Started a new post

5:20 p.m. Channel 3′s Reung Yen Den Nee reports quoting red shirt leader Nattawut as stating tomorrow they will not go to Prem’s House, Parliament, or Govt House.

5:00 p.m. Some photos from this thread at the Prachatai webboard show the police all decked out in riot gear uniform with what appear to be tear gas guns, but are not doing much now. Further down the page you can see photos inspecting the red shirts as they enter Bangkok.

4:45 p.m. Not The Nation with the cynical view on any possible political change:

“We’re going to bring down Abhisit with an undeniable show of force,” said one elderly woman who was traveling in a caravan of rusted out pickup trucks from Udon Thani. “People power will bring democracy to this kingdom,” she continued, unaware that the same claim had been made in 1932, 1946, 1957, 1973, 1976 and 1992 with no discernible success. 

The DAAD, a loose coalition of supporters of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra, socialists, progressives, and the rural poor, has rallied against the army-installed coalition government for over a year, demanding new elections in the misbegotten hope that Thailand will be a functioning democracy in their lifetime, and that equitable distribution of wealth and development is a remote possibility under Thai culture.

Wearing red shirts and headbands and carrying banners and foot clappers, the multitudes appear ready for a prolonged rally of chanting, speeches, and demands to be ignored by the actual power brokers of Thailand who will soon decide the fate of the government in a series of hidden back-room meetings.

DAAD leader Jatuporn Promphan did his best to support the illusion of importance, stating on People Channel TV that, “No amount of vested interest, no number of army guns can stop the will of the Thai people,” while not mentioning Thaksin’s courting of Newin Chidchob and Barnhard Silapa-archa to abandon the Democrat coalition in exchange for more lucrative cabinet posts.

BP: Argh, classic. Nothing else is happening really. The reds are coming into Bangkok in increasing numbers, but there is no idea on how many because it is difficult to count cars coming in from all directions. Thanong blogs:

However, most of the security people from the government side are still holding their guard high. They would never underestimate the Red Shirts. “I think the projection of the Red Shirt crowd is probably back to 200,000,” said a person familiar with the security operation of the government.

But the key to all of this is how many Red Shirts have already infiltered into the capital earlier and how many Bangkok Red Shirts are out there.

For the khon krung Red Shirts would be able to drag on the rally while the ban nok Red Shirts would not be able to stay in the capital for too long. The ban nok Red Shirts face both money and logistic problems.

I have written in one of the previous blogs that some 30,000 Red Shirts from the upcountry had entered into Bangkok and stayed at the temples. They have not yet made their presence felt.

Nirmal of the Straits Times blogs:

Just returned from an early morning trip to Wang Noi near Ayutthaya, around 65 km from Bangkok, to check on what a report in today’s Bangkok Post calls the ‘rural hordes’.

I got there at around 9am, to find at least 1,000 vehicles parked in an orderly manner in a big field beside the highway. Some were also parked on the side of the highway. Many were piled high with supplies.
…
Most of the vehicles were pickup trucks or farm trucks, with some buses and vans as well. A rough estimate of 10 people per vehicle placed the number of people there at the time at around 10,000.
…
62-year-old Red Shirt supporter Narong Oonsiri, also from Udon Thani, said he had joined the movement soon after the September 2006 coup d’etat that removed Thaksin Shinawatra from the premiership. He had voted for Thaksin, he said.

‘This government is a hijack government. We have plenty of supplies. We will stay in Bangkok as long as it takes to win. We want elections; we think we have a 60-80 per cent chance of forcing them to hold an election.’

At around 11am when the number of vehicles had swelled significantly, the convoy started rolling.
… Meanwhile back in Bangkok, initial reports of the Red Shirts rally being on the verge of fizzling out, began to be tempered by TV footage coming in from the staging areas.

Besides Wang Noi, Red Shirts are advancing on Bangkok at other access points as well.

It is still too early to estimate numbers – a critical issue because many in the establishment have been saying the Red Shirts are losing steam.

