Pro-Thaksin movement aims for 100,000-plus turnout on Wednesday
By Nirmal Ghosh 4 April 2009
BANGKOK: Thailand’s ‘red shirt’ movement has set next Wednesday for a major protest in Bangkok, and is prepared to battle on for up to half a year to oust key privy councillors it says are behind the 2006 coup that ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
If the movement gets more than 100,000 people to gather next week - which is its target - it would create a volatile situation.
The ‘red shirts’ are pushing to bring things to a head next week, as the ongoing protest outside Government House, which has been sustained for well over a week, may dwindle at the onset of the annual Songkran holiday from April 13 to 15.
Organisers have said the struggle would be taken up again after the holiday.
‘This is a loose socio-political movement; we will build up the organisation
after Songkran,’ its adviser Jaran Ditta-apichai, a political science professor and former national human rights commissioner, told The Straits Times.
Attempts, however, are being made behind the scenes to defuse the escalating crisis.
‘Seniors in the country are worried about the current situation. They are trying to do something which will be completed before the Songkran Festival,’ Senate Speaker Prasobsuk Boondej said yesterday.
One of the leaders of the movement, Mr. Jakrapob Penkair, had told reporters on Thursday that it had had informal ‘contacts beyond the government level’ with ‘new faces’.
‘We are pressing for an answer from the old power, the aristocracy. If they send someone with real decision-making power, it would be a welcome move. But it depends who it is,’ he said.
A report on the website of the Matichon daily quoted a Democrat Party source as saying a meeting had been set up in Europe between Thaksin and a mediator who was a senior Thai figure, a former diplomat who was once close to former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.
There was no confirmation of the identity of the person, but speculation centred on privy councillor Siddhi Savetsila, a former air chief marshal who was minister of foreign affairs from 1980 to 1990.
The original demands of the ‘red shirts’ - for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to dissolve Parliament and call elections; for the reinstatement of the 1997 constitution abolished in 2006 by the military; for the prosecution of leaders of the right-wing People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD); and for Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya to be fired for his past support for the PAD - were described by Mr. Jakrapob as ‘past tense’.
The movement now wants at least three members of King Bhumipol Adulyadej’s Privy Council, including the body’s powerful president Prem Tinsulanonda, to resign - something analysts see as unlikely to happen.
Mr. Jakrapob said the movement aimed to ‘evict’ Mr. Abhisit’s government but added: ‘We won’t stop at that.
‘This is the last chance for the old powers and the aristocracy to stand with the people,’ he told reporters.
‘A national uprising is under way. The people have set up stages in 45 provinces. If there is no resistance to the rallies, we will (go on to) practise civil disobedience.’
Yesterday, several hundred ‘red shirts’ demonstrated outside the downtown headquarters of the King Power group, the company backing Mr. Newin Chidchob, leader of the newly formed Bhum Jai Thai party.
It was Mr. Newin, a one-time Thaksin loyalist, who had switched sides to join the Democrat Party-led coalition and enabled it to form a government in December last year.
The government is determined to practise restraint, while the ‘red shirts’ have also been careful to stay within the law.
‘If the demonstrations are peaceful. we see them as normal dissent. Our stand is, if it is lawful, we have no right to suppress it,’ Democrat Party spokesman Buranaj Smutharaks told The Straits Times.
He blamed the former Thaksin administration for co-opting independent institutions, which spawned instability.
‘What is clear is that the ‘red shirts’ are targeting the remaining institutions not co-opted by Thaksin,’ he said in a reference to the Privy Council.
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‘Red shirts’ plan massive protest
Pro-Thaksin movement aims for 100,000-plus turnout on Wednesday
By Nirmal Ghosh
4 April 2009
BANGKOK: Thailand’s ‘red shirt’ movement has set next Wednesday for a major protest in Bangkok, and is prepared to battle on for up to half a year to oust key privy councillors it says are behind the 2006 coup that ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
If the movement gets more than 100,000 people to gather next week - which is its target - it would create a volatile situation.
The ‘red shirts’ are pushing to bring things to a head next week, as the ongoing protest outside Government House, which has been sustained for well over a week, may dwindle at the onset of the annual Songkran holiday from April 13 to 15.
Organisers have said the struggle would be taken up again after the holiday.
‘This is a loose socio-political movement; we will build up the organisation
after Songkran,’ its adviser Jaran Ditta-apichai, a political science professor and former national human rights commissioner, told The Straits Times.
Attempts, however, are being made behind the scenes to defuse the escalating crisis.
‘Seniors in the country are worried about the current situation. They are trying to do something which will be completed before the Songkran Festival,’ Senate Speaker Prasobsuk Boondej said yesterday.
One of the leaders of the movement, Mr. Jakrapob Penkair, had told reporters on Thursday that it had had informal ‘contacts beyond the government level’ with ‘new faces’.
‘We are pressing for an answer from the old power, the aristocracy. If they send someone with real decision-making power, it would be a welcome move. But it depends who it is,’ he said.
A report on the website of the Matichon daily quoted a Democrat Party source as saying a meeting had been set up in Europe between Thaksin and a mediator who was a senior Thai figure, a former diplomat who was once close to former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.
There was no confirmation of the identity of the person, but speculation centred on privy councillor Siddhi Savetsila, a former air chief marshal who was minister of foreign affairs from 1980 to 1990.
The original demands of the ‘red shirts’ - for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to dissolve Parliament and call elections; for the reinstatement of the 1997 constitution abolished in 2006 by the military; for the prosecution of leaders of the right-wing People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD); and for Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya to be fired for his past support for the PAD - were described by Mr. Jakrapob as ‘past tense’.
The movement now wants at least three members of King Bhumipol Adulyadej’s Privy Council, including the body’s powerful president Prem Tinsulanonda, to resign - something analysts see as unlikely to happen.
Mr. Jakrapob said the movement aimed to ‘evict’ Mr. Abhisit’s government but added: ‘We won’t stop at that.
‘This is the last chance for the old powers and the aristocracy to stand with the people,’ he told reporters.
‘A national uprising is under way. The people have set up stages in 45 provinces. If there is no resistance to the rallies, we will (go on to) practise civil disobedience.’
Yesterday, several hundred ‘red shirts’ demonstrated outside the downtown headquarters of the King Power group, the company backing Mr. Newin Chidchob, leader of the newly formed Bhum Jai Thai party.
It was Mr. Newin, a one-time Thaksin loyalist, who had switched sides to join the Democrat Party-led coalition and enabled it to form a government in December last year.
The government is determined to practise restraint, while the ‘red shirts’ have also been careful to stay within the law.
‘If the demonstrations are peaceful. we see them as normal dissent. Our stand is, if it is lawful, we have no right to suppress it,’ Democrat Party spokesman Buranaj Smutharaks told The Straits Times.
He blamed the former Thaksin administration for co-opting independent institutions, which spawned instability.
‘What is clear is that the ‘red shirts’ are targeting the remaining institutions not co-opted by Thaksin,’ he said in a reference to the Privy Council.
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