stay long enough for him to come back with his computer. People starving for “evidences” or just crumbs of it. I notice however how many of them do not really look at the picture to see something but rather to find something and see what they want to, as the older woman who showed me the Xerox copy of a picture of alleged bodies of military killed by other soldiers. A Thai journalist arrives and pulls out a small notebook. I pass him the picture, happy that we would take up the pressure and requests that come with that blurry frame. I decide to drive away as people thank me and offer me food and water. I grab a bottle of water and drive back to the Rama IV area. Here in both Ngan-Dumphli and Sawan Sawat the situation is stable, military shooting, protesters hidden behind the corner of the sois and tire barricades. I stay there for a while watching the tense faces and words of people who are being shot at, but mostly close to, since three days, almost getting used to the sounds of shots and explosion but still interpreting them for the new comers. Rifle, rifle, M-16, M-16, M-16, us, us, us, sniper. A large tires barricade has been positioned across one lane of Rama IV 20 meters east of Sawan Sawat and behind it about 15 men hide in silence eating grilled pork and sticky rice. Cameras and self phone taking videos everywhere. One man completely covered in black stains from managing tires asks me when I am from and tells me he is a supporter of Inter Milan. We are on the same side I tell him. A younger man on his left tells me he likes Manchester United. Bullets pass over our heads. “Red devils” he laughs as he show me a foulard of the UDD wrapped around his waist.
Day 5 – how much longer?
I don’t know if Bangkok ppl have been slow to wake or not, but from what I read from local papers is that the red shirt stage at Ram was forced out by university students and local residents.
Seems it’s too late for bkk ppl to wake. It’s 01:56 now. ha…
Day 5 – how much longer?
The protests aren’t over by a long shot. In fact, I would say that the real uprising is just beginning. Now that the Rajprasong rally site has been sealed by the Army, and everyone attempting to enter it are shot at (with varying degrees of success), the democracy movement has been shut off from the central leadership and finally has a chance to “democratise.”
Satellite rallies are springing up all over the place, in hotspots such as Sala Daeng, Din Daeng, Victory Monument and Khlong Toei (the latter of which has reached a crowd size comparable to the Rajprasong rally itself.) More worryingly for the military, impromptu protests are taking place in districts previously untouched by political tension, including Lad Prao and at the front gate of the (hastily sealed off) Ramkamhaeng University.
All of these rallies have various shades of Red, from the hardcore fighters manning the barricades, to academics and students who are not necessarily fond of Thaksin but are united in their call for the crackdown to end and for elections to take place. And as more of these protests spring up, more of the Bangkok middle class, including those put off by the mainstream Red rallies, jump on board.
What the military administration is facing in Bangkok is a monster that grows five new heads every time one of them is cut off. The citizens of Bangkok have been slow to wake, but I am pleased to report that beginning to waken they are.
Day 5 – how much longer?
Thairath newspaper reports, 150 Buddhism monks went to Inf. 11th to pray to the government to stop using force against people earlier this evening.
http://www.thairath.co.th/content/pol/83588
Also,
UDD in Korat (240 km. north east of Bangkok) gathered at city downtown asking the government to ceasefire immediately.
http://www.thairath.co.th/content/region/83589
Day 5 – how much longer?
@Jay #24
Damage done by UDD? You’ve got to be kidding. Raiding a hospital in itself is not a damage? Having to move patients out of the hospital as a consequence of the action is not a damage?
If UDD didn’t feel guilty about raiding the hospital, they would probably have taken Seh Daeng there which is the nearest hospital.
http://www.pantip.com/cafe/chalermthai/topic/A9192681/A9192681.html
Day 5 – how much longer?
Firstly, to who is curious about the news I heard about the assassinated Private, I’d like to make it clear that in previous thread, I mentioned in a comment that the name of that Private was even mentioned and I didn’t say the name out because I didn’t want to flame him (if he is really exist).
However, it is quite understandable to all Sae-Dang followers or whoever follows the situation to “believe” who is behind the assassination. So when it comes clearer, I will talk about this again.
In Asia Sentinel, there is some interesting analysis of this coward act.
Okay, update: at 00:43 a.m.
At Victory Monument, the UDD and some folk at around 1,000 people are setting up a mobile stage.
Rumor spread that in early morning, the troop will wipe out the stage at Rajprasong.
– I have videoof incidents at Bon Kai and Din Daeng (16th May) to present,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pczWl02lGXw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar3kUgalijU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggvlm9ZNJ7Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv9beYx2ORQ