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Thai Red Shirts rally for last stand against Government in Bangkok
Two people died and more than a hundred were wounded yesterday when Thai soldiers used teargas and automatic weapons to break up antigovernment protests that have brought chaos to the streets of Bangkok.
The Thai Government said that the deaths came after fighting between the Red Shirt antigovernment protesters and enraged local people.
Last night the rioters had been dislodged from several of the roads that they had occupied and were falling back to barricades in front of Government House, the central focus of the protest. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Thai Prime Minister, insisted that the military campaign to curtail the protesters was nearly accomplished.
Organisers, however, were mustering about 5,000 demonstrators for what they called a last stand against soldiers and riot police.
The British Government urged travellers to avoid Bangkok and consider cancelling travel plans to other parts of Thailand because of the high risk of further bloodshed. Bill Rammell, the Foreign Office minister, said: Todays reports of increasing tension are of real concern.We do not believe that violence has any part to play in achieving political aims and urge restraint. British citizens are warned not to travel to Bangkok unless their visit is absolutely essential and to review their travel plans to other parts of Thailand.
Other governments issued travel warnings, which will have a devastating effect on the tourist-dependent Thai economy. Japan urged its citizens to avoid wearing clothes in red and yellow, the colours of the opposing factions in Thai politics.
As trucks carrying hundreds of troops moved to a position less than half a mile from Government House, gunfire could be heard and clouds of teargas lingered in the air. In another part of the city the building housing the Education Ministry was burning after reportedly being petrol-bombed.
Mr Abhisit insisted that the Government was trying to deal with the crisis in a restrained manner. All the work I am doing is not to create fear or put pressure or to harm any group of people, he said on national television. Its a step-by-step process to restore order and stop violence. Colonel Sansern Kaewkamnerd, an army spokesman, said that troops had fired live rounds into the air but used blank rounds when aiming directly at the crowds.
Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Thai Prime Minister, in an interview with CNN from the undisclosed location where he lives in exile and who is funding the protests, insisted that there had been a massacre. Many people are dying, he said. They even take the bodies on the military trucks and take them away . . . Theyre trying to confuse everything.
The citywide crackdown on the Red Shirts began before dawn when a key intersection in Bangkok was cleared using teargas and sprays of automatic weapon fire. More than 70 people were wounded in the raid.
Tourists staying in the Century Park Hotel next to the intersection were woken by the gunfire. I looked out of the window and it was pandemonium, said Tommy Adams, a commercial fitter from Paisley, near Glasgow. The soldiers were advancing in an orderly way and firing into the air. The Red Shirts were fleeing. I was scared that they would try and flee into the hotel.
Later the Red Shirts at the intersection set fire to a commandeered public bus and set it rolling in the direction of the soldiers. The soldiers then fired into the air and pushed forward as a monk pleaded for calm, crying: Dont shoot, dont shoot.
Several protesters were arrested and stripped of their shirts, and attempts to blockade the Victory Monument roundabout were foiled.
The Thai military chased protesters from other key points in the city, leaving the rally near Government House, where thousands of protesters including women and children had gathered behind barricades, as the centre of resistance. A senior military spokesman said that the strategy was to confine the protesters to Government House and prevent others from joining them.
The decisive action was in marked contrast to the militarys passive response at the weekend, when the Red Shirts were effectively permitted to invade the venue of a conference, sending world leaders fleeing and humiliating Mr Abhisit.
This will be our final stand, Jatuporn Phromphan, the Red Shirt leader, told the crowd from a makeshift stage close to Government House. I beg that you return here and face them together. We will use peaceful means and stay right here to end their violence.
from : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6087979.ece
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