Weapons of the weak

All images from today's (May 18) clashes in Din Daeng between red shirts and the military snipers. 


Elements within the red shirt movement have weapons, serious weapons of war.

About five minutes after Seh Dang was hit by a sniper's bullet while walking within the red's barricade, I watched while taking cover from an intense firefight, a black-clad guard assemble an M-16 assault rifle and return fire towards the hi-rise buildings surrounding the red camp.

Unfortunately, the lights had been doused and there was not enough ambient light to take a photograph. Using a flash would have been dangerous.

Yet, what is remarkable, is that this was the first and only time I have ever seen a weapon of war. I did interview Kwanchai Poipana, a red leader in Ubon, who dramatically placed a pistol on the table in response to my question of what he would do if the red's current protest was unsuccessful. I understood the gesture as an act, convincing and one that limited my further questions, but an act with a weapon that is common in Thailand.

Despite over two years interviewing and photographing them, I have only seen one weapon of war. Despite having covered the red's last two months in Bangkok with near-daily coverage and many late nights with them, I have only seen the one.

And while I don't doubt that there are well armed elements associated with the reds, they currently are fighting an extraordinarily lopsided battle.

Sharpened sticks, erratic fireworks, noisy but useless large bamboo-made canons, sling shots, and rocks are trying to fight against snipers hiding behind sandbags and perched on rooftops.

The grim statistics back this up. Between May 13 and 17, the government reported that at least 35 people had been killed, all civilians, and at least 232 wounded. There were no military forces killed.

Were these people terrorists warranting a sniper's bullet, wouldn't the government be parading weapons of war in front of the already subservient local media?

Wouldn't there be serious casualties on the military side?

And wouldn't the masses of local and international media be filming the reds with war weapons if they had them?

While the Center for Resolution of Emergency Situations (CRES) and disgraced-former-academic-turned-shameless-government-mouth-piece Panitan have been calling the reds "terrorists', all I have seen and all the  media has really been able to capture is the determination of an angry and disenfranchised group of people willing to trade their lives for very little, if any, way of winning against the military might of the Thai army.

Note: Today was the first time I have seen this 'toy'. It makes an extraordinary boom, but hardly manages to propel an empty water bottle more than a couple feet in the air.

Note: peering around the corner looking for snipers.

 Note: Frontline protesters, with flagrant disregard for personal safety, plan their next move towards the military lines will taking cover behind a burned out garbage truck.

Note: Two men take a wounded protester, apparently shot in the left temple or ear by a sniper, to hospital by motobike.