Will Red shirt raid on hospital mark a turning point in the standoff?

What were they thinking?!

The Nation:

A major hospital in the Thai capital evacuated most of its patients Friday after anti-government "Red Shirt" protesters stormed inside in the mistaken belief that troops were hiding there.

Chulalongkorn Hospital also stopped receiving outpatients following the Thursday night incident, in which some 100 Red Shirt guards searched its buildings for troops they feared were readying a crackdown....

The 1,400-bed hospital sent most of its patients to 10 other facilities in Bangkok and was considering how to cope with the protesters occupying a large part of the city's nearby commercial district, a spokeswoman said.

"For outpatients, if their symptoms are not serious we asked them to postpone treatment," the spokeswoman said.

A Red Shirt leader publicly apologised Friday, saying guards told demonstration leaders that they saw soldiers inside the hospital located near one of their main barricades.

"On behalf of all leaders, I apologise to the public and Chulalongkorn Hospital for the incident," Weng Tojirakarn said. "The situation got out of control.

"It is not our policy to obstruct hospital operations."

Thailand's Medical Council slammed the Reds' action and asked protesters to respect medical personnel.

"All parties must refrain from exploiting hospital grounds for political gain," the council said in a statement.

For the Red Shirts, this incident appears to be nothing short of a complete and utter disaster from a public relations perspective, an event that could well represent a turning point in the weeks long standoff in central Bangkok: a point from which public sympathies shifted critically to the side of the government.

Needless to say, the government may be using the incident to further its own PR objectives: in view of the Red Shirt leaders' prompt apologies, the idea that it was actually necessary to evacuate all patients sounds to me like a overreaction on the part of hospital authorities. The decision to transfer patients might have been based not on medical but political calculations; a way of underscoring the Red Shirt's miscalculation.  Questions remain to be answered.

The incident raises new concerns about how much control Red Shirt leaders have over the street protesters.  Red Shirt leader Weng Tojirakarn was smart to have issued a quick and apparently unqualified apology.

But an apology may not be enough to stem a turn in the tide of public opinion, particularly if reports come out that any staff or patients had been made to feel physically threatened.   It's the kind of story that could make some moderates -- Thais inclined toward sympathizing if not fully supporting the Red Shirts -- turn on the movement.   The Red Shirts have handed the government a potentially huge propaganda victory.  If the government was looking for an excuse to crackdown, the Red Shirts could hardly have handed the government a better one.

Yet should it resort to its superior firepower, the government will likely find this propaganda coup very fleeting.  It will take not violence but compromise on the part of both sides to put the country squarely on track for national elections.