Jaran warns conflict will last for years, but poll backs crackdown

"Today more blood will be shed," Pongamporn Bandasak, the red-shirt community radio host at FM101.25 was heard saying at 6am yesterday. I had tuned in to the station at home after a long night of off-and-on fighting and killing at various spots around Bangkok that saw real bullets used by soldiers and M79 grenades fired by unidentified assailants.

The beginning of an undeclared civil war in Bangkok continued as dawn broke. A radio listener called in to say the situation was like a coup, with soldiers shooting at protesters.

"The Democrat Party is plunging Thailand deeper into the abyss," the caller said. "The use of force like this is out of time and place."

The 24-hour casualty toll as of 6am was 10 dead and 135 wounded - and rising. As the two voices discussed whether the red shirts were winning or not, I began wondering how many more lives would be lost before this will end. Should we keep counting the death toll and coldly watching it rise like a barometer?

By 1.15pm the official death toll had reached 17, but the red shirts claimed seven more (24) had been killed. Natthawut Saikua went on the main stage at Rajprasong for a press conference to call for an immediate ceasefire.

"Stop shooting, retreat and we can then negotiate," Natthawut said. Asked by a journalist why he was not ordering the red shirts to stop attacking first, he angrily retorted: "The killers must stop. You cannot possibly expect those being hunted to stop killing. It's as if the red shirts have been abandoned alone in the world."

The facts were 17 had been killed and they were all civilians. By evening, one more death was reported - that of an emergency rescue worker. The response by the government's Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) came late in the afternoon. CRES officials said the high death toll was a result of reds shooting one another and the government faced the threat of political order being overthrown.

On Thursday evening I met red-shirt leader Jaran Ditta-apichai behind at the main stage at Rajprasong, talking to a handful of academics and activists sympathetic to the red-shirt cause.

"Thai politics will no longer be the same no matter whether we win or lose. The good old days are gone. A society of reconciliation is gone," Jaran said.

The current political struggle will continue for at least five years, he predicted.

"And the nature of the struggle will no longer be the same," he said, without clearly explaining how it will differ.

"Those who think that if we were to suddenly return home that there would be reconciliation would be naïve. They will follow and crush us. The fight has been raging for four years now, so how can it easily end? The longer we stay the more we risk being arrested. But once we have decided to join the fight, things will be tough. We may fight for another two years, three years or 10 years and must be willing to sacrifice - be arrested or killed."

By 4pm, a Dusit Poll revealed a disturbing figure: 51 per cent of respondents backed the military crackdown. It's not clear what the other 49 per cent thought.

Many families are deeply divided by the current political crisis. Yesterday, a woman whose mother lives near Silom said her mother spent Friday locked up fearing for her safety as clashes went on all night.

"Mom said the real situation was worse than what the media reported. She said [PM] Abhisit is cruel, but I think she misunderstood things," said the middle-aged woman, who apparently supported the military crackdown.