Protests against Thai govt turn violent

Mobs who claim 'people's coup' force PM to flee from police compound

About 30,000 protesters launched what they branded a "people's coup" on Thailand's government on Sunday, swarming multiple state agencies in violent clashes, taking control of a broadcaster and forcing the prime minister to flee a police compound.

Riot police fired tear gas at anti-government mobs trying to force their way into the prime minister's office complex and Bangkok's police headquarters on Sunday, deepening the country's political crisis and raising fears of prolonged instability in one of Southeast Asia's biggest economies.

A group of protesters forced Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to evacuate to an undisclosed location from a building where she had planned to give media interviews, while hundreds seized control of state broadcaster Thai PBS, waving flags and tooting whistles.

Declaring Sunday "V-Day" in a weeklong bid to topple Yingluck and end her family's more than decadelong influence over Thai politics, protest leaders urged supporters to seize 10 government offices, six television stations, police headquarters and the prime minister's offices in what they are calling a "people's coup".

Police said the protesters had gathered in at least eight locations. In at least three of them, police used tear gas and water cannons.

National police spokesman Piya Utayo said troops were being sent to a government complex occupied by protesters since Thursday and the Finance Ministry, occupied since Monday. "We have sent forces to these places to take back government property," he said on national television.

It is the latest dramatic turn in a conflict pitting Bangkok's urban middle class and royalist elite against the mostly rural poor supporters of Yingluck and her billionaire brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister ousted in a 2006 military coup.

Reporters waiting to interview Yingluck inside the police Narcotics Suppression Bureau were told by Natthriya Thaweevong, an aide to the prime minister, that she had left after protesters made it inside the outer part of the compound, the Police Sports Club, where the bureau is located.

In the early afternoon, protesters massed in front of a police barricade outside Wat Benjamabhopit, also known as the Marble Temple. Police fired tear gas as some protesters tried to heave aside the heavy concrete barriers.

The deep detonation of stun grenades, followed by the jeers of protesters, echoed across the historic quarter.

"I just want the people named Shinawatra to get on a plane and go somewhere - and please, don't come back to our country again," said Chatuporn Tirawongkusol, 33, whose family runs a Bangkok restaurant.

Street battles

Outside the Metropolitan Police Bureau, about 3,000 protesters rallied, accusing riot-clad police of being manipulated by Thaksin, a former policeman who rose to become a telecommunications magnate before entering politics and winning back-to-back elections in 2001 and 2005.

Chamai Maruchet Bridge, north of Government House, the prime minister's offices, was a scene of nearly nonstop skirmishes, as police repeatedly fired tear gas into the stone-throwing crowd, witnesses said. Protesters gathered near barricades spray-painted with the words "Failed State".

Witnesses said protesters hurled at least a dozen Molotov cocktails into police positions from a college campus across a canal from Government House.

In one of the most dramatic events, state broadcaster Thai PBS was taken over by protesters, according to PBS and police. More than 250 mostly black-shirted protesters gathered in the parking lot, as others streamed in.

The executive producer at Thai PBS, Surachai Pannoi, said the management of the station would share its broadcast line with Blue Sky, a broadcaster controlled by the opposition Democrat Party.

Yingluck, who won a 2011 election by a landslide to become Thailand's first female prime minister, has called for talks with the protesters, saying the economy is at risk after demonstrators occupied the Finance Ministry on Monday.

Reuters-AP

(China Daily 12/02/2013 page12)