Return of the Red Shirts

Yesterday, Thailand’s red-shirt protest movement held its first major demonstration in Bangkok since a government state of emergency was lifted in December and the largest since the chaos of last May, during which at least 90 people were killed. Aside from some thrown water bottles, the rally seems to have gone peacefully and may reflect a new strategy on the part of the red-shirt leaders:

Jatuporn Prompan, a Red Shirt leader who avoided arrest because he has parliamentary immunity, vowed to hold "frequent and symbolic gatherings" twice a month- a change from the large sit-in last year that lasted 10 weeks and prompted a violent crackdown.

"We have learned a lesson that big gatherings will not lead to the result we want," Jatuporn said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajjiva announced a series of new social welfare programs to go along with an optimistic economic outlook for this year. The Red Shirts, for their part, seem to have moved beyond support of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra into a more broad-based political movement, though one that hasn’t always done the best job of articulating its political goals. In any case, yesterday’s events are being interpreted as a sign that despite the long state of emergency and the arrest of its senior leaders, the movement is far from spent.