Friday 14 May 2010, noon to 1 pm: Against my better judgement and my own advice to others to stay away (ha ha, doesn't that make me a fool?), I took a leisurely walk near "ground zero" this noon. It had to be a slow stroll because it was very hot today.

The BTS Skytrain is not operating on the Saladaeng/Chong Nonsi segment. I don't suppose the MRT train is stopping at Silom station either. After being closed last night, Silom Road was open to traffic again, though few vehicles ventured in. Some 80 - 90 percent of shops were closed, including most currency exchange booths. The fast food outlets, including both the McDonald's "Open 24 hours" cafes at the corner of Rama 4 and Silom and opposite Patpong, shut tight. California Wow was closed. Silom Complex remain boarded up, with barbed wire in front. An intrepid handful of foot massage places, e.g. Apsara and Paradis, were open, but clearly had no customers. Coffee Society was open with 3-4 patrons, who looked like journalists and camera crew using the space to cool off while they waited for developments.

Amazingly Rama 4 Road was also open as was Ratchadamri Road. This means people could drive alongside the Red Shirts' barricade, and I guess, they could turn into their encampment wherever there might be a gateway through their barricade.

The soldiers had pulled back, and the military lines are now along Thaniya Road, about 100 -200 metres from the Rama 4/Silom intersection, and roughly where Saladaeng station is.

At the Surawong side, Henri Dunant Road (which leads up to the Siam Paragon area) had orange-coloured traffic cones and light plastic barriers across it, but since there were neither soldiers nor police enforcing the blockade, motorbikes and even cars weaved through them. I saw a man drive up to the barrier, get out of his car and push aside one of the orange pieces, get back behind the wheel and drive through!

I don't understand the military's strategy. If they are to clear out the protesters by Monday so that school can reopen, they will need to apply more pressure than what seems to be the case. I don't mean force of arms, but the strategy of isolating the siege areas by cutting off water, and preventing deliveries of food and fuel (which is the correct strategy) has to be better enforced. There should be a "no go" buffer zone of about 50 - 100 metres on all sides of the protest area. No one should be able to enter the buffer zone. Right now, the only people not entering the buffer zone are the police and troops. Passers-by, vendors, gawkers and cute massage boys - and potential Red Shirt sympathizers - clearly can.

Sextile reported above that his DTAC phone service was restricted to "emergency calls only", but my AIS service had no such restriction, with a full strength signal to boot.

Another thing that struck me was not only that the soldiers had pulled back to leave a "free to enter" buffer zone, they were really quite few in number. Walking around Silom and Surawong, I don't think I saw more than 50 men in uniform. If the Red Shirts choose to break out of the siege, where are there enough men to stop them? That being the case, the few men, fearing being outnumbered will get panicky and be quick to resort to live ammunition.

I can't understand why the miilitary is not using an "overwhelming force" strategy, why everything looks halfhearted... unless it is intentional on the military commander's part.

However, things are extremely volatile. At breakfast, the hotel waiter told me that fighting had broken out just a few minutes (hours?) before near the Lumphini MRT station and the Suan Lum night market. This morning's newspapers also reported that at around 10 pm last night more fighting and shooting broke out, I presume near the Silom frontlines, though by then, I was safely in a taxi heading away.
.
.

Quote |