The video clip below shows, from about 1min 40secs, the Pitak Siam protesters beginning to attack the police. At 1min 50secs a white gas can clearly be seen beginning to blow amongst the Pitak Siam supporters and then at 1min 53secs an object, trailing the same white gas, is thrown at the police, causing them to disperse slightly. Keep watching until for another 30seconds or so and it is even more clear the original gas grenade thrown by Pitak Siam is spreading out amongst the police. Furthermore a simple count of gas trails between the two camps shows, initially, a higher number of gas grenades being thrown from the protesters side towards the police. At the very least it appears the protesters had their own gas canisters.
It would be pretty hard for any credible and verifiable source to debunk this new evidence and it now seems almost certain that Pitak Siam were responsible for escalating the confrontation.
Bangkok Pundit also mentions the tear gas attack in his recent post on the rallies and concludes
It is hard to tell exactly who started firing/throwing the tear gasMore bizarrely regarding the tear gas attack Bangkok Pundit cites an anonymous internet troll and cyberstalker who usually specialises in the internet stalking of women using threatening graphic sexual commentary and extreme racism, samples of which can be found here and here. Maybe Bangkok Pundit will cite Violentacrez in his next post on Thailand's rice pledging policy?
On balance readers have to make their own judgement. It seems self-evident that Pitak Siam were intent on hurting and attacking police officers and given the other evidence - such as protesters driving a truck directly into the police officers - the likelihood of them throwing teargas (weapons of all kind are easily accessible in Thailand) at the police is apparent.
The debate over who threw the first gas can is somewhat irrelevant. As far as I'm concerned, when they started pushing on the police lines to try and plow through, the use of tear gas by the police was completely justified. I think the police should have used it even sooner. Tear gas irritation is certainly more humane than baton bruises.
ReplyDeleteWhen compared to Abhisit's brutality and incompetence in 2010, the govt and police played this almost perfectly.
ReplyDeleteAfter some minutes protesters nearly broke through the police lines, and the first tear gas canisters were thrown by police, which almost instantly separated protesters from police. Some of the grenades were thrown back by the protesters.
ReplyDeletehttp://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2012/11/27/the-smell-of-teargas-in-the-morning/
Thanks for sharing Anonymous @27 November 2012 10:00.
ReplyDeleteI'm not one for taking a single journalist's report on events. Particularly one who has previously refused to answer any questions I wanted to ask him regarding some of his other "reports" and told me he might become "angry" if I did.