No crackdown plan, says PM; police wanted to warn about Security Act

The deployment of riot police and soldiers to close in on the dwindling red shirts at Rajprasong Intersection yesterday morning led to a rapid and massive reinforcement of crowds.

As soon as the government made its move, red-shirt leaders started making frantic calls for immediate reinforcements and roused the crowd to become even angrier at Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the military who they believe is behind this government.

"Let us unite here immediately!" red-shirt leader Natthawut Saikua declared on stage shortly after 9am. "We have decided that today we shall fight and die here."

A voice was later piped onto the stage, saying all demonstrators should "act independently as they see fit" should the crowds be dispersed and leaders captured. It also said the red shirts deploy the "scattered beehive" strategy.

Soon enough, hundreds upon hundreds of cars and pickup trucks rushed to the area and the 100 or so riot-police officers blockading the Chidlom intersection quickly found themselves sandwiched between angry red shirts on both sides.

Even the half-a-dozen detention vans parked next to the officers, who were armed with shields and batons, could not deter the crowds. However, tension subsided at 10.45am when all attempts to block more red shirts from entering the protest site was abandoned. Officers retreated to the nearby Mater Dei Institute, but were pressured to leave - a move the jubilant crowds saw as victory.

Even though police and the soldiers had all retreated by noon, paramedics remained on standby on all four roads leading to Rajprasong intersection. This is the first time emergency rescue staff had been seen since protesters took over the shopping and tourist centre of Bangkok.

Denjai Champangam, a nurse at one such emergency van sent by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administra-tion's Erawan medical services, said she and her colleagues had been put on "indefinite" standby, adding that they were ready to attend to the injured if there was a crackdown. There were six similar vans parked outside Siam Centre from the morning. 

Meanwhile, in his nationwide TV address yesterday afternoon, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the government had no intention of using force to disperse the crowds and that the police officers had only been sent out to remind the crowds that assembly is illegal under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

While Abhisit's real intentions remained debatable, red-shirt leaders such as weng Tojirakarn claimed that the PM was indeed planning to disperse the crowds because some armoured vehicles, anti-crowd noise-generating vehicles as well as fire trucks had been seen around Lumpini Park area.

As for the ISA, the red-shirt leaders insist that it is "illegitimate" because the junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA) had passed it.

At the protest site, leaflets were being handed out carrying statements such as: "Since we are poor, we are stepped upon. We wouldn't suffer this if we're rich. So come what may, with one death a new birth shall arise."

Chulalongkorn University political scientist Prapas Pintobtaeng, who was observing the crowds, said it would be difficult to suppress the red shirts now. "The emotion is deep and widespread, while the belief of them being underprivileged has taken root," he said.

By nightfall, the red shirts were starting to become more vigilant, with the Thai Red News SMS service warning them that the government was waiting for the right opportunity to crack down.