ARMED SOLDIERS, BUT SITUATION IS CALM
Early this morning Sondhi Limthongkul, a leader of the People's Alliance for Democracy (yellow shirts) was shot and wounded. News reports indicate 100 shots were fired at the media tycoon.
On my commute to work this morning I was somewhat concerned to see a number of armed soldiers, albeit in the areas reasonably close to where the "red shirts" had previously been based. This would have been around an hour after the reported time at which Sondhi was ambushed so it may well have been in response to that incident.
Bangkok currently remains under the State of Emergency that was imposed last Sunday, however the shooting incident and the armed troops are in areas that are not normally frequented by tourists. Currently there is no reason why anyone should delay or postpone planned trips to Bangkok or Thailand.
Note: Apologies for the poor quality of this picture. I have enhanced the sharpness to compensate for the fact it was pretty dark and in a moving vehicle. That's my excuse anyway.
7 comments:
There were armed soldiers standing on Pracha Uthit last night, too. Not sure why.
Yesterday morning and evening there was an armed unit at Saphan Kwai junction, the only troops I have seen since returning on Wednesday. This morning they had gone, possibly in response to this event.
On another note, I keep hearing a number of complaints about the BBC coverage over the last few days. What are your views? I didn't hear much but thought the BBC did a poor job in describing the reality of the situation.
My initial thoughts on seeing the soldiers were perhaps they had a tip-off about a possible red-shirt re-grouping.
Gareth. I think all the global media - not just the BBC - have dramatised the situation. Just look at some of the front pages I compliled earlier this week. Bad news sells and I think they made it seem worse than it actually was.
Perhaps the problems arise from the fact that a lot of the major news organisations don't have staff reporters. Instead they rely on freelance reporters and correspondents. Those guys and girls will obviously need to sell their stories to newsdesks overseas, and that's only going to happen with emotive words like 'turmoil' and 'chaos'.
In terms of the BBC, they had Alastair Leithead reporting mostly instead of Jonathan Head. He's been their Afghanistan reporter previously and did kinda look out of place with his press flack jacket.
I have seen far worse (one-sided and bordering on being untrue) stories in print than what I saw from the likes of BBC and CNN.
I haven't really been out to see if the army is still hanging around BKK.
I really should as it is a photo op (and they've been sitting at the end of my soi), but it is so darn HOT out there!
Catherine, good to hear from you again.
There were none this morning in either the places I saw last week nor at the end of the road the "red shirts" had previously occupied. Either everything has calmed down or they're sharing your opinion about the weather.
I meant to check out my street, but the taxi driver who was kind enough to drag me out of this heat had different plans for me.
Oh well...
I think I'm familiar with that driver too.
Post a Comment