Today the government really upped their efforts against the red shirts. They used armored personnel units and recaptured at least part of the rally site. There have been four people killed in skirmished, including an Italian reporter, and some violence broke out in other parts of the city.
The Bangkok Post is reporting that many of the red shirt leaders are going to surrender to authorities early this afternoon. It looks like the red shirts are going home.
This just showcases the enormous stupidity of the red shirt leaders. Ten days ago they had an offer for new elections, the deputy PM had seemingly succeeded to their demands to turn himself in to police over the April 10th violence, and the PM had offered immunity for violations of the emergency decree (but not for other criminal acts). Instead of realizing that they had gotten more concessions than they could ever hope for, they made more demands and refused to end the rally. Now, ten days and forty plus deaths later, the leaders are going to be in custody, and new elections are no longer on the table.
Don't get me wrong, the government made its share of mistakes along with way, although I don' think that using force to disperse the rally was one of them. You simply can't let five, ten, or even one hundred thousand people just shut down part of your city indefinitely.
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