Thai soldiers remove an abandoned armored personnel carrier in front of Democracy Monument in Bangkok, Thursday, April 15, 2010. Anti-government protesters began emptying one of their encampments in the historic part of Bangkok and moving to their second base in the commercial heart of the Thai capital.(AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
By VIJAY JOSHI, Associated Press Writer
BANGKOK – Thai troops cleared the gutted remains of armored carriers Thursday after anti-government protesters vacated the site of last week's bloody clashes and shifted to an upscale shopping district to intensify their campaign to oust the prime minister.
The Red Shirt protesters vow their new encampment in the Rajprasong shopping area, several miles (kilometers) from the old camp in Phan Fa, will be the final battlefront in their bid to have Parliament dissolved and new elections held.
A failed attempt by security forces to flush the Red Shirts from Phan Fa on Saturday ended with deadly street battles that left 24 people dead in Thailand's worst political violence in nearly two decades. The government's disaster management center said a 24th person died of injuries Thursday.
Queen Sirikit, wife of the country's ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej, visited hospitalized soldiers and civilians.
The crisis has deeply divided this Southeast Asian nation into color-coded factions, threatening to sink an economy that had recently started to revive. The Red Shirts are bitterly opposed by the Yellow Shirts who support the government but have over the past few months stayed on the sidelines.
Prime Minister "Abhisit Vejjajiva is the one who must make an immediate decision now (to dissolve Parliament), and if he doesn't we will escalate our pressure," said Weng Tojirakarn, a Red Shirt leader. "We will keep on demonstrating ... Abhisit must go into exile."
Tensions were likely to build after the four-day lunar New Year festival of Songkran ends Friday.
The Red Shirts — mainly rural poor who accuse Abhisit of coming to power illegally — arrived in Bangkok from the provinces in droves a month ago and occupied the Democracy Monument in the Phan Fa neighborhood in the old part of the capital.
Thousands more took over the posh Rajprasong area, lined with shopping malls and five-star hotels, on April 5.
"We moved out of Phan Fa for the safety of our protesters," protest leader Nattawut Saikua said. "And more importantly, the army would not be able to have any more excuse for clamping down on us. We've already cleared the area for them."
"Rajprasong will be the last battlefront between us and Abhisit. Logistically we'd be more efficient. We'd better organize ourselves. Our troops would then be much more stronger," he said.
After the Red Shirts moved out of Phan Fa, soldiers arrived with cranes to lift the burned out hulls of armored personnel carriers and trucks that were set on fire by protesters on Saturday. The remains were placed on trailer trucks, draped with tarpaulins and driven away.
Municipal workers removed red banners that had been wrapped around the Democracy Monument, a gigantic dome-shaped structure. They used high-pressure water hoses to rid the sidewalks of cooking oil stains, sprayed disinfectant and replanted flowers and hedges. Volunteers cleaned graffiti from the monument, including vulgar abuses against the prime minister.
A group of government supporters dubbed the "Pink Shirts" gathered for the second straight day Thursday to voice their opposition to dissolving parliament. About 500 people turned up after issuing an appeal through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
According to the INN radio news network, Pink Shirt leader Tul Sithisomwong vowed to gather at the Victory Monument roundabout daily until the Red Shirts disperse.
At loggerheads in the yearslong struggle for power in Thailand are the rural supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra — who was ousted in a 2006 coup and went into exile ahead of a 2008 conviction for corruption — and the traditional ruling elite represented by Abhisit and his allies.
The coup was followed by elections in December 2007 that were won by Thaksin's political allies. But they faced months of street protests by "Yellow Shirts" who accuse Thaksin of corruption. Although the pro-Thaksin government did not bow to the protests, it was forced out of office by a court decision that the Red Shirts found dubious.
The resulting political vacuum was filled by Abhisit's opposition coalition in December 2008. The Red Shirts claim Abhisit, whose supporters include business leaders, the military brass and members of the urban middle class, took power illegitimately because he didn't win any election.
Since it was founded, the Red Shirt movement has become more broad-based, claiming to represent the interests of the country's poor against a selfish elite, rather than just seeking Thaksin's return.
Thaksin's relationship to the group has become more ambiguous, though he remains an icon to most Red Shirts.
"My feeling is that Thaksin is far more concerned with ensuring that any Red Shirt achievements work directly to his advantage than he is with ending the crisis," said Michael Montesano, a visiting research fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. "The Red Shirts, too, face a real moment of truth, to work out the place of the exiled premier in what has become a social movement that is far bigger than just Thaksin."
___
Associated Press writers Kinan Suchaovanich and Grant Peck contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment