24 February 2014 Last updated at 01:56 ET
Thailand crisis: Army rules out intervention as blast toll rises
Sunday's attack happened in central Bangkok, near the protest site at Ratchaprasong junction
Thailand's army chief says the military will not intervene with force in the country's crisis, as the death toll from a blast in Bangkok rose to three.
Thailand's political crisis has become increasingly violent since mass protests began in November.
On Sunday, an apparent grenade blast near an anti-government protest site killed a woman and a four-year-old boy.
Doctors said on Monday that the little boy's sister died later of brain injuries.
Twenty-two people were hurt in Sunday's blast, including a nine-year-old boy who is in intensive care.
Sunday's attack came hours after gunmen opened fire on an anti-government rally in eastern Thailand, killing a five-year-old girl.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has condemned the attacks, describing them as "terrorist acts for political gain".
UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon has also spoken out, calling for violence "from any quarter" to end immediately.
Police thoroughly searched the area of the gun attack in eastern Thailand, which took place on Saturday
There has been continued speculation that the military might step in after three months of protests in Bangkok, the BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok reports.
However, on Monday, army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha said that the military would not intervene with force. Instead, it would deploy troops to provide protection to people.
"Somebody has to take responsibility but that doesn't mean soldiers can intervene without working under the framework [of the law]," he said in a televised address.
"How can we be sure that if we use soldiers, the situation will return to peace?"
The army is widely viewed as sympathetic to the protesters, our correspondent says.
'Harder fight'
Tensions across Thailand have escalated since a wave of anti-government protests began in November.
The demonstrators want Ms Yingluck to resign to make way for an appointed interim government, but she has refused.
Last week, several people were killed in clashes that erupted in Bangkok when police began clearing sites blocked by protesters.
No group has so far said they carried out either of the weekend attacks.
But our correspondent says it appears to be the start of retaliation by the armed wing of the so-called "red-shirt" movement that backs the governing Pheu Thai party.
Red-shirt activists have watched with growing frustration as the protesters have been allowed to obstruct the government and sabotage the 2 February election, he adds.
Ms Yingluck heads a government that won elections in 2011 with broad support from rural areas.
In response to the protests, the prime minister called snap elections earlier this month, which her government was widely expected to win.
However, the polls were boycotted by the opposition and voting was disrupted by protesters at about 10% of polling stations, meaning by-elections are needed before a government can be formed.
Demonstrators have been blocking official buildings, including the prime minister's office, Government House, since late last year.
Officials said that Ms Yingluck was working outside Bangkok, and that it was "highly likely" that a cabinet meeting on Tuesday would be held outside the capital, Reuters news agency reported.
On Sunday, leaders of the pro-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) held a rally attended by thousands of supporters.
"This fight will be harder than any other ... You must think how we can deal with [protest leader] Suthep [Thaugsuban] and those supporting him," UDD leader and Pheu Thai official Jatuporn Prompan said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/23/us-thailand-protest-idUSBREA1M02H20140223
Blood on the streets as bomb kills two, wounds 22 in Thai capital
BANGKOK
Thai police officers inspect the site of an explosion during an anti-government protest at Khao Saming district, Trat province February 23, 2014.
CREDIT: REUTERS/STRINGER
(Reuters) - A bomb killed two people and wounded at least 22 in a busy shopping district in the Thai capital on Sunday, hours after supporters of Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra promised to get tough with demonstrators paralyzing parts of the city.
But it was not immediately clear who was responsible.
The bomb went off near one of the few large protest sites remaining, leaving a trail of blood and sandals on the streets near the huge Central World shopping mall, much of it in front of a shop selling tee-shirts emblazoned "Land of Smile".
Three children suffered serious head injuries, Erawan Medical Center, which monitors Bangkok hospitals, said. One died.
"One boy who we understand was 12 years old has died from injuries sustained in the blast. Another child is undergoing an operation and a third child is still in the emergency room with us," an emergency room nurse at Ramathibodi Hospital in central Bangkok, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.
