Bangkok Massacre

Who thought that a serene place such as Bangkok, which was once meant for honeymooners, family vacations and shopping sprees would turn into a land of protests, killings and hostage situations. Thailand, which was bit by rapid economic growth during the 80’s and the 90’s suddenly saw an outburst of protests by that section of the population who had been ignored all these years. Even though the globalization bug hit them quite early as compared to other nations, they failed to benefit a larger chuck of the society with the wealth slowly accumulating amongst a selected few.
Recently the ‘redshirts’ which mainly belong to the Thailand’s rural poor section from the north and north-eastern parts of the country, ended a 6 week long protest against the current government to develop a more democratic country while demanding the resignation of the current prime minister. The campaign ended in a rather rough manner with government troops blazing into their campaigning site with guns and ammunitions who then forced the redshirts to surrender. The redshirts were highly outnumbered and fell rather short of arms and ammunitions with some of the hardcore protestants vowing to keep them off their territory till the end. This led to tremendous amounts of casualties with huge losses of property with the redshirts retreating the space with short-end riots and burning down of the stock exchange and other official buildings.
These protestants, who are mainly known for their non-violent protests were forced to take up such measures after their leader and former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was removed from his post on grounds of conflict of interests and corruption. This led to a major outburst amongst his supporters. It is a common claim that only a leader like Thaksin could take the country forward to become a much more stable and stronger country unlike right now when Thailand, for the first time in 20 years is facing such a political turmoil.
Top leaders say that this reaction towards the government was something that had been building up within the rural and urban population for decades. They also fear that even though this protest was controlled without too much of damage, an anti government revolution seems to have begun amongst the communities and will not suffice till the time they don’t see some substantial changes in the government and the way the country is run.

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