Renegade Thai General Dies as Chaos Continues
Protests raged in the Thai capital on Sunday, but the government offered safe passage to protesters willing to go home. More Photos »
By SETH MYDANS and THOMAS FULLER
Published: May 16, 2010
BANGKOK — Heavy fighting and explosions were reported in one area of Bangkok early on Monday in the deadliest and most prolonged conflict in Thailand in many years.
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Adrees Latif/Reuters
Anti-government red shirt protesters carried a man who was injured during clashes near Bangkok’s Victory Monument on Sunday. More Photos »
Some residents were trapped in their homes, and guests took refuge in the basement of the five-star Dusit Thani hotel. “We didn’t know where bombs and bullets were going to come from,” said a television reporter who was trapped inside the hotel.
More gunshots could be heard in mid-morning and helicopters circled above the site of the fighting. There was no sign of an end to the violence.
As four days of wild street fighting spread to new areas, the British Embassy said on its Web site, “You should be aware that acts of violence or sabotage might be staged outside red shirt protest areas.” It added: “A threat has been made by the red shirts to set off explosions in department stores in Bangkok.”
The red-shirt protesters, who are demanding that the government resign and hold a new election, have taken over the core of Bangkok’s commercial district for six weeks. The official death toll since Thursday rose to 35, with 244 injuries reported, the Erawan emergency center said.
The renegade general Khattiya Sawatdithol, who had sided with the protesters and whose shooting Thursday night was a trigger for the current violence, was also reported dead Monday by Thai news media.
That brings to at least 60 the number of people killed since the protests began as an expression of grievance from Thailand’s poor majority over the country’s long-established hierarchical system in which a mostly urban elite holds power.
The latest casualties included the first death of a soldier in the last four days of violence. The emergency center said he died of a bullet wound near the Dusit Thani.
The violence, which has raged outside the perimeter of a sit-in protest area, began after protest leaders rejected a government offer of an early election, which had been their initial demand. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva then withdrew the offer, halted negotiations and ordered troops to blockade the protest site but not invade it. Troops moved in Thursday and militants outside the site challenged them. Since then, some streets in the area have been filled with the boom and rattle of fighting into the night.
At the Dusit Thani in the heart of Bangkok’s commercial area, guests left their rooms and rushed to the basement as the staff warned that the hotel was under attack, according to a photographer for Agence France-Presse, Pedro Ugarte, who was in the hotel. “I was in bed,” he said. “There was a big explosion near my room. I went out of the room, other people did too and at that moment the wall outside was hit by bullets.” He added, “Everybody is now in the basement, about 100 people.”
Monday is the 18th anniversary of Thailand’s last major eruption of violence, from May 17 to 20, 1992, a time known as “Black May” when 52 people died, according to official figures. Many more people disappeared and were not accounted for.
The Japanese Embassy announced Sunday that it had relocated to temporary quarters. It said that the security situation near the embassy had deteriorated and that access roads had been blocked by military checkpoints. The American Embassy, which is nearby, had already announced its closure, as had several other embassies in the area.
Sunday was a day of conflict in the streets with protesters firing homemade rockets and throwing gasoline bombs at soldiers. Soldiers fired back with rubber bullets and live ammunition.
Some killings appear to have been the work of snipers, and men in military uniform with rifles and scopes have been seen in buildings. There are also reports of unidentified men in black who could be instigating some violence as they apparently did on April 10 when more than two dozen people died and nearly 900 were wounded during a failed attempt to remove the protesters at another site.
Earlier Sunday, the government offered safe passage for any protesters who wished to leave a downtown site where they have camped for six weeks, and a protest leader, Nattawut Saikua, said they would be free to leave. Mr. Nattawut also offered to withdraw militant fighters from the streets and negotiate if the government also called a cease-fire and withdrew its troops. That offer suggested a closer relationship with the violent wing of the protests than Mr. Nattawut had acknowledged.
But he put forward a condition that was immediately rejected by the government, insisting that any talks be mediated by the United Nations. Such a condition would have legitimized the protesters as an internationally recognized party in talks.
A military spokesman said that the government was prepared to evacuate women, children, the elderly and any others who wanted to leave; a nongovernment group offered to help. “I’d like to tell parents who brought their children to the demonstration to leave immediately if you decide to leave,” Mr. Nattawut said. “But I will stay here.” He added: “If you choose to stay and resist, you should take your children to a safe place.”
Another leader, Jatuporn Prompan, said he was ready to fight to the death. Many protesters at the site also insisted late on Sunday that they would stay, and protesters have warned of a wider uprising if they are attacked.
On Sunday the government extended a state of emergency to five more provinces, in addition to Bangkok and 17 provinces that were already covered.
“You are being used as tools,” the prime minister said Sunday on television, addressing protesters and suggesting that they were being manipulated by people bent on fomenting violence. Broadcasts like this, however, do not reach the controlled airwaves of the protest site.
Attacks on such crucial infrastructure elements as electricity transmission towers, an aviation fuel storage depot, banks and military installations have taken place in concert with the protests over the past two months. Some analysts see an invisible hand behind the protests and believe these attacks, in conjunction with the protests, were part of a campaign to destabilize the country.
There is no proof of these claims, but the attempts to damage infrastructure using what the government describes as “weapons of war” remain unexplained.
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