Anti-government protesters blockading the Thai prime minister’s temporary offices and Bangkok’s main airport opened fire on rival activists yesterday, wounding at least five people, police said.
The violence erupted on the road to a disused air terminal where thousands of demonstrators behind a six-month street campaign have surrounded the makeshift headquarters of Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat.
Separately, anti-government protesters clad in yellow clothes that symbolize their loyalty to the monarchy tried to blockade the main Suvarnabhumi International Airport ahead of Somchai’s return from a trip abroad.
“Five supporters of the government have been wounded from gun shots by PAD [People’s Alliance for Democracy] who were on a pickup truck,” a senior Metropolitan police officer told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Television footage showed at least one man in a pickup truck opening fire on an unarmed group, before men in yellow shirts got out and beat them with white poles, as fires burned in the background.
The PAD — a coalition of royalists, Bangkok’s old elite and the middle class — accuses the government of being a corrupt puppet of exiled former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin, who is Somchai’s brother-in-law, was ousted in a 2006 coup.
Somchai has rejected calls to quit, while the government insisted that a key Cabinet meeting would go ahead today at an undisclosed location to prevent further protests.
“Anyone who wants to overthrow or resist the government is attempting a rebellion,” Somchai told the Thai National News Agency on board a flight from an APEC summit in Peru.
The Thai army chief meanwhile dismissed protesters’ calls for the military to step in as it did two years ago.
“The armed forces have agreed that a coup cannot solve our country’s problems and we will try to weather the current situation and pass this critical time,” army chief General Anupong Paojinda told reporters.
A day after PAD protests forced the cancellation of a parliamentary joint sitting, about 10,000 demonstrators moved to the old Don Mueang International Airport early on Monday to shut off Somchai’s current base.
Protesters have occupied the prime minister’s official office and Cabinet headquarters at Government House in Bangkok since August.
Riot police largely withdrew on Monday amid fears of a repeat of clashes between protesters and police on Oct. 7 that left two people dead and 500 injured, the worst political violence in Thailand for 16 years.
“There are more than 10,000 of us here and we are prepared for a long siege like at Government House,” said Sawit Kaoewan, a PAD leader. Police confirmed the figure.
About 1,000 demonstrators later moved to the Suvarnabhumi international airport in a bid to block Somchai’s return from a trip abroad, airport authorities told reporters
They said there was no disruption to the handful of domestic flights that operate from Don Mueang or to services at Suvarnabhumi, which took over as Bangkok’s main airport two years ago.
Hundreds of PAD supporters also went to the nearby military headquarters after speculation that the cabinet would meet there with Somchai today.
Government-run corporations said there was no response to a strike call by Thailand’s main public sector union.
The protests spread a day after the PAD blockaded parliament in what they called a “final battle” in their six-month campaign against the administration.
The PAD, which also launched huge street protests in 2006 that led to the Thaksin coup, called this week’s rallies in response to a grenade attack on Thursday that killed one protester.
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
CAUTION URGED: Xiaohongshu and Douyin — the Chinese version of TikTok — are tools the Chinese government uses for its ‘united front’ propaganda, the MAC said Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) yesterday urged people who use Chinese social media platforms to be cautious of being influenced by Beijing’s “united front” propaganda and undermining Taiwan’s sovereignty. Chiu made the remarks in response to queries about Chinese academic Zhang Weiwei (張維為) saying that as young Taiwanese are fond of interacting on Chinese app Xiaohongshu (小紅書, known as RedNote in English), “after unification with China, it would be easier to govern Taiwan than Hong Kong.” Zhang is professor of international relations at Shanghai’s Fudan University and director of its China Institute. When giving a speech at China’s Wuhan
RSS