Thai troops yesterday hunted for militant protesters who left parts of Bangkok in flames as the authorities extended a night curfew in the capital despite tentative signs of a return to normality.
The top leader of the anti-government “Red Shirt” movement urged supporters to halt the mayhem that left major buildings smoldering and in ruins after a deadly army crackdown ended a six-week rally in the retail heart of the city.
“Democracy cannot be built on revenge. Good things are built on non-violence,” Veera Musikapong said after surrendering to police along with other top leaders in the face of the military offensive that left 15 dead.
The death toll from Wednesday's offensive rose after authorities said nine people had been killed in a gunbattle at a Buddhist temple inside the Red Shirts' ruined camp, where thousands of protesters cowered in fear overnight.
Under the watch of saffron-clad monks, the bodies of six of the victims were laid out in the temple garden, under a portrait of Thailand's revered king, who has been hospitalized since September and has not commented on the crisis.
After the terrified protesters were led out through a police cordon, the army said it was not responsible for the deaths in a “safe zone” where many women and children had sought shelter.
The stock exchange and the nation's biggest shopping mall were among dozens of locations set ablaze in the chaotic aftermath of the campaign to end the Red Shirts' occupation of Bangkok's top retail district.
Political observers warned that Thailand's troubles were far from over and that more civil unrest in the capital and the Red Shirts' rural heartland was likely as a split widens between the kingdom's elite and the rural and urban poor.
“It's not the end of the conflict, it's just the beginning of another phase of war — whatever you want to call it, civil war, guerrilla warfare,” said Pavin Chachavalpongpun from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Bangkok prepared for a second night under curfew, and authorities announced the measures would continue until today as they work to stamp out pockets of resistance among the Red Shirt movement.
The curfew was extended to cover 23 provinces as the conflict spread outside the capital. Four provincial halls were targeted by arsonists on Wednesday, and some 13,000 rallied in rural areas, the army said.
Soldiers fired warning shots yesterday as they took up positions in the ruins of the Reds' rally site in the capital, attempting to restore order, but warning that rebel snipers were still positioned on high rise buildings.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said both sides had committed “serious abuses” during the confrontation.
However, the unruly mobs that roamed Bangkok late on Wednesday before the curfew began appeared to have retreated and the flashpoints of the past few days were quiet.
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