Tuesday, 11pm Bangkok time: Just got back from a foray up Sukhumvit to Ratchaprasong and Siam, and then Sala Daeng, and thought I would get back to blogging after a few days’ break while concentrating on print stories.
At the outer perimeter of the red shirt camp at Ratchaprasong, the black-clad guards were seriously checking everyone and every vehicle heading in – and I mean serious. They were alert and firm but polite, and very professional. I did not see any body searches, but there may well have been patting people down as well.
Alert: Checks on vehicles entering the protest zone are thorough
I walked through the camp at Ratchaprasong and up to Siam BTS station with Leslie Lopez, ST's Senior Regional Correspondent. A man had set up a personal computer on the road and was showing and selling CDs burned with still and video images of the awful battle of April 10 where at least 25 were killed and hundreds injured.
Martyrs: A young Red supporter selling images and footage of the April 10 clash
Among the video clips the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) likes to show, is one of soldiers mercilessly beating a Red Shirt as he lies on the road.
Meanwhile Manager Media’s ASTV, owned by royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) co-leader and key ideologue Sondhi Limthongkul, has been playing video footage of the Red Shirts mercilessly beating a soldier that same night.
Both sides have their martyrs and are further demonising the other. Each side only listens to its own propaganda. It is hard to see any nice way out of this tightening vortex of frustration and emotion, in which truth and perspective are the first casualties.
As we neared Siam BTS station I got a text message from a friend saying some multi-coloured shirts and the Red Shirts were yelling at each other at Sala Daeng.
We were there in 10 minutes. As we walked to the top of the road from the BTS station to get to where the shouting was going on some 200m away, we heard some women yelling furiously from a pedestrian overhead bridge.
It turned out they were yelling at a taxi driver who pulled his cab over at the side of the road. They were telling him to take the red ribbon off his radio antenna. He hurriedly but calmly acknowledged them and started untying it. Soldiers deployed on the sidewalk looked on impassively.
At the top of the road, around 20 to 30 people had gathered and were yelling at the Red Shirts, who set up a barricade across the intersection. The Reds were speaking to them through loudspeakers and the multi-coloured lot yelled back. Some seemed to just be having some fun, but about a dozen were serious and angry. Several riot police lined the road on the Silom side where the multi-coloured group was. One lane was open and vehicles were edging through.
But there was only a wall of almost constantly moving traffic that separated them from the Reds.
The two groups were taunting each other. Apparently this has been going on there for a while. Right now there is nothing like parity between the numbers on either side, and tonight’s shouting match was a smallish affair. But if the multi-coloured crowds begin to swell and gain some critical mass and this sort of thing goes on, one day or night, the two sides may just go at each other.
As the stalemate drags on and anger and emotions only growing as both sides gear up, even if there is no clash between the Reds and the army, there is the possibility of Sala Daeng becoming a flashpoint for a people fight if the current situation and trend continues.
Judging from the inaction of soldiers and police on the spot, it looks like they may well allow the two sides to have a go at each other. Could we be edging towards a similar situation like that of Sept 2, 2008, when an angry Red-shirted mob attacked the PAD (then entrenched behind barricades at Makkawan Bridge)?
One Red Shirt was killed that night. This time round, such a clash - or any clash for that matter as we have already seen - would be far, far worse.
It is bizarre to see razor wire and armed soldiers on Silom. On the way home, I took a taxi and we drove through Silom soi 3 which eventually comes out on Sathon. There were armed soldiers spaced out on the dark and narrow soi (alleys), and one building appeared to be something of a base with many soldiers at street level and a Humvee rolling in.
Wednesday, April 21 : According to today’s The Nation, there are as many as 10,000 troops around the downtown protest site. The Centre for the Resolution of Peace and Emergency estimated that the number of protesters was 15-16,000, of whom 70 per cent are residents of Bangkok.