Thai Premier Turns to Military for Protest Crackdown

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva appears set to gamble his reputation as an urbane cosmopolitan symbol of modern Thailand after shutting the door to a reconciliation offer by anti-government protesters who have occupied the upmarket shopping heartland of Bangkok since Apr. 3.

"There will be a retaking of Rajaprasong, but the process, the measure, how and when it will be done, we cannot disclose," Abhisit said during a television interview broadcast across this South-east Asian nation on Sunday.

Rajaprasong is the three-kilometre square area of glitzy shopping malls and five-star hotels which protesters in their signature red shirts have occupied.

"I never reject political solutions, but solutions must not create precedents that intimidation will bring political change," the 45-year-old leader added during the morning broadcast that also featured Anupong Paochinda, this kingdom’s powerful army chief, who was seated by the former’s side, thus reinforcing the beleaguered government’s tough stance toward the protesters.

The Abhisit administration’s decision to call off behind-the-scenes talks for political peace was confirmed on Saturday, less than 24 hours after leaders of the protest movement, the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), offered an olive branch.

On Friday, the UDD had asked the government to dissolve parliament in 30 days and then call for a general election in 60 days. It did not press its tougher earlier demand for an immediate dissolution of the lower house.

An anticipated military crackdown after the government’s call to end four rounds of unofficial talks between a senior member of Abhisit’s Democrat Party and a UDD leader prompted a ripple of concern at the UDD protest site.

"This will not be a dispersal of demonstrators; it will be a war against demonstrators," said Nattawut Saikua, a charismatic UDD leader, during a speech on Saturday night. "Military units with automatic weapons like M-16s will be used to clear the UDD off the streets."

"They (the government) are trying to block people who have red shirts from coming to this protest rally," he told IPS. "They will also use people who are pro-government to attack the red shirts and start the violence."

The spectre of such a crackdown has prompted ‘Thai Rath’, the country’s largest circulated newspaper, to warn in its Sunday edition that the political tension in Bangkok will worsen and "more people will die." Other Thai- language newspapers also echoed such concerns following the killing of 25 people, including 20 civilians, during a botched military operation on Apr. 10 to drive red-shirt demonstrators from another protest site in a historic part of Bangkok.

Yet, thanks to pro-government television stations and newspapers, Abhisit’s reputation has not been tarnished by the Apr. 10 deaths, including 15 red shirts, whose pictures are displayed on the backdrop of the UDD stage in Rajaprasong.

Supporters of the youthful-looking British-born patrician contend that Abhisit will not sully his reputation with the blood of repression unlike the former military dictators who crushed student-led street protests in 1973, where 100 people were killed, and a middle class-led street protest in 1992, where 48 people died. The two military strongmen were deposed from power soon after.

"Mr. Abhisit knows his history well. That is why he is resilient and doesn’t want to be trapped by the protesters," Kraisak Choonhavan, deputy leader of the Democrat Party, told IPS. "Mr. Abhisit is committed to follow the international rules of engagement, from light to heavy, to reclaim the streets of Bangkok."

The government’s plan is to arrest the "terrorists" with the red shirts, Kraisak revealed, referring to the agents provocateurs dressed in black Balaclavas who had shot back at troops from behind UDD lines during the botched Apr. 10 crackdown.

Yet the government’s nod to a 200,000-strong military force to clear the tens of thousands of red shirts gathered in the Rajaprasong shopping district will be a formidable challenge. The red shirts have converted the six entrances leading to their protest site into a medieval fortress, complete with a three- to five-meter high parapet wall of sharpened bamboo spears and old rubber tires. UDD guards check cars driving into their site with military precision.

"The government’s decision to use the military to solve this political problem is proof that it is afraid of elections," said Sombat Boonngamanong, who had been running an anti-establishment website till it was shut down recently, along with scores of others, after a harsh emergency decree was enforced in early April. "What kind of politician in a democracy is scared of elections?"

"Elections are the way for people to judge who should be in power," he told IPS. "This government is trying to stay in power longer without going to the polls."

The red shirts, who draw a bulk of their support from the poorer rice- growing provinces of the north-east, say they have been disenfranchised twice after governments they voted for were forced out – in September 2006, in a military coup, and in December 2008, by a controversial court ruling.

The Abhisit-led coalition filled the political vacuum created in December 2008, following a backroom deal shaped by the powerful military rather than through a popular mandate. The term of the military-backed coalition government runs till December 2011.

Inter Press Service