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“Red Shirts” pour blood at Government House, Bangkok – 16 March 2010

The visuals went up a graphic step today as the protestors blood was literally split on the streets of Bangkok: in a dramatic gesture the Red Shirts each donated blood and this was gathered in a series of bottles and containers and poured at the gates of both the Government House and Democrat Party headquarters. After three days of a light hearted mood in the temporary camp, the pressure went up a notch with the first real stand-off coming between the protestors and units of the army and police. The day started with the makeshift camp at Phan Fa Bridge, looking somewhat less densely populated than on Monday, which itself was down on Sunday. Spirits were still strong in the crowd though and the demonstrators were hunkered down despite chatter that the protest was set to fizzle out or run short of funds. Giving blood was the order of the day, a process that had started last night, and although ambitious plans to collect one million ccs of the protestors' blood were drastically scaled back, the Reds queued up at the makeshift tables where medical staff removed blood. At the same time there were comments from both the Red Cross and hospitals in the city that were outraged by the frivolous wasting of blood, a precious, vital and constantly under sourced commodity for medical facilities in the city, and there were also questions over the hygiene of taking the blood of so many people away from the sterile confines of a hospital. The Pheu Thai party's MPs took their turn in line ...