Erawan said a 40-year-old woman was also killed.
The crisis pits mostly middle-class anti-government protesters from Bangkok and the south against supporters of Yingluck from the rural north and northeast of the country.
Both sides have blamed the other for instigating violence. Armed provocateurs have a history of trying to stir tension in politically polarized Thailand and both protesters and the police have also blamed violence on shadowy third parties.
Leaders of the pro-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) had vowed to "deal with" anti-government leader Suthep Thaugsuban, setting the scene for possible confrontation between pro- and anti-government groups.
"This fight will be harder than any other ... You must think how we can deal with Suthep and those supporting him," Jatuporn Prompan, a UDD leader and senior member of the ruling Puea Thai Party, told thousands of cheering supporters in Nakhon Ratchasima, northeast of the capital.
It was unclear whether Jatuporn was calling for an armed struggle, but he was speaking just hours after gunmen shot at an anti-government protest stage and threw explosive devices in the Khao Saming district of the eastern province of Trat, killing a five-year-old girl and wounding 41 people.
WEEKS OF PROTESTS
Anti-government protesters have blocked main Bangkok intersections for weeks with tents, tires and sandbags, seeking to unseat Yingluck and halt the influence of her billionaire brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, an ousted former premier regarded by many as the real power behind the government.
The protests are the biggest since deadly political unrest in 2010, when Thaksin's "red shirt" supporters paralyzed Bangkok in an attempt to remove a government led by the Democrat Party, now the opposition.
More than 90 people were killed and 2,000 wounded when Suthep, at the time a deputy prime minister, sent in troops.
Presenting a further headache for Yingluck, Thailand's anti-corruption body filed charges against her last week over a rice subsidy scheme that has left hundreds of farmers, her natural backers, unpaid.
Yingluck is due to hear the charges on Thursday.
The UDD, largely made up of Thaksin supporters based in the populous north and northeast, was formed in 2008 as a counter-force to the yellow-shirted anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy group.
Thanawut Wichaidit, a spokesman for the UDD, said a strategy to counter anti-government protests in Bangkok had yet to be worked out, but that the movement wanted to avoid civil war.
"We want to fight peacefully, without weapons, but we have not yet decided how we will proceed and that is why we are meeting today to come up with a plan" Thanawut told Reuters.
"The thing we are trying to avoid at all costs is a civil war and any kind of confrontation."
The protests are the latest chapter in a political conflict that has gripped Thailand for eight years and broadly pits Bangkok's middle class and elite, and followers in the south, against rural backers of Yingluck and her brother.
UDD chairwoman Thida Tawornseth said Sunday's rally would consolidate plans to restore democracy after the opposition boycotted and disrupted elections this month, leaving the country under a caretaker government. On Saturday, she ruled out any plans for violence.
Four protesters and a police officer were killed on Tuesday when police attempted to reclaim protest sites near government buildings. Six people were wounded by a grenade on Friday.
Trained snipers escalate violence in Bangkok
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A gunmen takes aim with a gun hidden in a popcorn bag in Laksi square, Bangkok. Photo: thaipoliticalprisoners.wordpress.com
Bangkok: Mysterious gunmen who appear to be highly trained are backing anti-government protesters on Bangkok’s streets as Thailand’s three-month political crisis becomes increasingly violent.
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban has acknowledged the presence of the gunmen despite claiming his movement to topple prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra is peaceful, telling his supporters: “They are helping us. They help us as we are fighting Yingluck with only our bare hands.”
The gunmen have become known as the “popcorn shooters” after one of them used a popcorn bag to cover his automatic rifle during a gun battle outside a shopping centre in a northern Bangkok suburb on February 1.
Anti-government protesters pray near the site of a bomb blast in Bangkok that killed two people and wounded at least 22. Photo: Reuters
Several other gunmen also used high powered weapons that day against pro-government “red shirt” supporters.
In one incident that embarrassed police last Wednesday, three men walked behind police lines during a bloody clash near government buildings blockaded by protesters in Bangkok’s historic quarter.Unidentified figures have emerged several times in recent weeks as protesters have clashed in Bangkok.
