Whatever the immediate outcome of Bangkok's spasm of violence, the conflict in Thai society is now deep, wretched and bitter. The demonstrations and violence of recent weeks have polarised the population. One of the strangest things is the way the Red Shirt demonstrators have won the public relations war.
The divisions in Thailand are complex. The Red Shirts of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship have their base in the relatively impoverished rural north-east of Thailand. They support former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted from office in a coup in 2006.Originally elected in 2001 and re-elected in 2005, he is a multi-billionaire who continued to run his family conglomerate, at great profit, while in office. He became popular with the poor by distributing money to rural village chiefs and undertaking other populist economic measures. The poor also liked his tough, not to say gruesome, war on drugs and his hard line against Muslim separatists in the south.
Corruption roared under Thaksin. He took heavy-handed measures against the liberal press. Sophisticated and liberal Bangkok came to hate him. The old Thai elite, retired military officers, some figures around the palace and much of the Bangkok business community also had it in for him.
After the coup there was a democratic election in 2008. Thaksin couldn't run but his allies won again. After less than a year in office, they were confronted by mass Yellow Shirt demonstrations, which paralysed the airport. The courts ruled some of Thaksin's allies ineligible for politics, there were some parliamentary defections and all of a sudden Thailand had a new government, led by Abhisit Vejjajiva, of the estimably liberal Democrat Party.
Up to that point, you might say Thaksin's followers had the balance of the moral argument. Twice their democratically elected governments were removed from office without an election. Thaksin had fled overseas but he never really went away. Instead he financed, and his lieutenants organised, the Red Shirt protest movement. Somewhat emulating the Yellow Shirts, they decided to paralyse Bangkok with demonstrations, to force Abhisit from office and to secure immediate elections, which they believed they would win.
The army commander, General Anupong Paochinda, whose term in office ends in October, does not want to end his career with the kind of reputation that one of his predecessors, Suchinda Kraprayoon, acquired in 1992 when he used force to suppress demonstrators. So he has tried to act with restraint. Nonetheless the army, the government and the police have basically hung together, and the army has acted to reassert control of the streets of Bangkok.
The danger of a sudden and savage escalation in violence remains great. It is extremely difficult to see where Thailand goes from here. Abhisit offered the Red Shirts a speedy dissolution of parliament and elections in November. Without completely surrendering to mob rule, that was pretty much as far as he could go. The Red Shirts lost all moral high ground when their demands became unreasonable. They wanted Abhisit gone instantly, various of his deputies on trial for the deaths that have occurred in Bangkok, mediation by the United Nations.
The Thai government is intensely frustrated that it has so comprehensively lost the PR battle when the Red Shirts' more militant leaders have clearly been unreasonable. Analysts see the media savvy skills of Thaksin in all this. The Red Shirts nonetheless are divided. There are hard-liners among them who want to provoke violence and polarisation as they presumably see this as the path to power.
One sagacious long-term observer of Southeast Asia sees a protracted conflict ahead. The hatred between the Yellow Shirts and Red Shirts is now so great they want to kill each other, he suggests. Each is a genuine social movement with wide grass-roots support. If that is true then the conflict can only end when one side vanquishes the other.
The problem is there are good arguments for and against each side. Abhisit can claim democratic legitimacy because he is supported by a majority of parliamentarians, but the Red Shirts can claim they won two elections.
Abhisit's government continued many of the economically populist policies of Thaksin and added more of its own, but Abhisit will never be legitimate in the eyes of the Red Shirts. Conversely, if the Red Shirts win in November, or whenever an election is held, will the Bangkok establishment accept their legitimacy? Will a new pro-Thaksin government rule with sufficient skill and a sense of reconciliation such that either the Yellow Shirt movement, or some other manifestation of Bangkok opinion, does not try to drive them from office? Thais have lost faith in the institutions of democracy.
In all this, the outside criticism of the king and the royal family is over-blown. King Bhumibol Adulyadej is 82 and in frail health. There are accusations that some of his advisers were acquiescent in the 2006 coup. But the king was not personally involved. Nor can he possibly be held responsible for the mess today. He is revered by the Thai people and on occasions has been able to use his moral authority to defuse tense situations. It seems the monarchy may have lost some authority. All he could possibly do is ask Abhisit to offer early elections, which Abhisit has already done. If the king tried to exert moral authority and was unsuccessful, that would be worse.
There are rumours Abhisit may step down, as a gesture to appease Red Shirt emotion, and be replaced in the short term by his Defence Minister, General Prawit Wongsuwan. But none of these gestures looks enough to resolve social divisions embittered by a fresh round of bloodshed.
