RIOT POLICE increased the pressure on red-shirted anti-government protesters in the Thai capital yesterday, a day after a grenade attack killed one person and wounded scores of others, including four foreigners, although security forces stopped short of outright confrontation.
The worsening of the violence has many in Thailand talking about a possible civil war in the “Land of Smiles”. However, it is hard to see how a forcible eviction of the red shirts is possible.
Just as with violence two weeks ago that saw 25 being killed, it is still not clear who caused the stand-off to escalate. Everyone has a theory – some say it was agents provocateurs trying to force the issue, others that ex-military officers settling old scores were responsible. It is not known who perpetrated the grenade attack, though the government implied that those responsible were associated with the red shirt protesters. However, it stopped short of directly blaming the group.
Meanwhile, in the increasingly complicated scheme of colours in Thailand’s political spectrum, about 20,000 people in a new protest movement known as the “multi-colours” rallied in Bangkok’s old quarter.
The group, representing Bangkok’s middle class, said they were fed up with disruptions to the city from the prolonged protests and the damage it is doing to business and livelihoods. They were taking to the streets to try to resolve the issue, they said.
There has been much criticism of prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s government because of its failure to fulfil his promise to resolve the current crisis – just the latest to dog Thailand.
The conflict has paralysed one of the busiest areas of Thailand’s bustling capital. The Silom Road area, where the clashes this week took place, is home to banks, offices, restaurants and shopping malls, and much of the verbal confrontation has happened across an intersection full of cars.
However, even in this busy area, commerce is slowing down.
There were signs of a less aggressive stance on the part of the protesters, who want Mr Abhisit to step down and declare fresh elections immediately. In what appeared to be a compromise move, they said they were willing to give him 30 days to dissolve parliament and call new polls.
“If the government accepts and is open to the talks, we are ready to disperse to restore peace in the country,” protest leader Veera Musikapong said after unofficial talks with the government.
The grenade attacks, where M-79 grenade launchers were used, targeted areas where soldiers were stationed to monitor the movements of the red shirt demonstrators and where hundreds of counter-demonstrators had gathered to shout insults across the busy Silom thoroughfare at protesters, yelling “Go Home”, occasionally hurling rocks.
For the most part, the red shirts consist of poor, rural supporters of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and pro-democracy activists who opposed the military coup that ousted him in 2006.
They feel robbed by the parliamentary machinations that ousted Mr Thaksin and two subsequent elected governments run by his supporters. Mr Abhisit then rose to power without an election.
The red shirts face on to Silom Road from behind barricades of tyres, and have gathered makeshift weapons of sharpened sticks and paving stones. Behind the barricades, the area they have occupied stretches on for hundreds of metres, all the way back to Bangkok’s central shopping district.