The battle of Bangkok

摘要

The best that can be said about this week's bloody street battles in Bangkok is that they could have been so much bloodier. In the end, red-shirt protesters, after camping out in the Thai capital for more than two months, surrendered in thernface of the overwhelming might of the Thai army (see pages 25-26). Thanks to that last-ditch display of common sense and common humanity, the protests ended with dozens dead, not hundreds. That is still a catastrophe for a country that seemed to be rushing towards prosperity and pluralism.