By Nirmal Ghosh
Thailand Correspondent
nirmal@sph.com.sg

 

Increasing reports of a large convoy leaving Ratchaprasong in downtown Bangkok late Friday morning for the Thaicom office in Pathum Thani made me hurry to get a taxi there with two other journalists.

On the way red shirt traffic steadily increased, becoming a swarm as we neared the site, which is in open fields near the Shinawatra University. We had to get out of our taxi and take lifts on motorbikes to get to the Thaicom office. As I neared the place I saw a cloud of white smoke drifting over the fields and took in the raw, acrid smell of tear gas. Red shirts were walking back along the narrow road covering their faces with masks or wet hand towels.

The clash was just over, and the atmosphere still volatile but also visibly cathartic. Soldiers sat exhausted with their shields. Red shirts had taken over several military vehicles. Some red shirts were staggering away from the scene with bandages on their heads, their faces flecked with blood, helped by red shirt medics. A soldier was helped away as well. Some police officers walked out of the compound and were cheered by the red shirts and returned the greetings.

Leaders of the red shirted United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) had told protestors to go to the headquarters of satellite operator Thaicom yesterday morning. Within minutes the convoy was on the move. Closer to the site as red shirts took different roads to get there, they had men at key intersections directing vehicles.

Leaders Jatuporn Promphan and Nattawut Saikuar had been taking turns haranguing the soldiers and denouncing the government from the top of a truck with a powerful sound system. They demanded that their media arm People’s Television be restored after being taken off the air by the government on Wednesday.

Soldiers and police stationed at the complex were hopelessly outnumbered. While a government helicopter flew overhead, red shirts streamed to the site from every direction, some tramping over fields. Vehicles lined the narrow roads for a kilometre in every direction.

Soldiers first tried a water cannon to ward off the swelling excited crowd, and then tried tear gas. But while many protestors retreated others were battling the soldiers, throwing rocks and clods of earth at them, and gong at them with sticks. At least one petrol bomb had been thrown. The soldiers fought back but mostly retreated behind their shields, and were driven to the side and back of the building, leaving vehicles including one full of M16 rifles and ammunition, behind to be taken over by the red shirts.

Most of the soldiers were unarmed. Some carried guns loaded with rubber bullets. A few carried M16 rifles. Red shirt guards encircled the vehicle with the weapons to prevent them being taken, and they were later laid out on the ground to show the media the weapons the soldiers had.

But the soldiers and protestors later shook hands and mingled peacefully. More than one soldier told journalists he was a 'watermelon'.

'Watermelon' is a a new term applied to soldiers sympathetic to the red shirts, implying that while they may be green on the outside - the colour of their military fatigues - they are red on the inside.

As the mood remained calm I went around to the back where the soldiers – probably around 200 of them – were sitting around in the shade. I saw a few talking with red shirts through the wire mesh fence. They were friendly, and took red shirt scarves from the protesters.

In the late afternoon as the reds left in triumph, to be hailed as heroes back at the main rally site in Bangkok, some of them even took lifts in army trucks with the soldiers.

There was no attempt to get inside the lobby of the building, where only a few police and military officers and anxious Thaicom staff watched the rowdy protest unfold. Some red shirts - mostly women - were allowed in to use the toilets. A Thaicom engineer told me in his personal opinion, the government had aggravated the situation by taking PTV off the air. So what if it was biased, he said, it was at least an outlet for the reds. It was not as if the mainstream media – or the royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) propaganda arm ASTV were not biased, he said. He said Thaicom would have lost money by interrupting the PTV broadcast uplinked through an Israeli company which had leased space on one of its transponders.

'This is not good for our credibility' he said gloomily.

The clash raises some interesting points. It was the first incident of real violence. Yet it was brief, and not deadly. Whether the soldiers were easy on the red shirts because of an innate sympathy for them, is something that will be speculated on. To me it was clear there was no animosity between the two sides.

Sources – and now news reports – say prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was annoyed at the soldiers caving in so easily.

Perhaps yet again, the government underestimated the red shirts. And perhaps government technocrats do not realise how difficult it is for a few hundred soldiers to ward off a crowd of thousands when they are unarmed. Or maybe the security operation was inefficient – or a combination of all of the above.

And maybe the soldiers were 'watermelons'.

The Bangkok Post’s respected military affairs correspondent Wassana Nanuam on April 4, wrote that the watermelon syndrome was very real.

'There is no denying that the rift within the army is real. One reason is the consolidation of power among soldiers close to the three topmost commanders - Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon, Commander-in-Chief Anupong Paojinda and his deputy Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha - to the point that others from various units who are not closely aligned with the top three feel excluded. Many of these soldiers feel they are not treated fairly when it comes to career advancement and promotion,' she wrote.

'Another batch of 'watermelon' involves military men seen as being close to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra or those who served the people in his circle,' Ms Wassana wrote.

The clash has raised both the temperature and the stakes – not least because many hard line conservatives will see prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva as being unable to enforce the law, or the military as unwilling to enforce the law.  

The rally at Ratchaprasong will be a different story. There are many more people there, in a well defined space. If it comes to it, it will be very difficult to disperse a crowd like that without grave risk of events spinning out of control – a tremendous risk for both sides but mostly for the government.  

As I write this on Saturday morning, PTV is again off the air.