Thailand Latest: Curfew and Ultimatum (AP and BBC)

The Associated Press updates this morning on the Thai Government's imposition of a curfew in Bangkok. A BBC report, issued at the same time, focuses on a Government "ultimatum" against the main opposition camp and protestors gathering elsewhere in Bangkok:

Associated Press

Thailand will impose a curfew Sunday and send Red Cross workers to evacuate women and children from Bangkok's deadly protest zone where 25 people have been killed in four days of street battles between anti-government demonstrators and troops.

Thailand: The Latest in the Crisis; At Least 16 Dead (Mydans and Szep/Ahuja)

A towering column of black smoke rose over the city Sunday as protesters facing off with troops set fire to tires serving as a barricade. Elsewhere, they doused a police traffic post with gasoline and torched it as sporadic gunfire rang out.


The government said a curfew has become necessary to stop the armed members of the so-called Red Shirt protest movement. Journalists have seen some of them carrying guns, but most have used homemade fire bombs and fireworks.

''We cannot let people with weapons in their hands walk around here and there,'' army spokesman Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd said.

''Terrorist groups have tried to create a situation where shots are fired at military and police officers to instigate misunderstanding among them that officers are attacking each other,'' he said.

The timing and the exact locations of the curfew will be announced later, he said.

The spiraling violence has raised concerns of sustained, widespread chaos in Thailand -- a key U.S. ally and Southeast Asia's most popular tourist destination that promotes its easygoing culture as the ''Land of Smiles.''

Speaking on his weekly television program, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva insisted he was left with no choice but a military operation to end the country's two-month-old crisis.

''Overall, I insist the best way to prevent losses is to stop the protest. The protest creates conditions for violence to occur. We do realize at the moment that the role of armed groups is increasing each day,'' he said.

The Red Shirts have occupied a 1-square-mile (3-square-kilometer) zone, barricaded by tires and bamboo spikes, in one of the capital's ritziest areas, Rajprasong, since mid-March to push their demands for Abhisit to resign immediately, dissolve Parliament and call new elections.

The Red Shirts, drawn mostly from the rural and urban poor, say Abhisit's coalition government came to power through manipulation of the courts and the backing of the powerful military, and that it symbolizes a national elite indifferent to the poor.

Sansern said the government will send the Red Cross and voluntary organizations into the protest zone to ''invite or persuade people, especially women, children and older people to leave the area.''

About 5,000 people are believed camped in the zone, down from about 10,000 before fighting started Thursday after a sniper shot and seriously wounded a Red Shirt leader, a former army general who was the Red Shirt military strategist. His condition worsened Sunday, doctors said.

After his shooting, fighting quickly spread to nearby areas, which became a no-man's land as the army set up barriers in a wider perimeter around Rajprasong. The area already resembles a curfew zone with no public transport or private vehicles. Most shops, hotels and businesses in the area are shut. The government has shut off power, water and food supplies to the core protest zone. Schools were ordered shut Monday in all of Bangkok.

At least 54 people have been killed and more than 1,600 wounded since the protests began mid-March, according to the government. The dead include 25 killed since Thursday.

''I'm asking Abhisit not to shoot children, women and old people. Come kill us (men) instead,'' said a Red Shirt leader, Jatuporn Prompan. ''Once the authorities stop shooting at protesters, the death toll will stop rising.''

On Saturday, soldiers blocked major roads and pinned up notices of a ''Live Firing Zone'' in one area of Bangkok. Demonstrators dragged away the bodies of three people from sidewalks in that area -- shot by army snipers, they claimed.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch on Saturday called on the Thai government to revoke the fire zones and negotiate an end to the fighting.

''It's a small step for soldiers to think `live fire zone' means `free fire zone,' especially as violence escalates,'' the rights watchdog said in a statement.

The clashes are the most prolonged and deadliest bout of political violence that Thailand has faced in decades despite having a history of coups -- 18 since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.

The crisis appeared to be near a resolution last week when Abhisit offered to hold elections in November, a year early. But the hopes were dashed after Red Shirt leaders made more demands.

The political uncertainty has spooked foreign investors and damaged the vital tourism industry, which accounts for 6 percent of the economy, Southeast Asia's second largest.

The Thai Red Cross said its blood supplies are running low and invited people to donate blood.

The Red Shirts especially despise the military, which forced Thaksin Shinawatra, the populist premier favored by the Red Shirts, from office in a 2006 coup. Two subsequent pro-Thaksin governments were disbanded by court rulings before Abhisit became prime minister.

