Yesterday I followed the confrontation between Red Shirts and the Army in Bangkok all day long. I was shooting for a story on the faces of this "revolution". The situation was tense. A large number of soldier had been arriving in the city. The Red Shirts leaders felt the pressure rising. But shooting on both sides I lived again the feeling I had in the seventies, when I was part of it: on both sides young faces pushed to the fight by leaders that will certainly end sitting together and sharing power in a near future. There is no right and wrong here: if the government is non-elected and represents the wealthy part of the nation, the Red Shirts (don't be mislead by the color, no communist reference) are asking for the sacred right to have their vote counted, but are inspired and controlled by a leader that is closer to Berlusconi then to Lenin.And after a long day the worst happened: the Reds, probably reacting to the pressure, pushed and the military shoot. The Reds shoot too. Until now over 19 deaths and over 800 wounded are counted. In the square where this happened the situation was tragic: I was running and leaning down with the crowd to dodge the rubber bullets, but the people in the front fell on both sides. A young Cambodian girls was terrified: she found herself in the middle of the fight just below her home. The military decided to retreat to avoid more casualties, leaving empty tanks that were dismantled by the crowd. On the ground the blood of the dead was honored. But it's too late.. This is still another setback for the idea of "the land of smiles".. And it's not over yet..
No comments:
Post a Comment