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Thai protesters reinforce siege of airports

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-02 08:00

BANGKOK -- Anti-government protesters reinforced their siege of Bangkok's two airports Monday as the country struggled to provide temporary accommodation to more than 300,000 stranded travelers and arrange to reach them to their destinations.

Switching its tactics, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) told its members occupying the prime minister's office compound for the last three months to leave and join fellow protesters at the airports. They seized the airports last week to press their demand for the ouster of the government.

The latest PAD move has swelled the number of protesters at the airports to about 6,000.

The siege of the airports on Tuesday has halted all commercial flights in and out of the capital. The PAD has allowed some of the airlines to fly dozens of empty planes out of Suvarnabhumi international airport.

About 30 planes have flown out since Sunday and another 50 were to be moved by Monday, some to protest-free airports elsewhere in Thailand so that stranded passengers can fly out of the country, said Serirat Prasutanont, acting director of the Airports Authority of Thailand (AAT).

He said Suvarnabhumi would remain closed at least till tomorrow.

The loss of international air link in the past week has forced thousands of people to cancel their vacations during the peak tourist season, halted vital postal air services and stopped the arrival of everything from specialized medicines to raw fish for Bangkok's Japanese restaurants.

Neither the army nor Thailand's king has stepped in to resolve the crisis - or offered the firm backing that Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat needs to resolve the leadership vacuum.

The Government House, occupied since Aug 26, has been attacked several times with grenades fired by unidentified assailants.

To avoid more injuries, PAD leader Chamlong Srimuang asked the protesters to move out of the Government House "to the airports to support our people there". By dusk, only a couple of hundreds remained.

"We are not abandoning the site. We'll end the siege at all sites at the same time," Suriyasai Katasila, a PAD spokesman, said.