By Karyn Kaplan

Note from Asia Catalyst: On May 20-22, Asia Catalyst will join with Thai AIDS
Treatment Action Group and Korekata AIDS Law Center to hold a training for
Chinese and Thai AIDS NGOs in Bangkok. We’ve been communicating with Karyn
Kaplan of TTAG to figure out if the training could still go forward, given the
protests. Karyn wrote us an email describing the situation on May 4. Since
then, the New York Times reports that divisions
are emerging between protest leaders as the state again threatens to use
force to end the protests. Karyn gave us permission to reprint her email to us –
a picture of the scene in the protest zone.

On Sunday, I went to the “Red
Republic” with Andrew Hunter, to see part of this major movement going on
in Thailand. This is an encampment of people opposed to the current government.
It’s quite a diverse group, but also includes a large majority of “rural
poor” farmers, particularly from the Northeast. It was, in typical Thai
fashion, a “festive” environment, with very animated anti-government
speakers on a stage, and people handing out free food, selling red-shirt materials
including their own media coverage, “Truth Today” magazines, etc. as
well as flip-flops with pictures of the Prime Minister and Privy Councillor on
them (!!), etc.

Their encampments (for the past 7 weeks)
have taken over sections of some major roads, including just below Sukhumvit
Road, and they’ve also at times set up road blocks at other spots around
Bangkok to prevent military from coming into Bangkok and cracking down. There
were grenades thrown at Saladaeng skytrain in the Silom area, and there was a
shoot-out not far from our office with rubber bullets and some live fire last
week, leaving an out-of-uniform soldier dead. Approximately 25 have died
already because of violence from both sides over the past couple of months.

This said, it is rather business as
usual, with certain obstacles, for most people in Bangkok, except those working
in some of the hotels and malls in the area taken over by red shirts. But
people in the Silom or lower Sukhumvit areas are all back at work. As for
transportation, traffic is worse. The skytrain closes at 8 pm and the subway at
7 pm, much earlier than their normal closing hour, which i think is around
midnight. However, a major hospital used by foreigners, Bumrungrad Hospital on
Sukhumvit soi 3, is open for business as usual and many many other businesses
even WITHIN the several-block red-shirt encampment are also open as normal.

I have spoken to many people, and
every (Thai) person I spoke to thinks it is fine to hold the meeting where we
are, and also believe the red shirt encampment will disperse soon, this month,
as planting season will begin soon and that is the major income of many of the
protestors in Bangkok. Crowds are already thinning every day, services becoming
more and more normalized and today the PM presented the red shirts with 5
points for negotiation as well as a date (Nov. 14) for new elections (though we
don’t think the red shirts will accept his offer), people are hoping for a
peaceful solution of course.

For the most part, life is going on
as usual in Bangkok – even in the epicenter, people are working and selling,
and all around Bangkok life is going on as normal. In certain areas, there are
small demonstrations of other-colored shirts (no colors, pink, yellow, etc.)
and some areas are a little troublesome for those working there because of the detours
necessary around the road blocks.

Karyn Kaplan is Policy Director of Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group, www.ttag.info.