The streets of Bangkok looked like scenes from a revolution, with no authorities in charge.
In front of the city’s biggest luxury mall Sunday, anti-government protesters danced atop two armored personnel carriers they had forced to a stop, waving flags and shouting “Democracy.” The red-shirted crowd swarmed around the vehicles and asked for the keys from the unhappy soldiers inside.
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The security breakdown became obvious Saturday when a huge force of soldiers and police made only a feeble effort to stop unarmed protesters from breaking into a meeting of Asian leaders, bringing proceedings to a halt and forcing the VIPs to flee by helicopter and boat.
“It is unclear whether Saturday’s security failure was due to a broken chain of command, divisions within the Thai military, or a cynical willingness to risk national humiliation in order to have a pretext to crack down hard on the red shirts,” said Michael Montesano, a visiting research fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
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But the fruitless efforts to keep the peace are inspiring Thais to wonder who is in charge.
The same was true last year, when police and the army failed to take decisive action against yellow-shirted protesters on the other side of the country’s political divide who occupied the then-prime minister’s offices for three months and seized Bangkok’s two airports for a week.
Back then, though, the army was in league with the protest movement
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They followed that up by having taxi drivers block a major intersection and let Bangkok’s notoriously congested traffic back up. The blockade ended when they decided to leave; police hardly lifted a finger against them.
“The government and the army are afraid of overreacting,” said Thitinan Pongsidhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. “They know they would lose the battle if they perpetrate violence.”
“Deep down, some government and military leaders also suspect some police have sympathy for Thaksin,” he added.
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“It remains to the seen if the security forces can control the situation. It is unlikely anyone can because there are so many splits and so many power brokers,” said Charnvit Kasetsiri, one of Thailand’s most prominent historians. “No one seems to be in charge within the establishment, the government and the military.”