BANGKOK—After a month of protests in Bangkok by anti-government red shirts, their bitter rivals—the pro-establishment yellow shirts—have declared they’ll take measures to protect the country if Thai authorities prove unable to deal with the crisis.
Speaking at a meeting on Sunday, April 18, leaders of the yellow shirts—more formally known as the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD)—said the government has a week to deal with the red shirt protests that have paralyzed parts of the Thai capital or they will take to the streets.
“We give the government seven days to return peace to the country or we, every member of the PAD, will perform our duty under the constitution,” said former army Gen. Somsak Kosaisuk according to the BBC.
“Prepare yourselves for the biggest rally when we will eat and sleep on the street again,” he said in reference to the yellow shirt’s 2008 street protests, which included a week long occupation of Bangkok’s two international airports, which stranded thousands of tourists and devastated that year’s tourist season.
PAD spokesman Parnthep Pourpongpan added, “In seven days we hope that the government will deal with the terrorists from Thaksin immediately, otherwise we will show our voice to protect the country and the royal family.”
The yellow shirts are mainly pro-royal, urban middle-class who vehemently oppose former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Ousted by a bloodless military coup in 2006, Thaksin and his allies are now the driving force behind the red shirt movement whose supporters on the ground are largely Thailand’s rural poor and Bangkok’s working class.
Following a court ruling at the end of February that ordered $1.5 billion of Thaksin’s fortunes to be seized, the red shirts—formally called the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD)—have been holding mass protests in the Thai capital.
Since mid-March they have been in Bangkok in the tens of thousands with their leaders demanding that the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve Parliament and make way for fresh elections which could see the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai Party come to power.
Speaking at a meeting on Sunday, April 18, leaders of the yellow shirts—more formally known as the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD)—said the government has a week to deal with the red shirt protests that have paralyzed parts of the Thai capital or they will take to the streets.
“We give the government seven days to return peace to the country or we, every member of the PAD, will perform our duty under the constitution,” said former army Gen. Somsak Kosaisuk according to the BBC.
“Prepare yourselves for the biggest rally when we will eat and sleep on the street again,” he said in reference to the yellow shirt’s 2008 street protests, which included a week long occupation of Bangkok’s two international airports, which stranded thousands of tourists and devastated that year’s tourist season.
PAD spokesman Parnthep Pourpongpan added, “In seven days we hope that the government will deal with the terrorists from Thaksin immediately, otherwise we will show our voice to protect the country and the royal family.”
The yellow shirts are mainly pro-royal, urban middle-class who vehemently oppose former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Ousted by a bloodless military coup in 2006, Thaksin and his allies are now the driving force behind the red shirt movement whose supporters on the ground are largely Thailand’s rural poor and Bangkok’s working class.
Following a court ruling at the end of February that ordered $1.5 billion of Thaksin’s fortunes to be seized, the red shirts—formally called the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD)—have been holding mass protests in the Thai capital.
Since mid-March they have been in Bangkok in the tens of thousands with their leaders demanding that the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve Parliament and make way for fresh elections which could see the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai Party come to power.
Prime Minister Abhisit’s government, the red shirts say, achieved office unlawfully and was installed by the Thai military and the bureaucratic elite.
A military effort to dislodge red shirts from one of their protest sites on April 10, spiraled into vicious street fighting that resulted in 25 deaths and over 800 injured.
The red shirts have now concentrated their numbers at their other rally site situated in a central shopping district of Siam and they have threatened to extend this to Silom, Bangkok’s financial hub.
In response, the Thai military has been deployed in Silom with orders to ensure this does not happen and a spokesman has said the military has checkpoints in various city locations blocking incoming red shirts from joining the protest site.
Thai security attempted to arrest several red shirt leaders last Thursday resulting in what has been described as a “farce” with the UDD leaders making easy getaways—again highlighting the belief that within military and police ranks there is substantial sympathy and support for the red shirts.
Following the bungled arrests, Prime Minister Abhisit appointed army chief Anupong Paojinda to be head of security operations.
Pavin Chachavhlpongpun, from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, told AFP that this was a risky move by the prime minister.
“In a way, it allows Abhisit to test the military,” Pavin said. “[But] when you a let military control a situation it hardly ever ends nicely and peacefully. There’s a possibility it might turn nasty.”
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