Sunday Times 2
Thailand’s ‘Red Shirts’ rally to defend wounded government
View(s):BANGKOK, May 10 (AFP) – Thailand’s pro-government “Red Shirts” began massing today in Bangkok to challenge a bid by opposition protesters to install an unelected regime in power after the removal of the prime minister.
The dismissal of premier Yingluck Shinawatra and nine ministers by the Constitutional Court this week for the improper transfer of a top security official has plunged the restive kingdom deeper into crisis.
Anti-government protesters gather outside the parliament building in Bangkok. Reuters
Officials said about 3,000 police officers were on stand-by for the pro-government rally on the western outskirts of Bangkok today, with turnout expected to peak in the evening.
“We are ready to fight,” senior Red Shirt Kwanchai Pripana told AFP ahead of the gathering. “We will not use violence but we will use the power of the masses to fight for democracy.” The Red Shirts have said they will keep up their protests for as long as necessary to defend the wounded administration.
Rival opposition demonstrators are gearing up to try to deliver a knock-out blow to the remnants of the government to enable an unelected leadership to take the reins of the Southeast Asian nation.
Such a move would infuriate supporters of Yingluck and her elder brother Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed by royalist generals in a coup in 2006, an event that ushered in years of political turmoil.
Political violence has left at least 25 people dead and hundreds wounded in gun and grenade attacks by shadowy assailants in recent months, mostly targeting opposition demonstrators.
The fear is that armed elements on both sides of the political divide could seek to incite further unrest. Police used water cannon on Friday against anti-government protesters attempting to enter a state security agency.
The opposition activists also surrounded a number of television stations in a move decried by rights campaigners as media intimidation. The anti-government protesters want the upper house of parliament — almost half of whose members are unelected — to remove the weakened cabinet including new Prime Minister Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan, a Thaksin loyalist.