Quieter?

Back in Bangkok after a week in Australia, I find that the government has extended the state of emergency declared last weekend. Early Friday morning, a machine gun ambush left in intensive care the guy who founded the yellow shirt movement (the group that shut down two governments and two airports in the last few years). This guy and his followers played no role in the most recent protests.

I had thought things might be quieter than this. My neighbors had e-mailed me, saying that the city seemed deserted. Indeed, last week’s roadblocks are gone, as are the soldiers brought in to break them up.

Clearly the standoff between Thailand’s competing factions is far from over. Lots of rural and urban poor, led from abroad by Thaksin, still resent the way that the middle class, military, and monarchists and managed to take over last December without a vote. A year before that, candidates favored by today’s red shirts had handily won an election.

Among the demands of the red shirts, who suspended their street protests Tuesday, is the prosecution of the ambushed yellow shirt leader for his role in the airport closures.

Jip’s caregivers laughingly reported that they had heard the sounds of the demonstrations from our balcony, and that when their shifts were over they had had no choice but to return home by taxi—buses weren’t running for a few days. The guard downstairs was maybe a bit more candid when I asked him how he’d been lately. “Songkran was no fun this year,” he said.