Friday, April 23, 2010

Drama

As I was leaving a rehearsal of "The Marriage of Figaro" this evening, my driver told me that the radio was reporting bombs going off.

I went to Emporium to buy groceries and on my way out, around 10 pm, the iPhone news apps were starting to chime in.

Fie M-79s went off in Silom.  It's a couple of hours later and here's what I can figure out: the first three blasts landed in the same place, basically the roof of the skytrain station.  Two more came later; one in the street beneath the skytrain and the other at a major bank.  Casualties: 1 dead, 75 wounded, a few foreigners.

Who did it?  Police say the trajectories put their origin squarely at a red shirt stage behind the Statue of Rama VI.  The red shirts deny all knowledge.  Conventional wisdom among average Bangkokians has already prejudged them to be the culprits.

A few hours after the blasts, the Silom crowd are back in front of the Dusit, venting their rage at the red shirts.  Bottles and slingshots seem to be the main weapons at this stage.  The TV reporters noted, to our dismay, that the police weren't doing that much about it ... they were still reacting to the M-79 blasts.

The red shirts have been celebrating a civil court injunction handed down today that bars the government from using force to disperse their assembly.  However, the injunction also contained a proviso that it no longer would apply if the assembly was no longer peaceful.  Therefore, as pointed out in the Nation's "breaking news" just now, it no longer applies, and has been withdrawn.  If ever they wanted to claim justification for martial law and mopping up, it would seem they have achieved that.  However, that might well NOT be what they want to claim....

I imagine that in a few hours the spin doctors will all be ready with their versions of this.

After an hour or so of punditry, Jay and I watched the Takacs Quartet playing Bartok No. 6.  It's one of the many DVD's Jay brought back for me from the Burmese border, where dubious DVDs of really great music are available for a dollar each.

We're waiting anxiously for morning.  Trisdee will be here, still covered in volcanic ash.  I'm still not "scared" yet, but that may change.

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