Red shirt rallying on Saturday

PPT briefly visited the red shirt main rally site at Pan Fa Bridge on Saturday evening.

This visit followed a day that saw continuous red shirt caravanning around the city. These caravans, usually led by a motorcyclist with Thai and United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) flags and usually including a few pickups and sometimes a larger truck with speakers, seemed to be all over town. They appeared to do little to change basic traffic patterns as they obeyed traffic signals and seemed to grow and then split at various intersections. This pattern saw many people waiting for them to arrive, and when they did, greeting them by waving red paraphernalia. It is probably impossible to know how many people would have been involved and certainly there were no huge crowds waiting on the sides of the road as for the huge caravan last week.

By the afternoon, as the red shirt leadership took protesters to the 8 selected spots to challenge military deployments, the caravans became smaller, thinner and less frequent.

PPT arrived at the Democracy Monument somewhere around 7 p.m. One taxi driver refused to go there saying he feared the traffic would be terrible in the area. In fact, though, as it was for PPT’s other visits, the traffic in the area was thin and getting to the area was easy and quick. Leaving the area later in the evening produced exactly the same traffic experience. It was easy to get a taxi and the journey to Hualampong Station was quick.

PPT actually arrived at the wrong spot for Saturday’s rally. Most of the crowd seemed to be concentrated in the area of the stage at Pan Fa and down the roads leading to Government House, where there was a brief stand-off with troops posted there. Getting down to Government House proved impossible – well, let’s say PPT gave up – as the crowd on the bridge was all but impenetrable.

The Bangkok Post (27 March 2010) reports that leading the crowd were “Suporn Attawong, Payap Panket and Waipot Arpornrat [who] earlier gathered in front of Government House and issued an ultimatum, demanding troops inside the compound to return to their barracks. The troops refused, causing the red-shirts to threaten to break into the compound.” Actually television news reported that they refused pending an order from superiors.

The Post states that a “negotiation between Mr Suporn and Metropolitan Police Division 1 commander Wichai Sangprapai was successful after [which] Mr Suporn told the demonstrators to stop pressuring the soldiers at Government House and return to their main rally site near Phan Fa bridge.” The soldiers agreed to move back toward Government House with police overseeing security at the perimeter. At the same time, protesters were told that the “main action” would be “on Sunday at the 11th Infantry Regiment where the red-shirts plan to meet Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva…”. Later, televisions news reported that Abhisit would be in the provinces.

As this was apparently going on, PPT was walking around the area between Pan Fa and Sanam Luang. Much of that area has become a very large parking lot and market place as well as a kind of dormitory area for red shirts, with bathing and toilet facilities appearing to be overloaded and a considerable amount of basic trash piling up by the evening. There continue to be considerable numbers of people there, but they seem to be taking a break, catching some sleep and eating. They remain interested in the speeches, which are broadcast by large screens set up at various intervals and on televisions where individuals have set them up with portable satellite dishes and show People TV. PPT also noticed that some of the local restaurants in the side streets had red shirt TV playing and were catering for a red shirt clientele.

Thaksin Shinawatra the entrepreneur would be delighted to see the remarkable upsurge of red shirt consumer items and marketing. Who knows if all of the vendors are red shirts at heart, but the amount of red shirt paraphernalia on sale was unbelievable. PPT’s favorite were the “Dissolve Parliament” flip-flops, which seemed a steal at 39 baht. There were all kinds of other things for sale – DVDs (why there was a music video of The Who for sale is not quite clear), clothes (red shirt branded and otherwise), toys, deck chairs, hats, sunglasses and reading glasses, books, magazines, wall posters, and so on. Business seemed pretty brisk as well.

Of course there are also food stalls everywhere. The lines of people waiting for free food were often quite long, so cheap food (pad thai for 10 baht) seemed a popular alternative. Lots of food variety was available. On the downside, PPT felt kind of sorry for the Sorndaeng restaurant band and singer. The usually popular restaurant had few people there for dinner. Massage also seemed to be in demand at about 150 baht an hour. Saw one women getting a leg and foot massage in a massage chair while using her notebook.

One of the largest groups PPT saw was at a stall that was making UDD photo IDs for people. Quite a large number of people congregated around this booth waiting their turn to become card-carrying members of the movement. The red shirt medical unit seemed to have almost nothing to do. Quite a few people were sitting and waiting about, but few patients arrived.

On the stage, there seemed to be a rapid turnover of speakers and quite a line-up waiting for their turn. Veera Musipakong was speaking when PPT arrived. As PPT got closer to the stage and listened for a while, Veera made some comments about the monarchy. He was concerned that red shirt opponents were painting the movement as anti-monarchy, and he claimed that this was a tactic to scare Bangkok people. He claimed that the movement recognized the significance of the monarchy and mentioned an upcoming birthday. Veera referred in positive terms to the king, prince and Sirindhorn in the part of the remarks that PPT heard. His comments received what might be called a lukewarm rattle of foot-clappers.

There was a louder reception for the many speakers who claimed that Saturday’s confrontation with the army had been a considerable victory. The rally stage saw a pretty rapid turnover of speakers, many of them leading red shirts from various provincial areas, and not a few of them sounded pretty hoarse in their speeches. Some stated that Abhisit was going to have to dissolve parliament on Sunday and this got a big round of cheers.

PPT doubts that this is going to happen, but both Abhisit and Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban appeared tired when seen on television yesterday. Then again, so did the UDD leadership. This has been a fast and rapidly-changing campaign for both sides.

It is next to impossible to estimate the size of the crowd, not least because PPT couldn’t even get close to the body of people beyond Pan Fa Bridge. As before, there are also many people spread out around the rally area, relaxing and sleeping, and estimating how many there are is really difficult. At the rally stage area, PPT saw a much larger crowd than the last time we visited 9-10 days ago. Maybe double the size and more densely packed. PPT feels that the media reports of 80,000 to 100,000 during the daylight hours are probably accurate enough. The evening sees bigger crowds as people get off work and as the temperature moderates. As the evening extended, more people were arriving than leaving, at least by the streets that PPT used. Many of those arriving were in family groups. Overall, the mood remains upbeat and good-natured amongst the protesters, although many do seem tired.

The evening was punctuated by new reports of bombings. Indeed, the attacks on two television stations seemed the first that were aimed at causing a serious impact. Many the other small bombs and grenades were fired into quiet areas and with little apparent impact. The perpetrators remain unknown in almost all cases. Where the police have paraded a couple of suspects, the motive has seemed to be other than political.

On Saturday, The Nation (28 March 2010) reported that Suthep stated that while troops were withdrawn at red shirt rallying points, “the government would not withdraw troops from the capital but would cut back on the numbers in some units following an outcry from the opposition over heavy security around Parliament.”

Suthep “insisted the government had not overdeployed military forces, but said it had been necessary to send them to certain streets across Bangkok due to concern over the firing of grenades. A number of grenades fired from M79 launchers have consistently rocked the capital over the past two weeks.” The term “rocked” is probably inaccurate for, until Saturday, these have been small explosions, sometimes confused with fireworks.

Suthep’s comments came as grenades were lobbed at the Army-run Channel 5 and the state-run NBT. Nine were said to be injured, 6 of them were said to be soldiers. Red shirts have been critical of media coverage of their rally and demands and the one-sided “commentaries” of current politics.

More soon on Abhisit’s and Suthep’s appearance on all televisions stations regarding Sunday’s red shirt rally.