Unfazed red shirts brace for bloody showdown

As darkness fell yesterday, anti-government red shirts girded themselves for a bloody face-off against the military.

On Sri Ayutthaya Road, which annexes a corner of Chitralada Palace, 1,000 red shirts formed a three-layer deep barrier with three dozen or so taxis and many motorcycles to prevent tanks and troops from entering the street to disperse the much larger gathering around Government House, just 500 metres away.

Asked if they were not afraid to face the military or die, as the government had declared a state of emergency in Bangkok and sent a clear signal that a crackdown was unavoidable, they all said "no", though they believed it was most likely to happen.

"Why should I be afraid? We're born but once," said one man there. "Let them bring out the tanks."

One foreign correspondent said to this reporter by phone at 8pm that he was not going back to Government House as he thought the inevitable crackdown would happen during the night, but he would stay in the vicinity.

Dozens of tanks have already been deployed in Bangkok but at least two of them have been taken over by the red shirts.

More red shirts kept coming as the night wore on. Food packs were being distributed and some of them chatted with police and the military on the other side of the barbed wire fence.

Protesters claimed two of their people had been shot to death while they attacked Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's car in Bangkok earlier in the afternoon.

One protester, wearing a black T-shirt with the message "No Justice no Peace", asked his comrade what happened to the FM 92.75 red radio station, which had gone off the air? Soon a radio voice was heard from the open doors of one taxi.

The announcer urged people to come out and oust the government and the old elite which monopolised politics.

"This time it will be for broke!" a voice from the radio said. "Abhisit get out! Your time is over! We heard that [Abhisit] is preparing to leave the country. If you're a real man don't run."

Another station, FM 107.5, claimed that some police had parked their cars to obstruct roads leading to Government House. The red radio called for more blockades of all roads leading to ground zero of the protest.

Some demonstrators were glued to the radio, which insisted that His Majesty the King would remain as head of state but poor people will never have a political say if they are suppressed this time, and called for a million people to come out.

In Rangsit, plainclothed long-haired men were seen boarding 10 military buses heading to Bangkok, the announcer claimed. "Brothers and sisters, please block the route," he said.

This group of men is coming to instigate violence as a pretext for the crackdown, he said.

Earlier, this reporter was asked by his taxi driver why he was heading for the protest site.

Upon hearing the answer, the driver, who wasn't wearing anything red, fetched a red bandanna from a compartment and handed it over to the reporter, saying this might help protect him.