Saturday 11 April 2009
by: Charles McDermid | Visit article original @ The Los Angeles Times
A lone protester faces the Thai army inside the venue of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Pattaya, Thailand. Thousands of protesters broke into the venue on Saturday forcing helicopter evacuation of Summit attendees. (Photo: Getty Images)
Pattaya, Thailand - Thousands of protesters smashed through a glass entrance and stormed a hotel complex today during a key meeting of regional heads of state.
Thailand has declared a state of emergency in the summit's host city Pattaya and the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has been called off. Other protests have now been reported in the northern city of Chaing Mai, where protesters have blocked a road, and in Udon Thani, where demonstrators have surrounded City Hall.
The widespread turmoil caps a week of anti-government protests that have paralyzed Bangkok and raised new fears about Thailand's political stability.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiv apologized to his regional counterparts and lifted the state of emergency in an impromptu press conference held in the abandoned venue seven hours after the protesters' assault.
"Anyone who declares this a victory is an enemy of the country," said Abhisit.
The demonstrators swarmed past police barricades and riot police in Pattaya for the second day to demand Abhisit step down and dissolve the government.
Protest leader Kerk Somsan said the group overran the hotel in retaliation for one of their members allegedly being shot dead and others injured by gunfire in a clash with rival protesters earlier that day. They carried through on a vow to occupy the hotel if the government failed to make an arrest in the case within one hour. A Thai government spokesman said authorities are investigating the incident.
The red-shirted protesters pushed police lines up the hotel's steps and trapped them against the entrance. After several moments, the heaving glass shattered and protesters stormed the hotel. Many were waving flags, blowing whistles and horns and chanting "Thaksin," the name of their exiled leader and benefactor, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The unarmed group raged through several adjacent buildings in the sprawling Pattaya Exhibition and Conference Center before gathering outside the meeting hall where nine leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, were inside having lunch. The leaders were later evacuated by helicopter from the resort's rooftop, according to reports.
The so-called "red-shirts" remained outside the venue for about 20 minutes before withdrawing to their original position at the gates of the convention center. The protesters, know collectively as the United Front for Democarcy Against Dictatorship, or UDD, claim Abhisit and his four-month-old coalition government came to power undemocratically in what they call a "silent coup" abetted by the military and Bangkok elite.
The UDD has now given Abhisit until the end of the three-day Thai New Year beginning Monday to resign. UDD leader Arissaman Pongruenrong has said if the government remains silent on their demands to step down, the UDD will apply more pressure through social protests. Some 100,000 UDD supporters held protests in Bangkok throughout this week. On Tuesay, the vehicle carrying Abhisit was attacked by protesters while stopped at a red light in Pattaya.
"We showed the world today that the people can win. It's a victory but it's just the first step," said Chatchai Suksom, one of many Bangkok taxi drivers who drove the roughly 80 miles to Pattaya to support the UDD. "We will stop the corrupt puppet government. We have shown the government's weakness to the world."
Minutes before the break-in, Thai government Spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn told reporters the situation was under control. But earlier, UDD supporters - including more than 100 taxis from Bangkok - blocked the resort's entrance and forced the postponement of a meeting between ASEAN and China, Japan and South Korea. The UDD also clashed with a previously unknown blue-shirted group outside the summit venue.
Wattanayagorn said ASEAN leaders, minus Indonesia's Bambang Yudhoyono, would meet for lunch to evaluate the future of the meeting. The UDD, and Thaksin, made the decision for them.
The summit's botched security is a huge embarrassment to Abhisit, a 44-year-old Oxford economist, who had promised to restore stability to Thailand and boost its reeling economy.
It also sets the stage for a political grudge match between Abhisit and Thaksin, a billionaire telcom tycoon whose exact whereabouts are unknown.
Thaksin faces a two-year jail sentence for corruption, but remains popular in rural northern Thailand for his populist policies while in office. His supporters claim Thaksin has the skills to guide the country during the current economic crisis and insist that he would win a national election.
In recent days, Thaksin has upped his own rhetoric - delivered to his massed supporters via frequent video call-ins. He has recently said Abhisit is too young to steer the nation.
On Friday he told supporters: "Yesterday, Abhisit released a warrant for my arrest and sent two teams to catch me. I laugh, it is a child's threat. I won't give up. I am the one who leads this fight. I won an election but was kicked out by a coup and a junta. If I give up this fight, poor people will still be poor and corrupt politicians will remain in power."
Thaksin was deposed in a bloodless military putsch in 2006, one of 18 coups in Thailand since abandoning absolute monarchy in 1932. While in power he was criticized for authoritarian policies and shady business deals involving his family. The Thai government has frozen some $2.2 billion of his and his family's assets, according to reports.
In late 2008, yellow-shirted protesters overran Bangkok's administrative center, Government House, and seized its two international airports in a successful campaign to topple two Thaksin-linked governments. Abhisit was appointed by parliament after his party came in second in national elections in late 2008.
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