Troops Prepare to Advance on Red Shirt Encampment, Bangkok, May 18, 2010

Thai troops and armored vehicles massed in Bangkok's main business district on Wednesday and fired warning shots into the air ahead of a possible operation to evict anti-government protesters from their fortified encampment.

Troops called on protesters and civilians to leave their fortified encampment in central Bangkok and surrounding areas immediately. "Please leave the site immediately. Officials are about to conduct an operation," the military said on a loudspeaker, according to a Channel 9 television reporter.

The military buildup comes a day after the collapse of a proposal for talks aimed at ending five days of chaotic street fighting that descended into urban warfare in which 39 people were killed and nearly 300 wounded Soldiers sprayed a water cannon at a wall of tires at the entrance to the protest encampment after protesters doused them with fuel to prevent them from being ignited.

A leader of the red-shirted protesters called on supporters to hold their ground, saying he feared an imminent offensive on the protest site occupied by thousands in the heart of Bangkok's commercial district for more than six weeks.

It was unclear whether the military presence was the start of the crackdown or the beginning of a long process to raise pressure on the protesters and flush out women, children and others from a sprawling encampment where explosives, guns and grenades are thought to be stashed. At least two dozen armored personnel carriers approached the encampment.

Videographer's Note: These are currently being annotated - so come back again to see more information on screen. If you would like to help with translation from Thai to English, are genuinely fluent, you can do so by providing me with the start and stop time of the comments you are viewing and a word by word, sentence by sentence translation.

These events are chronological and this is a roughly edited sequence of events, as they unfolded. If you have any contribution to make or corrections concerning location and events, please use the comments and I'll respond to you. Note also, despite the heat of events on the ground, I have made an effort to be impartial. If some of the opposing sides are not represented, it was simply because I had no access to them.

You are free to comment, but note that personal attacks, obscenities, simple negative or positive comments will not be posted. Please make a well reasoned argument and not a partisan attack, you'll get posted. Otherwise not. I apologize in advance, remarks concerning the role of the monarchy in Thailand are not possible to post here, as the current law in Thailand prohibits the free discussion of the subject.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• democracy
• monument
• thailand
• bangkok
• demonstration
• protest
• riots
• thaksin
• shinawatra
• 2010
• red
• shirt
• องศาความเป็นอิสระ
• ประชาธิปไตย
• เสื้อสีเหลือง
• ทหาร
• กรุงเทพมหานคร
• ตำรวจ
• ยุติธรรม
• ตากสิน
• ความ

[barthoedemaker]

that guy on the stage was an aussie

[chamjulee]

"ok? ok?" maybe not a native english speaker? :)

[immerrocknroll]

Who is the Farang on stage?