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Argos Media

Thousands Rally Against Thai Leader - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...09thai.html

Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra Abhisit Vejjajiva Prem Tinsulanda People's Alliance for Democracy Economy

shared by Argos Media on 09 Apr 09 - Cached
  • In an attempt to show the continued strength of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, tens of thousands of his supporters massed in central Bangkok on Wednesday and demanded the resignation of the government.
  • Mr. Thaksin, a former telecommunications billionaire, was convicted last year on charges asserting he had abused his power. He left the country before his conviction — he was sentenced to two years in jail — and now lives in exile, principally in Dubai.Mr. Thaksin faces other charges in Thailand, and the courts have frozen an estimated $2 billion in his and his family’s assets. But he insists that he wants to return to Thailand — and to Thai politics.
  • The protesters gathered in front of the prime minister’s office and outside the home of Prem Tinsulanda, a former prime minister who is a top adviser to King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The protesters accused Mr. Prem of orchestrating a coup that ousted Mr. Thaksin in September 2006 while the prime minister was out of the country.
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  • Kavi Chongkittavorn, a columnist and editor at The Nation, an English-language newspaper, said that despite the numbers in the streets, Mr. Thaksin’s challenge was fading in strength.
  • Wearing the red shirts of Thaksin loyalists, the demonstrators streamed into Bangkok throughout the day from his political strongholds in the rural north and northeast and by early evening the police estimated the crowds at 100,000.
  • The protests were reminiscent of the political paralysis that gripped Thailand last year. Those demonstrations, which were sometimes violent, forced the previous government to abandon Government House, paralyzed the workings of the administration and eventually shut down Bangkok’s two major airports. The protests were led by the “yellow shirts” of the People’s Alliance for Democracy.
  • The protests ended in December when — with the airports blockaded, tourism crippled and the economy at a virtual standstill — the Constitutional Court found the governing party guilty of election fraud. The court ruling led eventually to Mr. Abhisit’s selection as prime minister by Parliament in December.
  • The dismal state of the Thai economy has been another cause of anger among protesters. Just this week the World Bank revised its growth prospects downward: The bank now expects a 2.7 percent decline in Thailand’s gross domestic product in 2009, the country’s first contraction in more than a decade.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Thai 'yellow shirt' leader shot - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8003531.stm

Thailand Sondhi Limthongkul

shared by Argos Media on 17 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The leader of Thailand's yellow-shirted protest movement has been shot and hurt in an apparent assassination attempt. Sondhi Limthongkul's People's Alliance for Democracy helped oust ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006 and brought down a pro-Thaksin government last year.
  • The BBC's Alastair Leithead in Bangkok says it is not known who is responsible, but Mr Sondhi has many enemies in the reds, the police, the army and the current government.
  • In the wake of the attack, security was increased around the current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who is working out of an undisclosed location because of fears for his safety.
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  • Mr Vejjajiva said a state of emergency imposed on Sunday in Bangkok would remain in place.
  • Red-shirted supporters of Mr Thaksin, who is now in self-imposed exile in Dubai, have held protests in recent weeks. The largely peaceful demonstrations that paralysed parts of Bangkok turned violent earlier this week; two people died and more than 100 others were injured. Protest leaders called off the action amid a major military crackdown to quell the riots.
  • The red shirts took to the streets demanding that Prime Minister Abhisit step down, and fresh elections to be held. They say that he was illegally installed by parliament in December after courts ousted the government led by Mr Thaksin's allies, and dissolved their parties.
  • The red shirts have expressed anger over the detention of several protest leaders in recent days, while Mr Sondhi and his allies were never prosecuted for their political action. Last year, the yellow shirts occupied Government House for three months and seized Bangkok's two airports for a week, stranding hundreds of thousands of travellers.
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