But given the upwards of 10,000 at Wang Noi and similar numbers elsewhere, and the fact that the UDD can muster about 20,000-30,000 in Bangkok alone as per government spokesman Dr Panitan Wattanayagorn’s own estimate, it seems the security forces’ projection of around 150,000 people will quite easily be met.

BP: Thanong was blogging the other day about 500,000, but BP doesn’t really see this as realistic. The 200,000-300,000 range is more likely.

2:45 p.m. There have been little reports of violence except for one motorist being attacked as The Nation reports:

Interior decorator Thanin Boonkasem, 50, was attacked when he found himself caught in traffic near Pathum Thani City Hall and got out of his car to demand that he be allowed to go through, before red-shirt protester Sanchai Phetprasert, 54, started assaulting him.

Sanchai, who was making announcements from a pickup, ran towards Thanin and started hitting him with his megaphone before police officers intervened.

BP: Saw the video on TV last night. Hopefully, the police will prosecute the red shirt hothead, if you are going to dish out verbal rhetoric by megaphone then you should be able to take some feedback.

2:25 p.m. Reuters on what the red shirt leaders predictions:

The leaders of the “red shirts” say they will stay in Bangkok for at least seven days, aiming to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to call an election that Thaksin’s allies would be well placed to win.

“Some 600,000 to 700,000 ‘red shirts’ are on their way to Bangkok and, together with those already in town, we will have more than a million people,” Woravat Auapinyakul, a member of parliament for the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai Party, told reporters.

FT:

The government and the red-shirted protesters, coming under the banner of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, said they would do their best to avoid clashes, but both sides have suggested that the other might use provocateurs to incite violence.

“We categorically deny that we are armed or that we plan unrest,” said Sean Boonpracong, a spokesman for the protesters, ahead of the demonstrations.

The Times (UK) has some quotes from yesterday:

At Lak Si, on the edge of Bangkok, about 2,000 red-shirt activists cheered and waved as their demonstration began. Chawarit Chawangkiet, 37, a computer programmer, said that he felt compelled to joined the protest because he wanted political reform. “I want to fight for democracy,” he said. “This country is controlled by invisible forces.”

The red-shirt leader Weng Tojirakarn, who was watching over the Lak Si gathering, told The Times that the aim was to fight for a system in which all people were treated equally, elections were called and the people allowed to decide the political future of the country. He said that there was an need to “end the double standard which is so backward

BP: Despite statements by the army spokesman yesterday that vehicles with non-Bangkok license plates would not be allowed into Bangkok from what BP is seeing plenty of up-country red shirt vehicles in Bangkok.

1:55 p.m. Matichon has photos of the various smaller symbolic protests and the reds travelling from yesterday here. Matichon also has an article with some photos from today here.

BP: Still difficult to estimate how many people are coming as most are still outside of Bangkok and are travelling in so many different convoys.

1:40 p.m. Bangkok Post this morning:

An army of about 20,000 red-shirts from 11 provinces in the North, who had gathered in Nakhon Sawan province last night, resumed their journey to Bangkok about 9.30am on Saturday, reports said.

Their 10km long convoy filled two lanes of the four lanes of the  Asian highway causing heavy traffic congestion at the Dechartiwong bridge in the province.

About 10,000 red-shirts from the upper provinces of the Northeast gathering at the Outlet Shopping center in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Pak Chong district also left for the capital this morning.

Another 10,000 from the lower part of the Northeast were this morning gathering at the parking area of Kruea Wang Noi restaurant in Ayutthaya’s Wang Noi district, about one kilometre from the Wang Noi  checkpoint manned by about 300 police and soldiers.

A later Bangkok Post article from this afternoon reported on the Ayutthaya meeting point:

Tens of thousands of protesters were estimated to have gathered in Wang Noi district of Ayutthaya in the morning as they prepared to head to Bangkok to join the main protest on Sunday.

BP: It seems we are getting a wave of protesters in all directions. Many though, particularly who live 100-150 kms from Bangkok, will probably just travel to Bangkok tomorrow.

Not sure if these are separate from the above, but also from the Bangkok Post: “[a]bout 14,000 people left Chiang Mai with another 10,000 on the way from Udon Thani in the Northeast”