The protesters took it up a notch last week when they moved into the business/ commercial areas. Malls, major intersections and other businesses have had to close out of concern for safety (and consumers cannot get there and don’t want to). This has gone on for almost a week, building up a lot of anger.
Yesterday was the breaking point. The government said they had to restore order. They deployed thousands of troops (my friends from the zoo) to these intersections to stop the redshirts from access.
I came back from the weekend market to find my skytrain station was surrounded by the action. They were closing the gates while I was exiting the train. I had to walk really far around it to get to my hotel. I stayed there for the rest of the night-laundry on a Sat night-fun. :-(
My balcony overlooks one of the main roads, so I can always hear and usually see what is going on from a safe distance. I can clearly hear the horns/chants/clappers- all night long, grr.
As I was hiding out here what was reported (very sad):
"There are 18 reported deaths from the evening's violence - nine protesters, two soldiers and one foreign photographer - and 520 injuries"
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/04/11/politics/Chronology-of-Black-Saturday-30126972.html
Obviously, these are not my slides: from a local news source:
I tried to get out this morning (i have bad cabin fever) but the skytrain is still closed. Now i can blog about everything. :-)
