Nirmal's mobile phone battery has died. The demonstration continues.
4.25pm Bangkok time
- More than 2,000 Reds here, and three soundtrucks. They have started celebrating songkran, dancing & splashing water.
- Clearly consolidating here, a massive blow to sieze a major hub.
4.10pm Bangkok time
- More than 1,000 Reds here now, a truck with a sound system has arrived, no sign of Jakrapob but the speaker is 'rousing the crowd'.
- Wild cheers and drum beats.
4pm Bangkok time
- Up to 500 reds now marching around the monument. One of their leaders, Jakrapob Penkair expected shortly to make an announcement here. Reds also protesting at army HQ but that is largely symbolic, it is this action that is really hurting the city.
3.55pm Bangkok time
- The police squad has retreated but a senior police officer is trying to negotiate with the Reds. Mood is not hostile. But crowds are surging around.
3.50pm Bangkok time
- Police have pulled back, wild cheers from the Reds.
3.45pm Bangkok time
- Police have arrived & moving in. Volatile situation. A few hundred Reds running to confront them.
- Much excitement & shouting, police have come in 2-3 big dark blue trucks. Some Reds trying to calm people saying Jai Yen Jai Yen - stay cool.
3.30pm Bangkok time
- The rain has lightened into an occasional drizzle. Media cameramen & TV trucks have begun arriving. The taxis are parked with doors open, all tuned at full volume to taxi radio & speeches from the stage outside general Prem Tinsulanonda's house.
- More reds here, some just walked in a procession around the circle. Some sources say this is only the first step in a wider campaign of civil disobedience and disruptions throughout the capital.
- The traffic police have clearly begun to divert traffic on alternate routes from some distance away so there is no more backup on these particular approach roads.
- But I am getting calls about traffic gridlock elsewhere spawned by this shutdown at Victory Monument.
- A couple of hundred reds now marching slowly around the monument. Much cheering and waving of hand clappers.
3pm Bangkok time
- Thousands now jamming the pedestrian overbridges connecting to the skytrain. It is beginning to rain quite heavily.
2.45pm Bangkok time
Tension is a bit high. Now some are saying they will stay here 3 days. They say they think the army is going to come but 'we won't let them'.
- Everyone is waiting for 4pm which is when the 'deadline' for resignation of the govt will pass. We expect some announcements from the reds then. Everyone is a bit jittery here. But no weapons in sight, just a couple of 100 reds & about 50 taxis.
- They are letting motorcycles & ambulances though. Very effective protest. I can't begin to imagne the spreading gridlock.
2.15pm Bangkok time
- No police in sight, but a police helicopter is circling. Red-shirts are riding by on bikes blowing horns and beeping. One of them has given me a bottle of cold water. It is scorching hot.
2pm Bangkok time (Singapore time 3pm)
- A few dozen taxis driven by the pro-Thaksin red-shirts have parked at the mouths of all roads into Victory Monument, a major intersection. All traffic is at a standstill and hundreds are cramming the skytrain station.
This is a classic civil disobedience tactic. They say they will be here until 4.30pm.
Some are standing on their taxis waving Thai flags. There are simultaneous protests at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Democrat party headquarters.
The move shows a great capacity to organise through the taxi radio network. A huge percentage of taxi drivers in Bangkok are from the north east, and thus supporters of the red-shirts.