BBC

Bangkok since March, calling on women and the elderly to leave the camp by Monday afternoon.
The Red Cross has been asked to help coax people out of the camp, where protesters are calling on PM Abhisit Vejjajiva to resign.

One protest leader said Thailand was close to "civil war" after clashes with soldiers killed at least 25 people.

Several hundred protesters are gathering in another part of the city.

Soldiers have taken up positions beside a road leading to the camp, where witnesses say they are firing live rounds, apparently targeting anyone who comes near them.

Mr Abhisit has postponed the new school term in the city for a week, but a planned curfew has been cancelled.

Thai television has shown footage of women and children leaving the protest site.

Live rounds

The fighting flared on Thursday as the army moved to isolate a fortified protest camp.

Thousands of people who say Mr Abhisit came to power undemocratically remain behind makeshift barricades of rubber tyres, sandbags and bamboo stakes in the Ratchaprasong commercial district.

The protesters are known as red-shirts, after the colour they have adopted.

They want the prime minister to step down to make way for new elections.

Red-shirt leaders have been calling for reinforcements, but protesters coming from elsewhere in the country have been unable to breach the military cordon, and are congregating nearby.
Several hundred red-shirt suppporters have gathered around a mobile stage set up in central Bangkok's Klong Toey area, and protest leaders have called for a rally at another mobile stage in the north of the city.

Army "prepared"

In a televised address on Saturday, Mr Abhisit said the army would not back down in its operation to clear the protesters.

"We cannot leave the country in a situation where people who don't obey the law are holding hostage the people of Bangkok, as well as the centre of the country," he said.

"We can't allow a situation where people set up armed groups and overthrow the government because they don't agree with it."

Mr Abhisit has said that a few armed "terrorists" are among the protesters.

An army spokesman said the military was planning to enter the protesters' camp if they did not disperse, but gave no timetable.

"There is a plan to crack down on Ratchaprasong if the protest does not end," said the spokesman, Col Sunsern Kaewkumnerd.

"But authorities will not set a deadline because without effective planning there will be more loss of life."

The BBC's Chris Hogg in Bangkok says the army's actions are like squeezing a balloon full of water - they are just pushing protesters into a different part of the city.

Black smoke drifted into the air over Bangkok on Sunday morning but the streets were mostly quiet after three days of fierce battles that saw soldiers fire live rounds and rubber bullets at protesters who threw stones, petrol bombs and shot fireworks in return.

The army has declared live fire zones in some areas as it attempted to cut off the camp from supplies and reinforcements.

Around 200 people have been injured since the latest violence broke out on Thursday, and 27 people have been sent to jail, each given six-month sentences. All the fatalities have been civilians.

More than 50 people have been killed and at least 1,500 wounded in total since the protests began in mid-March, Thai officials have said.

Despite claims by the Thai government that the situation was under control and its soldiers had only fired in self-defence, army snipers have been accused of targeting protesters. Footage from Bangkok on Saturday showed red-shirts dragging gunshot victims to safety.

The violence escalated on Thursday after a renegade general who supports the protests was shot in the head by an unknown gunman.

Gen Khattiya Sawasdipol, better known as Seh Daeng (Commander Red), is in a critical condition.

National divisions

The latest clashes have raised questions about the stability of Thailand, South-East Asia's second-largest economy.

"The current situation is almost full civil war," said one of the protest leaders, Jatuporn Prompan. "I am not sure how this conflict will end."

Many of the protesters are from poor rural areas in northern Thailand where support is still strong for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup.

They say Mr Abhisit was put into power in a parliamentary vote by an alliance of the Bangkok elite and the military and want him to dissolve parliament and call fresh elections.

He had offered polls in November - but the two sides failed to agree a deal because of divisions over who should be held accountable for a deadly crackdown on protests last month.

Mr Thaksin has called on the government to withdraw troops and restart negotiations. He is living abroad to avoid a jail term on a corruption conviction.

Thailand: The Latest in the Crisis; At Least 16 Dead (Mydans and Szep/Ahuja)

Writing for The New York Times, Seth Mydans summarises Friday's violent escalation in Thailand's political crisis. Jason Szep and Ambika Ahuja, reporting for Reuters, add information on the roots of the conflict:

MYDANS

Thai troops on Friday fired tear gas and bullets at protesters, who responded with stones, slingshots and homemade rockets, turning parts of downtown Bangkok into a battlefield as the military tried to tighten its cordon around a broad area where the protesters have camped for weeks.

