On Wednesday a potentially deadly confrontation flared up in the middle of a blocked highway near the old airport. Tensions were so high that some bystanders began calling loved ones to say goodbye, fearing that they would be caught in crossfire.
Thai soldiers stopped a large procession of red-shirt protesters from driving north out of town. The army leadership said later that they thought the convoy of red-shirt vehicles was likely planning to prevent groups of soldiers from upcountry from reaching Bangkok. Earlier in the week, troop trains had been temporarily been halted in the provinces by people sympathetic to the anti-government point of view.
So now here was another altercation, less than a week after rockets had been fired from who-knows-where, landing at a downtown sky train station and injuring several people. Everyone knew that the bullets on both sides of the highway standoff weren’t likely to be made of just rubber.
Our office was holding a meeting several hours south of Bangkok. A woman from my group, whose father had been sent to the highway scene for reasons connected to his civilian job, only learned how scared he had been when she saw several missed calls on her cell phone.
In the end, one soldier died, reportedly from friendly fire. The situation was only defused by a sudden heavy rainfall.
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