The conflict between the Thai government and the Red Shirts – the former backed by a lose interest group that includes the military, royalists, part of the capital’s business community and right-wing fringe elements, commonly known as the Yellow Shirts, the latter a growing and motley collection of often paid supporters of fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, many of them poor farmers from Issan, Thailand’s impoverished North-East, along with military factions loyal to Mr. Thaksin, disenfranchised urban youth in it for the sheer fun of it, and leftist intellectuals fed up with the country’s vast income gap – exploded into urban warfare in mid-May. Bangkok, the ‘City of Angels’ has not been its usual extrovert, brash self since.
Read the full story in this month`s Southeast Asia Globe.
