Government Forces move to retake central Bangkok

By Garry | May 19th, 2010 | Category: News Reports | No Comments »

Bangkok 19 May 2010 – Thai Army and Police, supported by Armoured Combat Vehicles (ACVs) and Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), plus water cannon military vehicles, moved from several directions overnight to assault the barricades and bunkers built around the perimeter of the anti-government Red Shirt protestors’ encampment covering almost four square miles of central Bangkok.

Reporter: Garry Harbottle-Johnson, Thailand.

Photographs: Agencies and Contacts in Bangkok.

Government forces took up positions at several strategic points at 5:00am and began moving in an hour later, firing continuous volleys into the air according to reports. The ACVs and APCs were used to demolish the protestors’ tyre and bamboo barricades and defence points, with troops advancing behind them to clear the each area, covered and supported by snipers on overhead walkways and high buildings.

Prolonged gun battles between troops and gunmen dressed in black, took place in Lumpini Park, where the army afterwards found unexploded ordnance. A lengthy skirmish continues at the Salasin Intersection, a Red Shirt strong point, at the time of writing.

Click through for full story and photos …

Western journalists “embedded” with Thai troops running across open ground, Bangkok, 19 May 2010, before the order for the media to “clear out”.

Thai Army ACVs move to break through Red Shirt barricades near Sala Daeng, Bangkok, 19 May 2010 just after sunrise.

(This photo and top of article)
Thick, black smoke from burning tyres ignited by Red Shirt protesters and Red Guards, envelops Chulalongkorn Hospital following the Thai Army assault on the Red Shirt encampment.

Thai Soldiers advance along the BTS Sky Train’s overhead track-ways, penetrating the Red Shirt perimeter, pushing mobile shields ahead of themselves.

Pictures have been flooding the internet from many citizen journalists, onlookers, and professional reporters.

From this morning’s clashes are reports of an estimated five deaths, including an Italian journalist. Estimates of injuries from gunfire run into the dozens, including two Thai journalists.

The Bangkok Police Hospital (located within the Red Shirt encampment at the Ratchaprasong intersection) has reported that two protesters underwent surgery for life-threatening gun shot wounds, whilst another dozen were treated and released. Red Shirts were reported, by Doctors at the hospital, as having surrounded it and that the Red Shirts were refusing to allow ambulances to leave in response to emergency calls.

The BBC’s Alistair Leithead has reported witnessing Black Shirt gunmen firing upon the advancing army, in Lumpini Park, with automatic weapons. He was reporting from an elevated vantage point.

Various online reporters posted images of troops using the elevated BTS Sky Train trackways as routes to penetrate deep into the Red Shirt zone, and others reported an attack on the MRT underground station by protesters who smashed their way in, poured gallons of petrol into the station and set fire to it. Apparently the blaze was controlled and extinguished, though MRT officials are refusing to allow the media in to photograph and report first hand.

This morning’s events have been heavily and instantly reported online via Twitter, both as text tweets and using various image tweeting systems. Both ordinary users and professional journalists have been broadcasting via this channel.

One of the first “scoops” to come via a tweet, was that Red Shirts had set fire to the Office of the Narcotics Control Board at Din Daeng, and a little later, that in the absence of official fire services, nearby residents were fighting the blaze with fire extinguishers. Remarkably, even though the fire was throughout the ground and first floors at one point, they succeeded in dousing it.

The UN and its head, plus human rights agencies and heads of state, have pitched in this morning with pleas for restraint and calls for a negotiated settlement. Yet, it has to be asked if they have been fully briefed on the politically impossible demands that Red Shirt leaders have placed before the Thai government in recent weeks, and how it was the Red Shirt leadership who at first agreed to, then reneged upon, accepting the road map to early elections that was first proposed by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

Many Thai and foreign residents were sickened this morning to hear that ousted former PM, convicted criminal-in-exile, and chief Red Shirts financial backer, Thaksin Shinawatra, had also called for the government to enter a ceasefire and negotiations. It is widely believed that he was the deal-breaking veto-er that killed hopes of the Red Shirts dispersing peacefully under PM Abhisit’s road map.

Whilst mainstream media attention today is on this morning’s events, child protection and child rights campaign groups are incensed by photographs this week of an infant being held up as a human shield by a Red Shirt Guard, at one of their barricades in the well publicised “Live Fire Zones” announced under the State of Emergency powers given to the Thai Army. Worldwide, momentum had been building in public opinion that the Red leadership absolutely must evacuate all women, children, and senior citizens before any crackdown commenced. All parties within the Red Shirt encampment had adamantly refused to leave in response to these humanitarian considerations.

The government’s CRES crisis management centre today broadcast that any protesters who wished to leave should walk to the National Stadium at Sanam Luang (less than a mile from the closest point of the Red Shirt barricades) where they would be assisted and escorted to buses that would return them to their home towns and villages in the provinces. Responses reported from within the main political demonstration area of the encampment are that the protesters are going nowhere, and intend staying to the end.

However, as lunchtime approached, it was confirmed that fiery militant Red Shirt leader Arisman has fled the encampment in a white Toyota vehicle. The CRES have appealed to the public to report any sightings of him, or any other Red Shirt leader who leaves the conflict zone. All of them have a long list of charges to answer to, and amnesty for them and Thaksin Shinawatra has been emphatically refused by the government. It is fully expected that more of the Red Shirt top echelons will try to flee the city, despite late breaking news that a number of them would surrender themselves to police this afternoon.

With the possibility of a forced end to the long running and violent stalemate, between protestors and government, those hurt by the events are beginning to press for compensation. The Japanese Chamber of Commerce and other organisations representing hundreds of Japanese firms in the city have announced they will be seeking recompense from the government.

Another such group represents the interests of the many foreign financial institutions and banks that operate in Bangkok’s Silom financial district. Whilst the various regional, as well as capital city, tourism and hotelier associations are sure to add their collective voices to the clamour. The head of Bangkok’s Suvvanabhumi International Airport is on record this week as stating foreign tourist arrivals are down 50%.

Riots spread outwards

At 9:00am this morning, Red Shirts re-seized the Thai Com satellite broadcasting and communications uplink station at Pathum Thani, and began building a series of barricades and bunkers to defend it. This facility on the north edge of greater Bangkok was also the scene of confrontations in April after the government closed it down for broadcasting propaganda and divisive doctrine through the People’s Channel station on behalf of the Red Shirts. The Red Shirts then mounted a mass march to surround and retake the station.

Farther afield, in the central North East, Red Shirts attacked and seized the Provincial Hall in Khon Kaen Province this morning. Last reports stated that whilst they had control of the ground floor, they had not gained access to any of those above it.

Yesterday, there were grenade attacks reported in Chiang Mai, and pictures broadcast of Thai terrestrial TV of shattered ATMs and damaged bank frontages in the central tourist zone of the northern regional capital.

Also yesterday, Thai TV showed reports from the extreme eastern edge of Thailand in Ubon Ratchathani Province, of protestors burning rows of tyres on highways to disrupt and divert traffic.

Outside of Bangkok 15 provinces, of the country’s 76, are under a state of emergency as of this week, with serious incidents of unrest reported in a total of 25 inclusive of the capital.

As yet, there has been no disruption to airports or flights at any of Thailand’s national, regional, and international airports. Transit travel via Thai airports is perfectly safe and unimpeded. There have been no overt moves by the reds to interfere with air travel.

Approximately 25 foreign embassies and consulates are closed until further notice, due to their proximity to the conflict points, as is the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Thailand.

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