Sixteen people were killed and 141 wounded, according to the government-run Erawan medical center, in some of the worst violence in two months of unrest. The standoff has paralyzed the Thai government and further fractured a society struggling to cope with the growing demands of its poor.

The fighting followed an assassination attempt on Thursday on a renegade general who had declared himself a protector of the protesters before he was critically wounded by a sniper’s bullet.



The antigovernment protesters, mostly poor rural residents known as red shirts, seized and vandalized several military vehicles, setting at least one truck on fire and cheering as soldiers with riot shields looked on. Protesters pulled soldiers from their vehicles and beat them severely.

Plumes of black and brown smoke rose into the air, and large explosions and gunfire were heard well into the night.

On Friday, streets that would normally have been bustling with traffic were instead littered with stones and bottles and sealed off by soldiers building roadblocks with sandbags and coils of razor wire.

Troops in battle gear crouched behind traffic barriers, pointing their rifles at the bands of motorcycle riders who formed a mobile force for the protesters, while other troops ran along a highway overpass as traffic crawled behind them.

Although the violence has been confined largely to the city’s central area, reports of the political chaos in recent months have hurt tourism, one of the country’s main industries, and left some hotels in the downtown area just 20 percent full.

The army officer who was shot Thursday, Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawatdiphol, was on life support late Friday, and his doctor said his chances of survival were “almost nil.”

Thai officials had blamed General Khattiya for playing a part in earlier violence and for blocking any chance of peace with protesters. Leaders of the red shirts had also disavowed him, but he nevertheless took control of security for the protesters and was supported by a small, hard-line group of demonstrators.

On Friday, amid the sounds of gunfire and explosions, the United States Embassy, which is near the disturbances, shut down and offered voluntary relocation to employees who lived near the protest area. Other nearby embassies, schools and businesses also closed.

If it is not contained, the violence could widen into the kind of broader conflict that the government has been trying for weeks to avoid. Just several days ago, it appeared the long sit-in might end peacefully when the government offered to move up elections, a proposal that won tentative support from protest leaders.

But that support began faltering even before the general was shot, as the opposition movement bickered over whether the government was doing enough to meet its demands, including the dissolution of Parliament and the holding of a new election.

In response, the government withdrew its offer of an early election and said it would no longer negotiate with the red shirts.

Protest leaders have said that if the military tries to disperse them, supporters elsewhere in the country may stage similar takeovers of streets or government buildings.

However the occupation of parts of the capital ends, deep divisions and tensions are likely to persist in a country that is increasingly split between its poor and its urban elite. Over the past four years, political and personal enmities have hardened, making reconciliation more difficult.

Inside the barricaded protest area on Friday, leaders addressed thousands of demonstrators, vowing to hold their ground and resist any military incursion. “They are tightening a noose on us, but we will fight to the end, brothers and sisters,” one leader, Nattawut Saikua, told the crowd.

Another leader, Kokaew Pikulthong, issued what appeared to be a veiled threat to the government. In the event of a crackdown, he said in a telephone interview, protesters may be forced to break into shopping malls “to survive.”

The protest area, covering about one square mile on roads that surround a major intersection, has grown filthy and fly-infested, with garbage stacking up since the government cut off waste collection and water deliveries for the rally’s storage tanks.

The deputy governor of Bangkok, Pornthep Techapaiboon, said that portable toilets in the protest area would remain in place for sanitary reasons, but that the workers who cleaned them had already withdrawn after being assaulted by protesters.

Because of new military checkpoints, the protesters, who sleep on mats on the street, can leave the site if they choose, but are not being allowed to return.

Those wounded in the clashes on Friday included a camera operator for a French television station and a Thai photographer, both of whom had been shot.

At the perimeters of the conflict zone, demonstrators poured gasoline over high barricades of concrete blocks, tires, barbed wire and sharpened bamboo poles, threatening to ignite them if attacked. They splashed oil on the street in front of one barricade and scattered pellets to create a slippery dry-land moat.

Protesters attached homemade explosives to the ends of sticks, as they do during a traditional rocket festival, propping them inside plastic traffic cones before aiming and sending them with a whoosh in the direction of soldiers. They also fired in the direction of military helicopters.

Some protesters wore motorcycle helmets and carried homemade weapons, including bows and arrows, slingshots and sharpened bamboo poles.

Some prepared to fling plastic bags filled with pungent fish sauce and hot chilies at soldiers.

A man who identified himself as John Redshirt, a disc jockey for an antigovernment radio station, watched as men sat on the ground in a makeshift workshop constructing crossbows from plastic pipe and bamboo.

