BANGKOK—“Over here, this is the good people,” said one among a few dozen royalist supporters, who then gestured to the north end of the Democracy Monument memorializing Thailand’s 1932 revolution—where the far larger pro-democracy groups were just beginning to gather at 1 p.m. on Sunday—and added, “Over there, not good.”
Within a few hours the band of around 60 royalist supporters holding golden-filigree portraits of the royal family and waving Thai flags retreated from what organizers claim were 20,000 citizens chanting, singing, and reenacting in impromptu plays past tragedies when protesters were massacred. By the time the pro-democracy protests began in earnest at 4 p.m., the small right-wing royalist contingent had disappeared.
