Around half a million DAAD Red Shirts have taken to the streets of Bangkok in an attempt to oust the puppet Thai government.
The rally comes in wake of the high court decision to seize most of the assets of exile Thai Prime Minister Taksin Chinawat.
Thai media has been scare mongering about potential violent clashes between red and yellow shirts and bombings, as the hordes of peasants farmers descend upon the capital. Foreign governments have advised against travel and the military and police have been intercepting buses and trucks full of red shirts on their way to the capital. The Thai government also made a new law saying any foreign nationals that join the protest will be liable for up to two years imprisonment.
Despite this the protest is going ahead peacefully. There is a long tradition in Thai politics of such rallies as these bringing governments down, but this has mostly been due to their effects on the palace and army who have oppossed the ruling government.
An estimated 5000 Red Guards dressed in Flak Jackets and helmets including 200 mobile units have been stationed by Red Shirt leaders around the city to intercept anyone wearing a red shirt committing acts of violence, in response to claims security services, police and yellow shirts, dressed as red shirts at previous rallies commited acts to blacken the movement's name.
Interesting. I don't have anything but a superficial understanding of the situation in Thailand. From what I understand, however, the choice of red is not significant and in fact many in the UDD support Thaksin, even though this guy is a big capitalist. It appears to be a bourgeois-democratic problem of abolishing the military dictatorship and having fresh elections. Am I right about this? Where I can read more to get perspective? The Wikipedia articles are a little confusing...