PATTAYA, Thailand - When the glass finally shattered, nobody knew what to do.
Not the nervous hotel staff who watched in horror as protesters advanced up the
steps to the doors of the Royal Cliff Hotel. Not the embarrassed riot police
who were pressed back so far their faces were squashed against the glass
doorway like so many clowns in a car.
Not the organizers of the regional summit who 10 minutes earlier told reporters
"everything is under control", nor the attending members of the press corps,
fleeing for their lives. And most certainly not the thousands of red-shirted
protesters who gate-crashed a party they may have not fully understood.
It all happened in Pattaya, a racy sea-side city about 150 kilometers southeast
of the capital Bangkok known more for its
beach resorts and go-go bars than political dissent. With four United States
Navy vessels docked offshore - and thousands of US sailors stumbling through
town off their faces - the town was already heaving.
When the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
kicked off last week amid high security and international scrutiny, Pattaya may
have reached some kind of overload. There were a million stories in this naked
city last weekend - and that's not even a reference to Walking Street.
For months, the Thai government had promised the event would go off without a
hitch. China, Japan and South Korea were coming and big deals were in the
pipes. Anti-government protests on the streets of Bangkok would not affect the
signing of a free-trade agreement with economic juggernaut China, and last
Tuesday's attack on Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's car at a red light
in Pattaya was dismissed as an anomaly produced by anarchists. Some 8,000 Thai
police were deployed for the summit, according to reports.
But on Friday, the meeting's first day, protesters gathered in force outside
the summit venue. They faced off with hundreds of police and army troops behind
razor-wire barricades and riot shields. After taunting security forces for a
few hours, they breached police lines and raced to the steps of the hotel, the
posh entrance to a sprawling hotel and convention center complex.
They held up there to present a single-page letter of demands. After a few
tense minutes of wait - because the protest leaders would not speak to a Thai
delegate - they handed over their missive to a representative of the Singapore
government.
The demands were simple, according to the protest leaders: they called for the
resignation of Abhisit and his government and called for the prosecution of the
leaders of a rival protest movement that last year crippled Thailand's already
reeling economy by taking over Bangkok's two international airports.
After assurance that the letter would be presented to each of the 10 ASEAN
leaders, the unarmed protesters retreated peacefully down the road. They waved
good-bye as the first monsoon raindrops began to fall. It was clear at this
stage who controlled the tempo of the ASEAN summit. Still, it was embarrassing
for the Thai government, but manageable with spin on the civil right to
protest.
Saturday was a different story. The day began with a street fight between the
"red-shirts" and a little-heard-of blue-shirted, pro-government group. There
were unconfirmed reports of gunfire as reporters scrambled to define "blue
shirts" within the color-coded context of Thai politics - another group of
protesters wears yellow shirts. Meetings were postponed and a press conference
was called.
A government spokesman explained that the government was investigating a
shooting. Nine of the 10 ASEAN leaders, minus Indonesia's President Bambang
Yudhoyono who was on the way, would meet for lunch to discuss how to proceed.
Earlier, a trilateral meet with China, Japan and South Korea was scrapped, but
the spokesman said it would be rescheduled. The meeting would proceed,
everything was cool.
About 10 minutes later, protesters breached police lines and smashed through
the glass doors in an image captured by international media and broadcast
around the world. The rationale, protest leaders said, was that the government
had failed to meet a one-hour deadline to arrest the alleged shooter in the
morning's unconfirmed shooting.
The crack of the glass was ear-splitting, but the moments of tense buckling
before were more dramatic. After the two-meter by one-meter area caved in, the
protesters rushed inside.
They promptly declared victory, waving flags, tooting horns and whistles and
chanting "Thaksin", the name of their leader and benefactor, exiled former Thai
premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Then they charged in the wrong direction.
First, they charged up the stairs, where nothing was going on. Then they
charged down the stairs and milled about, shouting. Then the protesters charged
into the media area, milled about and shouted. They burst into empty banquet
halls and conference rooms with little clear agenda. They were very happy, but
super confused.
For one thing, they were in the wrong building. The place where the ASEAN
leaders were lunching was far away. They had overrun the entrance point, but
needed directions. Eventually, the mob marched down another flight of stairs
and out the front door. They then again besieged the wrong building.
At one point, the protest mob demanding democracy and justice was demonstrating
by a pool filled with chunky Western tourists in swim wear. "If I was scared,
would I be standing here in a bikini taking pictures?" Peggy Hamilton, of
Bedfordshire, Britain, told Asia Times Online.
Eventually, the protesters reached their objective. In front of a vast
conference hall with nine Southeast Asian heads of state inside eating lunch,
they sat down as protest leaders gave strident speeches and police looked on
sheepishly.
Reports of all the leaders being airlifted out from the roof were exaggerated.
It was never confirmed who left by chopper and who did not.
Reports of sympathy within police ranks were not overblown. At one point, a
high-ranking police official, bedecked with medals, held his arm around the
shoulders of a protest leader while he was speaking to the crowd. Throughout
the day, police sat with protesters in the shade, bemoaning the whole sad
affair.
In front of the hotel's doors - after milling about and shouting - protesters
presented some undefined demands, and dispersed. The summit, at this point, was
a done deal, its so-called security measures exposed as a joke.
Perhaps the most comical aspect came hours later. After the cancelation of the
summit, a visibly angry Abhisit marched to the now-abandoned conference hall
and held an impromptu press conference in which he apologized to his regional
counterparts and labeled the protesters "enemies of the state".
But as he marched off in a huff, hotel staff and army troops joyfully helped
themselves to the gala dinner meant for Asian leaders.
Charles McDermid is an Asia Times Online correspondent based in Thailand.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road,
Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
