In Bangkok
THE anti-Thaksin, anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) started a day billed as their biggest protest ever, in spectacular fashion by invading and seizing the government TV station NBT.
By around 2pm local time, protestors climbed over the steel rails and fences and got into Government House, facing no resistance from the few police there. The protestors settled down on the lawns in front of the main building while a sharp rain shower broke the heat. The Cabinet meeting has just finished and we are now waiting for a statement from PM Samak Sundaravej. The PAD has blocked highways around Bangkok, plus about half a dozen government ministries.
This is turning out to be a lot more dramatic a protest than how PAD had billed it.
Earlier this morning, I saw some of the footage on NBT itself, of minor scuffles in the foyer of the building between outnumbered police and PAD protestors, many armed with sticks. That was the second wave of protestors; the first was broken up by police who made a number of arrests when they found the protestors had rods, machetes and even a few guns on them.
About 40 armed protestors tried to halt
programming as a prelude to a major demonstration
against the seven-month-old coalition.
Source: REUTERS
As I watched, a barrage of SMS news alerts flooded in. The PAD had surrounded Government House, the Ministry of Finance, and was marching on the police headquarters. This was bigger than anyone had expected.
No taxis would go anywhere near the protest sites, so I took a boat, fetching up near Sanam Luang, from where I took a tuk-tuk to Saphan Makkawan near the UN building.
As I threaded my way through the thousands of PAD protestors, many took shelter under umbrellas on a blazing hot day. I finally got to Government House and saw it strangely silent, besieged by the sea of yellow-clad protestors singing and chanting to nationalist songs relayed on sound systems strategically placed on the streets around the building.
Heavy iron barriers on wheels and chained together, formed a barricade around the compound but nobody was trying to break through it. There were also hardly any police at the site, which I thought strange.
Clearly, the government has abandoned Government House, venue of the regular Tuesday Cabinet meetings. PM Samak Sundaravej was instead camped at army headquarters.
Army chief general Anupong Paochinda, at around 12 noon, said the army will not intervene and cautioned the public not to “panic”.
But earlier in the day, deputy government spokesman Natthawut Saikua in a TV interview said declaring a state of emergency in Bangkok was on the cards.
The PAD has said this is an all or nothing day and they will not stop until the government quits. “The PAD wants to provoke a military takeover at any cost”, a Thai journalist friend told me.
This is how it the scenario according to the PAD works: The PAD in a show of strength gives the impression the government has lost legitimacy. If the government sends in the police with the water cannons and tear gas, it will be seen as cracking down brutally on an essentially peaceful though certainly provocative demonstration. Either way, the government looks bad, and the army then steps in to remove it. The PAD has successfully trumped the 14 million voters who chose the ruling People Power Party (PPP) with a couple of hundred thousand people and a classic urban protest strategy in Bangkok.
The other side of the coin is the government sits tight and waits until the PAD protest runs out of steam. That is what is happening now, but the tossed coin is still in the air.
Today is critical; we'll have to see how the coin drops.