The Beginning of a long Crackdown
Just a weeks ago there was a feeling of a relieve after Red Shirt leaders agreed with Prime Minister Abhisits negotiation plan. But more and more demands on both sides stopped this positive compromise. The army started to seal the Red Shirt rally sites on Thursday night. Barbed wire, armored vehicles and thousands of soldiers hiding in buildings and bushes confronting the remaining Red Shirts.
It has been several weeks that businesses and traffic could not operate in Bangkoks center, especially Silom and Ratchaprasong which are Bangkoks main Shopping and Business districts. The pressure rises and Prime Minster Abhisit wants to seal the Red Shirt area rally sites. No Water, Power and Communication supply are not a problem for the Red Shirts right now but the maintenance of the soldiers keeping up the road blockades caused several clashes yesterday afternoon/night.
The mild road districtions Thursday night lead to chaos near the Thai-Belgium Bridge. Several broken Firetrucks and burning busses have been regained by the army yesterday morning.
While moving from Rama IV towards Sala Daeng Intersection it was getting more and more tense. Red Shirts throwing molotov cocktails, grenades and huge stones in the direction of the army. They also moved burning tires from the flyover bridge near their camp against alarmed soldiers at the blockade.
Here are some pieces of my video footage at that time which have also been shown on France24 and CNN.
A littlebit later at Saladaeng Intersection. Several burning tires in the middle of the road intersection followed by several strong bomb explosions in the red fortress and at the skywalk.
Also several road blockades were burned down by the Anti-Government Protesters.
During the afternoon I saw a lot of injured Red Shirts and Soldiers, but the most frightened scenes happened while I was hiding in an empty building near the flyover bridge. A Red Shirt was moving away from the soldiers while he got shot through his knee right a few meters in front of me. He tumbled against a public phone with his head and lay on the floor. Except me and two other journalists no one was there. It was overwhelming because we couldn’t do anything caused by the ongoing gunfire and exploding grenades.
One of the other Thai Journalists who was in contact with some of the soldiers called an ambulance truck which arrived just 5minutes later. We helped the unconscious guy in the truck and moved back to a secure place. The only thing that was left from this tragedy was this.
Both sides don’t want to give up and it is clear that this conflict will last a long time. The 16 Dead and over 150 Injured people of yesterday are just a beginning of bloody crackdown which will mark Thailand’s History.
stay tuned for more footage and reports. check my twitter to get live updates from the scene.
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awesome coverage Florian!
alter… hört sich krass an. ist für uns hier so weit weg. ausserdem kommts mir so vor als wär die berichterstattung in deutschland im vergleich eher mies. man bekommt hier gar nichts mit aber ein klick auf die bbc, cnn oder afp-seiten und zack hat man die infos…
und natürlich von dir.
pass auf dich auf, alter, aber mach weiter!
Gute Berichterstattung aber pass auf dich auf, du hast schon ne Gummikugel abbekommen, da muss ja nicht noch ne echte Kugel folgen!
Auf der Webseite wurden paar Sicherheitshinweise gepostet: http://andrewmarshall.com/blog/bangkok-safety-tips/
Hab gehört das Ratchaprarop (Pratunam) ab heute auch für Jornalisten gesperrt sein soll. Hoffe du gerätst nicht zw. die Fronten.
Auf CNN gibts auch noch nen Video, dass verwundete Journalisten zeigt: http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2010/05/14/rivers.thailand.mayhem.cnn.html
Echt schlimm das Ganze. :/
Florian Witulski ein 23 jähriger Freelance Journalist berichtet trotz gebrochener Knochen und scharfer Munition unermüdlich aus dem Kampfgebiet. Letztes Jahr berichtete er unter anderen von der Niederschlagung der Protestbewegung im Iran. Hier sein letzter Artikel.
http://futurologischer-kongress.blogspot.com/2010/05/burgerkrieg-in-thailand.html
Very good stuff. But from your opening paragraph, it really wasn’t more and more demands on both sides, was it?
Just want to correct your understanding in your first paragraph. After the govt. offered reconciliation, only teh redshirt leaders up the ante by requested more and more demand in their negotiation to the hairsplitting details. It was widely reported that the real snag was that Mr. Thaksin wasn’t getting what he wanted – to be pardonned for his conviction so he wouldn’t serve the time in jail should he come back to Thailand. After the very last request by the redshirt was honoured by the govt. (Mr.Suthep reported to DSI for ordering the army to move in on the mob at PhanFa), the redshirt leaders made some lame complaint about the legitimacy of it, at the same time SehDaeng (who was shot in the head a few days ago)said that he had direct order from Thaksin to make sure the mob wouldn’t leave Rajchaprasong. By then, some of the redshirt leaders had given up (Veera, et al) and pretty much left the mob – those who were stuck there have to mob. After Seh Daeng’s shooting, the violence broke out – many reported that mayhem is what Thaksin wanted all along. Now you can see that his network of supporters are pulling all the strings.
You might have heard that those redshirt innocent protesters had been promised 200,000 bahts when they got the redshirt ids. They will keep coming out to gather anywhere in hope of eventually collecting the money. The red guards are being paid 1500-2000 bahts per day. The latest news had it that there are snipers dress in fake army gears transported from the north (Thaksin’s home base) that have been shooting randomly to create havoc around the city and to keep the army from making a move.
I hope I’m telling you what you already know. You can’t write for people outside of Thailand to see the real picture unless you know all sides of the story.
I don’t want to give any words to you but if you want to listen the real voice of Thais please go and check at our facebook. http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/VoicesFromThaiPeople
Red shirt should call terrorists right now starting from the time that they destroy our country.
Thank you on behave of Thai people for reflecting the real truth from foreign eyes. Since CNN use your clip, can you please tell them as well. Dan Rivers is not doing his job well to reflect the truth not the biased view.
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Be careful, pal
But keep up the good work!