Thailand's military deployed troops on the streets of Bangkok on Tuesday to keep order after a day of battles between police and anti-government protesters in which two people died and more than 380 were injured. One man was killed by a car bomb near parliament, police said, where protesters waging a four-month campaign to unseat the government battled riot police in clouds of teargas.
Army commander Anupong Paochinda said police asked for help and he denied rumours of a coup, two years after the military ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless putsch. "People should not panic. Soldiers will not launch a coup since it will not be good for the country," he told reporters. The clashes began after dawn when police forced a path through 5,000 members of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) blockading parliament to disrupt the opening session.
By nightfall, 381 people were injured, 48 seriously, and one woman had died, health officials said, after the worst street violence since the army and pro-democracy activists fought in 1992. Two policemen were shot and another stabbed during the unrest, which occurred mainly in Bangkok's administrative zone and did not spill into tourist areas.
Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, the government's chief negotiator with the PAD, resigned after he said police failed to exercise the restraint he had requested. "Since this action did not achieve what I planned, I want to show my responsibility for this operation," he said.
As soldiers moved into the protest areas, the PAD, an extra-parliamentary coalition of businessmen, academics and activists, pulled back to the Government House compound it has occupied since late August. The group accuses new Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat of being a puppet for Thaksin, his brother-in-law, and vowed to keep campaigning until he dissolved parliament. The PAD argues that Thai democracy has been undermined by billionaire Thaksin, who skipped bail in August and fled to Britain to escape corruption charges, and his allies.
Thaksin had easily won the last three elections, and has called for "new politics" that would include a proportion of appointed MPs. "Overthrow the Thaksin regime. Together we win or lose. We will know it today. We won't give up," PAD leader Anchalee Paireerak said.
Ramkhamhaeng University analyst Boonyakiat Karavekphan said the PAD did not have enough support from the military or general public to deliver a knockout blow to the government. "If Anupong was on its side, the PAD would have won by now," he told Reuters, referring to the army commander.
CRISIS DEEPENS: The unrest has hurt investor confidence and distracted policymakers when they should be focused on slowing economic growth and fallout from the global credit crisis, analysts say. Citing the protests, traders said the baht currency fell against the dollar and the stock market tumbled, although in both cases the credit crisis was also a major factor. The baht was at 34.51 per dollar, down from 34.38 on Monday. Stocks fell 4.2 percent to a five-year low, failing to get a lift like some other Asian bourses from a big Australian rate cut.
Somchai has sought a dialogue with the PAD but there seems little prospect of a compromise to end the political stalemate. In his speech to parliament, Somchai called for national reconciliation to end a three-year crisis pitting Thaksin and his rural base against the royalist and military establishment believed to be backing the PAD.
"This government is determined to tackle economic problems and to listen to all sides to find a solution to end the crisis," said Somchai, who was forced to leave by helicopter after protesters surrounded the parliament grounds. Protests last month triggered a two-week state of emergency in Bangkok after one man was killed. But the army refused to enforce the decree and it was withdrawn after hurting tourism, a major source of income for the Asian nation. Somchai said he was not considering another decree.