Thai protesters vow not to compromise after 21 die in clashes - Times Online

Thai protesters vow not to compromise after 21 die in clashes - Times Online

April 11, 2010

Anti-government protesters in Thailand swore today that they would never compromise with the Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, the day after street battles left 21 people dead, including demonstrators, soldiers and a Japanese journalist.

At least 870 people were injured yesterday, when soldiers in armoured vehicles attempted to break up a gathering of tens of thousands of Red Shirts who are demanding that Mr Abhisit call elections immediately.

Sixteen protesters were killed, many of them shot in the head, as well as Hiro Muramoto, a Japanese cameraman with the Reuters news agency.

But the Red Shirts – who support the exiled prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was driven out four years ago in a military coup – also caused spectacular damage of their own.
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Four soldiers, including a colonel, died during the battles, and the demonstrators seized six armoured personnel carriers whose smashed frames lie abandoned close to the Democracy Monument.

"There is no more negotiation,” Jatuporn Prompan, a Red Shirt leader, told a crowd from a nearby stage, which was piled with automatic rifles, machine guns and ammunition belts seized from the soldiers, four of whom were briefly taken prisoner.

“Red Shirts will never negotiate with murderers. Although the road is rough and full of obstacles, it's our duty to honour the dead by bringing democracy to this country.”

Sixteen red-painted boxes, symbolising the coffins of the victims, were laid out on the Democracy Monument, whose heroic friezes were pocked with bullet holes from the day before.

At a dozen spots scattered around the scene of the battle, Red Shirt sympathisers left incense, flowers and offerings of rice in front of sticky pools of congealed blood, where the casualties of Saturday’s violence are said to have died.

But how they were killed, and by whom, is still far from clear, and each side blames the other.

In a televised press conference, Mr Abhisit’s spokesman, Panitan Wattanayagorn, insisted that the soldiers used only rubber bullets and blanks, with orders to fire live rounds only into the air and in self-defence.

But photographs and videos posted on the internet show confused scenes in which at least one unarmed young Red Shirt has the top of his head blown off during a burst of shooting, as if by a high-velocity bullet.

“The soldiers starting shooting machine guns at about 2 or 3pm,” the UDD leader Weng Tajirakarn told The Times.

“They tried to say that maybe the Red Shirts started it and the soldiers were striking back – that is a lie. Abhisit Vejjajiva has accepted they used real bullets, but the Government tried to excuse it, saying it was simply protection against threats. They are shooting people who have only bare hands.”

The weekend violence erupted at the heart of historic Bangkok and spilled into the part of the city most frequented by foreigners, the famous Khao San Road backpacker enclave.

Tourists described how the street of cheap guest houses and Internet cafés was transformed into a battleground of security forces and protesters.

“We heard a lot of gunfire,” said Tom Reynolds, 21, of Tring in Hertfordshire. “For about three hours everybody was trying to get up here. There was a line of riot police holding them back – then the police just cleared out. It was a war zone.”

The protests, which began a month ago, have also sealed off the heart of Bangkok’s shopping district, and closed down or disrupted some of its most expensive hotels and shopping malls.

Some governments have cautions travellers to avoid travel to Bangkok. The Foreign and Commonwealth advises British tourists to “remain indoors and to monitor the media” in case of violence.

Mr Abhisit came to power last year as the result of a coalition formed in the wake of the military coup which deposed Mr Thaksin in 2006. His Democrat Party has never won an election under his leadership – the Red Shirts are challenging him to dissolve parliament and face Mr Thaksin’s supporters at the ballot box.

Under the constitution Mr Abhisit must call an election by the end of next year, but he insists that he will go to the country early only if it will benefit the country as a whole.