Thai protesters in government seat shift tactics, move to Bangkok airports

BANGKOK – Anti-government protesters camped at Thailand’s government seat were shifting tactics to join colleagues at Bangkok’s besieged airports yesterday as the politically paralyzed country struggle with more than 300,000 stranded travelers. A leader of the People’s Alliance for Democracy said demonstrators will end their more than three-month sit-in at the prime minister’s office compound and move to both Bangkok airports, which they seized last week in their push to oust the government, severing all civilian flights in or out of the capital.

Airlines were meanwhile, flying dozens of empty planes out of Bangkok’s main international airport.

Some 30 planes had been flown out starting Sunday and an additional 50 were to be moved later yesterday, some of them to protest-free airports elsewhere in Thailand so that stranded travelers can fly out of the country, said Serirat Prasutanont, director of the Airports Authority of Thailand.

Thailand’s political crisis escalated Sunday when some 10,000 pro-government activists converged on Bangkok to counter rival protesters who have forced the prime minister to run the country from outside the capital.

Explosions Sunday targeting the anti-government protesters injured at least 51 people, officials said, with blasts hitting the prime minister’s compound and a road near the occupied domestic airport. No one claimed responsibility for Sunday’s blasts, but the alliance blamed the government.

Alliance leader Chamlong Srimuang called on protesters who have the prime minister’s compound since Aug. 26 to “move to the airports to support our people there.”

The move did not represent a softening of the protest group’s stance nor was it clear whether the three-month-old occupation of the compound was entirely over. Chamlong told supporters that they should move because it was not safe to remain at Government House.

Neither the army nor Thailand’s revered king have stepped in to resolve the crisis – or offered the firm backing that Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat needs to resolve the leadership vacuum.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has intervened to resolve several political crises over the past four decades, is scheduled to deliver a much-anticipated speech on his 81st birthday Friday. But whether he will actually move to resolve the paralyzing situation is uncertain.

Another awaited event is a Constitutional Court ruling Tuesday on whether three parties in the governing coalition, including Somchai’s People’s Power Party, committed electoral fraud.

If found guilty, the parties would be dissolved immediately, and executive members including Somchai would be barred from politics for five years. Whether this would satisfy the anti-government protesters is also uncertain.

Thailand’s foreign ministry planned to propose Tuesday the postponement of the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, scheduled for mid-December in Thailand, ministry spokesman Thani Thongpakdee told The Associated Press.

The alliance says it will not give up until Somchai resigns, accusing him of being a puppet of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the alliance’s original target. Thaksin, who is Somchai’s brother-in-law, was deposed in a 2006 military coup and has fled the country to escape corruption charges.

Alliance protesters managed to shut down the international Suvarnabhumi airport last Tuesday, stranding scores of planes.

Kongrit Hiranyakit, head of the Tourism Council of Thailand, said over 300,000 travelers were stranded in Thailand, with 35,000 to 45,000 being added to that number for each day the airports remain closed. Thousands of others trying to enter Thailand from around the world are also in a holding pattern.

Some countries evacuated nationals by land. The Australian embassy was helping stranded tourists in Bangkok travel by bus to the southern resort island of Phuket, where air traffic has not been disrupted, for onward travel to Australia.

“This is my 47th birthday today. This is also my first trip out of Australia and it is also my last,” said a woman waiting for the buses who asked not to be named.

The government has alleged that the protesters are trying to spark anarchy so that the military will feel compelled to take over the country.

But the army, which overthrew Thaksin among other previous coups, says it has no plans to oust the current prime minister. Still, the army has failed to back up Somchai’s efforts to restore order.

Nattawut, the government spokesman, denied rumors that Somchai left the country, saying he was operating out of the northern city of Chiang Mai and traveling to Nakhon Phanom province, a northeastern province 600 kilometers from Bangkok.

The Federation of Thai Industries has estimated the airports takeover is costing the country $57 million to $85 million a day. Some of its members have suggested withholding taxes in protest.

The supporters of the alliance are largely middle-class citizens who say Thailand’s electoral system is susceptible to vote-buying and argue that the rural majority – the Thaksin camp’s political base – is not sophisticated enough to cast ballots responsibly.   – AP