“We are never scared of the military,” he said in English. “If they come, we have the right to fight back. We can’t just let them kill us and do nothing.”

A nurse at a first aid station inside the camp, Jenny Tan, 56, spoke of possible worsening violence with tears in her eyes.

“We are afraid for the soldiers, too,” she said. “The soldiers are our sons. We are mother, father, sister, brother. So we don’t want any of them to die. Very, very sad. Very, very sad for Thailand.”

---

SZEP/AHUJA

Thai troops fired at protesters on Saturday in a third day of fighting on Bangkok's streets that has killed 16 people as soldiers struggle to isolate a sprawling encampment of demonstrators seeking to topple the government.

Clashes continued across central Bangkok as soldiers behind sand bags or atop buildings fired live rounds at protesters armed with petrol bombs. One was shot in the chest while trying to ignite a tyre in Bangkok's usually bustling business district.

At Din Daeng intersection, north of the protest site, three bodies were evacuated on stretchers, a Reuters witness said. Two suffered head wounds. Troops also swarmed into a parking lot at the popular Dusit Thani hotel outside the protest site.

That followed a long night of grenade explosions and sporadic gunfire as the army battled to set up a perimeter around the 3.5 sq-km (1.2 sq-mile) barricaded encampment where thousands refuse to leave, including women and children.

"We'll keep on fighting," said Kwanchai Praipana, a leader of the red-shirted protesters, calling on Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to resign and take responsibility for Thailand's deadliest political crisis in 18 years.

He said supplies of food, water and fuel were starting to run thin as their usual delivery trucks were blocked but that they had enough to last "days".

Hardcore protesters, gathering in small numbers, set fire to vehicles, including an army truck, and hurled rocks at troops who set up razor wire at checkpoints and asked residents to show identification cards to stop people from joining the mostly rural and urban poor "red shirts".

The crisis has paralysed Bangkok, squeezed Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy, scared off tourists and choked off investment in one of Asia's most promising emerging markets.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon expressed concern over "the rapidly mounting tensions and violence".

"He strongly encourages them to urgently return to dialogue in order to de-escalate the situation and resolve matters peacefully," his spokesman said in a statement.

The Canadian government urged both sides to return to talks after a Bangkok-based Canadian journalist was shot three times, one of three journalists wounded in fighting that has spiralled into chaotic urban warfare where front lines shift quickly.

"UNLIKELY TO END QUICKLY"

The government said on Friday it would restore order "in the next few days" as the city of 15 million people braced for a crackdown to end a six-week protest by thousands of "red shirts" packed into an area of high-end department stores, luxury hotels, embassies and expensive residential apartments.

The Erawan Medical Centre in Bangkok said 16 people had been killed and 141 wounded in the latest fighting.

"It's unlikely to end quickly," said a source close to army chief Anupong Paochinda, fearing more protesters would arrive to surround and attack soldiers.

"There will be several skirmishes in the coming days but we are still confident we will get the numbers down and seal the area," added the source, who declined to be identified by name.

The number of protesters in the main encampment appeared to have dropped overnight but several thousands remained, many singing and listening to speeches by protest leaders. Some leaders, including the movement's chairman, have disappeared.

Protesters are barricaded behind walls of kerosene-soaked tyres, sharpened bamboo staves, concrete blocks and razor wire.

Before fighting began on Thursday with the shooting of a renegade general allied with the protesters, the two-month crisis had already killed 29 people and wounded about 1,400 -- most of whom died during an April 10 gun battle in Bangkok's old quarter.

The fighting is the latest flare-up in a polarising five-year crisis between a royalist urban elite establishment, who back the prime minister, and the rural and urban poor who accuse conservative elites and the military's top brass of colluding to bring down two elected governments.

Those governments were led or backed by exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, a graft-convicted populist billionaire ousted in a 2006 coup who is a figurehead of the protest movement.

The red shirts and their supporters say the politically powerful military influenced a 2008 parliamentary vote, which took place after a pro-Thaksin party was dissolved, to ensure the British-born, Oxford-educated Abhisit rose to power.

Five-year Thai credit default swaps, used to hedge against debt default, widened by more than 30 basis points on Friday -- the biggest jump in 15 months -- to 142 basis points.

"With gun battles and grenades going off, investors will look elsewhere," said Danny Richards, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

"I don't think many see the end of this protest as the end of the crisis. When there's an election, either side will reject the legitimacy of the other and we'll be back to square one."