Thai Rak Thai III

The Nation reported that two killed in clashes between rioters and angry residents. The angry residents chased protesters away and some even clashed with them, threatening to shoot the rioters. A clash between red-shirt rioters and a group of residents in Bangkok's Nang Lerng area last night left two people dead and nine others injured, with two sustaining serious wounds. As many as 74 of those sent to hospital sustained injuries early yesterday when the troops cracked down on a rioting mob near the Din Daeng intersection.

It is a sign of deep divisions in Thai society, which will take a long time to heal as the power-play has flip-flopped from side to side. At the centre of the rift is Thaksin, the ousted prime minister and charismatic billionaire that to a great extent, represents a voice of impoverished north and northeast and at the other end is the powerful central elite from the palace, military, bureaucracy and middle-class, in a colour-coded battle between the ‘Red Shirts’ and the later the ‘Yellow Shirts’.

All this takes place in the name to defense democracy and both sides are now driven to a corner, where everything is at stake and neither party can afford to lose that spill-over into ordinary life and economy. Australia, Russia and Hong Kong have joined governments around the world in advising their citizens to avoid or reconsider travelling to Bangkok. The Philippines, Malaysia and South Korea on Monday also told travellers to stay away from Bangkok or exercise extreme caution.

Unity at the very core of Thai society is a stake, including the survival of monarchy. Foreign diplomats in Bangkok feared political turmoil might escalate to a civil war, which would inevitably invite another coup.

It is widely believed that the 1932 coup was the first coup in Thailand. It wasn’t; the first coup was in 1912, when a group of junior officers, fired by the Chinese revolution a year earlier, tried to seize power. They failed. The 24 June 1932 coup, however, succeeded and brought an end to absolute monarchy in Thailand. The 1932 coup ended 150 years of absolute monarchy under the Chakri dynasty and irreversibly changed the face of Thai politics. Within a year in June 1933, another coup forced a change of government. This trend of coups was to persist for the next seven decades.

I will report life from Bangkok this weekend!