I'd read it the other way, treewind, they thought it was going to be a very big one, and were hoping they might have found a way of averting it. Not averting the wat, averting the demo.

I don't think of the government as being bloodthirsty - it feels more like they've lost control, and are sliding into disaster, paralysed. Like when a car hits a patch of black ice.

Or maybe like the Titanic - holed below the waterline, and walking around in the deck looking up at the iceberg. Or like when someone takes a massive overdose of paracetamol and wakes up in hospital, and there's nothing to do but wait to die, because there's nothing to be done to save them.