Thailand’s capital of Bangkok is reportedly under a state of emergency in the wake of protests — protests that led to the cancellation of a major meeting of 16 Asian nations.
The anti-government feeling among protesters is so strong, in fact, that after the announcement of the state of emergency was declared protesters stormed the Interior Ministry:
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announced a state of emergency Sunday in the capital city, Bangkok, and surrounding areas in an attempt to contain days of intensifying anti-government protests.
Immediately after the prime minister’s announcement, dozens of protesters stormed the country’s interior ministry and pelted Abhisit’s car with rocks, chairs, flags and sticks as he escaped.
Protesters climbed atop two military armored cars after laying down on the road and blocking its path. A police officer was also led away by demonstrators and later beaten, said Sathit Wongnongtoey, an official in the prime minister’s office.
The emergency measure will allow officials to arrest and detain protesters without a court order and restrict gatherings, authorities said.
Also Sunday, police arrested a leader of the “red shirt” movement — named for the color of their demonstrators’ attire. The leader, Arismun Pongruengrong, was charged with inciting people to break the law, police said.
According to the latest reports, protesters are flouting Bangkok’s state of emergency — and the Prime Minister seems a bit dismayed.
Protesters attacked the car of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva as he left the Interior Ministry after announcing the emergency decree, which bans gatherings of more than five people in Bangkok and its suburbs.
“I believe the people have seen what happened to me,” Mr. Abhisit said on television shortly afterward. “They have seen that the protesters were trying to hurt me and smash the car.”
The largest crowd gathered at the prime minister’s office, where demonstrations have continued for days calling for the dissolution of the government. Protesters erected barricades, including parked vehicles, in case the military moves against them.
The government is now reportedly preparing some arrest warrents. The cancellation of the multi-nation meeting due to domestic unrest was not a small thing. The street protest’s uncontrolled extent immediately raised some questions among some about the Thai government’s internal security capabilities. And the protests short-circuited a meeting with a vital, emergency agenda: the economic crisis and how Asia could better respond to and cope with it. The New York Times adds this:
The cancellation of the meeting, involving leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, was deeply embarrassing for Thailand and a missed opportunity for Asian leaders to discuss the severe economic downturn that is causing some of the region’s export-dependent economies to contract.
Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations; Robert B. Zoellick, president of the World Bank; and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, were among those scheduled to attend the meeting over the weekend.
The ability of protesters to breach security at a location relatively easy to protect — the venue is on a bluff overlooking the Gulf of Thailand and accessed only by two roads — raised questions about the functioning of the Thai government and its ability to manage its security forces.
The spokesman of the prime minister’s party, Thepthai Senpong, said Saturday that the “work of the police and the military did not meet expectations.”
Mr. Abhisit apologized for the cancellation of the meeting but did not take responsibility for the breach in security, which he said was “not the The decree prohibits gatherings of more than five people and outlaws media reporting which the Thai authorities consider a threat to public order. It also marks a potentially drastic escalation in the government’s ongoing conflict with demonstrators opposed to the coup which unseated former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra three years ago.
How bad was it?
It was reportedly bad enough that some 2,000 red-shirt clad protesters in the resort town of Pattaya where the summit was being held managed to reach luxury hotel where the meeting was slated to take place. The protesters support former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was booted out in a 2006 coup. Their main demand: that Thailand’s present Prime Minister resign.
Some more details about the emergency decree:
The decree prohibits gatherings of more than five people and outlaws media reporting which the Thai authorities consider a threat to public order. It also marks a potentially drastic escalation in the government’s ongoing conflict with demonstrators opposed to the coup which unseated former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra three years ago.
Political analysts said there is no guarantee the decree will defuse the worsening tensions in the country. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said a crackdown on the demonstrators could spur further protests. “They could call for an uprising in northern Thailand, where they are popular. That would be unprecedented and terrifying,” he said.
And, indeed, this is often a factor governments face: if they crack down hard they in effect create more recruits for protesters. It’s also a factor that leaders of protests throughout the world have taken into consideration for decades: protests can be used as a kind of political jiu-jitsu where the weight of the governnment is used against itself.
The red shirts, as the anti government protesters are known, are seeking fresh elections and the resignation of Mr. Abhisit. They are also calling for the resignations of several advisers to King Bhumibol Adulyadej whom they believe are responsible for planning a military coup which unseated Mr. Thaksin in 2006. The advisers have denied having anything to do with the coup, but the act of accusing anybody associated with the monarchy of interfering in politics is an extremely provocative statement in a country where the royal family is widely revered.
Mr. Thaksin, meanwhile, is in self-exile, moving from country to country in an attempt to avoid extradition to a Thai prison after he was convicted of corruption last year. He denies the accusation.
Meanwhile, these events already suggest that Thailand is about to take an economic hit as it reels from the worldwide recession:
—South Koreans are being warned not to travel to a popular Thai resort.
—Taiwan has warned travelers to be vigilant in Thailand — not the kind of news story that keeps the bookings flowing.
—Residents of Singapore are being warned not to travel to Pattaya.
Another problem for the government: once the summit was scuttled it spurred the protesters on. Note this excerpt from a Reuters repport:
Barrelling through a thin line of troops, hundreds of red-shirted anti-government protesters in Thailand hurtled through a plate glass window — and tumbled into the venue of the East Asia summit.
“We’ve won — the summit is over,” shouted Aey, one of “red shirts” who support ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
“We’ll return to Bangkok now, to rejoin the protest there,” she added. “We’ll finally get Abhisit out.”
The protesters say Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who came to office four months ago through parliamentary defections engineered by the army, is “illegitimate”.
Abhisit cancelled the summit after it was stormed and imposed a state of emergency to allow leaders to depart safely.
They were never in any real danger. The protesters had smashed their way into the media centre, while most of the leaders were having lunch at the adjacent Royal Cliff hotel.
Five leaders never even made it to the venue.
Once in the media centre, the protesters paraded around with flags, blew whistles and horns, helped themselves to the snack buffet laid on for the journalists, and held impromptu press conferences with newsmen who were only too happy to get some decent soundbites.
This story looks like it has the potential of being a continuing — and growing — one as the story shifts from a small resort town to the nation’s capital…and perhaps beyond.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.