BOGGED DOWN IN BON KAI, BANGKOK
TUESDAY 2PM THAILAND TIME:
I'VE JUST returned from a swing out to Bon Kai and Klong Toei. It is status quo at Bon Kai, with the odd firecracker going off as Red Shirts keep soldiers on their toes. But nobody is venturing out into the street which is pretty much a free-fire zone.
Stalemate: The barricade at Bon Kai. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh
While I was hanging about a man turned up in a head to toe black ninja-style outfit complete with a 2.5 feet long samurai sword tucked into his belt, and a black pouch. I decided not take his picture.
Trundling on a motorbike through the rabbit-warren alleys of Bon Kai, a working class neighbourhood, it is easy to see what the army is up against.
While there are reports and complaints of Red Shirts at the main protest site in Ratchaprasong running out of food and water, it does not take much effort to sneak supplies in using the narrow lanes to get supplies in — so while there is certainly a shortage compared with previous days after the army's blockade, it is a leaky blockade.
On the way through the ritzy neighbourhood of Soi Ruam Rudee, behind the Conrad Hotel and All Seasons Place, I passed piles of uncleared garbage — something unheard of in the upmarket Sukhumvit area. Blue-collar Bon Kai and white-collar Sukhumvit have begun to temporarily merge here.
Threading my way through the army's checkpoint near Nana, I cut around to Klong Toey, a couple of hundred metres up Rama IV road from where I had been standing earlier. There I found Red Shirts milling about as usual, peering up the road to Bon Kai where the "frontline" is. But behind them in Klong Toey proper, the Red Shirts were consolidating.
Warning: Tape barrier at Bon Kai warns people not to wander out on Rama IV road. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh
Tents were being put. A rudimentary exhibition of pictures of the violence and dead protesters is up already, attracting many viewers.
Myths: Pictures of the clashes and casualties are feeding into the red shirt narrative. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh
I bumped into the driver of a foreign Ambassador in Bangkok — the second one I know of who drives around an Ambassador while on duty, and when off duty, joins the Red Shirt rallies.
The Klong Toey neighbourhood is a relatively poor one. The images at the exhibition, and the army up the road facing the Red Shirts' barricades, feeds into the narrative of the Red Shirts — the so-called "prai" (serf) versus "ammat" (aristocracy) struggle.
People in Klong Toey are used to living with the double standards — one for the rich and well connected and another for ordinary folk — that the Red Shirts rail about. While I was there a man began speaking on a microphone that had only just been set up, announcing the names of donors and the amounts they had donated. He had a receipt book in his hand.
Calm before the storm: Watching the scene from Klong Toey. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh
Banners strung up at the site said "Stop shooting" and "Stop killing" and "We have only bare hands."
A conservative friend who is dead against the Red Shirts and, like most of the old establishment believes the movement is solely a tool of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, told me the Red Shirts were using people from the gangs of Klong Toey to man the barricades and fight the army.
"This is to give the world the impression it is a poor versus rich fight," he said.
It is true that Klong Toey is rife with criminality and weapons. An army officer friend (not involved in Bangkok operations) told me it would be very difficult for the troops if the criminal elements in the area took out their weapons and started using them.
The army was somewhat taken by surprise, he reckoned, when in throwing the blockade around the Ratchaprasong protest zone, it was challenged outside the zone itself.
Many of the Red Shirt supporters at Klong Toey, were from the area, but many were also from other areas and had been blocked by the army from getting to the main protest site.
In response, they had turned the tables by boxing the army in. At one end up Rama IV is the Sala Daeng front line where the red shirts have a huge barricade. At the other end is this new front line at Klong Toey.
The Klong Toey phenomenon also underscores the fact that this is not an urban-rural struggle. It is considerably blurred.
The Red Shirts have considerable support among the capital's working classes. Plus of course, there are some wealthy Bangkok business families who are known to support Thaksin Shinawatra, whose name continues to be a rallying call for the Red Shirts, even as the movement has grown somewhat beyond him.
TUESDAY, 1100HRS:
THE thunder outside the big windows of the hotel is from a storm moving across Bangkok bringing welcome relief from the muggy heat. Even then, however, I can still hear the odd sharp boom punctuating the typical long, low rumble of thunder. The army did not move during the night, apparently to leave room for a last-ditch negotiated settlement. All sides know the fallout of mass casualties would be unpredictable.
MONDAY, 2400HRS:
AS I sit in my room in a hotel I have checked into at the edge of the protest area in downtown Bangkok — which some of us call the red zone — I can hear the regular, deep crrump of big explosions two kilometers away. Even after I have just read an Associated Press report that says the government has agreed to a ceasefire offer from the red-shirted United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD).
UDD co-leader Nattawut Saikuar reportedly offered to call back the red shirts fighting the army in at least two day-long clashes in the heart of downtown Bangkok.
The thud of the explosions tells me that the ceasefire has, at least so far, not materialized. But I have no way of really knowing what is going on out there at the clash; in recent days journalists have stopped working after dark, because it is simply too dangerous.
Clashes have been volatile, unpredictable and chaotic, with heavy firing, and the use of giant firecrackers, Molotov cocktails and grenades. The sharp "crack! crack!" of the soldiers' M16s firing live ammunition, punctuated with explosions, amid the choking, oily, black smoke of burning tyres as the red shirts torch barricades, adds to the air of battle.
