Red Shirts, Yellow Shirts

Hey, All! Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately because for awhile our internet was dicey and Blogger was slooooowwwww . . . but since we've had so much excitement lately, I'll put a few pics up . . . (In case it wasn't obvious, none of these are taken by me! They are mostly from the Bangkok Post).

I won't even begin to try to explain how Thai politics works (not that I ever probably could, as a non-Thai person). Basically everything going on now has to do with Thaksin Sinawatra (click here for more on him). He's the prime minister who was deposed in the 2006 coup, convicted of fraud and now lives in exile in the UK. He's trying to return to power by any means possible.

So the YELLOW SHIRTS (PAD) are anti-Thaksin supporters, and the RED SHIRTS (UDD) are the pro-Thaksin supporters.

Yellow shirts take over the airport, December 2008

Passengers Stuck in BKK, December 2008

On April 8, 100.000 Red Shirts gathered in Bangkok to demand Abhisit's resignation, camping out at major intersections and bringing traffic all over the city to a grinding halt. In a feat of genius, Abhisit declared April 10 a "National Holiday" (but I still had school, meh!).

On Friday, I was headed downtown to the hash and got off the Sky Train at Victory Monument (one of the big protest venues). I walked around in the sea of red shirts and listened to a couple speeches (they were all in Thai, but the zealous reactions of the crowd were funny/disturbing to watch). It was a county-fair atmosphere with vendors selling food and tons of red-shirt wear (I bought a couple T-shirts for my Dad and me). Everyone was very smiley and helpful to me, though I was obviously a rubber-necker and not even wearing a red shirt!

The next day, the protesters headed down to Pattaya to protest the ASEAN summit. Coincidentally, I happened to be headed down for a hash in Pattaya. I went out and got in a taxi to go to the bus station, and the driver said that all the bus drivers had gone down to join the protest (he was right, as it turned out). So I ended up taking a bus from the middle of nowhere, where the drivers were still working.

There were no apparent problems in Pattaya when I arrived - just tons of police standing around.

However, while we were out in the woods having our run and our circle, all hell broke lose in Pattaya. The red shirts attacked some "Blue Shirts" whom they claimed were government supporters, with molotov cocktails and firecrackers. Then they marched to the ASEAN summit hotel, smashed through the lobby windows and occupied the hotel. For video, click here and scroll down. Abhisit declared a state of emergency and called in helicopters to evacuate himself, followed by leaders from Japan, China, Australia and India.

When we got back to Pattaya around nine pm, everything was quiet again, and life was going on as usual. Apparently all the Red Shirts have come back up to Bangkok. No one knows what they'll do next.

Thaksin called in to a Red Shirt gathering around midnight, basically to egg them on to cause more trouble. Grr.

So not the greatest of times in Thailand, but we are all fine and foreigners are not targets of any of the issues, although we've been warned not to go out wearing red for awhile (LOL!)

For the latest news, read the Bangkok Post online.