Thousands of Thai pro-government Red Shirts massed yesterday in a show of support for Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, warning that they would resist attempts to oust her through the courts.
More than 3,000 Thai police and troops have been mobilized for the rally on the western outskirts of Bangkok, following political violence in which 24 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in recent months.
Thailand has been rocked by years of sometimes bloody street protests by supporters and opponents of fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck’s elder brother.
Photo: Reuters
Up to 20,000 Red Shirts were already gathered by yesterday morning, several hours ahead of the official start of the two-day rally, according to Paradorn Pattanatabut, a security adviser to the Thai premier.
“The authorities expect more than 200,000 Red Shirts to turn out,” he told reporters, as supporters of the movement poured into the capital in buses and trucks for what is expected to be their biggest show of strength in the months-long crisis.
Paradorn said Thai authorities did not expect any clashes with rival anti-government protesters who have been holding daily rallies at a park in the city center, far from the site of the Red Shirt rallies.
“What we are concerned by is third parties,” he said, alluding to unidentified assailants who have launched a series of gun and grenade attacks around the capital in recent months, often targeting opposition protesters.
The rival rallies have highlighted the political fault lines that have riven Thai society since a military coup toppled Thaksin in 2006.
Thaksin, a telecoms tycoon-turned-politician, who clashed with Thailand’s royalist establishment, has traditionally enjoyed strong support in the northern half of the kingdom.
The ousted premier, who fled overseas in 2008 to avoid jail for a corruption conviction, is hated by many Thais in Bangkok and in the south who accuse him of corruption and nepotism.
The opposition says it wants to install an unelected “neutral” leader to oversee vaguely defined reforms aimed at clamping down on corruption and reining in the Shinawatra family’s political dominance.
Drawn mostly from the poor, but populous, north and northeast, the Red Shirts say they will not accept the removal of another democratically elected government.
“If they are stubborn and go ahead to appoint a neutral prime minister or stage a coup, the Red Shirts will fiercely oppose it,” the movement chairman Jatuporn Prompan told reporters at the rally site.
Yingluck faces neglect of duty charges linked to a loss-making rice subsidy scheme and allegations of abuse of power over the transfer of a top Thai security official.
Her supporters view the moves as an attempted power grab.
Hundreds of Red Shirts underwent self-defense training earlier this week to act as security guards for the rally, which is expected to be the first of a series of major protests to defend the government.
The Thai Constitutional Court last month annulled a February general election disrupted by demonstrators, leaving Thailand in a legislative stalemate with only a caretaker government.
Thaksin-allied parties won every previous election for more than a decade. The Thai Election Commission is due to hold talks with political parties on April 22 about holding new polls.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not