A Thai “red shirt” protest leader threatened a mass march on army barracks where Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has been based, but that plan seemed up in the air as the country celebrates its new year.
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thuagsuban ordered police to hunt for “terrorists” the government blames for the killings in Bangkok’s old quarter which came after a month of generally festive protests and shocked the world.
“We can’t let terrorists walk freely in this country,” he said. “We have enough evidence from still pictures and video footage that we can identify those carrying M-16 or AK-47 rifles where they live.”
The “red shirt” demonstrators, who want Abhisit to stand down immediately, said they would step up their protests, with plans to send out hundreds of motorcyclists handing out leaflets and pictures from the clashes in which 21 people were killed.
Abhisit, who came to power in 2008 when the army brokered a deal in parliament, would have to step down if the Constitutional Court found his Democrat Party guilty of funding irregularities.
The Election Commission on Monday unexpectedly recommended his party be dissolved for suspected funding irregularities. It is now in the court’s hands.
Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of the Association of South East Asian Nations, said the situation was deteriorating and must not be left to “fester.”
“The deteriorating situation in Thailand between demonstrators and government security forces in Bangkok has caused serious concern among ASEAN member states and the world at large,” he said in an unusually bold statement for a group that tends not to criticize its members.
US-based rights group Human Rights Watch urged the Thai government to “keep its promise” to set up an independent commission to investigate the “violence and abuses by all sides.”
About 300 “yellow shirts” gathered at the Victory Monument war memorial, calling on the red shirts to go home.
“We are asking for peace. We don’t want the government to dissolve parliament and we want the red shirts to stop damaging the country,” said Suthep Wongta, 33, carrying a picture of the country’s revered king over his head.
The yellow shirts are made up of academics, businessmen, royalists and urban middle-class activists opposed to ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra and the political parties he has backed from exile.
Foreign Minister Kasin Piromya urged the international community to crack down on what he described as illicit money transfers made by Thaksin, a former telecoms tycoon beloved by the rural poor for populist policies.
Kasit said Thaksin was illicitly providing the red shirts with $3 million a day, describing him as a “bloody terrorist.”
Further isolating the embattled Abhisit, army chief Anupong Paochinda said on Monday early elections could end the impasse.
It was Anupong’s first public comment since his forces failed on Saturday to eject protesters from their base in central Bangkok. The violence was Thailand’s worst in two decades.
“It looks like Abhisit’s fortune may be waning,” said Sukhum Nuansakul, an independent political scientist. The red shirts, mostly rural and working-class supporters of Thaksin who was ousted in a 2006 coup, want Abhisit to call polls immediately.
The electoral fraud case could take months as prosecutors and the Constitutional Court act on the commission’s recommendation. A guilty verdict could lead to the dissolution of Abhisit’s Democrats, the country’s oldest party, and Abhisit and party executives would be banned from politics for five years.
The court found two Thaksin-allied parties guilty of fraud in 2007 and 2008.
