Thousands of protesters defied a court order to leave Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej’s official compound yesterday as the group’s leaders vowed to stay until his administration fell.
Samak vowed yesterday to end the massive rallies against his rule without force — raising the specter of a prolonged siege of Bangkok’s main government compound.
Samak, who had ordered police to break up the rally by 10,000 supporters of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) at Government House on Wednesday, softened his tough stance after they failed to exercise arrest warrants overnight for nine leaders of the three-month-old, anti-government campaign.
PHOTO: EPA
The protestors had formed human shields to protect their leaders from arrest.
“After thorough consideration, it would be too dangerous to do so [break up the rally],” Samak told reporters at army headquarters after being forced to abandon his main office this week.
“Whenever it ends, it ends — it’s up to them,” he said.
“I’ve told the police not to break up the crowd, but to encourage people to leave,” Samak said.
“Foreign countries are monitoring and keeping a close watch and waiting for a showdown,” he said. “There will be no showdown.”
He said the siege of his main headquarters would not be allowed to drag on forever, but threw the ball into the court of the protest leaders.
The PAD leaders have been charged with trying to overthrow the seven-month-old government via a violent insurrection, a crime that can carry the death penalty.
“We won’t leave Government House as ordered by the Civil Court,” said retired general and PAD leader Chamlong Srimuang, whose group planned to appeal the court order.
“Our demands remain the same — to have the government resign and to prevent an amendment of the 2007 Constitution,” he said of the army-approved charter drawn up after the military ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a 2006 coup.
The PAD accuses Samak’s coalition government of being an illegitimate proxy of Thaksin, now in exile in London.
It also proclaims itself to be a defender of King Bhumibol Adulyadej against a supposed Thaksin plan to turn Thailand into a republic — a charge vehemently denied by both Thaksin and the government.
The PAD’s protests were key to the political turmoil that led to the 2006 coup, but several newspapers said this week’s storming of government offices and a TV station went too far.
Nevertheless, analysts said the standoff was likely to drag on as long as the government kept its cool.
“As the police have so far shown restraint and resisted efforts to disperse the crowd by force and shoulder the consequences, the PAD is pinning its hopes on some men in green sharing its goal of toppling the government,” the Bangkok Post said in a column.
Police Colonel Somsak Wongchaiprasert said that about 1,050 police — some armed with shields and batons — remained inside the government compound, but they kept their distance from protesters and appeared relaxed.
The crowd at Government House is expected to grow by tens of thousands again tonight, making removing them by force a potentially bloody and therefore politically suicidal operation.
“Samak would love to do a 1976 and go in and shoot them all down. That’s his style, but the police desperately don’t want that to happen because it would really do no good to anybody,” Christopher Bruton of Dataconsult said.
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