Thai premier insists authorities did not kill any protestors (Roundup)

Apr 19, 2009, 9:28 GMT

Bangkok - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva reiterated Sunday that no protestors were killed last week in a crackdown on a violent anti-government demonstration in the streets of Bangkok, but said he would look into claims of casualities.

On his Sunday morning television broadcast, Abhisit insisted that authorities tried to avoid bloodshed in suppressing the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), whose followers went on a rampage Monday, blocking streets, burning buses and threatening to blow up gas trucks.

Two people died in the mayhem, both reportedly the victims of the UDD rioters. Another 123 people, including protestors and security personnel, were injured.

The Puea Thai opposition party, which openly supports the UDD movement, has alleged that authorities killed at least two protestors and that six others were missing and believed dead.

Abhisit said that if there is a solid proof that the military shoot protestors on April 13, the government is ready to consider the charges, the state-run Thai News Agency reported.

Abhisit acknowledged that soldiers had fired bullets into the air to suppress the rioters.

An opinion poll of 1,439 households in 17 of Thailand's 76 provinces conducted by Assumption University's Abac Poll revealed that 74.9 per cent of the respondents believed the government was transparent in its attempt to disperse the protesters last week.

The prime minister placed Pattaya, Bangkok and adjoining provinces under emergency law after the rioters disrupted a regional summit on April 11 at Pattaya seaside resort, 100 kilometres south-east of Bangkok, forcing the government to cancel the event.

The protestors, supporters of fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, attacked cars carrying Abhisit in both Pattaya and Bangkok on two occasions, but failed to catch him.

The 44-year-old, Oxford-educated prime minister, leader of the Democrat Party, emerged from the incident with his reputation intact, largely because of his handling of the restrained crackdown on the UDD, whose leaders surrendered Tuesday.

Some 34 UDD leaders and activists are currently under arrest, according to government sources, and warrants have been issued for others including Thaksin, Thailand's prime minister between 2001-06, whose popular but increasingly dictatorial rule was ended by a coup.

The government cancelled Thaksin's Thai passport on Monday. Thaksin, who was in Dubai encouraging a 'people's revolution' during the UDD protests, reportedly flew to Nicaragua over the weekend where he has been granted a 'diplomatic' passport.

Although peace returned to the streets, officials acknowledge that the deep discontent fueling the UDD protests has yet to be addressed and political situation remains fragile.

'Thailand still stands at a precarious juncture,' Democrat Party spokesman Buranaj Smutharaks said Friday.

Thaksin, a former billionaire telecommunications tycoon who used populist policies to secure himself a mass following among some of Thailand's rural and urban poor, has been discredited by the UDD's turn to violence and his unsupported claims in interviews abroad with the foreign media that the army killed many of his supporters.

Facing a two-year jail sentence for abuse of power, he has been living in self-exile since August 2008. His role in stirring up the protests is suspected to be partly motivated by court cases that could seize 2 billion dollars worth of family assets in Thai banks.

But analysts warn that Abhisit and his government need to address the core issues that have turned Thaksin into such a powerful challenge to Thailand's traditional status quo: the pro-monarchy aristocracy, the military and the bureaucracy.

'Abhisit and his backers still seem reluctant to recognize the red shirts' grievances. This is a mistake. Thailand, a constitutional monarchy, must find a path to real democracy,' political analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak wrote in an analysis titled 'Why Thais Are Angry,' which is scheduled to be published in the New York Times Monday edition.

'Elections are held, but if the establishment doesn't like the winning party, the government is dissolved. Unable to rely on the ballot box, people take to the streets,' he said.

Abhisit has called for a joint session of the upper and lower houses on Wednesday and Thursday to debate means of addressing Thailand's deep political divide through the parliamentary process.