Police had arrested and cuffed protest leader Somkiat Pongpaibul who was wanted on treason charges and was sitting in the back of a police vehicle.
The unidentified men grabbed Mr Somkiat and hustled him away before police could react.
Mr Somkiat could not help police with their inquiries.
While Mr Suthep, a former deputy prime minister in a military-backed government, denies knowing the identity of the men, his supporters have begun wearing “popcorn shooter” t-shirts.
Meanwhile, Mr Suthep’s People’s Democratic Reform Committee has accused Ms Yingluck’s government of being behind a spate of deadly weekend attacks against anti-government protesters that killed three children and injured almost 60 people.
The committee’s co-leader Satit Wongnontoey claimed the state was “backing” armed forces who attacked protesters in Bangkok and at a rally in eastern Thailand.
“These brutal attacks were the work of the servants of the Thaksin regime,” Mr Satit said, referring to Ms Yingluck’s elder brother Thaksin Shinawatra who lives in exile to avoid a jail sentence for corruption.
But Ms Yingluck in a Facebook posting called on all sides of the political divide to express their differences peacefully.
“The use of violence leading to death is not a civilised way. It is not the way of life of Thais who are naturally considerate and empathetic to fellow citizens,” she said.
“The violent acts are terrorist acts for political gain without any regard for human life…the government will not tolerate terrorism and has ordered a full investigation by authorities to find the culprits and bring them to justice without exception.”
In an escalation of the crisis a meeting on Sunday of 4000 red shirts agreed to mobilise opposition to their anti-government rivals.
The red shirts have until now kept a low profile to avoid clashes that could provoke a military coup.
Leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), the red shirts’ organisation, vowed at the meeting to “deal with” Mr Suthep.
“This fight will be harder than any other…You must think how we can deal with Suthep and those supporting him,” said Jatuporn Prompan, a UDD leader and senior member of Ms Yingluck’s ruling party.
It was unclear whether he was calling for an armed struggle.
Other red shirt leaders said a definite plan had not yet been finalised.
“The thing we are trying to avoid at all costs is a civil war and any kind of confrontation,” said UDD spokesman Thanawut Wichaidit.
The UDD is largely made up of rural supporters of Mr Thaksin, a polarising figure in Thailand who was forced from office in a 2006 military coup.
Red shirt leaders in northern Chiang Mai have threatened to send squads to Bangkok to fight if Ms Yingluck, Thailand’s first woman prime minister, is overthrown un-democratically.
The violence is the latest episode in an eight-year conflict that in broad terms pits two groups of Thai elites against each other, one led by Mr Thaksin and the other backed by Bangkok’s middle class and royalists.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/trained-snipers-escalate-violence-in-bangkok-20140224-hvdmd.html#ixzz2uFKo5TTW
http://asiancorrespondent.com/119844/girl-killed-dozens-hurt-in-attack-on-thai-protest/
Good Morning,
ReplyDeleteYes I would think that "Chappo" would have an interesting story to tell that at least involves Mexican officials.
Japan poking China with a stick and now the US is doing the same to Russia, it does seem that the west is pushing for war. Does make sense in that the banker parasites have about sucked the west dry and killing off us peasants while looting another country would keep their party going. They may be running out of smaller independent countries like Libya to consume.
Morning Kev ! When messing with russia or China , one should be careful what you ask for as you just might get it in spades ! Will this be another situation where we start something but don't understand the ramifications of our actions ( like our huffing and puffing around Syria - and now we have radical jihadists linked to Al Qaeda empowered in both Iraq and Syria due to western meddling ) ?
DeleteChappo should have a lot of interesting things to say , we should know that he does - yet we arrested him alive anyway ? Strange fruit hanging on that tree ! And what we he doing hanging out in a resort town with just one bodyguard anyway ? Just makes one wonder what was going on there , apart from arrest , he made a major blunder opening himself up to being murdered by drug cartel rivals !