Thailand's rivals show their colours

April 13, 2009
Thailand's rivals show their colours
Thailand’s political crisis has become more alarming every year but, until the past two days,
it fell short of being frightening. Last year’s vast demonstrations,

the mobs of yellow-shirterprotesters taking over the prime minister’s office - they were aggressive and disruptive, but there was no sense in which they threatened the state as a whole.

The occupation of Bangkok’s international airport last year was a surprise - but even then it seemed that the police and the army had allowed it to happen, and that the security apparatus retained the capacity,at a least, for exerting control

The events of the weekend make it difficult to maintain such confidence. The ease with which a different mob - dressed in red, this time - chased away the leaders of Asia’s most
powerful countries yesterday, virtually unimpeded by the police and army, suggests a new and truly dangerous possibility: that Thailand is becoming a country without law

enforcement, in which any rabble with large enough numbers and bright enough T-shirts, can impose its will by means of physical menace.

The tumult in Thailand has always been complicated and unpredictable but, it used to be at least comprehensible.

It was a story of two sides, conveniently colour-coded, and of a military which clearly favoured one over the other.

On one hand were the Red Shirts, supporters of the exiled former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in 2006.

The Reds drew their support from the rural and urban poor; even after Thaksin’s overthrow, they continued to win at the polls; and it was only last year

that the pro-Thaksin government was driven out by a prolonged and dramatic show of force by their opponents - the Yellow Shirts.