Anti-government "red shirt" protesters scuffle with Thai security forces as they advance through their camp during clashes in central Bangkok April 10, 2010.
Angered by the coup, and the successive disqualifications of democratically elected governments by Thailand’s courts, the red shirts began to mobilize mass demonstrations regularly beginning in 2009. Although in exile, Thaksin continued to needle at politicians and prominent royalists inside Thailand, while also directing his political proxies and encouraging his supporters to demonstrate. Fighting erupted on the streets of Bangkok in April 2009 between red shirts and security forces seen as loyal to the yellow leaning government, resulting in a few deaths and more than a hundred injuries and setting the stage for mass demonstrations the following year.
In March 2010, large-scale rallies again kicked off in Bangkok and by April they began to take a violent turn. Skirmishes erupted, snipers killed at will and security forces targeted journalists. On May 19, the military launched an operation to root out the thousands of protestors who had consolidated their forces in a high-end commercial district in Bangkok, leaving about 2,000 people injured and 80 killed. The level of force levied by authorities against the protestors and the chaos that was allowed to consume the capital shocked the Thai public. Prominent red shirt leaders surrendered to authorities in a bid to end the violence.