TANKS and armoured vehicles rumbled across Bangkok yesterday afterthe Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, cracked down on protestersleading the most serious challenge yet to his four-month rule.
A day after wrecking the Association of South-East Asian Nationssummit, demonstrators fired into the air and attacked a car in hisconvoy as he was being driven from the Interior Ministry where he hadimposed a state of emergency minutes earlier.
Mr Abhisit said hewas safe and unhurt after the incident, and called for calm whilethreatening the use of force to restore order.
Mr Abhisit, arelative novice, was humiliated by the summit's failure and charges ofgross incompetence have been levelled against him and the securityforces who were supposed to protect the five-star hotel where thesummit was being held in the beach resort of Pattaya.
"TheGovernment has tried all along to avoid violence but the protest hasdeveloped and they [the protesters] have used actions incompatible withthe constitution," Mr Abhisit said in a televised speech. "Now theGovernment is unable to avoid this state of emergency."
Policearres ted Arisman Pongreungrong, a former pop singer and the leader ofthe "red shirts", protesters formally known as the United Front forDemocracy Against Dictatorship. They are aligned with the exiled formerprime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Mr Arisman would be chargedwith causing social unrest and attempting to kidnap Mr Abhisit, policesaid. The red shirts responded that they would march on policeheadquarters and demand their leader's release.
Mr Arisman's arrest was the first step in a campaign of "legal actions" flagged by Mr Abhisit to restore law and order.
"The Government may well clamp down and if they do clamp down, it couldbe very harsh," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst atChulalongkorn University. "They lost face big time here."
Ittook only minutes for several hundred protesters to breach the securitycordon around the ASEAN summit on Saturday. Police and soldiers hadbeen instructed not to use force to repel the red shirts.
Thesecurity forces had been relying on locals in blue garb and wieldingclubs and slingshots to deal with the red shirts. However, a clashbetween the two sides on Saturday enraged the protesters, who quicklymarched to the summit venue, pushing back police lines before smashingthrough a glass door and pouring inside.
Before the summit, Mr Abhisit had repeatedly assured world leaders and the Thai people that the event would run smoothly.
Analysts said any heavy-handed measures to disperse an emboldened red shirt movement posed risks of further chaos.
MrAbhisit is open to charges of hypocrisy, as he rose to power followingprotests by the "yellow shirts" - the People's Alliance for Democracyaligned to the country's business, military and public service elites -who brought Bangkok to a standstill late last year. There have been nolegal sanctions against them.
As well as demanding that MrAbhisit stand down, the red shirts want the country's privy council,the formal advisory body to the monarch, to be removed.
The privycouncil is supposedly neutral but its head, Prem Tinsulanonda, aretired general and former prime minister, has expressed support for MrAbhisit and the red shirts see him as the mastermind behind themilitary coup in 2006 that overthrew Thaksin and forced him into exile.
Thaksin, a billionaire tycoon found guilty in absentia of corruption,addressed a red shirt rally in Bangkok via a video link from the UnitedArab Emirates on Saturday. Local media quoted him yesterday as sayinghe regretted the violence that led to the ASEAN summit being cancelled.
The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was on his way to attend thesummit but turned back in mid-air to Canberra after it was cancelled.
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