Fog of war: Smoke from burning tires billows over the Rama IV-bon Kai neighbourhood. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh
Unseen snipers in tall buildings have been picking off people. A series of pictures have emerged of a man in army fatigues accompanied by a spotter also in army clothing, with a tripod-mounted long rifle taking aim at someone below.
It adds to the insecurity for journalists, at least four of whom have been shot and wounded since Friday — not to speak of Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto who was killed in the appalling street battle of Apr 10.
The government said on Monday that "terrorists" were targeting journalists and rescue workers in an attempt to discredit the military.
One could interpret that as a tacit admission that journalists are being shot at; but a friend and colleague of Canadian cameraman Nelson Rand, who filmed the episode, insists that when Rand was shot last Friday as he dashed across a street during a clash, only soldiers were shooting. He was hit three times.
Earlier Monday I went to the back of the Red Shirt stage at Ratchaprasong, the heart of downtown Bangkok and saw several UDD leaders having lunch.
Nattawut Saikuar was often busy on his mobile phone, but I managed to speak to Dr Weng Tojirakarn, who was poring over the morning papers — especially the pictures, including those of the apparently army sniper.
I asked what the leaders and protesters would do in the event of a forcible dispersal by the army.
He said: "We will sit peacefully here and let them come and take our lives. The government is trying to frame us. The UDD has only handmade weapons ... something will burst out in the country," where there were mass casualties.
I took photos of the leaders before I left, wondering in what circumstances I would see them again.
Leaders: Dr Weng Tojirakarn (left) and Nattawut Saikuar in last ditch talks to avert more casualties. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh
During that walk through the red zone I visited a temple near the giant Siam Paragon mall, where the Thai Red Cross was handing out hygiene kits and canned food to women and children at the protest.
A TRC official said the organisation had nothing to do with any evacuation, which was a political issue. But he added: "We have to prepare in case there are major, mass casualties."
Many Red Shirts were packing their belongings into pickup trucks, but said it was just a precaution and they would not leave. A light plane circled overhead.
One woman yelled up at it: "Give us our democracy back!"; others fired homemade rockets at it, which spurted into the air and exploded in puffs of white smoke while the plane — either a spotter plane or dropping leaflets — droned well out of range.
Getting ready: Red Shirt protesters pack up on Monday and shout at a government plane as it circles above. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh
Inside a tent, four children sat quietly, looking worried. I took a picture of them, and trying to make them smile, showed it to them. Their faces lit up briefly.
Worried: Children, and other unarmed protesters, at Ratchaprasong present a problem in the use of armed force. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh
I made my way home to pick up some gear for the night, on a motorbike. The roads were almost completely deserted.
In the Ploenchit area you never hear birds in the daytime because of the constant sound of traffic; now if you walk down the roads away from the main rally site and the sound of the loudspeakers, you can hear every bird in the trees, their calls almost amplified because of the relative quiet.
Riding up Petchaburi, I had never imagined the city like this. Every approach road to the Ratchaprasong protest site was blocked by barricades of bamboo and tyres, and in some places the tyres were still smouldering.
Signature of unrest: Burning tires mark the spots of scattered clashes on the streets of Bangkok. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh
Even Petchaburi was almost empty of traffic. A hundred metres or so after passing the last of the Red Shirt outposts, I came to the army's lines. Soldiers took a good look at me as we trundled past. There were soldiers deployed all along the sidewalk.
The government has, in recent days, been sending text messages to mobile phones in the protest area warning people to leave. The army's tactic has been to gradually tighten the noose around the protest area.
A source said: "The army plans to move in slowly. They still hope to pressure the reds into surrendering. But much depends on the kind of resistance they encounter."
The Red Shirts have put up stubborn resistance, mostly with home made weapons like giant firecrackers and slingshots — with some reports of guns, although they have not been widely seen.
All that has emerged, are pictures of some Red Shirts with handguns, and some pictures of "men in black" carrying assault rifles and apparently fighting on the side of the rock-throwing, fire-cracker-launching Reds.
But the government says "terrorists" among the Reds fired upon troops first, and are responsible for the M79 grenade attacks that have also killed people in recent days.
Troops have used rubber and live bullets, and according to eyewitnesses, have at least in some cases appeared to open fire indiscriminately at anybody appearing on the streets during a clash.
The fog of war is akin to the black smoke of the burning tyres.
The truth — and the culprits of the mysterious long distance head shot killings — may never be known. It is however, quite apparent that the Red Shirts' security function was arranged along military or more probably guerrilla lines, designed and supervised by Major General Khattiya Sawasdipol.
The rogue general is dead; killed by a sniper's bullet fired last Thursday evening, but his apparatus, while possibly headless, still functions.
The situation is in a stalemate at the moment, but there is an air of expectation. There is no doubt that the army is capable of dispersing the Red Shirts; the only question is at what cost.
It will take all the skill, vision, willpower, courage and humanity of key players in Thailand's power politics, to be able to slip through the tiny crack that still remains open in the door of potential compromise before it finally swings shut and the explosions I hear, relatively far away now, come closer.
Read another blog from Nirmal Ghosh about the unrest in Bangkok: Red shirts teeter towards extreme
Read more about the situation in Bangkok:
Protests expose military rift
'Step back from the brink'
Govt rejects ceasefire call