Army guards Bangkok's financial district

The Red Shirts had announced plans to march to Silom Road, a banking and office district in the Thai capital, from their main base in an upmarket shopping area. But thousands of troops, some armed with machine guns, barred their way with the help of barbed wire and metal barricades.

Demonstrations by tens of thousands of Reds, mostly supporters of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who come from the impoverished rural north of Thailand, have paralyzed parts of Bangkok for the last five weeks.

Doubts about clampdown

The government has refused to say whether a clampdown against the protests is imminent. So far, the security forces have not been very efficient in dealing with the protests. Last Friday, they failed to arrest several of the Red movement's leaders in a bungled operation. TV pictures showing a Red leader climbing out of a window to escape were widely seen as a complete humiliation for the authorities. The government responded to this public relations disaster by putting army chief General Anupong Paochinda in charge of national security. But the situation could explode at any time. Just nine days ago, an attempted crackdown led to clashes that left 25 people dead in Thailand's worst civil unrest for decades.

Observers doubt whether the army and police really are willing to crush the demonstrations. It is believed that there is a lot of support for Thaksin and the Red Shirts amongst the lower ranks in both organisations. Thaksin himself is a former policeman. On Monday, he told Reuters in an interview that the only way to end the current standoff was for the Thai government to step down and call premature elections.

"Yellow" vs. "Red"

Meanwhile, anti-Thaksin "Yellow Shirts" have threatened to take to the streets themselves if the government fails to deal effectively with the Red Shirts, raising fears of a violent confrontation. During a meeting on Sunday, they gave the government an ultimatum of seven days to restore order. The Yellow Shirts, belonging to the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), brought down two pro-Thaksin governments in 2008 with their months-long street protests, eventually paving the way for the current government of Abhisit Vejjajiva to come to power.

tb/Reuters/AFP
Editor: Grahame Lucas